All a Dream

Chapter 25

Regulus Black did not particularly look like Sirius. His face had a thinner jaw structure, and his hair was mousey brown, but straight. The brown eyes weren't necessarily mischievous, but very clever-looking. As he took their coats, Harry noticed that Regulus' arms were rather worn, and his hands were broad and looked as though they were used on hard labour a lot.

Nigel was being a little difficult. When he zoomed into the hallway from the fireplace, he latched onto Regulus' left leg and wouldn't let go.

"Nigel, I need both legs to walk to the closet and put away the coats. And then I need to be setting up the tables outside. All that involves a lot of work. You don't want to be involved with work, do you?"

"Sorry, Uncle Reg," the child responded, frightened by the impending doom of work, so Nigel dashed off to find someone else to play with. Harry chuckled watching his brother, and followed him to the kitchen where several of the Weasleys were seated, along with Seamus Finnegan and Drake Malfoy. Ron was in a conversation with them about their jobs. It soon became apparent that Seamus and Ron were working as store clerks for the Weasley triplet's joke shop. Drake laughed at the anecdotes described. As Harry walked in, Ron looked up and waved. The redhead gestured at the chair beside him, and Harry sat down. Another conversation started up, mostly about Hogwarts and what they were doing for the holidays.

That question was answered when Hermione walked in. She ran over to Ron, whose face had lit up at the sight of her, and kissed him enthusiastically. Both Drake and Seamus rolled their eyes at the sight, and Harry laughed to himself.

.:. :.: .:.

Dinner was huge.

It had to be held outside under a giant tent, and the line of tables ran around the perimeter of the Black's back yard. In the middle was a large Christmas tree wrapped with tinsel, and the tiny musical instruments hung on the branches played Christmas music, topped with a rather vocal angel. A great deal of families were at the Black's, including the Weasleys, Finnegans, Piper/Granger family, Malfoys and Longbottoms. Harry was amazed by the magnitude of it all, and the family feeling radiating off every person there. He felt as though it couldn't be real, almost like a dream.

Turkey was the main course of the night, preceded by sweet potatoes, corn and squash. All of it smelled of the wood smoke from the wood stove in the Black's kitchen, and tasted bold.

Naturally, there were Christmas crackers. Harry decided to jazz up the hat he got, and so turned it a brighter colour of purple.

.:. :.: .:.

Conversation carried Harry through the rest of the day, and well into the night. He was swept from one room to another by all the people, all having questions for him. Surprisingly, very few questions were repeated, as though it had all been painstakingly planned out. Now that he thought about it, it probably had, but then dismissed that mental comment.

A/N: I am sorry that this took so long, and that it's such a short chapter. I'm just really, really stuck on what to do next. I know what the ending looks like, but between this chapter and the next one, I have nothing.

HELP ME! Any ideas? Anyone?