Kevin shuddered and pulled his cloak a bit tighter. It was March, it shouldn't be this cold anymore. It should be in the 20s by now.
That one vacation Kevin and his family had taken to the south of Spain had really spoiled him. Even though it was always rainy and chilly at home in Manchester, and certainly not much better at Hogwarts, he longed for a warm, dry climate. Alas, here he was in March, casting a bluebell flame under a bench to keep from chattering.
"Sure thing," he intoned, drawing the deck of cards from his pocket again and absently shuffling them as he planted down on one side of the bench. "All right, now each player gets ten cards, and the rest are placed facedown in a pile in the middle," Kevin began, dealing out the apportioned amount to Alfie and to himself and then putting the stack in the middle.
Kevin glanced at his cards before continuing. Not a great hand to start with, but he had a couple of potential melds to work with.
"The goal is to get all of the cards in your hand to be part of a meld, which means a set of three or more of the same rank, or three or more in a row of the same suit." Kevin flipped over the top card of the overturned deck. Not a helpful card to him. He gestured to Alfie, "I'll pass on this one, you can either take it into your hand and put something else down, or you can pass on the card too."
Kevin leaned over the side of the bench to check the bluebell. It looked like it was going pretty strong. Wasn't threatening to burn the bench or their feet. Good good. Kevin had practiced these, and really liked the bluebells.