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Draco looked down at the three cards just placed on the coffee table between them. “Uuuhhmm, you can’t do that.”
Hermione peaked over her hand in confusion, “Why not?”
“It’s against the rules.”
Hermione scoffed, “No, it’s not.” She nodded over to his hand as she shifted on the large pillow underneath her. “Play your turn, let’s go.”
Draco placed his cards face down and picked up the paper from the couch behind him. It had only been about 20 minutes since he read over the rules but he was going to do it again. His eyes scanned the page until he found what he needed. “AH HA!! Yes, it is. Says right here, there’s no stacking like that allowed.”
“Where does it say that? Let me see,” she asked him, arm stretched out towards him.
Before he could read out the rules to her, Hermione snatched the paper from him and threw it behind her. Draco was speechless. “We don’t follow those rules, Draco. When it comes to Uno, it’s house rules over ‘actual’ rules.”
Her quotations around ‘actual’ damn near made his jaw drop. “Hold on, just - just a moment.” Draco placed his hands together like he was saying a prayer and pressed his lips to them before pointing them to Hermione. “Last month when we played Scrabble, you said I had to follow the rules that came in the box. But now you’re saying I don’t follow the rules that came in the box? Where’s the consistency with the Muggle games?”
Hermione couldn’t help but laugh. “You were trying to use spells and magical creatures against my parents. I told you that all the words have to be from the dictionary.”
“They are in the dictionary,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Draco,” she was using every ounce of strength to keep a straight face but she couldn’t help it when he acted like this. “The Muggle dictionary.”
Draco raised his hands in defeat, “I’m never going to get the hang of this” He sighed dramatically as he leaned on the couch, arms crossed. “I guess I’ll just keep embarrassing myself in front of my future in-laws.”
“This is why we’re practising!”
Draco ignored her and picked up his stack of fifteen cards, fanning them in his hands.
“Maybe you could still win,” she told him sweetly with a smile.
His face was blank as he stared at the three cards in her hands. “Sure, love. Maybe.” He had no hope of winning but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t try. It was his turn, after all.
Draco gently placed down the black card and looked at his fiancée. “Draw four.” He immediately saw the right corner of her mouth twitch upward. This was her tell.
Hermione stacked another card on top of his. “Draw eight, babe.”
Draco exhaled heavily, defeated.
Or at least, that’s what he wanted her to think. Draco dropped down another card. “And now you have to draw twelve.” He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as she stared down at the cards.
She looked up at him, her mouth slightly agape.
“Did I do it right?” he asked in a quick panic.
Hermione smirked, something she picked up from him and something that fit the future Mrs. Granger-Malfoy well. “Yeah, you did,” she replied, plucking one card at a time from the facedown stack and adding it to her hand. “But that doesn’t mean I like it.”
Draco chuckled as Hermione counted each card. He couldn’t describe the feeling he had when Hermione’s parents invited him to family game night for the first time. He avoided it for so long, not wanting to show how ignorant he was to a game that children a quarter of his age could play. When he finally opened up to Hermione about his worries, she promised that it was nothing to worry about and she’d be there to help him.
“What’s the colour?” she asked him, pulling Draco from his thoughts.
“Ummm… blue?”
The right corner of Hermione’s mouth twitched as she tried her best to keep a straight face.
Oh no, Draco thought, I’m in trouble .