(A/N: I try not to use these much, but I'm a bit sick, and I want to thank the only thing getting me up to post the next chapter: "Like it's Quidditch". That's literally the only thing. Well, that and someone posted 4 reviews recently. Anyway, thanks for the R&Rs, I love you all.)
Neville Longbottom hugged his wife. He indulged for a moment in the enjoyment of her curves. Hannah had never been a thin girl, but while her waist was thicker, so were her curves, and Neville liked her that way. To be fair, he'd never really seemed to lose his baby fat himself. He'd been self-conscious about it, until Hannah knocked a bit of sense into him. They just fit together properly.
"You're late," Hanna Longbottom said, kissing her husband's cheek. They'd already gotten the "I missed you" hugs and kisses out of the way.
"I had a meeting with a student," Neville said, carefully pulling out of his wife's hug and going to get a drink.
"Anyone in particular?" she asked. Neville had to smile a little; she knew him too well.
"The only one that would leave me pacing for an hour afterward," Neville said.
"Ah, the Lestrange child, then," Hannah said, moving around her husband to get him the drink. He was good with Herbology and he'd been a good Auror, but he'd never understood the subtle art of mixology. She did. Whenever she could, Hannah would be sure to fix a drink for him instead of letting him do it. Neville Longbottom wasn't the clumsy youth he'd once been, but he was never as coordinated as his friend Harry Potter, especially when it came to things that weren't plants or spells.
"Lestrange," Neville corrected. "It's apparently very important to her to pronounce it correctly," he said. Not that he blamed her, names were important. He'd never been able to escape the teasing of having the name "Longbottom" when he was a kid.
"I see," Hannah said, handing her husband his drink and pushing him back onto the bed before sitting next to him. "So, why don't you tell me?" she asked. She loved Neville, but she'd figured out long before they were married that the only way to get anything out of him was to ask directly, especially if he was feeling upset.
Neville sipped his drink, considering where to start. "You know I wrote you about my chat with Professor Sprout," he said, glancing over to see Hannah nodding along. "So, I decided the best thing would be to take the professor's advice, and talk to her."
He shifted nervously as he waited for class to end. He'd wandered around the tables, watching his students work. There were a couple who had a very natural way with the plants, understanding how best to harvest the seeds. Others had little understanding, charging in headfirst and not working with the plants. His eyes trailed to Tacita Lestrange, and Neville had a very strong memory of Hermione Weasley working much the same way with the same plant in her first year. Hermione hadn't been a natural in any of her subjects. She'd been very clever and studied hard. She could have easily skated by on her intelligence, but she worked hard for her grades. Hermione never was a natural with plants like he'd been. Instead, her ease with the plants came from a lot of knowledge and a lot of practice.
Tacita Lestrange didn't have the natural ease that a couple of his students had, but she didn't get bitten or smacked with vines. He imagined that if he were to stand right behind her, she wouldn't notice until he said her name very loudly. It occurred to him that if she were any other person, she would be the ideal student. Students who did the best were often not the smartest, but the hardest workers. Ravenclaws would do amazing work in subjects they were interested in, and would only do okay on everything else. Hufflepuffs were more likely to have decent grades on everything, but remember more than just one or two subjects. Hard-working students were what he preferred, even to the students who were inclined toward Herbology. He'd only gotten as good with the plants as he did because it was the only thing he was any good at, and he'd needed to be good at something. If he'd been good with Transfiguration, he'd probably have worked every bit as hard in that subject.
Neville checked the clock and strode back to the front of the table. "All right, class is over, bring your seeds to the front and leave your plants on your desks. Ms. Lestrange, would you mind staying after a moment so I can speak with you?" he asked. It occurred to him too late that maybe calling her out like that wasn't the best idea. He saw her shoulders slump and heard a giggle from someone. It reminded him that she was only eleven, something he needed reminding of at that moment.
He waited until the last straggler was gone before looking down at the girl. She did look a lot like her mother, at least the old picture he'd seen of her in old Hogwarts yearbooks, but she didn't have the same strong and wicked look. The little girl standing in front of him looked…lonely, and sad, two things he could identify with.
"Don't worry, you're not in trouble," Neville said gently, leaning against one of the tables. "I spoke with Professor Sprout last night, she told me that she caught you out of bed last night," he said, quickly holding up a hand to stop her from speaking. "You're not in trouble," he said again. "Professor Sprout told me that you don't think you can talk to me," he said.
Tacita hung her head. "I'm sorry, Professor," she said softly.
"It's alright," Neville said, with a bit more force behind the words. "I just want you to know that you can come to me if you have a problem. I'm your Head of House. I'm here to help any member of Hufflepuff House if they're having problems. You're a Hufflepuff; that means I'll be here for you, no matter what." She was an eleven-year-old girl, and he was adult, and he needed to act like it.
"Yes, Professor," the girl said quietly, looking at him like she wasn't sure if he was actually telling the truth.
"Ms. Lestrange, why don't we set up a meeting? I have an hour free on Friday. Come by at about four and we'll talk, okay?" he asked. It surprised him that her smile looked so normal, and realized that it really shouldn't have.
"So, you set up a meeting on Friday," Hannah pressed. "Is there a reason for all the description?" she asked.
"When I went to the meeting, I was feeling like she was more like me at that age than I wanted to admit. Parents gone, living with a relative, and generally unpopular. It also finally sunk in that she was eleven. I thought that I'd feel better after the meeting, like my problem would just be cured," he said, sounding fairly exasperated.
"Oh, Nev, you really thought that?" Hannah asked, slipping her arm around her husband and resting her head on his shoulder.
"I never said I was the smartest man in the room," Neville said with a twinge of bitterness as he finished off his drink. He sat in silence, watching Hannah fix him another. She was really damned good at her work. She'd excelled in Herbology because of the physical work. Some people just did better when they worked with their hands, and Hannah was one of them.
