Blood Will Tell – But So Will Mothers
A/N – This story is inspired by Seel'vor's classic "Lily versus Ginny" but told from a different perspective and viewpoint. While the story talks about the relationship between Harry and Hermione, neither one makes an appearance during the story. And while there is a trio in the story, it's not Seel'vor's trio (sorry Daph). Everything Harry Potter belongs to JKR and her corporate minions/partners.
No Peruvian Maned Wolves or Peruvian Fanged Orchids were harmed during this story. Winter wolves, however, are perfectly capable of looking out for themselves.
Chapter One – Harry Warms to Divination
Late morning – Special Projects Greenhouse – The Oakes (Longbottom Manor) - Staffordshire
Carefully avoiding the lashing tendrils, Neville gently finished inserting the dried clumps of wolf blood around the roots of the Peruvian Fanged Orchid that he was currently attempting to coax back to health. Just as he gently prodded the last sticky clump of blood into place, his relief turned to exasperation as the silence of his greenhouse was broken by a small explosion of sound and a copy of The Daily Prophet landed with a thud beside him, sending the rare bright green orchid into a frenzy as her tendrils lashed out, trying to find the new threat.
"Ginevra, if you've put Isabella off her feed, I'm going to send your arse packing off to South America to replace that freshly dried blood from a Peruvian Maned Wolf." Shaking his head, Neville stepped back and healed the bleeding cut on his forearm where the orchid's razor sharp tendrils had caught him.
"Pffft. Daphne's got that pair of winter wolves; I'll floocall Astoria and have her wheedle a couple of pints of their blood out of the Ice Bitch." Dismissing Neville's complaint with a wave of her hand, Ginny Weasley cast a quick scourgify on a nearby table and hopped up on it.
"They're called Peruvian Fanged Orchids for a reason," Neville retorted under his breath not wanting to incite the volatile witch any further since he knew good and well what information in today's edition of The Daily Prophet had set her off.
"How could The Daily Prophet print that twaddle?" Perched upon his worktable, Ginny was a cross between the picture of righteous indignation and the picture of spoiled petulance. Glaring at the newspaper that was still unopened beside Neville, she threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Why doesn't anyone believe me when I tell them that it's just a matter of time before Harry works through his issues and comes back to me?"
Finally having had enough of Ginny's whinging on the subject of Harry Potter, Neville carefully stood and picked up the paper she had thrown at him. Opening it to the Society pages, Neville scanned down the column until he reached the 'offending' article. Folding the page back so the picture of Harry and Hermione, arms wrapped around each other and waving towards the photographer, was up.
"Ginny, it's not 'twaddle'," Neville said as gently as possible as he walked over and leaned against the table beside her. "For once, they didn't fabricate something out of whole cloth, they're simply printing the engagement announcement that the families prepared."
"Don't be ridiculous, Neville," Ginny snarled trying to knock the paper out of his hands. "Harry simply needs to come to grips with what Mum did. Hermione's just taking advantage of him when he's fragile and …" Breaking off as Neville began laughing, Ginny leaned over and smacked him on the shoulder. "What in Merlin's name is so funny?"
"You're seriously going to try to convince anyone who knows them that Hermione's taking advantage of Harry?" Staring at his old friend as if she had just gone around the twist, Neville pinched the bridge of his nose trying to ward of the headache that he knew was in the offing.
"Harry's 'come to grips' with what Molly did, and you can thank the fact he actually likes and respects Arthur for the fact that your mother isn't a permanent resident in Azkaban." Holding up his hand to keep her from interrupting, Neville ploughed on.
"Your mother potioned both of them for several years, the only reason you're not persona non grata with them is the fact that George was able to convince Hermione that you were delusional enough about your crush on Harry …"
The specific details of whatever it was that George convinced Hermione of was lost in the explosion of Ginny's temper slipping its leash.
"Crush?" Turning a brilliant shade of red that most called 'Weasley Red' but was really a legacy of the Prewitt family, Ginny exploded from her seat on the worktable and began furiously pacing around the greenhouse.
"Harry and I were truly and completely in love," Ginny ranted. Her hair whipping around her as an extension of her volatile temper, Neville watched in morbid fascination as the tendrils from the Fanged Orchid tried to snatch the hair from the air.
