Chapter 8: If They Tried
A/N- prompt used: [Trope] Absent Mother
Word Count- 348
Warnings- talk of serious illness
Astoria stooped down to lay the bouquet of wildflowers at her mother's gravestone. She rose back up and slipped her fingers into her husband's grasp.
"How old were you?"
"Four," she answered. "Old enough to remember the way she smelled… Like honey. She smelled like honey. That's all I really remember of her, though."
Draco squeezed her hand gently, comfortingly, knowingly. She squeezed back.
Astoria heard her husband audibly swallow and she closed her eyes as she waited for the inevitable question.
"Will you get it?"
His question was carried away by the gentle breeze. He didn't ask again though. She was pretty sure he couldn't ask that question any louder if he tried.
It was sort of touching, in a way.
"The odds are 50/50."
"Oh," he said, like he'd been punched in the stomach. She glanced over at her husband. Draco was so pale he was almost translucent.
She squeezed his hand harder.
"I knew this already," he said. "Daphne told me all of this ages ago, so I knew… So why do I feel like I'm hearing this for the first time?"
Astoria knew the answer to that question. Hearing the odds now felt different because Draco was standing in front of her mother's grave, a woman she hardly remembered, and he wanted a family with this girl who might die. He wanted his children to have a mother.
She wanted her children to have a mother.
Or she didn't want children.
She said none of this aloud, of course. She didn't think she'd be able to give voice to her thoughts if she tried.
They returned home a few hours later. They made supper, read books by the fire, shared a cuppa before bed, and slept curled in each other's arms. The next morning they were back to their normal sarcastic selves.
However, her mother's grave hung over their heads like an executioners scythe.
When it came down on them both, it came down with authority… but they still had a little bit of time before that happened.
Though, not that much time.