I walked into the library of Grimmauld Place and saw Ron concentrating hard on the game in front of him. I watched how he approached every possible option of the chess board before he made his move. His white queen charged a castle and I watched as it crumpled to the ground. I shuffled over to him and sat down on the sidelines of the chess board.
"Hey, Moine." He greeted me looking up at my entrance.
"I don't get why you like this game. It's so violent."
He repeated the same thing he always says when I comment on the unnecessary destructiveness of the game, "its Wizard's Chess."
This got me thinking about why no other muggle games had been converted. "Do you think they'll ever make a Wizard's Scrabble or Wizard's Mancala?" I asked thoughtfully.
His focus was broken by my questioning. He gave me an aggravated look, "What are you rambling about now, Hermione?"
I glared at him, "I was wondering if any other muggle games will ever be converted into Wizard games."
"Why would that matter? Wizard's Chess is the best game; there doesn't need to be anymore." He said in a final tone.
"I was just wondering out loud. No reason to-," he glanced over to me sensing my frustration growing.
"There's exploding snap. That's a card game." He said trying to console me.
"Nobody would play Solitaire, Canasta, or even Go Fish with a stack of exploding snap cards. If someone was stupid enough to try, the cards would explode in their face and ruin the game."
"But, exploding snap is only fun because the cards blow up." He said as though it was obvious.
"Never mind," I said leaving the room with Ron staring, confused, after me.
--
--
Years had passed since that happened, and I had never really thought about that conversation I had with Ron. It kind of surprised me, when I remembered it while playing a game of Candy Land with Victoire and Teddy in the living room of the Burrow.
"I want to be Queen Frostine, when I grow up." Victoire announced.
"Well, I want to be Lord Licorice." Teddy said.
"But, Lord Licorice is the bad guy." Victoire pointed out.
"I want to be the bad guy," Teddy changed his hair to match Lord Licorice. "I will catch you, Queen Frostine." He slowly approached Victoire, getting ready to jump on her. She quickly scrambled to her feet and took off running with Teddy right on her tail.
I laughed getting up and stretching. I was stiff from sitting on the ground for so long. I moved over to the comfy couch.
Ron came in to the room, trying to avoid being run into, "Go, and run outside."
"'Kay, Uncle Ron," Victoire and Teddy chimed before going outside.
He shook his head smiling, "Hey, honey. What happened?"
I turned to my boy friend, "Vicki is Queen Frostine and Teddy is Lord Licorice."
"Licorice is the bad guy, right?"
"Ya, that's why he's trying to catch Frostine." Ron sat down on the couch next to me and I snuggled into him.
"Do you want to play a board game, Mione?"
I gave him a funny look because Ron wasn't one for board games if it wasn't Wizard's Chess. "Sure," he sat down on the floor on one side of the coffee table. Ron motioned for me to sit across from him, "what game? I have-"
I was about to start listing, but he interrupted, "How about Monopoly?" He pulled out a Monopoly box.
Since it was my favorite board game, I agreed readily. "I'll be banker."
Ron shook his head, "we don't need a banker. This is a Wizard's Monopoly." He sat up the board, and showed me the pieces I could chose from, "what do you want to be?"
"The Sorting Hat," I said still not catching how it was going to work.
He caught my look, "just watch." He put the miniature Sorting Hat and Knight Bus on Go. "You go first."
I looked around for the dice, "where's the dice?"
"Oh, just touch here," he pointed to a drawing of dice on the board.
I touched it and the drawn dice started shifting. They stopped on double threes. The hat hopped the required spaces.
The board announced, "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!" Ron explained to me how all properties were found in the Wizarding World and then how to buy the properties. After that, I waited for him to take his turn.
"You rolled doubles you get to go again," he explained.
"Oops," I had been so caught up in figuring out how the game worked I wasn't paying attention. I pressed the dice again and got double twos.
"Just visiting Azkaban," the board told me.
"Roll again," Ron said encouragingly. "Don't roll doubles gain, or you'll actually be in Azkaban."
I touched the dice and got double ones. My piece moved over to the jail cell, "Azkaban." A card popped out of a drawn stack. It had a picture of Mr. Monopoly dressed in robes with a pointed hat on his head. In black, block letters it read Azkaban. I figured the card was going to tell me that I had to stay until I rolled doubles again, but then something caught my eye. It was a small ring drawn on the bottom right hand corner. I touched the ring with my finger tips and it came out from the card into my palm. It was had a gold band and a simple diamond on top. I glanced at the card: You stole my heart…would you marry me?
I stared at Ron, who was looking at me expectantly. "Hermione, will you marry me?"
Somehow, I got over the table and into his arms. "Yes," I said loudly knocking him over in my haste. I heard laughing and saw the entire Weasley family plus Harry standing in the doorway. He got to his feet and helped me up. Ron picked up the ring from where I had accidently dropped and grabbed my left hand. He slipped the engagement ring on my finger and kissed me softly on the lips.
"Do I get out of Azkaban now?" I asked against his lips.
He laughed and handed me the card. It exploded in my hands, "I told you that was the best part."