Unsuspecting

"I swear to you, it was the chicken!"

"You're wrong, it was the bloody egg!"

"When are you two going to get it through your duncical skulls that it was the rooster?!"

"No way! If the damned rooster came first, there wouldn't be any chickens or eggs!"

"Urgh! This is why the entire world agrees that the chicken came first!"

"Why can't it be the egg? The egg is also a perfectly logical explanation. Don't discount the egg!"

"There's nothing wrong with the REALITY of a rooster being first. For your information, it could have been first. In fact IT WAS!"

"Only if it came out of an egg that a chicken laid!"

"Alright," a new voice shouted, quite obviously agitated. "Enough! They were all created and put here at the same time! Couldn't you find something more credible to argue about?"

"But Harry, it was the chicken first! We have scientific evidence!" Hermione challenged.

"Hermione, if you'd get your nose out of your nonsensical books and back into reality where it belongs, you'd realize the egg came first!" Ron said, getting frustrated with his housemates.

"You're both still wrong, it was the rooster," Ginny retorted haughtily.

"I've had enough of this, I'm going back to my lunch in peace. Sandwiches aren't ever this loud and the chicken will always come before the egg," Harry sighed before walking away from the argumentative group.

Seamus trudged into the room, still looking sleepy after just waking up from his nap. He seemed to be thoroughly annoyed that his friends had roused him from a wonderful dream involving himself, Ron, and a bubble bath that included a rubber ducky.

"Are you all going at it again?" he questioned exhaustedly.

"Well, muffin cup, if you really want to be 'at it' again, I'll meet you back in the bedroom in five minutes," Ron winked. This aroused Seamus (and Seamus Jr.) up immediately.

"Ron, I really didn't need a mental picture of my older brother and his gay lover in the bedroom. I'm fairly certain I could've lived my life without that image. You'll pay for my therapy," Ginny commented as she left the room. "I'll be in the library if anyone needs me."

"You two have fun, I'll go join Harry in the kitchen," Hermione stated.

Ron and Seamus looked at each other mischievously. "Last one to the bedroom has to be on top!" Seamus said deviously with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. They ran like school children towards the stairs.

As Hermione departed the room to join Harry for some lunch, Ron took the opportunity to "win" the argument. He stopped where he was (at the top of the stairs) and smirked.

"EGG!" he shouted at her retreating figure, and Hermione turned on her heels to face him. She picked up the nearest object (which happened to be a butterbeer coaster) and threw it at his head.

"Chicken," she announced proudly before sauntering out of the room towards the kitchen. Ron rubbed the sore spot where the coaster had hit and continued down the hallway towards his and Seamus' room, where he knew that he would unfortunately have to be on top.

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Ginny left the room quietly still disturbed by the image of her brother and his "friend" in their bedroom. She retreated to the library where she spent much of her time enjoying a book when she wasn't at work. She slowly walked parallel to the shelves, tracing her hand across the spine of each book, slowly analyzing it by its title, and trying to decided what to read. She stopped at a large, green book, and carefully pulled it down from the shelf, and she blew off the remnants of lingering dust. She thenretreated to a table where she sat down, and pulled open the cover, but rather than reading it, she thought about how much had changed since their time at Hogwarts. Her thoughts naturally drifted to one particular wizard first.

Harry had been drafted into the Federation for the Protection of Wizards not an hour after graduating from Hogwarts. He was so happy that his skills were going to be put to good use and maybe even appreciated. Over the summer, he had met Voldemort for one final battle, which eventually led to the latter's demise. Voldemort's downfall was one of the most celebrated events in wizarding history. Instead of taking ten to twenty years to climb up each rung of the corporate ladder, it had taken him just a few. He was now assistant director of the Investigative Division and on promotion standby for any moment during the day.

Harry's present girlfriend and long time best friend Hermione had inherited McRicartrell Orchards as a graduation present from some unknown relative on her mother's side of the family. Ron and Harry had been immediately invited to live there with her since the house was so enormous and was too scary for her to be in all alone. Ginny did not arrive until the next year when she graduated. Hermione had full intentions of continuing her education and finding a career where she could keep her nose in the books but found it no longer interested her. The Minister of Magic had approached her on a recommendation from Dumbledore about a high-ranking, extremely respectable position that had opened up at the Ministry. She immediately took it and had been happy there ever since.

