Written for Quidditch League

Team: Falmouth Falcons

BEATER 2 Prompt: The Adumu Dance from Africa; write about a character that breaks a familial or societal tradition.

Additional Prompts:

(song) Demons - Imagine Dragons

(object) snow

(genre) tragedy

Warnings: Pregnancy loss

This is a slightly AU/epilogue ignoring fic.

Big Thank Yous to my teammates who beta'd this fic for me. All the love and appreciation.

"I'm thinking a sort of vintage vibe. Sepia and cream wallpaper with a text print, and a border with Golden Snitches that fly about the background."

Hermione shook her head. "Draco. Why is it always Quidditch with you?"

His lips jutted out in an adorable pout. "Just once I'd like to have the nursery give a nod to the best sport ever invented."

Draco wrapped his arms around Hermione's still-flat belly and rubbed his pale hands over her blouse in a soothing motion. "Isn't that right, little guy? Wouldn't you love a beautiful little Snitch floating around your bedroom?"

Hermione smiled as she ran her finger over the pale wood slats of the crib that had cradled her two sons. The memory of their sweet, sleeping bodies flashed through her mind and hit her with a wave of longing nostalgia. Soon. Soon this crib and her heart would be filled all over again.

"It might not be a boy this time. I've been sicker than I was with Scorpius or Leo. They say that girls will do that to you. More estrogen, you know."

Draco rolled his eyes. "More Muggle wives' tales, I think you mean."

Hermione took a deep breath to fuel a well-researched lecture about hormone levels and scientific studies, but she was interrupted before she even began by the nursery door being yanked open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Narcissa Malfoy's sharp stilettos stabbed into the floorboards as she marched into the room, brandishing that morning's copy of The Daily Prophet. She threw it down onto the changing table and jabbed her finger at a second-page article. "These traditions are traditions for a reason. Do you have any idea how improper—"

Draco waved his hands dismissively. "Really, Mother. The only reason wizards normally delay the announcement of pregnancy until the second trimester is for fear of miscarriage. Hermione is nine weeks along—the largest danger has passed. She's no more likely to lose the baby now than she is in two months' time."

"Besides," Hermione said, "The papers were already publishing wild speculations. You can only appear pale-faced and nauseous in public so many times before people begin to take notice."

"Well, I don't like it. It's a shameful display."

"Now, now, mother—you'll upset the baby. Isn't that right, little Carina?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "So you admit that you're hoping for a girl?"

A wink and an outstretched arm was the only answer she received on that subject. "We'd best be going, love. The appointment with that dreadful Muggle doctor starts in half an hour, and it always takes so much longer to arrive anywhere by car."

The sound of newspaper rustling followed them from the room as Narcissa trailed behind. "That's another thing. Why won't you allow me to recommend you to a magical healer for your pregnancies? I find it quite unusual that the Malfoy heirs are being seen to by those vulgar Muggle doctors. A hundred years of time-honored tradition—"

"Mother." Draco's voice was a warning. "Hermione has perfectly researched the subject, and it is non-negotiable. A magical pregnancy is no different than a Muggle one, and their doctors are just as capable of overseeing it."

As they crossed over the carpeted living room towards the front door, Narcissa was finally distracted by two small boys attaching themselves to her feet like a pair of rambunctious slippers. She scolded them lightheartedly as Draco and Hermione slipped out the door.

Thirty minutes later, the couple found themselves leaving a double trail of shoe-prints in the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk next to the maternity clinic on their way to their first prenatal appointment. Draco's grin was wide with anticipation as he opened the door and ushered his wife inside.

Hermione's heart fluttered lie a hummingbird as she found a seat in the crowded waiting room. Even after two children, the first time she got to look at her baby on an ultrasound never got old. Two long months of waiting for this moment were about to seem so worthwhile.

Tap, tap, tap went Hermione's foot on the tiled floor until a bubbly young nurse called them back to the ultrasound room. As she settled onto the crinkly paper over the exam table, the nurse pushed her glasses up her nose and looked over papers on a wooden clipboard.

