The Sirius incident caused little stir at Hogwarts—after all, the chaos had taken place outside the Castle, and only a handful of people had been involved.
The Weasley Brothers, however, received an unexpected windfall: Black insisted on paying three times the price of the damaged wand. The news put a spring in Fred and George's steps for days.
That afternoon, when they ran into Will carrying a stack of books outside the Library, their excitement was practically spilling over.
"Hey, Will! What are you looking for?" Fred craned his neck to glance at the titles in his arms and immediately grinned. "An Examination of Christmas Legends, The Magic of Saint Nicholas, The Origins of Holidays—Christmas again? Merlin's pirate hat, has Christmas got you possessed?"
"The holiday's been over for ages," George chimed in, deliberately lowering his voice. "About that Pet—"
"Stop. We can't discuss that sort of thing here. Help me carry these; let's talk in the Room of Requirement." Will shoved a stack of books into Fred's hands. "And I'm looking through them for information on magic."
Indeed, apart from observing Thestrals, Will had recently been searching for information about Santa Claus. Naturally, he wasn't interested in little Christmas stories; he wanted to find Santa Claus's magic.
According to the accounts, Santa Claus had melted Krampus with Joy Magic. But that Joy Magic hadn't come from his own joy. Instead, it had used many children's "pure memories of joy" and "the 'joy' formed from children's laughter, wishes, and hopes."
Although Harry and the others—even Hermione—hadn't noticed this "joy" in the story, Will thought it might well be real. Santa Claus might have possessed some kind of magic capable of gathering and using other people's "joy."
Tracing this magic through the vast sea of books in the Hogwarts Library was