Madam Pince forbids the entrance of the cake into the library.

Jenny flounces sadly and looks appealingly at Emma.

Emma rolls her eyes at Jenny but heads inside without Jenny in search of the others, for extraction purposes.

Alli is lounging nearby. There are no books anywhere in her vicinity; she's amusing herself playing wizard chess against herself. At this, she hops up. "I'm all for less studying," she says brightly.

"Yes, your studying looks to be tiring indeed," Emma tells her solemnly.

"I could have been studying!"

"I think 'studying chess' is a real phrase?" offers Karen.

"Cake!" Jenny agrees proudly. "Where do you want to eat it? It's been banned from the library." Huffy face in Pince's direction. "And you-" she points at Alli sternly, "birthday girl first!"

"Fine, tyrant," Alli laughs, "I guess that's reasonable."

"Well, we could all pile into the Ravenclaw common room but then people besides us might demand some," muses Miranda. "There's probably empty classrooms? Are we allowed in the Great Hall between meals?"

"I vote we check classrooms, they're on our way to the Great Hall anyway," Alli says practically. And/or lazily.

"Do we have a knife?"

"Nope. House elves do not trust first years to take large knives out of the kitchen by themselves. We get to improvise with the back of the extra fork. It'll be an adventure! ...probably a messy one."

"Okay, as the birthday girl I am delegating that messy adventure."

"I got it," giggles Karen, and she takes an extra fork and manages to make lopsided but structurally cooperative slices. She gives Miranda the first one.

"Cook next?" Emma suggests.

"Yeah." Jenny gets the next one, and then Emma and then Alli, and Karen takes the last one, having cut up about half the cake by area.

"Good job adventuring," Alli tells Karen as she digs in. "Uhmguhchalt" she mumbles around a large bite.

"...and in English that was...?"

Alli finishes her bite. "Oh my god chocolate. So much chocolate."

"The correct amount of chocolate! Soooo, like double the recipe?"

"I so approve of chocolate," Miranda beams.

"I'm glad! I had to sorta guess, I don't have dessert with you that much, but chocolate seemed safe!"

"Very safe. Chocolate's the best thing." Om nom.

"I approve this choice!" Emma says happily, digging in. "Happy birthday again, Miranda."

"How did you get in to the kitchen to make it?" asks Miranda.

"Like if you show me it will put me off my cake, that kind of not-cute?"

"What about doe eyes, are those cute?"

"8.5," Alli informs her.

Miranda giggles. "Does have huge eyes, maybe that will works better."

"It can be my weekend project!"

"Does it take very long to learn new tricks like that?"

"Not really. I just get distracted easily. Magic!"

"Magic's pretty great. The hols are going to be a wrench."

"Yeah, no kidding," Emma sighs.

"What? Nooo! You get to see your family! Hugs and Christmas and carols and stuff! It's exciting!"

"We aren't allowed to use magic outside school till we're of age," Miranda tells her. "Did you not hear that?"

"I knoooooow," Jenny says with a pout, "but I miss my family! And I don't really need to make flowerly purple stuff for a week anyway." She then pauses. "Um, does my hair stuff count? If it does it by itself I can't help it!"

"I don't thiiiiink Metamorphmagus things count. Actually, I'm not even sure if potions count, but anything with a wand does."

"I'm pretty sure only wands count. Accidental magic doesn't, and Metamorphmagus should count as that?"

"But only some of the morphing is accidental. That's a silly category if it counts as accidental."

"Well, anyway, she probably won't get an owl from the Ministry about it unless she does it in front of Muggles besides her immediate family."

"The Ministry has more to worry about than a kid shifting in front of her little sister, anyway."

"Okay," Jenny says, sounding more cheerful. "So, Miranda, whatcha doing for the rest of the day?"

"I thought maybe I'd borrow a school broom and fly around. Maybe see if I can teach Amber to play tag."

"Awww, owl tag!"

"Can we join? Or is owl-tag an alone game?"

"It could be an alone game, but it could also not be! And maybe she cannot learn to play tag and then we would be able to play it ourselves."

