5pm.
She was in the bath when Draco found her, knees pulled up to her chest, hugging them tightly to her. The water beneath the bubbles had a slightly pink tinge to it, too dull to be from any of the bottles lining the counter, and he felt his heart sink.
“Luna?” His voice sounded different even to himself, muted, almost as though he were miles away. “We need to get you to hospital.”
She nodded her head, lips pressed tightly together, moving them only to whisper, “I’m sorry,” against his ear as he pulled her up.
Water sloshed against them both, dousing the sleeves of his shirt, dripping down his torso, soaking into his trousers. He held Luna closely to him, hugging her for a long moment, wanting to tell her it was going to be okay but not wanting to lie to her, either.
He remembered this from when he was a boy, remembered hearing his mother sob and call out for his father or Severus, remembered seeing droplets of red on the floor, leading to a locked door with the sound of crying behind it.
“I’m scared,” Luna whispered against his damp shirt as he wrapped a towel around her, clasping onto the fabric - onto him - like a lifeline.
“Me too, love.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, brushed her hair behind her ear. Pretended not to notice the red streaking her thighs now that the water was gone. He felt like he was going to be sick from worry, but he didn’t want her to see that. “But I’ll be with you.”
2am.
When the healer came back in to see them, Luna was finally asleep, curled in a ball tightly, as though that could protect what they’d lost. Draco was sitting in the chair beside her bed, watching her, a book open in his lap. It was long forgotten, more a prop than anything. He hated the healers in training stopping by and trying to be supportive when he just looked lost; if he pretended he was reading, they kept walking, limiting their interaction to a sympathetic glance.
“Sorry for the wait.” The healer cleared his throat, looking to the bed. “It’s been an incredibly busy night.”
“She’s asleep.” Draco closed the book and set it on the table. “You can tell me everything. I’ll make sure she knows when she wakes.”
“Mr. Malfoy, with all due respect, you aren’t my patient…”
“And you aren’t lying in this bed, losing the baby you’ve been wanting for over a year.” Draco’s jaw tightened. “You can tell me, and I’ll tell my wife. You’re not waking her up.”
A witch who looked like she was just a year out of Hogwarts had entered with the healer and stood behind him, a bundle of some sort clutched to her chest. She hadn’t said a word, but as the healer opened his mouth again, the witch stepped forward. “I can come back later.” She paused. “If she has questions, I mean. Waking her up won’t help.”
There was a beat of silence and then, with a weary sigh, the healer gave in. “As you’ve deduced, she is indeed having a miscarriage. I’ll send her home if that’s what she wants, but we can do a procedure here to…hasten the process. There are tests we can run afterward to try to figure out what happened, but they may not give you any answers. No sex for two weeks. Consult with us or your mediwitch if there are any questions.”
Draco hated how the wizard sounded, all clinical and distant, even though he understood it. It wasn’t the healer’s heart breaking and he had to do variations of this his whole shift - but it made Draco glad that he’d insisted on letting Luna sleep.
The witch stayed behind in the room as the healer left and approached Draco, with what he could now tell was a blanket in her hands. She handed it to him gently, glancing over at Luna. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Malfoy.”
5am.
There were a lot of things he could handle - being berated and yelled at, insulted and broken down bit by bit, the Cruciatus… the stares and whispers as he and Luna walked down the streets in Diagon Alley. With her, he could keep going.
He couldn’t handle seeing her suffer.
He heard her crying softly and after a glance toward the door to their private room, he slid onto the bed behind her. She turned toward him, her face streaked with tears, and buried her head against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “About the baby.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize about.” He wrapped his arms around her, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “But I’m sorry, too.”
“I’m scared this will happen again.” Her words were a soft whisper. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We can talk about that later, love. We’ll figure it out.” Draco felt his heart constrict. “Whatever you need.”
Luna tried to press closer to him, clutching at his shirt. He felt her shake slightly as she started to cry again, felt the tell-tale stinging in his own eyes just before tears started tracking down his face.
Before Luna, he hadn’t wanted kids. What right did he have to screw up another life? He’d seen himself as most of the wizarding world saw him - a rich man from a weathy, classist and racist family, who had done terrible things during the war - and thought no child deserved to be saddled with that. But with her, he felt seen. With her, he felt like there was a reason to get up every morning, to work to prove to the rest of the world that everything she saw in him was there and real.
When she asked him a year into their marriage if he still didn’t want kids, he’d hesitated. ‘Actually…’
And a year later, they started trying.
He remembered the anticipation every month, the moments of wondering ‘is this is it?’ And he remembered, too, taking her in his arms every time it wasn’t.
Her face had shone when she finally told him that ‘yes, we’re pregnant!’
They had wanted this baby.
They had no idea how to navigate in a world without it now.