Emma is, if not approving of, used to Alli's tact by now. More specifically, her lack thereof. "Christmas present, some family thing, wore it to the train to make my mum happy and forgot it was there," she recites in almost one breath. (She's only done this twice now.)

"Oooookay. Your mum and dad are weird. Why are you still wearing it?"

"To annoy people rude enough to insult it."

"Okay, okay, sorry, I deserved that. Your necklace is- huh. Unique. And... original. And I am a terrible person. Better?"

"I guuuuuuess."

Miranda giggles. "We're going to check to see if it does anything. Maybe it can redeem itself."

"Emma, I love you, don't listen," Alli tells her friend firmly, then continues. "That thing would have to be so awesomely magical to redeem itself."

"It also might not have to be worn visibly to do a thing if it does some kind of thing!" says Karen helpfully.

"...you win."

Emma sticks her tongue out at Alli. So there.

"If you have to wear it around your neck and outside your clothes... but it turns you invisible... does that count as having to be worn visibly?"

Emma laughs. "I think you would have said something, if you couldn't see me!"

"Well, if it does invisibility obviously you need something else than just wearing it to work it. But it probably doesn't do invisibility, or I don't think cloaks would be so standard, would they?"

"Probably not. Too bad, I guess. Why are cloaks standard, anyway? Does it help with the spells or something?"

"I think it must be easier to make the cloaks so that they make whatever's right behind them invisible than to make things that make the entire person invisible whether there's a cloak there or not," supposes Miranda. "And cloaks can cover all of you."

"What she said," Alli says promptly. "She is usually right so I am just going with that."

"Well, how does one, um, test necklaces? Though... I can't imagine it does much. I mean, we'd have known about it, surely."

"I don't know how, but there's got to be a way," Miranda says. "Misuse of Artifacts and so on have to be able to figure out what thing is causing a problem, for instance. We'll look it up."

"So, I guess once we're unpacked, library?"

Alli sighs dramatically. "Ugh, school hasn't even started yet. Fiiiine, library."

"What did you get for Christmas, Alli?"

"Winter clothes. Mum says they're for 'my visits to Hogsmeade.' She doesn't pay much attention to- well, anything really, but that includes 'when I am actually allowed to go to Hogsmeade'. At least I can still wear them, it's not like we don't have winter at the castle."

"We do still have winter. Quite a bit of it. We'll be able to go to the village later, I guess, if there's anything worth going to by then with so many things closed up and so many people gone."

"I like having the warm clothes! Just annoying that she wasn't paying attention to the Hogsmeade thing. So typical," she sighs.

"Sorry to hear that. Didn't she go to Hogwarts herself?" wonders Miranda.