The other best friend, Ron, who had "come out of the closet" during his sixth year at Hogwarts, had had several less-than-intimate relationships with different men during his final two years of school. After graduation, he ran into Seamus at a small cafe in Diagon Alley and the two had immediately hit it off as a couple. Ron asked Hermione if it would be all right for the two of them to live together and she had been very open to the idea. He had been to several different dead end jobs and decided that work was not for him at all and he was more suited to "housewifedom" than anything else. He had little side jobs on occasion and was content being known as the "Orchard Whore."

Ron's partner in crime, Seamus, on the other hand, was one of the most successful journalists that "Insert Flashy Title Here" had acquired. Fashion was without a doubt his cup of tea. Within a year of being there, he had gone from apprentice to junior editor of the entire magazine. He reported to two people and had most of the company reporting to him. He had several admirers, both male and female, but he made it widely known that he was attached to "the most wonderful, handsome, and horny wizard in the world." He and Ron were so in love it was sickening at times.

They were much mushier than Harry and Hermione.

Ginny, with recollection on her hindmost resident of McRicartrell, thought to herself, 'Out of all of them, I've changed the most. Going from shy, giggly teenybopper in love with the Harry Potter to Super Spy who works with Harry in a matter of years is an accomplishment. I don't think that anyone from Hogwarts could've foreseen this, even if divination was their strong suit.' Ginny had indeed changed insurmountably. She had the most rigorous job and the toughest exterior out of all of them. She had to, in order to be trusted by a group of the most dangerous wizards in the world. She was no stranger to death; in fact, she was an antecedent of it on occasion.

She closed the book, finished with her peregrination down memory lane. She was happy to have been able to take the opportunity to journey, since her job had been troubling her for a while. After placing the book back on the shelf, she decided that a nap would be in her best interest since she would have to go back to headquarters for a meeting with Harry later that night.

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Hermione made her way through the lengthy hallway and pushed open the swinging kitchen doors (Harry's bizarre idea, based on an unusual fixation with Muggle western movies) and stopped in wonderment of the love of her life, her soul mate, sitting at the eccentric little table, munching on a grilled chicken sandwich and reading The Daily Prophet. Sometimes, it was physically torturous to love him as much as she did. She wondered why she hadn't been aware of it sooner. 'It's because we didn't want to lose each other,' she thought to herself, answering her own question. It appeared that they had expended much of their lives looking for love even though it was right in front of their faces. Not that it mattered to them or most other people how much time they had wasted, it mattered that now they both knew they had each other for the rest of their lives.

Hermione smiled at him, and dropped a light kiss on his cheek as she walked by him to scout out the limited amount of food in the refrigerator. He smiled back at her before finishing the article he was reading on Quidditch. She sat down next to him and waited patiently for him to complete it.

She took this time to survey the exuberant room she was sitting in. There was a high, vaulted ceiling (similar to the one in every other room in the house) and quite a bit of open space. The kitchen was very spacious and housed three separate refrigerators: one for food, one for drinks, and one for Ron since he was incredibly particular about the organization of the fridge. It was meant to be a commercial kitchen but Hermione had liked it so much she decided to keep it that way. The house itself was really quite extravagant, and the tenants were all lucky to have had her inherit such a great possession.

It had been her great grandmother's house, built in the nineteenth century when her family still had money to spend carelessly. There was an air of ancient magic in the house itself even though Hermione was the first and only witch in the family to her knowledge. The history of McRicartrell was still unknown for the most part to its residents but what they did know served them well.

There were thirteen bedrooms in the house so everyone could have two or three to themselves if they wished, but because of their circumstances they chose to share the spacious quarters. Each room had its own theme, such as astronomy, the ocean, lilacs, Quidditch, as well as voluminous amounts of other things. In each of those rooms something was enchanted to make it feel as if you were there. For example, in the room with the ocean theme, you could feel the breeze and hear the waves crashing on the shore. In the Quidditch room, the mural of the field was enchanted to be used much like a Muggle television when they were unable to attend their favorite team's game.

