On the day little Vanessa turned three months old, Neville came home suspiciously quiet. He merely nodded to Pansy, peeked over the side of the crib at his sleeping daughter, and headed for the liquor cabinet.
"What's wrong?" Pansy asked, slipping her arms around his waist from behind.
He didn't answer, merely shook his head and tipped up the whiskey bottle for his third shot.
"Tell me, Neville. You're scaring me." she tried to turn him, but he didn't budge.
"Dammit!" she smacked his back with the heel of her hand. "I'm good enough to fuck and live with and have a baby with, but not good enough for you to tell me what is going on?"
He turned then, and she was even more frightened by the despair in his eyes.
"I killed a kid." he whispered.
She smoothed his hair, tugging on his arm, leading him to the sofa.
"What happened?" she sat them both down, wrapping her arms around his chest and her legs around his waist, pulling his head against her shoulder.
"We had a tip about some activity. Former Death Eaters and some come later sympathizers. We raided the compound. Rounded up most of them. But there was one who wouldn't surrender. He kept his wand pointed at us. Wouldn't drop it, no matter how many times we told him to. He started to speak the killing curse, so I took him down before he could hit one of my men. We pulled off his mask, and it was Jason Crabbe. He was sixteen years old!" Neville's voice broke on the last and he began to sob openly in her arms.
"Neville, you didn't know." she held him as close as possible. "You had no idea who was behind that mask. It could have been a seasoned, hard core death eater. You did what you had to do."
"He made me kill him. He wouldn't surrender. He was just a boy!" he choked out.
"Neville, don't do this any more." she said, the tears overflowing her own eyes.
"I'm sorry, Pans, I just won't be any good tonight. Or probably not for a few days." he clung to her.
"No, I don't mean this, I mean, give it up for good." she babbled.
"What?" he raised his head, frowning.
"Resign from the Auror Department." she told him.
"What?" he repeated.
"Nev, you're not happy. You became an auror because that's what everyone expected of you. But that's not who you are. Let it go. Find something that makes you happy." She smoothed his hair and kissed his forehead.
"But I have a family to take care of." he shook his head.
"No one said you had to risk your life or sanity to do that." she told him. "We'll be fine. We have plenty of money in Gringotts. The bills are all paid. You can take a lower paying job."
"Are you sure?" he asked hopefully.
"Absolutely."
He worked for the Ministry for a while, as a mid level administrator in a stuffy department of bureaucracy. He worked for Malfoy Industries for a year, in botanical research.
Then the letter came from Professor Sprout, telling him that she had decided to retire, and could think of no better possible replacement than Neville.
"This is it." Pansy told him. "This is what you were meant to do."
"But what about you and Vanessa?" he asked.
"We'll be right here." she shrugged. "You can come home whenever you want."
His interview with Headmistress McGonagall was more of a formality than anything. The day after speaking with her, he received her owl officially offering him the position.
His friends threw him a party.
Malfoy pulled him outside.
"You know what made me do it?" the blond asked. "What made me turn away from everything and everyone I've ever known to run away with Luna? She told me one day that there were only two ways dating relationships end. You either break up, or you get married. And if you know you're not going to marry someone, it's cruel to keep things going until someone gets hurt. She thought I was going to break up with her. Honestly, I thought so too. But then I thought about being away from her for the rest of my life. So I married her instead. It was the less scary of the two possibilities." Draco took another sip of his drink.
Neville stared at him for a long moment. "I don't really know how to take this from you."
Malfoy shrugged. "If you have a choice, always take it the best possible way." He clapped Neville on the shoulder and returned to the party.
Neville repeated the conversation to Pansy later. She told him that Draco Malfoy should worry about his own love life and stay out of hers. Which of course made Neville concerned that Draco and Luna were having problems that he didn't know about. Pansy just smirked and pointed out the fact that Luna had stayed away from alcohol all evening.
"She's pregnant again." Pansy pronounced. "But Draco doesn't know yet, because if he did, he would have been plastered to her side the way he was when she was expecting Scorp."
Her prediction turned out to be correct. Luna was pregnant, with twins in fact.
The Malfoys continued living the picture of domestic bliss, adding a second and third platinum blond, grey eyed son to their family.
Neville and Pansy continued their non-relationship. They didn't even talk about having another child. It was as if both were afraid of bringing up the subject.
He lived at school during the week, coming home on weekends, holidays, and for the summer. He randomly came home here and there during the week, to have dinner with Vanessa and a few moments alone with Pansy after they put their daughter to bed.
Neville was much happier, except for missing Vanessa while he was at school. Pansy seemed to be as well.
So if things were working, don't ruin them, right?
Little Vanessa was the joy of their lives. She had Pansy's thick dark hair, Neville's sparkling blue eyes, Neville's nose, and Pansy's lips. She learned how to floo call her daddy at school on her own by the time she was two years old.
She chattered non-stop about Scorp and babies and her stuffed kitty and flowers. She loved to drink tea with her mummy and read stories with her daddy and didn't bat an eye about the fact her parents didn't live together all the time like Uncle Draco and Aunt Luna.
Neville loved all of those things about her.
At the beginning of Neville's second year at Hogwarts, Headmistress McGonagall hired an assistant. Someone to help her with correspondence and routine tasks, so the headmistress could still teach a few classes.
