Hello Readers!

This is my first Dramione story but let me tell you… I read a lot of Damione and I am going to try to steer away from the clichés. I have planned out a lot of this story and I am not going to abandon this. This chapter is over 2500 words and it does not involve Hermione at all as she has yet to enter the story. Just some basic information: This is set 3 years after The Battle of Hogwarts. Draco and Astoria were married when she was 15 and he 17 on June 17th of 1998 just weeks after the end of the war and Hermione left the wizarding world 3 days later on June the 20th. But there is no relationship between the events.

Please to review these chapters as I am a rather amateur writer. I'm going to rate this K but I will probably change the rating at a later date because I would like the opportunity to write smut and I think I would be quite good at it.

So yes. Review. Enjoy. And reviews do encourage writers to continue their stories. This is going to be a story that is updated weekly.

~RachelBarbaraBerry.

P.S: Anything you recognise belongs to J.K Rowling + Involved publishing firms.

P.P.S: This is not beta'd. I'm usually good with typos but I'm sorry if there are any.

P.P.P.S: The image is also not mine. I googled. If it's yours or you know whose it is please tell me so I can credit them. Much love.

Draco stared at Astoria from across the table. Her light green eyes were cast downwards as she recited the words that she'd read too many times since the letter arrived. Draco pressed his hands to his face and dragged them back, stretching his features.

"We deeply regret to inform you of this condition." Astoria's eyebrows were furrowed and a tear slipped down her cheek "Sincerely, Healer Davis."

She lifted her eyes and green met grey.

"Draco?" Her voice was quiet as she placed the parchment on the table between them

"Please talk to me." She rubbed her hands together and wrung them together.

"What are we going to do, Astoria?" He asked, his eyes dropped and fixed on the parchment "You know what the marriage contract says."

"Yes, Draco." She snapped "I know exactly what the bloody contract says. I've known what it says since before I married you."

She stood and Draco cringed as her chair screeched backwards. She snatched up piece of parchment and walked angrily to the waste basket of the office, dropping the paper into the bin and setting it on fire. She braced herself against the cabinet beside the smouldering bin and her eyes found Draco's in their wedding portrait directly in front of her.

"I know that we need to produce a child before our fifth anniversary." She sighed helplessly

"I know that if we don't then the dark magic your grandfather placed on the contract will force you to produce a child with anyone that is able. Regardless of your vow to me. And you will die by the infidelity clause in our contract." She turned and leaned against the cabinet, crossing her arms across her stomach.

Draco remained stoic and silent. His blonde hair brushed his forehead and his silver eyes were blank of emotion. Astoria glanced around his office, there was an entire wall of bookshelves and a sofa where she knew Draco would sometimes fall asleep reading. His desk was clear of papers, she knew that he kept his study extremely tidy and his papers were diligently organised in filing drawers beneath his desk. On the desk there was a lamp and three quills in a row below and inkpot. Her eyes found the back of a picture frame which she knew held a picture of herself and Narcissa. The walls were dark brown panelling with a multi-paned windows overlooking the garden of their 3 story home. She saw as Draco's hands clenched into fists and he lifted his head and found her eyes. After being married to him for so long, despite his emotional and mental walls, Astoria had learned how to decipher his emotions. She could see the helplessness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Draco." Her voice cracked slightly and her chest tightened as she took a rasping breath. They had been silent in his study for half an hour now.

"I am so sorry that I can't carry your child."

His eyes softened and he stood, striding over to her. He was only slightly taller than her, her eyes were level with his nose.

"Tori." Draco wrapped his arms around her shoulders and brought her to him, her head resting in the crook of his neck. "This isn't your fault." He tilted his head to lean against hers as she hooked her arms up under his, her fingers clinging to his shoulders

"It's the blood. The intermingling of your family tree. And my family tree as well." He sighed

"You just got a raw deal." He placed a soft kiss to her temple.

Astoria chuckled humourlessly

"Thanks, Draco." She placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back to show she was able to hold herself together now

"Of all the purebloods I could have been saddled with I'm glad it was you." She kissed his cheek.

"We still need to figure out what to do. I have three viable frozen eggs." She walked back to his desk and sat on the chair in front of it

"When muggle women find out they can't carry children, because of a dangerous uterus, they use a surrogate." Astoria said directing her wand at a spare roll of parchment which extended and levitated to form a screen.

