Christmas was drawing ever closer and the friends were getting slightly worried by now. None of them had ever spent Christmas without their families and here they were, unsure as to whether they'd ever go back to the real world.

THE GRYFFINDORS

“Hey, boissssss!” Lucas called out when he woke up. Harry and Ron shared half amused half confused glances but had to turn away before they burst out laughing. Neville, Seamus and Dean were still sleeping.
“Hi Lucas,” Harry said.
“Hey,” Ron said. “C'mon, I'm starving!”
The three boys headed down to breakfast. Lucas sat down with them but kept looking for his friends. Hermione plonked down next to them
“Where are the idiots?” Lucas said in annoyance. Ron found it strange that Lucas had such strong friendships with people in other houses. He had always grown up thinking that friendships were formed within your own house alone but now he was beginning to doubt that.
“Not here yet,” Ron said with a mouth full of food. While the girls would have pointedly looked away, Lucas couldn't have cared less. Lucas started stuffing his face with food. He took a bit of everything he could reach.
“Oi! That's my plate!” Ron yelled as Lucas took some bacon from his plate.
“LMAO!” Lucas yelled. Ron and Harry looked at each other bemused, texting slang wasn't used in the wizarding world as they didn't have phones and it's not like the Dursleys would give Harry a phone. Lucas either didn't know this or didn't care.
“Who's staying for Christmas?” McGonnogal called as she walked down the table with a clipboard. Lucas, Harry, Ron and Hermione put their hands up and signed their names.
“You're staying?” Hermione asked. Lucas nodded frantically. “Oh yeah, you're one of that lot. You can help us then.”
The other seven friends joined them.
“Yeah because it won't be suspicious at all having 11 slytherins talking to Malfoy,” Ella scoffed.
“Oh. Right,” Hermione said, bringing her hand to her forehead. “I do think having two of you would be beneficial though.”
“Uh. Sure,” Jocelyn said. “Who's gonna do it?”
“Eloise,” Ella said decisively.
“Why me? I don't know anything about this!” Eloise whispered frantically to her friend.
“Exactly, you won't change anything!” Ella hissed back.
“I'll do it too,” Lebron said. Lebron was intelligent so the others trusted him to do it right and not ruin or change anything. Ella would have loved to do it but she didn't want to be the friend who did everything and took the opportunities away from the others. She was slightly jealous but she could look after Hermione when she turned into a cat. That would be fun to see.
Ella took out her timetable, “Charms today! Yes!”
She then folded her timetable up and put it in her bag, taking out her wand. She had a pretty wand it was pale in colour and had intricate designs on the handle.
“Aguamenti,” she said, pointing her wand at her goblet. It filled with water. Ella was better than Hermione at spells because she'd studied all of the theory up to seventh year on this platform for fans called Hogwarts is Here. She loved doing magic and did it as often as possible. The others found it wonderful of course but didn't love it quite as much as Ella did.