"I would lose but it would be fun anyway," Jenny predicts.

"I will crush you all," Alli mock-threatens.

"Hey, I'm good on a broom," says Karen, "we can all give each other something to do, anyway, it won't be an instant win."

"I got the Slytherin-y part out of the way, now I am allowed to not care again!"

"Is there a quota? Do you have to make regular reports to Slughorn?" wonders Miranda.

"I have a little snake that lives in my sleeve," Alli grins, "it squeals on me every week!"

"Surely it hisses on you."

Karen giggles.

"So anyway, yes, we can all play tag, with my owl if she'll cooperate, although after dinner I'm going to do homework."

"...Christmas present?" Miranda guesses, when she is the first of the group to encounter Emma on the train platform.

"Yeeeeeah. How'd you guess."

"Because your birthday isn't until March. Does it do anything or just look like - that?"

Emma blinks in surprise. "Um, I don't know. I think just looks like this? It's not like it's been worn a lot, though, I guess I wouldn't know."

"Maybe it does something," says Miranda encouragingly. "We can look up how to find out."

"I kinda hope not?" Emma says, looking down at it. "Then I'd have to wear it. But I should find out anyway, my parents would want to know."

"Maybe it will still work at doing whatever it does even if you wear it around your ankle under your socks."

"That would be so much better! I should have taken it off earlier, probably, but I had to wear it to the station and I forgot."

"It's a conversation piece."

"It's hard to miss, if nothing else."

Karen spots it first, too, when she makes her way over to them, but she's tactful enough not to comment on it first thing. "Hi! Did you guys get anything good for Christmas?"

"Some books, they look pretty school-like, and this necklace." She grins wryly. "I don't know that I'd say it was good though. You?"

"Some schoolish stuff and my own wireless and shoes," says Karen. "Miranda?"

"Books and notebooks and candy and scrunchies and a box of Muggle pens."

"Geez, do you think all our mums plotted by owl to buy us books or something?"

"I asked for books!"

"They're better than socks, for sure!"

"They're better than socks," Emma concedes. "And socks are better than ugly necklaces. What books did you ask for? No, no, wait. Dementor books?"

"I asked but Renée didn't think they were very Christmasy."

"Yeah, they're hardly cheery. So what'd you get instead, then?"

"I got a book on the Philosopher's Stone and one on contemporary spell inventions and some fiction, mostly Muggle."

"Fun! Why Muggle fiction? Just stuff your mum liked as a kid?"

"There are a lot more Muggles than wizards," says Miranda. "Which means there are also more Muggle authors, and more good Muggle authors, even if there are more bad ones too - we can just ignore those. If I say I want good books I get Muggle ones - usually old Muggle ones, because the new stuff isn't as easy to tell if it's really good or just new and shiny. Some of it's stuff she liked as a kid but just as often she'll go to Muggle libraries and ask for recommendations."

"Huh. I guess that makes sense. Any suggestions? I haven't read any, Father says shopping in the Muggle world 'isn't worth the trouble'."

"You can borrow mine if you want! Some of them have made-up kinds of magic and magic creatures in, which don't work a bit like real magic, and those are especially fun. But you do have to remember that none of the characters are like real wizards, even if they aren't quite Muggles, for the stories to make sense."

"I've read the Wizard of Oz," says Karen. "But he isn't even -"

"Shh, she might read it, don't ruin the ending."

"There's wizard stuff like that! A little. There's, uh, one of Beedle's stories, I forget. The one with people ripping their hearts out? That's not a thing magic can do. So Muggle stuff would be just- that but more, right?"

"Well, not more, exactly? Like - in Beedle stories the characters are still wixen with wands and cauldrons and so on. There's just also other things, or even if the story is about a Muggle or a Squib it's about a Muggle or a Squib who lives in the same world as wixen. In Muggle fantasy there are no proper wixen with wands and cauldrons, if they have those things they work differently, there's just the other things or the changed versions of things. You could imagine that they're doing all the things they do with regular magic, but that's not how you're supposed to read the story."

