A/N: Thank you guys for your suggestions about games Harry and his friends should play! I promise you that they will come up in later chapters but I already had the idea for this one so I thought I'd do it first. Again, thank you for your wonderful suggestions! On with the story!

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, do you really think I'd be writing on fanfiction? Oh and although I do own a copy of the board game Candyland, I do now actually like own own it...you get what I mean? Oh well.

Chapter 5

Candyland

Hermoine awoke Tuesday morning a mere 10 minutes before her first class, Astronomy. She was frantic to get changed into her robes. She probably set a world record of getting ready in only 4 minutes. But, just as she was about to leave her dormitory, she realized that she had to grab her extra bottle of ink, for she had run out her other one the day before. She went ripping through her trunk to find her extra bottle, but it was nowhere to be found.

However, she did find a peculiar object laying at the bottom of her trunk. It was large and rectangular, and covered with dust. Hermoine took it out and brushed off the top. She was surprised to see that it was her favorite childhood board game, Candyland. She didn't remember packing this odd object, perhaps her mum had put it in there for storage. Nonetheless, Hermoine still had to get to Astronomy, so she scurried out of her dorm and to the Astronomy towers, figuring she'd just borrow some ink from Parvati or someone.

After Astronomy, she had double potions, and afterward came Lunch. Hermoine took the lunch period to tell Ron and Harry of her findings earlier that morning.

"That's Perfect!" Harry exclaimed. Ron and Hermoine both looked at him inquiringly. "We can play that this afternoon!" Harry continued, responding to the questioning looks he had been receiving from his friends. A look of dawning comprehension came across both Ron and Hermoine's faces. They all agreed that would be fun, and Harry decided to look at the game and the instructions to it during his upcoming free period, even though Hermoine scolded him that instead he should be working on his Herbology report.

Harry perused the rules, and it looked easy enough. You stacked up the cards that came with the game and shuffled them a bit. You set up the game board, which was a long trail of colorful squares, and then put the 4 playing pieces at the starting mark. Then each player took turns drawing a cards from the pile and whatever color square was on the card, the playing piece advanced to the nearest square of that color. The first one to the end of the trail won. But there were a few special cards in the deck that matched several special spaces on the game board. These spots contained made up characters who could either advance you many, many spaces if you chose their card, or they could regress your progress if you were already ahead of that square. The special characters were Plumpy, Mr. Mint, Jolly, Grandma Nut, Princess Lolly, and Queen Frostine. Mind you they are all characters made of candy, hence the name, Candyland. Not to mention, there were 2 or 3 spots on the board that if you landed on them, that player would be stuck there until they drew a card that had a square that matched the color of the space they were stuck on. These spaces had little black dots in the center of them. That pretty much summed up the rules, and Harry completely understood them.

The rest of the day flew by in a flash and before they knew it, the eight of them were once again together, ready for an entertaining muggle game. This time, they located themselves in the Great Hall, so there would be enough room for them to spread out the game board.

Hermoine unpacked her game and spread out the pieces. Ron sat down next to her.

"Uh...'Moine?" He said

"Mhm?"

"There are only four playing pieces." Ron said, pointing to the red, green, blue and yellow figures.

"Hmmm..." Hermoine said. She hadn't thought that far ahead.

"That's easy to fix," Fred interjected, "We'll just conjure up four more."

"That won't work, Fred" Hermoine sighed "These are muggle objects so you can't duplicate them in any way shape or form. Plus, you'd be destroying the integrity of the game by adding more pieces.

"Fine." Fred replied, sullen that his idea was shot down.

"How about we play on teams then?" Luna suggested "Eight of us, four playing pieces, two to a team right?" Everyone agreed with her logic and they paired off into teams. The obvious resulted: Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermoine, Fred and George, and Neville and Luna.

Hermoine shuffled the cards and put them in a pile to the left of the board. Her and Ron would go first. She drew a red. Fred started hysterically laughing as Ron moved their red playing piece only one square. Really, it wasn't all that funny, but no one had the heart to tell Fred so. Ginny rolled her eyes as she took her teams turn. She drew an orange card, which led their blue playing piece right to the rainbow trail. Harry and Ginny high-fived.