The first one was an older lady named Mavis Rickenbacker. She was a nervous person who had a meltdown over every slight disruption of her routine.
The second one was completely the opposite, a young woman with a docile personality. Her name was Astoria Greengrass. She was sweet and petite and always smiling.
She and Neville became good friends, eating lunch together nearly every day. One day he showed her a picture of Vanessa he had taken the previous weekend, twirling in her favorite pink dress while wearing a glaring orange Chudley Cannons hat her "Uncle Ron" had given her.
"Oh." her eyed widened. "I didn't realize you were married."
"I'm not." Neville shrugged. "Her mother and I ... it's complicated."
Astoria nodded. "She's very beautiful."
He extolled his little princess' virtues, as he did to anyone who would listen.
Astoria didn't smile as much after that. Neville felt a little disappointed, and a little embarrassed.
But it was probably best that Neville hadn't led her on, when he was with Pansy.
For Halloween that year, Hogwarts held not only a feast for the students, but also a staff party on Saturday night. Pansy came to be Neville's date.
He never considered anything else.
But Pansy quickly narrowed her eyes in on Astoria. The way they younger woman's face lit up when Neville walked in the room. The way it fell when she saw Pansy was on his arm.
Pansy didn't say a word. But Neville knew she had noticed.
He brought the subject up that night when they were alone in his quarters. Vanessa was spending the night with the Malfoys, and Pansy was staying with Neville for the first time at Hogwarts.
"Look, Astoria ... " he trailed off, not sure what to even say.
"What's going on with her?" Pansy asked, folding her arms.
"Nothing." Neville shrugged. "We have lunch together sometimes. Well, more often than not, I guess. She's really sweet. And she's completely brilliant. She keeps the school running. There's such a shortage of qualified teachers, so McGonagall ends up teaching classes more than her headmistress duties. Astoria handles all the administrative things for her, and doesn't stress out and snap at people like the one before her did. The kids all love her." He droned on and on, acclaiming Astoria's praises much the way he did when anyone made the mistake of asking him about Vanessa.
He finished with "But there's nothing going on, Pans. I swear, I wouldn't do that to you. Astoria and I are just friends."
Pansy smiled at him. "I believe you, Nev."
On the day after Christmas, Pansy sent Vanessa over to the Malfoys, telling Neville they had something important to talk about.
"I've met someone." she said softly, holding his hand but not quite meeting his eyes.
"Who is it?" Neville frowned, not understanding what she was telling him.
"I don't know if you remember Marcus Flint, who played Quidditch at Hogwarts? He was a few years older than us. I ran into him recently, and we've spoken a few times since then. I think he and I could have something, you know, serious. I'd like to find out." she finally looked up at him, holding her breath.
Neville looked hurt. "But what about us, Pans?"
She sighed. "Neville, we don't love each other. Well, we do, but we've never been in love with each other. We've made this relationship work purely out of the fact it was convenient for both of us. We both deserve more. Someone who will love us soul deep, for the person we each are, not the person that someone else needs us to be. Someone to love the way Draco and Luna love each other. I want to see if there's a chance I could have that with Marcus. And I think you deserve the chance to see if Astoria is that person for you. We deserve a soul mate, not just a best friend with benefits."
He looked at her, his eyes filling with tears. "But what about Vanessa?"
"We'll do what we have to for Vanessa. But she's strong. She doesn't need her parents to be together as much as she needs her parents to be happy. You can still floo call her every night and see her as much as you can. It won't be that long before she's going off to Hogwarts and you will have her more than I do anyway." Pansy sniffed back her own tears. "I'll always love you Neville, and you'll always be my best friend. But we were never meant to get married and we both know it."
He pulled her into his arms, and they both cried.
In the end, he gave her his blessing to pursue the relationship with Marcus Flint. She gave hers for him to pursue Astoria Greengrass.
He went out for a bit, to gather his thoughts, he said.
She flooed to Malfoy Manor, to have tea and a good cry with Narcissa Malfoy, the one Slytherin she knew that could understand how much it hurt to do this stupid noble Gryffindor shit.
Vanessa Marie Longbottom boarded the Hogwarts Express holding hands with her best friend, Scorpius Malfoy. Aunt Luna made sure they had snacks for the train and Uncle Draco gave them money for the trolley lady just in case. Vanessa's mum Pansy hugged her, made sure she had everything three times, and that she knew that her dad and stepmum would meet her at the other end. She didn't take off her sunglasses so no one would see that she was crying. Vanessa's stepdad Krasimir Blogorodna even came, taking time off from the Bulgarian Quidditch team to see her off. Vanessa had worried a bit about leaving her mum at home with her two year old brother, as Kras traveled so much, but her mum had assured her that she had been in the same position when Vanessa was a baby and her dad had first gone to teach at Hogwarts. Besides, Uncle Draco told her, if her mum needed a break, she could always bring Sergei to their house. It wasn't like the Malfoys would even notice another kid. Aunt Luna smacked him for that.
Vanessa didn't know why the adults were making such a fuss. She had been to Hogwarts loads of times. That was where Dad and Astoria lived.
And how many times had she seen on those posters that "Hogwarts Will Always Be There to Welcome You Home"?