"Huuuuh. Okay, I can see that being weird." She smiles. "I can always read those kinds later, though."

"Yeah, there are plenty of not-fantasy stories too."

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.

"Yeah, of course, but it was a while ago," Alli shrugs. "Really, I wouldn't put it past her to forget which House she was in."

"That seems like it would be really hard! You'd have to forget what color your tie was and where you slept and where you sat at meals and Quidditch games and who your head of House was, all at once."

"Yes. Yes it would. I mean, she didn't; she was Ravenclaw, actually. But I could see it!"

"You could still remember where you sat at things if you forgot which tables and stands were assigned to which houses," says Miranda. "I don't know, I guess it probably all seems a lot less important once you're not at school every single year? Also I wonder where Jenny is."

Unicorn books are distracting! She's curled up in a corner reading, having been waiting for her friends but blatantly failing to notice them.

"Well, how can we compete with unicorns?"

"Did you get good Christmas presents?"

"Yeah! I have a unicorn poster for our room now!"

"Oh good."

"It will be wonderful!"

"Do your roommates care how you decorate?"

"Nope! One girl has pictures of that hero guy everywhere, one unicorn poster is fine."

"Harry Potter," Emma supplies, amused.

"Okay, good," laughs Miranda. "I'm sort of worried about how few of us there are but it's convenient that me and Karen don't have to share our room with anybody else."

"In case they put up unicorn posters?"

"No, more in case they played loud music all the time or something - you're not going to be obnoxious with your wireless, right?"

"'Course not."

"We have the same number, we just have more girls than you do."

"And eeeeveryone has more than Slytherin," Alli says. "And yet we still have more girls than you. So... hah?"

"I wonder if the gender skews mean anything."

"Gryffindor's five and six, I think, nearly everybody wanted Gryffindor. I think there's just so few of everything else that it can't even out."

"Well, I don't think it's the Sorting Hat secretly thinks boys are smarter or anything. So, Karen's probably right."

"There's plenty of girls in Ravenclaw in general," Karen adds. "Just not our year."

"I wonder what would happen if they had a year with only a couple kids? It must be possible, right?"

"Well, not unless a lot more people moved away and died than have already."

"Or just failed to have kids, or sent them to other schools."

"Are there other schools? I mean, that aren't in Australia."

"There's Beauxbatons in France, and Durmstrang somewhere they won't specify but probably somewhere in Europe maybe Scandinavia or Germany, and several in America and Canada and other places outside of Europe."

"Okay, but nothing, like, close? It's just Hogwarts?"

"Well, France is just over the Channel, but yeah, for the UK and Ireland and such, just Hogwarts or home education."

"So probably there's never been all that many of us? If it's just the one school."

"Well, there's always been more Muggles than wizards, but Hogwarts is really big and I think it might get bigger when it's crowded."

Jenny giggles. "Well, you wouldn't worry about building more staircases!"

"Yeah, exactly. You would need thousands of kids just to fill up the stairs!"

"Imagine if the school got really full and they had to start teaching classes on the staircases..."

"They could actually work pretty well as stadium seating! We'd better get on the train," adds Miranda.

"Good point! On with you aaaaall," Jenny says, making shooing motions with her hands as she goes to load her own stuff onto the nearest car.

"Yes mum, right away mum," Alli jokes as she gets her own stuff.

Emma repeats it back in English. Apparently the prince thinks the tortoise's daughter is very beautiful.

"...Lorem ipsum dolor est?"

Emma blinks at her. "It's... kinda about someone being sad themselves... it's confusing though, I'm not sure it's a full sentence?"

"It's Latin? I think?"

"Try taking the necklace off before we try something else, in case it's that."

Off comes the necklace.

"Uuuum, parlez-vous Français?"

"I know what that means, my mum speaks French, but no, no I don't."

"Can I try the necklace on?"

"Sure, pink and green all yours," Emma tells her as she hands it over.

Karen puts it on. "Okay, somebody try something."

"Nollaig shona!"

