April 19th, 1999.

The afternoon slid sideways quickly, because as much as Hermione wanted to do a full tour of the Abbey, she understood her companions' interest in magical history ended at precisely the point rain began. For a while, they clammed their jaws to stop teeth from clattering as they admired the view from the hill, boats coming into port from the dense grey that hid the horizon, trailing tendrils of mist and balancing precariously on the tempests of waves, but then Ron said that just watching was making him seasick and they abandoned all sightseeing aspirations in favour of a dark alley from which to apparate away.

They took over the sofa in the drawing room and warmed their socked feet in the glow of the fireplace, which they fed with scraps of old newspaper and dried pinecones. Their insides, they warmed with the butterbeer Ron had brought along, spiced and comforting.

It all felt bizarre to Hermione: Harry's easy laugh, chatting nonsensically about the weather, the half-light of the dawning evening, Ron's bare ankles showing from under his hitched-up trousers, stretched in her lap. There'd initially been a thread of tension, as Hermione and Ron settled into this new space, unaccustomed to Harry's casual hosting, to the possibility that Professor Snape might emerge from wherever he'd hidden away and tell them off for putting their feet on the coffee table. But as the hours wore off, that tension had eased off Ron, whose body now felt molten beneath her hands, his smiles coming in full and uninhibited, his voice soaring loud. Hermione felt a separateness from him that she didn't care for, but her own anxiety remained, curled too tightly in her chest to be forgotten.

She'd attempted to chivvy the conversation toward more serious topics, such as Harry's breakdown just before New Year's, but it hadn't caught. The two of them were not in the mood for seriousness, and though Harry answered her questions, he did so in a way that made her feel foolish for even asking. Like it had happened to some other Harry, like this Harry had retained little memory of it, like it should be obvious.

Time here stretched, an hour the full scope of Hermione's usual afternoon, the pattering of rain against the windowsills so ceaseless that she wondered if they should be breaking out the arcs, and yet they'd not done anything. She could be researching Draco's New Zealand cousin – 'serious, dull, terrible at parties, sort of like you' frankly wasn't much to go on when trying to assume someone's identity. She could be down in the kitchens, finding out the names of the elves who'd been let go when the school board decided to cut staff after a drop in student admittance. She could be sifting through the library's archives, old pages of the Daily Prophet crinkling under her fingers, to better prepare for meeting Terence Thickey, Narcissa Malfoy's favourite Elf Breeder.

Despite Harry and Ron's peaking voices, despite the hum of the deluge outside, the house in Sandsend seemed quieter to Hermione than even the Hogwarts library, with that eery quiet that permeated skin and drew heaviness into bones. It made her feel on edge, restless and resentful.

Somewhere, a door thudded open and closed. Ron yanked his legs off Hermione's lap and sat up straight.

'Potter!' came a summons. Hermione drew some satisfaction from no longer being the only one uncomfortable.

'Mate, shouldn't you—' Ron murmured when Harry made no effort to move. Hermione straightened the collar of her shirt. Then, she did the same to Ron's.

'Potter!' came again from the bowels of the house. Harry held up a hand. Eyes trained on him, they listened to silence for a good beat, until,

'—Harry!'

'Coming!' Harry yelled before rushing out of the room.

'This is weird,' Ron declared. 'If he comes in, you do the talking. I am too weirded out by the whole thing.'

'What am I supposed to talk to him about?'

'I don't know, you're good at talking to teachers, you'll think of something.'

Voices drifted in through the door, diluted by distance and the thick walls. Hermione summoned the tentative mind map she'd created of the house, and determined Professor Snape and Harry must have moved into the kitchen.

'Are you free next weekend?' she asked Ron without looking.

'Uh, yeah. It's not Hogsmeade weekend though, is it?'

'No,' she felt suddenly nervous, though couldn't fathom why he would say no. 'But I've got something planned and I was hoping you might want to help me.'

'Sure,' he said immediately. Hermione felt terrible for not laughing at some of his jokes earlier.

'I'm going to impersonate Draco's cousin from New Zealand,' she told him, 'and I'm going to meet a House Elf Breeder to find out how many returns he'd had over the past year, and what he is doing with them. I thought we could pretend you're my fiancé and we're thinking of getting an elf for our new home.'

Ron stared at her. 'I've got to say, I thought we were done with undercover missions when the war ended.'

'Does that mean you won't do it?' She could do it on her own, of course, though it would be significantly more stressful: Hermione wasn't a great actress and Ron knew more about pureblood customs. But she wanted to include him in this, because this was her life, now, this was all she could think about; this was important and he was important and maybe they could be important together.

'No, I'll do it alright,' he laughed. 'Just, you're going to have to give me my backstory or whatever, yeah? Do I need to scavenge the Burrow for some family heirloom ring or something, so we can really sell it?'

