Once everyone is home for the hols, Miranda sends Amber to Sadde with a letter saying that he can come over at three and stay as late as for dinner if desired.
"Happy Christmas!" Laura and Sadde say. The former has brought pie! "I can't believe I'm saying this but I kinda miss school?"
"I think that's half the reason they don't let us use our wands at home."
"Well it's a very effective reason! ...hey, you told me once that children can be homeschooled, how do they do that if they can't do magic?"
"You have to alert the Ministry that you're homeschooling, but the Trace isn't actually good at telling who is doing magic, so students with parents who can do magic would tend not to be caught anyway," Renée says.
"That makes it much less terrifying," she says. "Anyway! How're you?"
Sadde may watch Renée cook with wanded spells and Miranda assist with magical appliances.
It makes everything go a lot faster. In particular, the magical potato peeler is a huge timesaver.
However, things as large as a roast beef need to spend an ordinary amount of time actually exposed to fire, so that's not going to be ready until six. They have time to sit around. Renée and Miranda have a tree up, with ornaments, some enchanted, and presents underneath.
She reaches inside a purse-ish thing she had been carrying with her and draws a book that shouldn't fit inside it. It's all wrapped up. "Mum gave me this for Christmas, and this is for you. You can open it now if you don't want to wait."
"You may," Renée replies, and Miranda tears at the wrapping.
"Amber was going to bring everyone their things on Christmas Day," she explains. "I can get yours now if you want though."
Miranda's book is entitled 'Magical Artefacts and Their Creators Through History.'
"Awesome," says Miranda when she reads the title. "I'll get yours now, it'll be less back and forth for Amber." She goes and gets a package which also looks suspiciously book shaped.
It is a book. The title is just Snakes, but it has a comically long subtitle (A History of Slytherins And Persons Who Had They Attended Hogwarts Would In My Personal Opinion Likely Have Been Slytherins, the Accomplishments of Same, and the Psychological Traits of the House).