"Happy Christmas to you too! Emma, this is awesome, it's so magic!"

"Wooooow. How did Mother not know?"

"Maaaaaaybe because it looks like something off a charmed Boggart?"

"Yeah - let's see if it works not around your neck? Try just holding it, Karen -"

Karen takes off the necklace and lets it dangle from her hand.

"Uuuum, uno dos tres quatro cinco seis?"

"Nothing," says Karen. "Oh well."

"Yup. Seeeee? Fancy magic: not worth the pink."

"Oh well," Emma sighs, retrieving the necklace from Karen. "I guess I just wear it if I need to translate things? And never ever else."

"There are some books in the Ravenclaw mini-library that aren't in English," says Miranda. "I'm not sure why they're there, but I wonder if it works on writing?"

"Maybe we can test it when we get to school? It's so nice you guys have your own library, the school one won't be open for a couple days I don't think."

"And if the regular library has stuff in foreign languages besides the weird Latin that spells are in or, like, late Middle English, I haven't run into it."

"Bet the forbidden stuff has all kinds of languages, though!"

"Yeah, but it's forbidden, probably for reasons. I don't want a book to eat my face."

Jenny picks up her unicorn book, puts it back down, selects a different book from her bag and waves it mock-threateningly at Miranda. "Woooooo, tasty Miranda face!"

"Eek," obliges Miranda, deadpan.

"Stop helping your books eat her face! You monster!" Alli giggles.

"I'll save you!" exclaims Karen, giggling, waving her wand vaguely in the book's direction without actually casting anything. "Take that, face-eating book and accomplice! Take that and that!"

"Noooo, what have you done!" Jenny exclaims dramatically. She makes a great show of wavering in her seat before flopping onto Emma.

Emma produces an extra Chocolate Frog and waves it in front of her 'dead' housemate. "Magical Jenny revival food...?"

Yoink! Nom.

"Oh, come on, I'm not a Dementor."

"Nope, chocolate's just awesome! Solves all problems. Even Dementors."

"Eating chocolate treats Dementor exposure. It doesn't hurt Dementors or work fast enough to let you hang out around them without being affected and it definitely doesn't prevent them from kissing you even if you fill your entire mouth with ultra-dark, the kind with cacao nibs."

"Ugh. I know it is not, like, an actual kiss but it is still so squicky to think about!"

"I knooooow. But it's one of the problems! Just... probably the least important one! Still, though. Creepy skeleton guys. Ugh."

"Sure, I guess. Lead the way?"

"Neat!"

"Oooh. Nice." Emma follows her friends inside, necklace in her pocket, ready to be put on when books are found. (She will be wearing it as little as possible, until then.)

"Will you let me borrow the necklace to read it?"

"Yeah, of course. I mean, don't lose it, Mother would be upset, but- I'm more likely to lose it than you are, really."

"I won't lose it."

"Thanks! It seems like I should be more careful with it now. Cause... translation."

"Are you going to owl home and tell your parents what it does?"

"Nooooo, don't do that," Alli says instantly. "They'll make you send it back."

"But it was Mother's family," Emma objects uncertainly. "She should know, shouldn't she?"

"Almost everything's in English," Jenny suggests. "You could tell them later, it wouldn't be weird, right? That you didn't notice earlier?"

"Well, does it work on spell incantations that aren't really Latin but are a little bit? Like, I don't know, aguamenti? Because if it does then it would be really weird not to notice."

Alli cackles. "Nuh uh! She'd have to be wearing the necklace for that. And unless we're translating something she wouldn't be doing that. Ever ever ever."

"But if her parents find out eventually - I mean, they know she wore it for a little while."

"Come ooon, you guys. They will find out eventually! I will tell them, it's Mother's, I can't just not ever tell her."

"Geez, calm down! Not what I meant. Just- they know you hang out with us, right? So if they ask, we were just talking on the train, and then you took it off so you wouldn't lose it. And theeeeen you didn't wear it enough to realize. It works for a while, right? Surely your mum doesn't expect you to wear it that much. Doesn't she know what it looks like?"

