Christmas was approaching.
Shawn had been growing increasingly busy lately.
Besides his heavy study load, he also had to deal with the occasional pestering from several department heads who were Death Eaters.
Choosing a chief instructor, as Wenge had suggested, was giving him quite a headache.
Shawn wanted nothing more than to dump all this work on Alice, but he still had his doubts about Old Fawley. He had to keep some of his cards hidden and could not reveal everything to her.
That left him to handle it himself. Recently, though, Shawn had also begun training Hermione, pulling her away from drafting legislation to take over some affairs involving the Throne's Outer Circle.
These included the monthly duels that settled disputes among the Four Houses and coordinating the Ravenclaw laboratory. They were all minor matters, but they provided good practice in dealing with people.
At first, Alice had not noticed Shawn's subtle personnel changes, but after a month or two, she belatedly realized that she was no longer quite so busy.
She did not confront Shawn directly.
Instead, she first wrote a letter to her grandfather, alluding to her recent circumstances and asking whether the Chief was merely delegating authority or no longer trusted her.
Only today had her grandfather sent an encrypted reply. He forbade Alice from reading it and left instructions that Shawn alone was to open it.
Puzzled, Alice took the letter and went to find Shawn.
Hogwarts' dormitory rules were actually rather interesting.
Boys could not enter the girls' dormitories; the castle's magic would throw them out.
Girls, however, could enter and leave the boys' dormitories freely.
Shawn was in his dormitory at that moment, agonizing over what Christmas presents to give everyone.
The West had no shortage of occasions that called for exchanging gifts,