Chapter thirty five
Harry woke on Christmas day to find a pile of gifts at the end of his bed...he couldn't help but think that it looked like a much larger number of gifts than usual, remembering what Mrs Weasly had said the night before he gathered them all up in his blanket and ventured down stairs to the kitchen, the first was burning in the grate, Legolas was squatted in front of it with a smaller pile than Harry's around his feet, Harry squatted down next to him,
"Hello, Legolas" he said quietly, not wanting to startle the elf, as he had one memorable day just after the end of the autumn term, he had come down to the common room to find Legolas sitting in front of the fire, he had walked over to Legolas and called a loud Good morning to him, this had resulted in Harry fibding a dagger pressed against his troat.
"Good morning Harry" said Legolas, "what are these?" he asked poking one of the boxes that surrounded him with a delicate finger
"Gifts Legolas" replied Harry with a small smile
"but what is this bright wrapping for?" asked Legolas wearily, Harry could see that although the time Legolas had spent outside was fairly considerable the dark and enclosed house was starting to make life difficult for the elf.
"If is our custom" said Harry, "I suppose that these that are wrapped in cloth are from the people of your world"
Legolas nodded, "They are our leaving gifts also we did not realise that this was a day for exchanging gifts"
Harry smiled
"You know young one" said Legolas, "you remind me of someone who was lost to us many winters passed"
"What do you mean?" asked Harry
"Nothing," said Legolas, "it is most likely a passing likeness, you look nothing like her"
Harry was about to question Legolas further when Ron burst in through the door followd by the rest of the family and the other seven walkers in residence an Sirius.
"Hello Harry, Merry Christmas..." called Ron but his shout was drowned by Mrs Weasly calling
"Shut the door before it can get inside" this order was followed with extreme haste, Mr Weasly then place a charm on the door, "Fred, George that was very stupid of you...you should know better than to let of a dung bomb on Christmas morning..." Mrs Weasly was now ranting at the top of her lungs
"But mum, it wasn't us...it was Kreacher..." said Fred
"oh..." said Mrs Weasly extremely foreshortened in her planned rant at Fred and George, "Sorry dears"
"Don't worry mum, we understand" said George
"Well, its lucky that we were thoughtful enough to collect everyone's gifts for them" said Fred placing a large sack in the middle of the room
"oh, thank you Fred" squealed Ginny as she ran over to hug him
"Well," said Mr Weasly, "it looks like there are a lot of presents that need to be unwrapped"
Everyone did not need any further invitation they each dived in to pick a present up and then ended up passing them to other people.
There was a gasp of surprise from Fred and Geogre when they both received a pair of fighting daggers,
"The writing on them says death to the foes of the elves in the sindarian tongue" said Aragorn, as George traced the runes with a finger.
The fellowship all received knitted jumpers from Mrs Weasly as well as a heavy fruit cake
"They are spelled for warmth" she said as they admired them
"your skilled is that which will be greatly admired in our homelands" said Aragorn
By the time the smells of cooked meat were becoming so over powering that everyone could think of nothing else, most of the gifts had been unwrapped, once they were all settled around the table Mrs Weasly carved the roast tirkey and started to hand around the vegetables,
"What are these?" asked Legolas holding up a cracker
Sirius smiled, "That my dear boy, would be a cracker"
"and what, Mr Black might a cracker be?" asked Gimli hesitantly
"take a hold of the other end of Legolas' cracker and each of you pull" said Sirius with a laugh.
Glimli took a hold of the end opposite to the one Legolas was holding and yanked it hard, Harry supposed it was a little cruel of Sirius not to warn them but it was funny to see the shock on their faces as the cracker exploded leaving behind a startled elf, a confused dwarf, an elven helmet and a set of gobstones
"Glimli won" said Sirius, taking the helmet and placing it on the poor dwarf's head
"Laddie" came the threatening voice from the depths of the helmet, "I don't suppose you would know, but this is an elven helmet"
Sirius apparently did not see the significance of this small fact, Frodo saw fit to enlighten him
"In our world, elves and Dwarves are not the most friendly of races when placed together in a room"
"Oh..." said Sirius, "I beg you pardon master dwarf"
Glimli humphed and removed the helmet, he also quietly pocketed the gobstones.
When the pudding arrived on the table, crowned with a blue flame all helped themselves lustily to the desert, Sam almost breaking his teeth on a knut.
"thankee kindly" he said to Mrs Weasly, "I will keep it with me and hope it brings good luck"
for some reason this caused Mrs Weasly to blush, once all the crackers had been cracked and the pudding eaten, they all returned to the fireplace to open the last of the gifts, until finally there was only one thing left in the sack, it was addressed in runes, Aragorn drew it out and unwrapped it, it was a stick, he read the letter then nodded
"The time has come for us to leave," he said, at once the fellowship became somber they placed the gifts they had been given into their packs and after a final farewell they departed.
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sorry, end of the fellowship Hogwarts...sad...but what I need to know is should I write the next part as a sequel or just keep on writing on this story????
A few replies...to everyone who reviewd my story thank you very much
Bev...I am truelly extremely sorry that there have been so few plot development recently...I am just at that boring stage where I need to tie off all the loose ends...I hope you understand....dont worry things will get harder in middle earth...thanx 4 ur review, sorry 4 no developments