The Room had outdone itself. There was a wide, open floor with plenty of space for games, some Muggle music playing in the background, a stand filled with party-poppers and balloons and Christmas crackers… it was perfect.

"What is this place?" asked Tracey, gazing around in wonder. Even though Marisa had been there before, she couldn't help feeling the same.

"Right," she said. "What are we waiting for?"

She dashed over to the Christmas cracker stand (realising too late that Leo didn't really dash, he just walked quickly; luckily no-one seemed to notice), snatched up the crackers and walked at a more sedate pace back to the group.

With a little help from Leo, Marisa distributed the crackers so that they were arranged in a circle, each person having one end of two different crackers. Then she said "Three…two…one…"

Everyone pulled as hard as they could. There was a quick succession of loud bangs and the area around them filled with greyish-coloured smoke. When it cleared, much to her surprise, Marisa found that she was holding the middle sections of both of her crackers. Leo's body was quite a bit stronger than her own.

She looked around and saw a large group of white mice, which had clearly escaped from the crackers, scurrying across the floor. A vast array of different-coloured and -styled hats was spread across the floor. At first, Marisa wanted to jam a brightly-coloured one on her head, but then she remembered that Leo probably wouldn't choose the bonnet of red and blue flowers that caught her eye and grabbed a top hat instead.

Soon everyone was outfitted in their choice of hat. Marisa considered reading some of the jokes but decided that it was a waste of time and joined the scrum to select the best of the large variety of gifts on offer.

Once again, she found it hard to pick the gifts which Leo would have chosen, instead of the ones she wanted herself; eventually she managed to grab something labelled a "Basic Runic Inspection Kit". She didn't know the first thing about runes, but thought that Leo might have a clue what to do with it.

He shot her a stealthy thumbs-up, having grabbed a wizard chess set (Marisa, unlike Leo, still didn't have her own and had been playing with Daphne's borrowed set for the autumn. She still had yet to win a single game.)

She returned it with a slight smile, and once everyone had chosen their gift suggested a few rounds of Exploding Snap. Tracey pulled the cards out of her pocket and began to deal.

"How are you winning, Leo?" she asked after a few rounds, when Marisa had the largest pile of cards of anyone playing. "You always lose!"

"Maybe my luck's changing," replied Marisa with a mysterious smile of the sort she thought Leo might make in this situation. "I hope it is."

"I certainly don't!" Tracey replied. "If you're winning all the time, how am I ever meant to get anywhere?" She gestured at her (very small) pile of cards.

Marisa was distracted by a loud bang: a first-year Ravenclaw girl's pile had exploded. The girl in question looked mortified.

"Don't worry," said Tracey. "Happens to us all. Except Marisa."

Leo looked slightly nervous. "You jinxed it!" he said, but Marisa could see that he was actually worried that his luck wasn't as good as hers.

"Time," whispered Leo to her. She realised what he meant. "Still half an hour," she said in an undertone, tapping her wand on her pile and earning herself another card.