Hermione pulled closer to him and explained. Tried to explain. His heartbeat was loud and steady in her right ear, and making it hitch and race when she unexpectedly whispered into his neck was more fun than carefully constructed schemes. The voices in the kitchen were arguing now and Ron was about to ask her whether they should go and intervene, she could tell, so she kissed him, desperate to prolong this feeling of unhurried relief.

After a while, they were interrupted by a cough. They jerked apart so suddenly Hermione thought she'd torn a ligament. Fortunately, it was only Harry, a little red-faced, watching them with a glib smirk.

'I was out of the room for five minutes,' he said as Hermione straightened her hair. 'I'm afraid to imagine what I'd have found if I'd gone for ten.'

'Is everything alright?' Ron made the smart choice not to engage. 'Should we go hang out in your bedroom or something?'

'No, no, just, uh, are you guys hungry yet? Snape's going to start on dinner.'

'What, for us?' Ron gaped. 'Hermione, how can you tell if there's poison in your food?'

'Yeah, well, I've told him not to bother,' Harry shrugged, 'but you heard how that went. My advice is, whatever happens, just go with it, alright? He's been a little—unhinged, lately.'

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look between them. Hermione thought maybe she should take the joke about poison at least a little seriously.

'Have you not been getting along?' she asked.

'It's fine,' Harry looked off to the side. Whatever it was, he didn't want to say it with her eyes on him. 'It's just that he's sort of found out some things about the Dursleys. You know, how they weren't all that nice to me. He's not great at processing, big surprise.'

'Oh,' Hermione said. She wondered what things Professor Snape had learnt, exactly. She was positive there were a great many to learn, most of which she only guessed at; all of which made her feel a strange combination of guilty, uncomfortable and oddly grateful. 'How is he taking it?'

'Well, he's trying to be extra kind to me,' Harry grinned, mood immediately restored, 'which is so against his nature that it's slowly destroying him from within. I think he's got maybe a few weeks left.'

'I'm trying to imagine what Snape trying to be kind looks like,' Ron mused. 'Blimey, that's terrifying. How are you taking it?'

She recognized it as a genuine question concealed in a joke. She had the impulse to take his hand resting on the cushion, so she did, and smiled to herself when it was squeezed.

'It's been a little tense,' Harry admitted. 'I don't know, I feel like we'd got to some sort of harmony and now that's all ruined. I get that this isn't a comfortable thing to know about, for anyone, you know, and especially when— but I'm the one who has to live with it, and I'm managing it loads better. It just doesn't help me much when people dredge it all back up, you know?'

'Do you not think that maybe you should?' Hermione asked. 'You know, dredge it all up? Because Harry, it can't be healthy to keep it all bottled up—'

'I'm not keeping anything bottled up, Hermione,' Harry shook his head at her. 'I'm honestly fine. I just prefer to live my day to day life without thinking about it, which seems pretty healthy to me, to be honest.'

'Yes, but—' Ron threw her a glance that seemed to advise against continuing, so she decided to change approach. 'You know, I was in St. Mungo's a few weeks ago. We have this first-year who's having sessions every other week, and all the teachers were telling me how she's been doing very well, so her head of house suggested we cut back on her hours. Agatha, she's one of the Mind Healers, she told me no way, and I tried explaining that the girl has made lots of friends, she's doing well in all her classes, she eats well, everyone's saying she's cheerful and engaged—she's a Muggleborn, you see, and her parents were murdered by Voldemort last year. But she's doing so well.'

'Probably repressing,' Ron supplied, nodding along as if he'd offered some insight that Agatha would have appreciated. Hermione glanced at Harry to confirm he found it hilarious, too.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'That is essentially what Agatha told me, too. She said that repression is actually a very useful mechanism a lot of the time, because you can't always afford to let traumatic memories distract you from the here-and-now. That girl, for instance, she had to focus on finding her feet in the wizarding world, in a new school, in a new social setting and so on. But that's temporary, because once that novelty eases off, when she catches a moment of quiet, that's when it will all come rushing back.'

'So I have to stay busy is what you're saying,' Harry grinned. 'Great, how about we go on a stroll to the beach then, since it's stopped raining?'

Ron groaned. 'But the sofa is so comfy—and dinner's going to be done soon—'

'We'll go quickly,' Harry promised, ignoring the glares she was sending his way. 'Come on, Ron, you've heard Hermione. If I don't want to make bunk-buddies with Lockhart any time soon, I have to keep moving.'

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Repressed was this chapter's title in my original outline, so.

Thank you to everyone reading. I'll be uploading another shorter chapter when I get a free moment today, so depending on when you're checking back in, it might already be up.

Meanwhile, a shoutout to last week's guest reviewer Emily: I read your comment first thing in the morning and it warmed my heart so much! I'm really glad you've enjoyed the story and this latest chapter in particular, and that you even happened on it in the first place! Now I feel like I should pull myself together and try to establish some consistent time for my uploads so you don't have to sit around refreshing ;) Thank you!