On Christmas Eve, the Floating City had already fully entered the Christmas-season atmosphere.
Most homes and shops had decked themselves out in Christmas dress, several feet of snow covered the ground, and the surface of the Black Lake was sealed in hard ice. Thick garlands made of holly and mistletoe hung from the columns of Ravenclaw Temple as well, mysterious light shone from every window, and from inside drifted wizarding versions of Christmas carols that did not contain much religious content.
Only a few Immigrants, such as Jewish wizards who did not celebrate Christmas, had kept the shops they ran in the Commercial Plaza district open. They had hired wizards from countries that likewise did not celebrate Christmas to work as clerks, laboring away in the shops—and the matter of meals for these people working over the Christmas holiday was similarly solved by restaurants run by Asian wizards who were also unaccustomed to celebrating Christmas.
And today, aside from those few shops, the place in the Commercial Plaza that was still lively was undoubtedly Ravenclaw Temple.
The temple hall had not been given any extra decorations because of the holiday. Only the enormous statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, which stood in the empty grand hall as if connecting the indoor heaven and earth, and the relief sculpture of the Five-Headed Dragon that served as her mount, together with the pulpit and the long benches padded with blue cushions, had all been wiped and cleaned until they looked brand new.
At the very top of Ravenclaw Hall, much like the Ministry of Magic's courtroom, many Dementors were currently floating—the Dementors controlled by Ravenclaw. Unlike at the Ministry of Magic, however, they were not there as guards and executioners. Their role in the temple was more like that of servants, using their seemingly