"It is a deep and complex relationship that was meant to last the ages. Ever since I was six …"
"Ginevra Molly Weasley, that's just about enough of that!" Neville shouted, scaring his old friend out of her tirade. While he had grown into a very powerful and competent wizard, his pulling the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat during the Last Battle hadn't been a fluke, he was still as soft-spoken as he was during his school days so on those rare occasions he did raise his voice, it usually shocked everyone.
Except for Harry, Hermione, Sue Bones, and Hannah who all knew him well enough to know the hit wizard that was lurking beneath the calm herbologist exterior he showed the world. While Ginny was usually oblivious to everything when she was on a tear, warning bells related to survival went off in her subconscious when Neville shouted at her and she shut up with an amazed look on her face.
"Sit down, and listen to me, because I'm only going to say this once."
Pointing to the worktable that she had recently vacated, Neville waited until she meekly resumed her perch on the table before continuing. Seeing the pair of concerned house elves peeking into the greenhouse door, he smiled reassuringly to them, knowing that the shorter of the two, Buttercup, would be reporting back to Hannah as soon as she was satisfied that he wasn't in any danger. And since Buttercup knew Hannah's opinion of the Weasley witch she wasn't going anywhere until Ginny had left The Oakes.
"Ginny, there never was anything between you and Harry, on Harry's part, except for what occurred during those three weeks sixth year, and that was the result of those potions your mother brewed and got administered to Harry and Hermione." Seeing the indignant look on Ginny's face, Neville scowled.
"It was never a matter of 'Harry being too shy' or 'how those muggles raised him so he didn't recognize what he felt', or my personal favorite 'Harry was too noble to approach me so he just needed a little push' excuses that you used when Hermione discovered that the two of them had been potioned to the gills that year. It's always been Harry and Hermione. I was there that day they met on the train and there was something then and it only got stronger over the years."
"Nonsense, Harry and I are fated to be together. Harry's the spitting image of his father. I look like his mother. They were the perfect couple. We're the perfect couple," Ginny rebutted, giving her long red hair a flip. "You know what they say about Potter men and redheads."
"Harry's grandmother was a Black and his grand aunt was a Greengrass, and I've yet to see a ginger come out of either house," Neville countered with a smirk on his face. "And his great grandmother was a very blonde first generation witch."
Pausing for a second while Ginny mulled that over, Neville shrugged. "Though I suppose I could give Sue Bones and Natalie Churchill a floocall and let them know that Harry's a sucker for gingers."
Laughing at the indignant look on Ginny's face as she thought about the pair of witches Neville mentioned, he continued.
"Harry's not obsessed with physical appearances, though by any definition you'd care to use, Hermione's a very attractive witch." Seeing the calculating look on her face, Neville smiled. "If Harry were looking, which he isn't, he wouldn't be solely focused on looks."
"That's exactly my point," Ginny interrupted, oblivious to Neville's annoyance. "Harry knows me so well, and I know him. We simply have to end up together. Anything else would be unnatural. It's fate. Just look at …"
"I know, I know. Harry closely resembles his father, except for his eyes. You vaguely resemble his mother." Pausing for a moment, Neville waited until Ginny was about to comment on the 'resemble' remark, when he said, "And don't you think that might be just a bit disturbing, basing your whole relationship on the fact that you bear a passing resemblance to Lily Evans?"
Seeing the blank look on her face, Neville rolled his eyes and grimaced, thinking that she really couldn't be this thick. Conceding to himself that she was Ron's sister, he tried again.
"By that logic, you should be looking for someone that closely resembles your father, Arthur," he began, smiling at the slight look of disgust on her face. "Though I wouldn't say your parents are 'perfect' for each other, they seem to have done very well together."
"Don't be ridiculous, I don't look a thing like Molly." Seeing the incredulous look on his face, she growled in frustration. "Other than the hair, we're nothing alike."
"But when Molly was in school?" Neville countered.
Seeing the blank look on Ginny's face, Neville turned towards the door and smiled at the elves who were still watching the visiting witch warily.
"Buttercup, would you please go to the solarium and retrieve that picture album that Andi left last week?"
As the smaller of the two elves disappeared, with a disapproving look on her face, Neville turned his attention to the other elf.
"Yum-Yum, would you go get those vacation photos Hermione sent from France last week?" Seeing the wary look on the elf's face, he blushed. "The ones we showed my grandmother, not the others."
As the second elf disappeared, Neville turned around and smiled at Ginny.
"Ginny, if Harry was the type to base his decisions solely on physical appearance, your problem would be that he's gotten out his notes from Divination and looked into the future."
