Marisa was downstairs at five o'clock on Christmas morning. There was no sign of any presents, but that didn't surprise her: her mum always hid them so that she didn't open them all before Mum woke up.
She fingered her wand in her pocket and reflected on how annoying these underage magic laws were. It was as if they thought she was a baby, too irresponsible not to put the International Statute of Secrecy at risk.
When she and Leo took over wizarding Britain, that would be one of the first things they'd change. Of course, they'd be of age by then and might not care so much.
But for the time being, it was probably best to stay on the right side of the law, and that meant hunting for the presents manually. It shouldn't be too hard to find them: the cottage was small and Marisa knew every millimetre of it like the back of her hand.
She looked in the living room first, including the cupboards for all the blankets in the winter when it got really cold. No presents there.
Then she moved through to the kitchen. There weren't many good hiding places there, but she still searched thoroughly and found a soft square parcel in penguin wrapping paper in the cupboard for the saucepans.
There was a suspiciously book-like parcel in the washing machine, and she also found a small round package in the sink. That was probably all of them, although she wasn't certain.
She gathered up the three presents and went through to the kitchen, where she put some toast in the toaster and got out some apricot jam. She couldn't help thinking of breakfast at Hogwarts, where everything was noisy and a little chaotic.
Her mum came down at seven o'clock, by which time Marisa was on the sofa sending her friends "Merry Christmas" texts, having unwrapped the presents: a book on dancing (Marisa had been into dance for the last couple of years), a new warm jumper and a stress ball.
"Morning, lazybones," said Marisa. "I've been up two hours already." She grinned at the shocked expression on her mum's face.
At half past eight the doorbell rang. Marisa answered it. Two of her friends from primary school were standing there.
"Marisa," said Lucy, one of her former closest allies, "we need your help! The boys are thrashing us in a snowball fight!"
"Give me five minutes," said Marisa, grinning, "I need to get some layers on."