This story is something I cooked up real quick after playing a game with my dad. If the story continues, it'll probably just be quick stories about the Weasleys playing different games. Please let me know what you think by reviewing! PS Thanks to grumpy grizzly's story Games are afoot for the inspiration for the first part (Above the page break). Anyway, enjoy!
Outside, the storm raged around the Burrow. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, but inside the house, the fire crackled, giving a warm glow to the living room. Around the room, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione sat in various positions which all perpetuated boredom. Only Hermione seemed content, browsing a book on magical games. Even after all this time in the magical world, she was still astounded by all the different aspects of magic. Of course, she knew all about Quidditch, Wizard's chess, and Gobstones, but there were so many different games that almost no one had ever heard of. She found it fascinating.
Everyone else, however, was bored out of their minds. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were out on errands for the Order, placing Bill and Charlie in charge. Before they left, they had given strict orders for no one to leave the Burrow. With the pounding rain outside, they couldn't play Quidditch, and everyone had gotten tired of Ron beating everyone at chess, so they all sat around listlessly.
Fred and George were whispering in the corner, which should have alerted everyone to something. Finally, Fred slammed his hands on the arms of his chair and stood up, George rising to meet him.
"Forge," Fred cried, drawing the attention of the entire room, "We are too brilliant-"
"And too amazing-"
"To be this bored."
With an identical twinkle in their eyes, they sat on either side of Hermione, who only then looked up from her book, which she had been attempting to keep reading during the twins' dialogue.
"Therefore we challenge you, Hermione Jean Granger-"
"To teach us muggle games." George finished the declaration, snatching away her book.
Hermione sat upright, reaching for the book, but George was much taller, and he and Fred started playing a sort of monkey in the middle with the book, launching it over Hermione's head, out of reach of her grasping hands.
Finally, Hermione plopped back onto her seat, deciding that it wasn't worth it. She could always get the book back later, after all. One good thing about being friends with Harry Potter, it gave her lots of experience sneaking around.
"Fine," she sighed. Despite herself, she got a bit excited. She had always wondered what muggle games might be like with a magical twist, and she might get to try. She thought quickly about which game she should start with, and an almost diabolical smile spread across her face. "Hey, Bill, Charlie, can I talk to you for a second?"
After a few hurried conversations with the oldest Weasleys, all three emerged from the kitchen, where they had been conversing. With a flick of his wand, Bill cleared a large space in the living room. Charlie told the others to stand back, and then transfigured the couch into something resembling a tower. It was composed of many large prisms, made of wood, each about 1.5 feet long. There were three boards across, the layers alternating directions. The entire structure stood about four feet tall, so they could still see the top. Hermione smiled at Charlie's handiwork, then turned around to where all the Weasleys looked rather confused and rather nervous. "Everyone, welcome to Jenga. The aim of the game is to not tip over the structure."
Before she could continue, Ron interrupted. "It looks solid to me. Are we going to be running into it?"
Bill looked at Ron. "Well, if you hadn't interrupted, we would know by now, wouldn't we?"
Ron's ears reddened, but he made no further comment.
"We're going to pull out blocks, one at a time, and try to stack it on top without causing it to fall over."
The twins scoffed in unison, but Hermione glared at them. "It seems easy, but trust me, it gets hard quickly. You have to find a block that won't cause the structure to topple, and place it back on top. With this lot," she glared particularly with the twins, who quickly adopted, 'Who, me?' expressions, "You never know what will happen. Oh, and to make it fair, no magic… for now."
"So, who wants to go first?"
No one stepped forward, so Hermione said, "Okay, I'll go." She walked around the tower, carefully testing several blocks, seemingly at random, before deciding on a block. She slid it out easily, before stacking in on top without a hitch. Emboldened by her success, Ron volunteered to go next. He, unfortunately, did not notice how Hermione had chosen her block, and almost caused the game to end on his first turn. Quickly, he recovered, and successfully completed his turn.
Everyone quickly caught on to the game, and soon Ginny, the shortest out of all of them, had to stand on her tiptoes to make sure she was putting the block on top correctly. At this point, some of the Weasleys started trying to get each other out. Sometimes, they would gasp while the person was trying to pull off a block, causing them to quickly make sure that nothing was falling, sometimes almost leading to an accident. Harry nearly caused an upheaval when Charlie yelled suddenly when he had a block halfway out, which caused him to jerk upwards.
While Fred was taking his turn, with George behind him muttering, "Don't do it, don't to it…" purely to psyche him out, Hermione watched quietly. The family laughed and joked together as they alternately helped and hindered those playing the game that she had introduced. She sighed contentedly, realizing that this was exactly what they needed: being together without worrying, at least for a little while, about the threat of darker forces that were quickly building strength outside the walls of the Burrow.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a yell, which turned out to have come from Ron. She refocused in time to see Ginny preforming an impressive acrobatic move, kind of like a back flip combined with a backwards somersault, to get away from the tower, which crashed with a nearly deafening noise.
As the 'loser', Ginny had to endure a good deal of ribbing from her family. Partially to escape the teasing of her brothers, she turned to Hermione and asked, "What's next?"