Draco Malfoy walked past the Great Hall and saw his eight least favorite people in the wizarding world sitting inside. They were playing some preposterous, fool-hardy, simpleton, imbecilic muggle game. Sadly, Draco could not do a single thing to torment them because he was on strict, strict probation and a single step out of line could get him kicked out of Hogwarts. Not that he much cared, but it would give his parents a bad reputation, and he really did not want to face the wrath of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

But... he thought If no one knows it's me how can I possibly get in trouble for it? Of course this was quite obvious, but Malfoy always had a knack for getting caught doing wrong deeds. And he thought what if I do something that isn't necessarily bad or mean...just annoying... Malfoy quickly wracked his brain for something he could do. He could vaguely see from where he was standing a game board with weird looking creatures on it. He shrugged and did the most obvious thing. With a flick of his wand the characters on the board sprang to life and filled the Great Hall. Malfoy sprinted from the premises and down to the dungeons before he could be blamed for anything.

Malfoy didn't even stay to see the looks of surprise on the eight kids faces when the characters popped out. He didn't stay to see Luna topple over backwards off the bench or Hermoine jump up and bang her knees on the bottom of the table.

All around them stood these life size, candy-like, kind of scary people. Right next to George stood Plumpy, a little green monster thingy mahoozit with a plum necklace on. Yeah... that wasn't weird...

Grandma Nut appeared next to Hermoine, and Queen Frostine next to Harry. Mr. Mint sprang to life right next to Fred, and much to Fred's annoyance for he got prodded in the back of the neck with an oversized candy cane. Don't get him wrong, he liked oversized candy just as much as the next guy, but he preferred eating it, not being abused by it.

Jolly appeared right next to Luna, whom after her initial reaction, was no longer surprised about the newcomers. Princess Lolly, settled herself a little farther down from the rest of the crew. Even though she didn't appear so in the game, she was a little spoiled brat who did not enjoy the company of these...people.

Then, another two characters emerged out of the board. There was Gloppy and Lord Licorice. These were supposedly the "evil" characters in the game. They, however, did not stick around the Great Hall. Lord Licorice cackled as he ran through the Entrance Hall and Gloppy chugged along behind. The final character to appear was King Candy, the man who stood at the finish line of the game board.

"So. Totally. Awesome!" George exclaimed. Hermoine, however, disagreed.

"What do you mean awesome?" She shrieked "How did they even get here? What are we going to do?" She was in a fury, her fingers entwined with the roots of her hair.

"No worries, Hermoine," Harry said calmly "We'll play the game, and when we're finished I'm sure they'll willingly go back into the box, right guys?" Harry asked their new friends.

"Of course we will, my boy!" King Candy boomed. His voice was loud and proud, yet very kind and welcoming at the same time. "On with the game!"

Neville and Luna went next and they drew a green card. Then Fred and George with a yellow. Another round went by, the colors being then green, blue, purple, and red.

The next round started with Ron and Hermoine drawing a yellow. Next came Harry and Ginny's turn, and they drew the Queen Frostine card, which put them even more drastically in the lead.

"Oh Goodie!" Queen Frostine giggled, batting her eyelashes at Harry. Harry blushed a magenta color while Ginny's face turned as red as her hair. She gave Frostine her best 'Don't mess with me' look but the Queen was not backing down from Harry that easily. Ginny slid her arm around Harry's waist territorially and gave her a smirk. Harry took no notice of this small gesture and continued watching the game. It wasn't his fault two gorgeous women were fighting over him.

Ginny continued her death glare as the next people took their turns. At the end of that round, Fred and George drew Mr. Mint, Fred's least favorite character at this point in time. Too bad Mr. Mint didn't take the hint. He went over and sat next to the twins, but in the process again whacked Fred in the back of the head with his gigantic Candy cane.

Annoyed and with a throbbing head, Fred grabbed the candy cane and snapped it in two, then made it vanish with a flick of his wand. Mr. Mint stared incredulously at Fred.

"It's okay," George whispered "He gets that way when I prod him with giant candy canes too. Nothing personal."

The next team to go was Ron and Hermoine, and they drew the Grandma Nut card. But, just as Fred was annoyed with Mr. Mint, Hermoine was annoyed with Grandma Nut.

"Really deary, you must do something about this rats nest of hair." Grandma scolded. She was examining Hermoine's mane of hair and Hermoine wasn't happy. It was all she could do to keep herself from turning around and socking the old woman right in the bonnet.

Harry and Ginny were almost to the finish line. If they drew a purple they would win.

"Come on purple, come on purple..." Ginny whispered. Standing right behind her was Queen Frostine who then bewitched the deck to have the Plumpy card, which would put them almost all the way back at the beginning, be on top. No one noticed the Queen's actions though.

"Aw man!" Ginny said when she drew the card. She sadly moved their game piece back near the start of the board. The game resumed and after a few more rounds, Fred and George were in the lead, followed by Neville and Luna, then Ron and Hermoine, and bringing up the rear was Harry and Ginny.