"Don't be ridiculous, Harry never gave a fig for Divination, other than the prophecy that made him the 'Wizard Who Won'."
Shaking his head, Neville wondered, and not for the first time, if the Weasley family should have been forced to take Ginny to St. Mungo's after the traumatic events of her first year. While, according to George, she'd always been a bit unstable on the subject of Harry Potter it seemed to have gotten worse when she came back for her second year.
"Ginny, while Harry's not as shallow as Ron, he's seen the future and it doesn't look good for you."
"Nonsense, Harry knows which of the two of us turns him on, and always will."
The twin pops of the elves returning startled Ginny, but Neville just smiled and thanked them both. Seeing the look on her face, Neville began flipping through the old, leather bound album.
"Andi brought this by for Augusta to look at, a couple of nights ago, Neville explained.
Finding the page that he wanted, Neville pulled out a photo of a party in the Gryffindor Common Room. Even as far behind the times as the wizarding world was, you could tell from the hairstyles that this was quite a while ago without the banner ringing in a 'Happy 1967' over the fireplace.
"Andi brought this by, there was a Hogmanay party in the Gryffindor common room that night and since it wasn't safe for her to frequent her own commons, she attended with her boyfriend Ted Tonks, since there weren't very many people staying over in Ravenclaw that year."
Pointing, Neville indicated a laughing Andromeda Black who was sitting on the lap of seventeen year old Ted Tonks in one of the overstuffed chairs that flanked the floo. Her resemblance to her not yet notorious sister Bellatrix was amazing, but Ginny's attention is drawn to a trio of gingers who were off to the other side.
"Ah, those are your uncles Fabian and Gideon," Neville commented nonchalantly. "This was the hols of their seventh year, if I remember what Andi was telling Gran last night."
But it wasn't the two wizards who had captured Ginny's attention, but the witch who was standing with them, and was glaring over at the couple in the overstuffed chair.
"And that's Molly Esmeralda Prewitt, fifth year Gryffindor prefect and just months away from getting an "O" on her OWLS in potions and being relieved of her prefect's badge for an 'incident' that was never documented but was rumored to involve a potion and Ted Tonks."
Chuckling at the look on the much younger Molly's face, a look that Neville had seen on the face of the witch staring gobsmacked at the picture a number of times, Neville dialed up his best innocent voice and asked, "Look like anyone we know?"
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was me," Ginny whispered as she reached out a tentative finger to nudge her uncle Fabian a bit to the side so she could get a better look at Molly.
"It was you, fifth year," Neville conceded, with a smirk. Seeing that she looked up sharply at him, he shrugged. "You've gotten a bit older."
Ignoring the glare coming from Ginny, Neville switched his attention to the snapshots that Hermione had sent to Hannah a couple of days ago. Checking to make certain that all of the 'candid' photos from their second week at La Chiappa on the island of Corsica had been left upstairs, Neville picked out a handful of shots featuring Hermione and her mother, and the one that had been included by mistake and held them up for Ginny to see.
While Helen Granger was in her late forties, the picture that had Ginny flummoxed was a picture of Helen and Hermione posing for the camera. The two of them could be sisters, rather than mother and daughter. Younger than Molly, true, but Helen Granger looked much closer to Hermione's age than she did the Weasley matriarch.
Studiously keeping his expression neutral, though Neville's eyes did linger on the figure of both of the bikini clad brunettes for a moment, Neville blandly added, "And in twenty some years that could be Hermione and her oldest daughter, though I imagine Harry's green eyes might come into play."
"Doesn't mean a thing, we have no idea what Helen looked like …"
Trailing off in disbelief, Ginny stared as Neville added a still muggle photograph to the mix. And while face and figure wise it could have been Hermione during her fifth or six year, the sash declaring her to be "Miss Brighton, 1970" indicated it was Helen.
Keeping his expression neutral, difficult to do in the face of Ginny's glare, Neville shrugged.
"Harry's not shallow and motivated solely by physical attraction, but you've got to admit, the future looks pretty good for him."
Growling in frustration, Ginny tossed the pictures onto the table before stomping her foot and storming out of the greenhouse, almost knocking Hannah over as she was coming in.
Shaking her head, Hannah chuckled at the louder than normal 'crack' that sounded from the apparition point near the house. Coming over and putting her arm around Neville's waist, she rolled her eyes.
"Helen's going to kill you if she finds out you've been showing that particular snapshot around."