"So, your due date is September 25. Third baby?"

Hermione nodded.

Draco, high spirits that he was in, reached for Hermione's hand and gave it a squeeze as the nurse squirted warm lubricant onto Hermione's belly.

"What's it going to be like, sharing a birthday month with your daughter?" Draco asked.

Her heart grew warm. "I'm so excited. She—or he—will be a Virgo, like me. Maybe she'll share my love of reading."

Three pairs of eyes glued themselves to the monitoring screen of the ultrasound machine as the nurse began rolling the plastic wand around on the flat skin under Hermione's belly button.

Any minute now, the image of her grape-sized baby would pop up on that screen. Image after image of black shapes surrounded by fuzzy gray captivated the group. The nurse frowned and changed the angle of the wand again and again, capturing different views of the black blob. Several minutes passed.

This was taking too long.

With each empty image, Hermione's heart dropped deeper, until it seemed to reside at the soles of her feet.

Finally, the nurse swallowed and spoke. "Here's your uterus. You can see that there's an empty pocket of fluids right there where your baby should be. That's the gestational sac. It's measuring nine weeks along."

Tears stung the corners of Hermione's eyes and she blinked rapidly in a vain attempt to hold them back. "That's just not possible. I've had a perfectly healthy pregnancy. I've been sick. We were going to paint the nursery next week."

The nurse set the ultrasound wand down on a steel table. "I'm so sorry. This happens sometimes, when the baby passes very early on in the pregnancy but your body doesn't get the memo. I'm afraid there is no baby; not anymore."

The nurse was still talking and Draco was nodding stoically along, but Hermione stopped listening as death spread through her heart. The nurse fetched Hermione's doctor, who discussed medical options with them as she sat numbly on the table.

There was no baby. There hadn't been any baby, not for weeks or months. She had been a walking tomb, carrying around her dead seedling inside her body as she lovingly stroked her empty womb and dreamt of names and nursery colors.

Draco was pulling on her arm, leading her out to the waiting room when she snapped back to the surface to hear the doctor address her. "Make a follow-up appointment for next week, and we'll see if there's any change."

Obediently, she lined up behind three women in various stages of pregnancy to request an appointment to confirm the death of her baby. Tears fell unbidden as she stared at the swollen bellies surrounding her. She began to gasp and hiccup before Draco placed his hand on her back and led her to the door. "This was a terrible idea. We'll call for an appointment," he murmured in her ear as he led her through the dismal March snow to his black Jaguar.

The pure, white powder had turned to an ugly grey sludge under the tire tracks.

She had almost given up all pretense of keeping herself together as he swerved out of the parking lot and drove them home. The radio, still on her favorite station from the ride out, began to play a familiar song that tore a wail from her lungs.

When your dreams all fail

And the ones we hail

Are the worst of all

And the blood's run stale

It felt too appropriate, too painful to contemplate—a dagger to her already bleeding heart.

After Draco pulled into the carport and killed the engine, they sat there silently for a moment. Narcissa, with all her judgment, was sitting on the other side of that heavy wooden door.

"I'll deal with my mother. You can go lie down."

Hermione pulled her winter scarf around her face to hide the trails of her tears and pushed through the garage door, past Narcissa's raised eyebrows and straight to the bedroom, warding the door behind her.

She fumbled with the expensive magic-compatible radio system she had bought from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. The music didn't start quickly enough to drown out her mother-in-law's outraged murmurs warring with Draco's pleading tones, but once it did, she blasted the volume and cocooned herself in her down comforter as she listened to the song the fates had placed in her path on the way home from the worst doctor's appointment of her life.

She played it on repeat, over and over, until she had the lyrics memorized and began cry-screaming them through her strangled sobs.

A week passed. Hermione spent much of it furiously googling "missed miscarriage," and from what she could tell, there wasn't a lot of hope for her situation. She felt numb and cold as she stared up at the now-hated ultrasound screen for a second time to reveal what she already knew would be there: nothing.