"I guess..." Emma says doubtfully.

"I don't think it's a good idea to lie to her if she asks? But maybe don't tell them until you're of age, because it would be a lot harder for them to take your present back then."

"Aaaaaah I don't know! I don't want to not tell her, but I don't want to give it back..."

"Breeeeathe, silly," Jenny tells her. "It's okay. Just don't tell them yet. Okay? It's not weird if you don't notice immediately, they won't care."

"Okay, okay," Emma mutters, curling up defensively. She offers the necklace to Miranda. "For books, or whatever," she mumbles.

"Thanks. It doesn't work if you hold it, but..." She loops the chain a few times around her wrist, and then looks at the nearest non-English book hopefully.

It reads Historia et Mores Dementorum.

"Nope. Oh well." She puts it over her neck and tucks it under her robes.

"Okay I don't speak Latin and you have the necklace but that book looks pretty Dementor-y to me," Jenny mentions.

"Yeah, it does. I'm sort of skeptical any books are going to tell me what I really want to know, but I might as well read it anyway."

"Well, it's a library made by Ravenclaws. Probably most of it's not useless?"

"For all we know somebody has already translated these books the long way and republished them and the contents are all in the regular library, in English. But maybe."

"I bet older Ravenclaws do that in their free time. Look, old books, we should translate them!"

"Speaking of which should the necklace be a secret?"

"...yeah, I think so," Emma admits. "I mean... if I'm not telling my parents-"

"-aaand you're not, yet!"

Side glare, but she continues. "-I should at least tell them first."

"Okay, I'll try to avoid - translating things where other Ravenclaws can see me. I'll put textbook dust jackets on the things I read."

"Thanks, you're the best."

"You're welcome. Maybe I'll figure out how to kill Dementors. Though somehow I don't think the ability to read Latin was what was standing between wixen in general and that."

"Well, someone must know or there'd be a lot more, right?"

"I don't think so. There probably have just never been too terribly many."

"I'm okay with there not being too many."

"So's everybody. I hope Miranda can do the thing."

"If anyone could do it, it's you guys," Emma says loyally.

"Or Hermione Granger! That girl knows everything."

"Maybe, but she's not here! And Miranda and Karen are really really smart!"

"Um, I think she actually is here, somewhere. But I think she's doing something with house elves. Dementors is Miranda's project."

"What's to do with house elves?"

"Well, she started that SPEW group, didn't she?"

"I don't think I've heard of that."

"I have, but it doesn't seem very well put-together? It didn't involve any house-elves themselves, if I heard right."

"I know some stuff! Mostly 'cause the Slytherins are pleased about it," Alli says helpfully. "See, she was upset at how house elves were being treated, so she started SPEW, but the house elves like to work, so they think she's rallying against them or something? And a lot of Slytherin families are super old and rich and have their own elf, so they don't want her to succeed."

"I'm sort of uncomfortable with elves existing, but doing things that they don't like because the way they exist is sort of uncomfortable seems definitely worse than nothing."

"I like elves! Mum has thought about getting one but never has wound up doing it."

"They like work? All of them?"

"Weird, right?" Enjoying work is not, one might say, Alli's specialty. "You should know, anyway, you cooked that cake with them, didn't you?"

"They were helpful and friendly and they liked to cook! I thought they just liked cooking, not the idea of work."

"They might vary in what kinds of work they like best, but yeah, that's kind of the idea."

"Poor elves!"

"But... but they like it! You don't say poor Ravenclaws because we like reading more than you. The elves like cooking and cleaning and mending."

"I knoooow. They were just so nice with the cake and all, I feel bad."

"The main problem with elves isn't that they like chores, it's that they're easy to be mean to if somebody decides to do that. The ones here are fine, but nobody really checks up on the ones that belong to families."

"Well, then SPEW should do that," Jenny decides. "It sounds more helpful."

"Tell Hermione Granger," suggests Miranda.

"Maybe I will! But first, Dementors."

"Yeah. I want to get rid of them. They shouldn't - they shouldn't be."