"Iveniet viam" She muttered and words began to form on the parchment.

Draco sat in the second chair in front of his desk and read the words, his eyes widened and he look at Astoria who was hunched over another piece of parchment writing out notes on what the screen was saying.

"There's a muggle agency that connects couples with surrogate mothers." Astoria said, glancing slightly at Draco

"The Wizarding World simply doesn't account for infertility." She sighed and jotted down the contact details of the agency.

Draco closed his eyes as the truth crashed over him. He wouldn't be able to have a child with his wife. Regardless of whether they had chosen to be married to each other, they were content. They would never be in love, but they were content. Now they needed somebody to carry their child because Astoria simply couldn't. Where would this person stand in their life? In their child's life? Draco climbed the stairs leading from an almost hidden alcove and lift opened the door to the attic where he kept everything he wanted to remember. He sat on one of the cushions throw haphazardly on a mat on the unpolished wooden floor and began rummaging through one of the trunks.

And that was how Astoria found him four hours later. She'd changed from her business-like pencil skirt and blazer that she'd worn to Diagon Alley that morning and was now donning a pair of dark satin pajamas that Draco had gifted her after her first miscarriage and she'd been on bed rest. Her dark brown, almost black, hair was pulled into a loose bun atop her head with straight pieced poking out of it.

"Hey, what are you doing?" She walked lightly over to him and sat beside him with her knees up to her chest. Though they would never be in love she did trust Draco with everything she had and she would do anything to make sure he lives a long and happy life.

"Just going through some stuff from the manor." He turned and smiled a half smile. She saw that it didn't reach his eyes but she knew he was trying.

"Look," Draco said and he held out a year book that had been released in June after The Battle of Hogwarts. It was of all the students that would have been attending that year had it not been the war. Each house was given two pages across which 70 faces smiled out at them the entire house. He turned to the Slytherin pages. They were covered with dark green silk with a silver serpent creating detailing in each corner. Draco found his face and saw he was not smiling, merely smirking. He remembered the day this was taken. It was in his 6th year and some 5th year runt of a kid was the photographer. Draco was smirking because he was watching Crabbe and Goyle steal candy from the discarded robe of the Gryffindor photographer, orange at one end and purple at the other. He frowned noting that the other student of his year looked older then he realised he had not been in attendance for his 7th year, and they had been.

"I look like a child!" Astoria exclaimed looking at her picture in the row of 5th year girls. This was taken mere weeks before the battle that left the school scarcely inhabitable. It took a full year, magic and all, to return the school to its original glory. She reached over and turned that page, it was Gryffindor next. The page was covered by thick maroon fabric with silky gold detailing. His eyes drifted to the bottom of the seven rows where he saw most of those ten students faces were decorated with bruises and scars. He remembered the Carrows from meetings and his father's conversations. They were brutal. His eyes moved to the end of the row which held three pictures taken the same year as his because the inhabitants were 6th years. Potter, Weasley and Granger. He eyes slide over the first two but lingered on the last. She'd left the Wizarding World a few weeks after the Battle, emptied her Gringotts Vault of everything that had been gifted to her for her role in the war and left, not even her friends knew where she'd gone. Dropped off the face of the earth. Potter and Weasley had searched for months, but Draco knew that Granger wouldn't be found unless she wanted to be.

"I wonder where she is." Astoria said, breaking him from his reverie noticing his eyes stilling over Granger's.

"Probably saving house elves in on some other continent." He brushed Astoria's comment off and closed the book, putting it back in the trunk and pushing the trunk back against the wall where he found it.

Draco absentmindedly turned the page of the morning edition Daily Prophet to find that Potter and Weasley we following another lead to find the last third of The Golden Trio and before he could finish the first sentence the paper flew out of his hands and into the waiting palm of his wife who closed the paper and put it on the table.

"We need to talk, Draco." Astoria stated as she summoned a pamphlet that she'd picked up the evening before.

"And what do we need to talk about, Astoria?" Draco replied coldly, already knowing

"This agency, they'll give us someone to carry our baby. They'll give us somebody that will save your life, Draco." Astoria said pressingly

"Don't put your walls up again." She noted the ice in his eyes and duplicated her pamphlet.