There were also four separate baths, almost as large as the ones at Hogwarts, as well as two living rooms, a grand entrance hall, the intricate dining room, and an attic they did not have access to. All these things just added to the mystery of McRicartrell Orchards. They owned one of the most extensive libraries in the country, second only to the Ministry of Magic's.

Their property was a total of forty acres and included an apple orchard. The first tree in the orchard was planted with seeds from the first apple Eve ate from in the Garden of Eden. This was extremely significant to Hermione whose mother had grown up as a Christian. Behind the house was a stable with horses and all sorts of magical creatures. Hermione drew the line when Harry brought home blast-ended skrewts. Harry had gotten his love of all creatures, big, small, dangerous, harmless, from Hagrid. Buckbeak was a part of this stable and seemed to be very happy, even at his old age, with Harry and got to see Sirius often.

They also had an Olympic-sized swimming pool since Ron was an avid swim fan and got up fairly early every morning to make sure he did his laps. Nobody wondered why he had stayed so lanky as he got older. They had placed a Constant Heat Charm on it the minute they moved in because they liked to swim during the winter when it would normally be frozen over. Ginny, however, had wanted a skating pond so they implemented one of those as well. It was permanently frozen, unlike the swimming pool.

The lovely gazebo attracted many people looking for the perfect spot for a wedding. Directly in front of it was the most gorgeous fountain. It had multicolored water flowing from its six different spouts in the shape of fish. The fountain had been there since before America was founded and was an attraction for the wizarding world.

"God damn chicken sandwich!" Harry spat out as his sandwich fell apart, spilling its contents onto his plate, and snapping Hermione out of her reverie. "Sorry, love, it's just been one of those weeks. A lot is happening at work and I seem to be taking it out on poor, unsuspecting chicken sandwiches."

"Work again?" Hermione questioned incredulously.

Harry, who was a spy for the Federation for the Protection of Wizards, had been following a small contingent of active Dark wizards for the past week. He had been inconceivably stressed, as he had not been able to gather any information by watching them.

Ginny worked with him as an undercover agent who infiltrated the groups he followed. Even though she was his subordinate, her job was much more dangerous.

Hermione had left her passion for books at Hogwarts and become an ambassador between wizarding and Muggle communities. They had chosen her because of her extensive knowledge in both worlds.

Ron was content being housewife for all of them while Seamus was junior editor at a well-known fashion magazine titled "Insert Flashy Title Here."

Harry only sighed heavily in reply and Hermione reached for his hand and squeezed it for a moment before letting go. "I really should get going, I have a meeting with the department head in 25 minutes," Harry said, looking like he really didn't want to go.

"I understand. If you need me, you know where you can find me. I love you," Hermione said with love in her voice.

"I love you, too." He kissed her quickly before apparating out.

Ron and Seamus stumbled almost drunkenly out of the bedroom. They walked hand in hand to the kitchen where they found Hermione lost in her thoughts once again.

"Harry gone already?" Ron asked, still giggling like a schoolgirl.

"He had a meeting with his department head tonight on the progress he's made following The Rogues. They have to make a decision on whether or not to send Ginny in," Hermione informed them.

Ron groaned. "When is Gin going to learn that it is not good to submit yourself into that kind of danger? I'd be much happier if she'd gone with Charlie to work with dragons. That's a much safer profession."

"Now Ron," Seamus reprimanded," You know as well as I do that Ginny would never be satisfied sitting at a desk or working with dragons. She thrives, much like you used to at Hogwarts, on dangerous situations. You need to let her live outside of a cage. She's old enough to make her own decisions and if that means putting herself in deliberate danger, then so be it. It's not your choice to make and you need to acknowledge that."

"Well put!" Ginny said as she strode into the room. "I appreciate the fact that you care enough to worry about me, but it's my life and I will do with it as I please, not as my brother pleases. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend with a certain housemate of mine."

And with that, she was gone.