I don't have time to rewrite this now, but I wanted to play in my personal happy place sandbox for a bit. So I'm working on some background for the characters. This might, perhaps, help explain some of Hermiones' over-bearingness. Set BEFORE this story starts.

It was the end of the war. No, really, really, the end of the war. Voldemort, may-he-burn-in-hell-forever, was dead., and had been for, oh, four, five years? Harry was... well, not happy, but safe.

Safe, in the same way that a little lost duckling is safe. He was at loose ends, clearly unhappy with teaching DADA. Hermione, personally, thought that he was tired of violence and fighting.

Hermione, herself, was simply tired. Tired of everything, really. No, not in a depressed-suicidal way, just in a tired way. She had made a trip to Australia to retrieve her parents, with Ron - that was when... when she conceived. And they didn't find her parents. Or, rather, they did, but she had buggered up the obliviate, and it was permanent. They didn't remember her one bit.

So, she went back to England, married Ron, and accepted the offer from the Unspeakables.

Then... Well. Let history be history. All that needed to be said was that she and Harry had broken off all contact with the Weasleys except for the older four - the twins, Bill, and Charlie. And that she went slightly unhinged, took a year-long forced sabbatical from the Unspeakables, and was cloistered in Grimmauld place with Harry watching over her.

Finally. Finally. She realized that she wasn't herself. That she was suicidal and depressed. Finally, she managed to snap out of her... well. Back to herself. Or, mostly herself. One never got over what happened to her. But she tried. She threw herself into her work as an unspeakable. She started redecorating Grimmauld Place. She cooked supper every night, became a bit more controlling, a bit more demanding, and a bit more passive-aggressive.

It wasn't, perhaps, a healthy method of coping, but it was her way, and it worked for her. Harry was such a dear, that he didn't care that she essentially became the lady of the house. After all, such a job would typically fall on his wife, but he still hadn't found anyone after... after Gin took the side of her brother. And, oh, hadn't that stung, that her best friend, close as sisters, had believed her abusive ex-husband.

But! Alls w... No, she couldn't say that, couldn't believe in the famous quote. Her arms ached for the child that never was, the baby that didn't have a chance. Her arms ached, and her heart stung. Just as she ached for her old friend and ferocious protector of a kneezle, Crookshanks. All wasn't well, and she and Harry were living a facade of a life that could oh so easily be shattered in a million pieces.

But she would do her utmost to ensure that said facade never shattered. And after being through a war, her utmost was better than most.