Lovelight

Mamma Mia

Breaks were overrated. Relaxation was overrated. Anything that wasn't working was overrated.

Pansy had told her to let up, to take a break, to sit back and enjoy her daughter's wedding. But how could she do that when everything was falling apart at the seams? Well, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration seeing as everything surrounding the Sparkling Spell was always falling apart at the seams, but it was still a true statement. As it was, they already had to push the wedding back, meaning that they would have to entertain the wedding guests for longer because the damn owls hadn't been able to send the updated invitations in time.

Hermione took a deep breath, steadying herself in her room, her hand on her dresser as she let her head hang and the air move through her. It would be okay. She had managed being Maia's strong and independent mother for almost twenty years, so she could continue to be strong and independent until Maia was no longer hers.

Maia. Where would she be without her? While her pregnancy had been very unplanned‒ most witches didn't plan to get pregnant at nineteen‒ her daughter had been anything but unwelcomed. Sure, the dreams she had of the life the two of them would live didn't exactly come to fruition, but that was more than okay. Maia was her love, her light, and although she hadn't planned to be single and run an inn and bookstore in the south of France, Hermione wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Motherhood had been, well, a big change. She knew it would be, caring for another human being was no small undertaking, but she hadn't been prepared for how unprepared she felt. She gladly would have burned the earth to the ground for her daughter, but she wasn't even sure she was properly taking care of her. Magical babies were hard, prone to bouts of accidental magic and ailments that muggle children weren't.

More often than not, she found herself wishing that she had a partner to help her. But, it wouldn't have worked. That was why she had left in the first place, because it was too complicated, and she knew that she had made the right decision for herself at the time.

Now, however? Now she somewhat regretted her decision. Yes, staying would have been complicated and confusing and unfair at times, but it was also unfair how unfit Hermione was when it came to parenting. She wasn't the one to be overly loving, or at least, not overtly so. She would order all of the books that Maia requested, take her down to the beach to play in the sand whenever she asked, and even learned how to bake so that they could bake cookies together, a typical thing that would elicit mother-daughter bonding. But she didn't know how to talk to her, how to hug her just because she loved her, how to be less of a mother and more of a friend. She had always told herself that she would be that type of mother when she had children, that she would be better than her own mother, but time and time again it was Maia who was advancing their relationship, not Hermione.

Maia was nothing if not ambitious, determined to make the most of their awkward relationship even when Hermione couldn't take it. She wanted nothing more than to be the best mother she could be, but it wasn't natural for her. She knew that Maia wanted her to be happy and the girl was more than beyond intent on bringing out those emotions from her mother. Still, that didn't automatically make her the cool mum, or the mum whose daughter could talk to her about anything, or the mum who would win mum of the year award from her child's preschool.

The fact that she had no idea what was doing most of the time ate her alive. It felt as if she was walking through a maze at twilight with a blindfold on, or even worse, as if she was existing in a world without any sunlight. She had done the right things, read all of the books on parenting while she had been pregnant, talked to all of the mothers on the island in hopes of receiving the best advice, everything she could to make sure she was prepared. Except, the books were wrong, the advice didn't work, and she was still unprepared. Everyone else seemed to be able to do it but her.