"We need this Draco. And you need this." She slid the pamphlet over to him. She'd floo'd Daphne and found that she also was unable to carry children but she and Theo had decided to adopt since Theo's older brother had supplied an heir for the Nott estate. Pansy, it seemed, was already pregnant, with twins. She and a French wizard had begun dating after she and her family fled from the aftermath of The Battle of Hogwarts. There was nobody they knew that could carry their child and this agency was the last resort. She turned to leave the kitchen

"Astoria." Draco's voice stopped her in her tracks. "Get in touch with them, organise an appointment for tomorrow. I suppose this is the only choice we have."

She turned and gave him a small smile then continued up to her study to make a phone call to the muggle world.

Draco's eyelid's drooped while his wife paid rapt attention to the man sitting across from them. They'd been in this appointment for an hour and a half, the man had gone on and on about the process of the surrogacy and the chance of success. Astoria had been focused on the man the entire time and as he stood offering them beverages she noticed her husband's eyes were closing. She slapped his arm and he jolted awake

"Draco! This is your life. Pay attention." She chastised him. At the muggle doctor's confusion she backtracked and explained

"Sorry, my husband has always wanted children and this has been a difficult time for us." The man left to get hot drinks and Astoria dropped her head into her hands and breathed deeply. Draco watched her and asked

"Do you think this is the right thing for us?"

"We don't really have a choice, Draco." She grimace at him

"I think we should sign the papers when he gets back so that they can start the process of finding a suitable mother for our child."

Draco frowned then let his mask of indifference fall across his features

"Yeah, O.K."

When the man returned Draco told him what they'd decided and asked for the papers that required review and signatures.

"Just take this home and read through it carefully." Doctor Tarson said

"After you have signed we will put you in touch with the woman the best suits the criteria you are looking for. Then we will implant the zygotes of your eggs and your sperm in the woman and hopefully at least one of them will take."

Draco cringed slightly, the man had over explained the process during the meeting

"Thank you, sir." Astoria said holding out her hand "You've been very helpful."

"That's no problem, Mrs. Malfoy. You two seem very young to be wanting children though, I suppose after 3 years of trying you are very sure of your desire." Doctor Tarson smiled and Astoria looked at Draco searching for some sign of acknowledgement finding nothing she reassured the doctor and turned Draco from the door walking out of the institute.

"What did you think, Draco?" she took his hand to lead him to a nearby alcove where they could apparate back to their home.

"I hope that they find someone soon, is all." He squeezed Astoria's hand reassuringly

"Me too. Two years, Draco. That's all we have left." Astoria replied just before the suffocation of apparation took her.

Draco and Astoria waited for news for five weeks before Astoria received a phone call one afternoon as she studied her healing course notes.

"Hello, this is Doctor Tarson from the Brighton Surrogacy Agency calling for Astoria Malfoy."

"Speaking. Hello, Doctor Tarson. Have you found a mother?" Astoria asked, sending a patronus to Draco asking him to come to her study

"There is a woman that meets all your health and well-being material and is willing to help you" Astoria could hear the accomplished smile in the doctor's voice

Draco came striding into the room stopping still as he saw Astoria on the phone.

"Yes. Yes I understand. Tomorrow at lunch sounds fine. With the IVF happening on Saturday if she agrees? Yes, that's will be perfect. Thank you so much Doctor Tarson. I look forward to it." She hung up the phone and met Draco's eyes, grinning.

"Guess what." She said walking to the front of her desk

"What?" Draco asked, barely following the conversation.

"Doctor Tarson found us a surrogate and we're going to meet her tomorrow! We're going to be parents Draco!" Astoria jumped up and threw her arms around Draco's neck as his arms slowly came up around his waist. They were going to have a child.

After the news Astoria called Daphne and told her while Draco slipped back up to the attic. He rummaged through his old Hogwarts uniform and old trophies he won before he began at the prestigious school. He found a picture of him and his parents after the Dark Lord fell in 1981. Lucius was laughing while Narcissa made faces at a tiny Draco who would giggle and gold and silver sparks would shoot out of both his parent's wands from Draco's unbridled magical potential. He smiled at the picture and swore to himself that this is the kind of family his child will have. A happy uncomplicated together family that will laugh and play and live in harmony. Draco promised this as he scourgified the picture and set it on a table in the corner when the attic's window let light hit it perfectly.

Please review as it motivates me to write more!

Also. Check out my 'fic' "Harry Potter: A Musical Parody" for a bit of a laugh.