((A/N: Hello. This is my first fic, so please be nice to me. grins Um… before any and all author's notes, I'll put the double parenthesis and it'll be written in bold. This first chapter is pretty boring, but it's all background info, and is pretty necessary. It's also two pages shorter than the rest of the chapters, sorry.Lemme know if there needs to be more info on the house; I personally find it boring, so I skipped it… basically. Parts are described as I go. My beta reader quit on me, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. I OWN THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT! …er… seeing as how that's not true, I do not own Harry Potter… but this is my plotline. All right, here we go!))
He was dead. Eight, almost nine years dead. Harry Potter had finally defeated Lord Voldemort.
Harry's seventh year had been very hectic. He had missed nearly half of the year searching for the remaining Horcruxes, though he had somehow managed to scrape up O's in almost all of his NEWTs. By the time he had destroyed all of the Horcruxes, it was late May. That was when Voldemort attacked Hogwarts. Harry was ready for him, though. Nonetheless, there had been many casualties, too many to count. A black stone memorial had been resurrected just outside of Hogsmeade with the names of the deceased carved into it.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had managed to make it out of the battle alive, though just barely.
But that was eight years ago.
Ron and Hermione are now married, and have been for some time. They live with Harry in his house just outside of Hogsmeade, near the cliff that they met Sirius at in their fourth year.
To be honest, it's not really a house; it's more of a three-story mansion, complete with a pool. It's set back off of the road, out of site, thanks to the many trees on the land, and their aren't many neighbors.
The third story hasn't been used yet; they plan on giving that to the kids, if there are any, and the rooms haven't been finished yet, for they are waiting to see if their future children are boys or girls.
Our story starts on a rainy Thursday evening in late June, with Harry and Ron returning from work.
"Hi boys. How was practice?" Hermione asked, her bushy head peaking around from the kitchen, where she could clearly see into the living room where her best friend and husband had just apparated.
"Awful. Wood got up on the wrong side of the bed, and screamed bloody murder for every little mistake," Ron said, taking of his mud-covered jacket. "Then Katie fell off her broom and had to be taken to St. Mungo's, so Wood canceled the rest of the practice and followed his dear fiancée to the hospital."
"Well, I should hope so! If you fell of your broom, I'd be at Mungo's in an instant!" Hermione said, kissing her husband. "So, what do you two want for dinner?"
Harry gave her a weird look. "You're not actually gonna cook… are you?"
"Why! There's nothing wrong with my cooking! Tell him, Ron."
"Erm, right. It's delicious. What are you talking about you dolt?" Ron cried, playfully pushing Harry.
"Thank you," Hermione said, walking back into the kitchen. "But no, I'm not going to cook dinner, Harry, I have to leave in an hour. I was making cookies."
"Oh. Looks like it's just us men then," said Harry, turning to Ron. "How 'bout I order us a pizza? What do you want?"
"Sausage and onion," Ron said while heading up the stairs, missing Harry's look of disgust. "I'm gonna take a shower, be back in about twenty minutes." Hermione disappeared up the steps shortly after, following her spouse.
Harry ordered the pizza (a muggle-like pizzeria just opened in Hogsmeade) and headed off to his room to wash off as well.
He stepped out just in time to hear the bell, and hoped that Ron would get it. Knowing he wouldn't, he quickly pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old Chudley Cannons tee shirt and sprinted down to the door, counting his money as he went, the bell chiming again.
Hermione showed up just as he was opening the door, a peculiar look on her face.
"Hi, sorry about that," Harry began. "I was in the – Ginny!"
Hermione coughed in the background. "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention…Ginny'sbackfromRomaniaokgottagobye!" She said the last bit quickly, then quickly disapparated to work.
((So there you go. Chapter one. How'd ya like it? All right, here's the thing: I have a lot of chapters written after this. The next one will be posted if I get five (5) NICE reviews. I don't care if I get a hundred flames (please don't), so long as 5 reviews are nice. Only two can be anonymous… and suggestions are welcome. Thank you!))