Nothing but a gestational sac full of fluid, which, unfortunately, had to come out of her somehow.

The doctor gently led the couple to a private room to discuss their options. "You could just wait and see if your body expels the failed pregnancy on its own. But it's already been a couple of months, and it could still take up to two more months for it to happen naturally."

Two whole months of horrified anticipation? Hermione shook her head. "Please, I need it to be done. I need to let her go."

"Your other options are surgery or chemical induction."

"Please, give me the pills. I'd rather not have surgery if I don't have to." Besides, if it came to that, she would rather look into magical options than have a scalpel poking around her uterus. Narcissa would never have to know that sometimes magical healers knew things muggles didn't.

When they finally arrived back at home, prescription tucked safely into Hermione's beaded bag, Narcissa was waiting to pounce on them. "Have you figured out what to do about your premature pregnancy announcement?"

"I've decided to go with the truth. The papers will speculate no matter what, so I might as well control the narrative."

"Well, I never." A pristine manicured hand flew to rest over Narcissa's silk-spun robes. "A respectable witch would never allude to something so crass. It is strictly taboo."

Rage boiled beneath Hermione's skin. "Well, maybe it's about time that changed. Women are suffering in silence, hiding their grief from the world and mourning in dark corners because people like you have some outrageous idea that miscarriage is shameful."

"My dear, I really didn't—"

"I have nothing to be ashamed of!" Hermione's foot came down hard on the glossy wood floor. "And I will not be silenced to satisfy your outdated, harmful traditions. I will mourn my loss however I see fit!"

Narcissa's face was not so much proper as it was pink; she narrowed her eyes. "I told you not to make an announcement—your defiance has tempted the fates. If you had listened to me, this never would have happened."

A moment ago, Hermione didn't think it was possible to become any angrier than she already was. She was surprised to discover that even she wasn't right one-hundred percent of the time. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare put this on me. My miscarriage was not my fault. Breaking your ridiculous traditions had nothing to do with it."

Draco snapped out of his stunned silence and stepped in front of Hermione. "Mother, I think it's time you left."

Hermione didn't wait to see the back of her. She stomped through the living room, through the back door and into the garden. The frigid air seemed to have a cooling effect on her burning temper, and the snow was soft under her knees in front of the spot she and Draco had marked out to become a memorial for their never-to-be-born child.

She ran a finger over the moonstones they had arranged in a circle next to the rose garden. When the snow melted—the unseasonably late spring snow that seemed to be hanging around like the sorrow in her heart—they would plant a cherry tree in that circle.

Tears wet her cheeks as she considered the child that might have been. Was it another boy, with rosy cheeks and curly blond hair? Or a sweet girl; the daughter they had always dreamed of? She would never know. She would always wonder.

A peal of laughter ringing out over the shrubbery was her only warning before two pairs of brightly shining eyes rounded the corner. She swiftly dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief that had been living in her pocket ever since her life had been flipped upside down. The boys didn't need to be subjected to the darkness she was holding inside. She schooled her face, hiding away her grief as she threw her arms around her sons.

"Hermione," Draco's voice was soft and warm behind her. "Luna's in the drawing room. I'll keep the boys busy out here so you won't be interrupted."

Her fingers trembled as she stood and spun away from what had become her favorite spot in the world and headed towards the house. Luna had always been a reliable reporter and a loyal friend.

Hermione knew she could count on her to tell her story, and to tell it with dignity. And maybe, just maybe, the fact that she was opening up about her experiences in a culture that still considered it a taboo subject would embolden witches across Britain to feel a little less ashamed of their own losses and a little bit more empowered. That way, at least some good could come of her personal tragedy.

AN: This story is dedicated to my own September baby, may he or she always rest in peace, and to all the women who have ever felt marginalized by the lonely grief that surrounds the unfairly taboo topic of miscarriage. May we all be less ashamed and more empowered, and free to tell our stories.

P.P.S: There is more to this story, but it may be a while before it gets written. If you are interested in reading on, hit the follow button to be notified.