"Please, she was 'Miss Brighton'. That's two steps past 'Head Girl' and almost on a par with 'The Boy Who Lived's Girlfriend'."
Seeing the dangerous look on Hannah's face, he quickly added, "and almost a league behind being Lady Longbottom and Baroness Oakehallow."
Staring at her husband for a long moment, Hannah Longbottom finally rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. "I was eavesdropping while you were trying to give Ginny a wakeup call."
"Doubt it did any good, but if she doesn't stop …"
Seeing the skeptical look on his wife's face, Neville chuckled. "I know, when has Ginevra Molly Weasley ever stopped?"
"That's not it; Ginny's not ever going to accept the fact that Harry isn't going to be with her. Harry and Hermione will be celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary with a dozen great grandchildren and Ginny will still be insisting that it's only a matter of time before Harry realizes that she's the only one for him."
Hearing the chuckle from the doorway, both of them looked up to see Sue Bones standing in the door, her eyes twinkling like mad. As Hannah moved over to hug her oldest friend, the ginger Puff arched an eyebrow at Neville.
"Trying to get me on Hermione's list are you Neville?" she twitted him as she hugged Hannah.
Looking thoroughly embarrassed, Neville cast a glare at Buttercup who was trying to look innocent as she stepped back from Susan's side in the doorway.
"Of course Buttercup's going to warn me that you're trying to fix me up with Harry, she knows full well that Hermione's tolerance for witches trying to poach on her territory is getting very thin."
"I was merely pointing out that if Ginevra's allegations about Harry being besotted with ginger witches were true, which is isn't, then both you and Natalie would stand a much better chance of snagging Harry's attention than she would," Neville explained as he tried to avoid meeting Hannah's eye.
"Be still my heart," Susan gushed in an over the top parody of Lavender when they were in school. "Does this mean I've got a shot at Witch Weekly's 'Most Eligible Bachelor' for the past three hundred weeks?"
"Stop that, you," Hannah sputtered between giggles. "The problem is that Ginny doesn't realize that she's her mother's daughter, and that's enough to keep Harry as far away as possible, even if Hermione were ever mental enough to let him go."
Waiting for Neville to join them, both witches linked arms with him and started the short stroll back to the manor house that had been the seat for the Longbottom family for the last five centuries, though the lands of the estate had been held against all comers for over a thousand years by the Longbottoms.
As they reached the open doorway that led to the covered porch that Hannah had converted into an office not long after moving in, Sue leaned up and kissed Neville on the cheek.
"That was a very sweet thing you did back there, but …"
Seeing the look on Neville's face, she shrugged. "We need to send them a message later. I'm certain they expect some fallout. Ron's not as delusional as Ginny …"
Growling, Hannah sneered at the mention of the onetime member of the 'Golden Trio', "That bastard simply didn't care that Hermione had been potioned. Arthur almost disowned him when he told the Magistrate that she 'should have been grateful that the Matriarch of a respected family found her 'acceptable' for her son'."
"Arthur did disinherit him until he gets counseling," Neville temporized, smiling at Sue's snort of disbelief.
"It might happen. The Cannons withdrew their invitation to a tryout after that was reported. Ron didn't realize that the 'new ownership' for the Cannons was a coalition of first generation witches and wizards looking to invest their family monies in the wizarding world," Hannah chuckled as they made their way over to the ornate desk where she usually worked when she was the manor.
Glancing down at the self updating daybook, she smiled wickedly.
"My two o'clock cancelled. Imagine that," she purred as she gave Sue a knowing look. "Looks as if our lunch negotiations just got extended."
Guiding them towards the doorway which led deeper into the house, she drawled, "Right after 'lunch' we'll send Hermione a note about Ginevra's visit," in a husky voice as she guided her husband and girlfriend towards their suite.
"I can just imagine the look on Ginny's face tomorrow when we announce the upcoming union between House Bones and House Longbottom in the paper," Neville said before blushing when Sue said in mock anger, "Neville, I never took you for a wizard to union and tell."
With that, the three disappeared into the master suite and the door swung shut with an audible click as it was sealed from within.
From the sounds coming from their suite, the State of the Union was just fine.
a/n 2 – La Chiappa is a naturalist's resort on Corsica (non clothing resort and village) hence why Neville want to make certain those pics weren't included.
Story first published 28 January, 2014.
edited for minor corrections 28 January 2014, thanks to Runecutter for the catch
edited for minor corrections 29 January 2014, thanks again to alix33 for the catch.