It was an exquisite quill, its shaft patterned with Scottish tartan.
She took hold of it and, in her heavily accented Scottish voice, murmured instinctively, "How... inventive."
Something magical happened.
The quill's tip automatically wrote a line on the parchment in standard language fit for official Ministry of Magic meeting minutes: [This design is indeed distinctive.]
It could automatically convert Scottish dialect into the most standard, formal language used in meetings.
Professor McGonagall's hand stopped.
She looked at the words, unsure whether to laugh or cry, but above all resigned to having been read so precisely.
That Douglas had even observed the native accent she occasionally failed to suppress in such detail.
Nearby, Professor Sprout had already begun humming a cheerful tune.
Her gift was a little cloth bag, its fabric seemingly woven from moonlight.
Inside was a handful of magical plant seeds from the Amazon Rainforest.
The instructions said that once planted, these seeds would emit faint glows of different colors according to changes in the soil's pH.
From "dawn red," indicating acidity, to "midnight blue," indicating alkalinity, there were seven gradations in between.
A living, breathing "pH spectrometer" for gardening.
"Genius! This is an absolutely brilliant idea!" Professor Sprout had already impatiently produced a flowerpot and begun filling it with soil.
The professors' conversation flowed through the staffroom once more.
Every gift precisely matched its recipient's professional field and personal quirks.
The underground Potions office.
It was as cold and damp as ever, utterly at odds with the Castle's festive atmosphere.
Snape sat in an armchair, marking assignments without expression.
Any attempt to disturb him with festivities was a foolish provocation.
Tap, tap, tap.
An unfamiliar scops owl, its feathers black as night, impatiently tapped the window with the tip of its beak.
Snape frowned and waved