Ron and Hermoine then took the lead in the next few rounds and were coming around the last bend of the trail. Unfortunately, Ron drew a red, and that made their piece get stuck on a spot with a little black dot on it.

"Rats" Ron said. Down the table, Princess Lolly giggled at Ron's misfortune. She waved her lollipop wand and all the red cards in the deck flew into her hand. She giggled again and then skipped off through the doors.

"Stupid little, rotten little, wretched..." Ron spluttered

"Ron, it's just a game." Hermoine soothed

"Whatever." Ron muttered.

A couple more rounds ensued, Ron and Hermoine staying stuck on that spot, and Neville and Luna were only a space away from winning. When their turn came up, they drew a purple and they had won the game. They whistled and high-fived. Chorus's of 'good game' echoed around the hall.

So as Luna was then conversing with King Candy and everyone else was packing up the game, Ginny took the time to confront Queen Frostine. She gave the Queen her signature 'sweet' smile and then slapped her across the face, causing the Queen's nose to bleed. Ginny then happily skipped off to join the rest of the group.

"What happened to you?" Ron asked as Queen Frostine trudged grumpily back over to everyone.

"Bad run in with some red hots, right?" Ginny said, mock sympathetically. She gave Ginny a menacing glare and then stalked away.

"What was that about?" Harry questioned

"Nothing for you to worry about" Ginny said sweetly. Harry, being sort of oblivious, didn't see anything wrong, so went back to stacking up the cards and putting them in the box. Hermoine, however stifled a giggle when she met Ginny's eye.

"Okay thank you." Fred said with a broad grin on his face to King Candy. The King for a moment disappeared into the game board and then came back out again carrying a u-shaped object.

"Here you go boys." He said

"What's that?" Hermoine asked suspiciously

"Nooothing." Fred and George answered together

"It doesn't happen to be a toilet seat from Candyland, does it?" Hermoine asked with a smirk on her face.

"Damn." Fred muttered "She got us again."

"No you imbecile!" George cried, smacking Fred, "You lie and tell her it's something else! Hermoine this isn't a toilet seat, it's a...uh...a... just kidding you've got me." George hung his head like a prisoner waiting for his sentence.

"I'm actually not going to give you detention or confiscate it because you surprised me with you use of the word 'imbecile'." Hermoine replied, laughing a bit.

"Really? Thanks!" the twins cried in unison.

All the candy characters all started disappearing one by one back into the game board. Once they were all in, Harry realized that Princess Lolly, Lord Licorice and Gloppy were nowhere to be seen. Just as Harry realized this, a group of screaming first years ran out through the entrance hall and out onto the front lawn. Everyone in the Great Hall turned knowingly towards the doors and all shouted 'Stupefy' to catch the perpetrator. But instead of seeing lord Licorice or Gloppy, they found themselves stunning Princess Lolly. Go figure.

With a flick of her wand, Hermoine made Princess Lolly disappear back into the game board.

"She bugged me" Hermoine said very nonchalantly. Just then the Bloody Baron came swooping in holding Lord Licorice by the scruff his robes in one hand, and trying to keep hold of Gloppy in the other.

"These two were causing mischief in the Astronomy towers." The Baron rasped. "I have no clue how they got there, nor do I want to know. Please take care of it." and with that he disappeared through the ceiling muttering "bad as Peeves, annoying, stupid candy people things..."

Harry waved his wand and the last two characters disappeared back into the board. They all agreed that they had had quite enough talking candy for now.

Just as they were putting the lid on the box, everyone came filing in the Great Hall for dinner. The group who had just been playing also took their seats at their appointed tables. Luna waved goodbye to them all as she started off towards the Ravenclaw table.

Dinner was fantastic as always that night, and before dessert Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement.

"Students, professor Flitiwck has just informed me that he has a treat for you all. Tonight, for dessert, he has bewitched the candies to talk to you. Enjoy yourselves, children."

The eight who had played Candyland earlier, all stood up and left the great hall without a word as everyone stared at them incredulously. Their footsteps echoed as they left the polished oak doors. They all met up in the stone corridor and began laughing their heads off. Talking Candy was so an hour and a half ago. They all bade each other goodnight as they headed up to bed early. It went without saying that tomorrow was a brand new day, with a brand new muggle game in store.

A/N: Okay hoped you liked it! Please offer any criticisms or reviews you might have about the story. I am also still looking for suggestions of other games they should play. The next chapter will be a reviewer requested game, I promise. 3 Thanks for reading!