"Alright, so what did happen at the meeting?" Hannah asked, sitting back down and handing Neville his second drink.
Neville sat back in his office. Technically, his office was on the same level as Slughorn's, but he had a small window he normally kept open to let in the light. His office was fairly bare. The only plants he could grow had to not need a lot of sun light. He kept a couple, along with a stash of seeds in his closet, and the paperwork he needed. On his desk, the only decoration was a picture frame with Hannah and his two daughters.
He planned to leave during dinner so that he could get home in time to see his wife and kids. The fact that it was now under an hour before he planned to leave meant he was having trouble sitting still. He was about to get up and pace when there was a tentative knock on the door. "Come in."
Tacita Lestrange stepped in, quietly shutting the door behind her and walking to her desk. "I'm sorry I'm late, Professor."
"It's okay, just sit down," Professor Longbottom said, indicating the chair across from his desk. He watched her sit down with a flourish that he imagined would have been both very natural and more theatrical for Bellatrix. He closed his eyes for a moment, reminding himself that Tacita Lestrange was eleven, and not her mother.
"Professor, is something wrong?" the girl asked. In a few years her voice would grow into the very lovely candor her mother's had, though now it seemed like the baby voice Bellatrix used to mock people.
"No, nothing's wrong. Why don't you tell me how you've been doing so far in school?" he said. He knew already, but it was better to let her say.
"Um, well," the girl sat very still, looking him straight in the eyes. He noticed that she normally did that, and it was unnerving. Bellatrix never did anything like that, but he had a very clear recollection of Rudolphus Lestrange looking directly into Kingsley Shacklebolt's eyes when addressing him. "I'm doing okay in classes…except History of Magic," she said. "Professor Longbottom, why is Professor Binns so boring? My old history classes were interesting, even when we were memorizing kings."
"You've had history classes before?" Professor Longbottom asked. He knew that a lot of pureblood families would send their children to Wizarding Primaries until they turned eleven. He'd been taught by his Gran before coming to school.
"Yes, at the Muggle school," Tacita said.
Neville's eyes opened a bit wider. "You went to a Muggle school? I thought the Lestrange family was very wealthy. You didn't go to a Wizarding Primary?"
Tacita scowled. "That's what my aunt says," she dropped her voice and octave to imitated her aunt, though all it really did was make her sound more like her deceased mother. "Why did your father send you to a Muggle school? He could have afforded to send you to the best Wizard school, but he sent you to a Muggle school. It must have been Azkaban, I'm sure. Why else would such a good pureblood wizard send his daughter to a Muggle school?"
Neville swallowed and shook his head. There were so many thoughts going through his head. Most of them along the lines of, why would her aunt be so openly for pureblood supremacy? Instead, he decided on a more…neutral topic. "Did you like your old school?"
"It was interesting," Tacita said, with a very thoughtful, but decidedly neutral expression. "And it had Air Conditioning. Aunt Vega said that was for Muggles, but she didn't know how to work the climate control spells in her house, so it was always too cold in winter, and too hot in summer," Tacita said. "And the sciences classes were interesting, like history. There are more Muggles than Wizards, right? So why do we only learn about Wizard History and not Muggle History too? A lot of the dates on Grindlewald's reign line up with World War II," she said, remembering something she'd been thinking of for a while. "Why isn't there someone who studies the relation between Muggle History and Wizard History?"
Neville was surprised by the amount of jumps she could make. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought she were proposing muggle supremacy. "Why don't you do that, then?" he asked. "Careers can be made of filling a need for something that hasn't been done before," he suggested.
"No, I don't think so," Tacita said. "I don't like Wizard History. So far, it seems boring and close-minded," she said.
"Well, what do you like?" Professor Longbottom asked, biting down a smile. He was sure her parents would be rolling over in their graves if they could hear her.
"I like Potions," Tacita said. That made Neville frown; Potions, really?
"Why Potions?" Neville asked.
"Professor Slughorn is very kind, and he lets me study ahead," she said, thoughtful. For a moment he thought she was going to add something else, but she only remained silent.
"Ms. Lestrange," Professor Longbottom said suddenly, tired of simply wandering around the subject. "It has been brought to my attention that you're having trouble with your classmates. Would you like to tell me about it?"
"No one likes me," Tacita said, and for a moment Neville had a very specific memory from when he was a first year.
"But no one likes me, Professor Sprout," he'd said.
Neville shook his head, forcefully throwing himself out of the memory. "I'm sure that's not true," he said.
"No, no one likes me, not anyone in my class, I mean," she said. "Professor Slughorn likes me because he thinks I'm going to have powerful magic… but no one else likes me. They all think I'm going to take after my parents."
"Are you?" he asked, not quite able to stop himself. There was a long moment of silence, and Neville thought that he'd insulted her.
"Maybe," Tacita finally responded. "My father told me that inbreeding causes illness, so maybe I'll get sick more," she said. "But…I don't know. Professor, can I tell you something?" she asked.
"Of course," Neville responded quickly.
"I don't care about my parents. I mean, my mother died in a duel with a housewitch, right? So that must mean she wasn't as strong as everyone says she was…and my father did a lot of really odd things. But I don't know them at all. I don't care what they did, I don't care about them at all."
"So, that's what's gotten you all upset?" Hannah asked. "Because she doesn't care about her parents?"
"Harry didn't even know his parents at all, he'd never seen them since he was a baby, and he cared a lot," Neville said, finishing her second drink.
"I could argue with you on that point, but I'm certain that's not what the problem is," Hannah said. "So, why don't you stop dancing around it and get to the real problem."
"Hannah, she doesn't care about her parents… about what they did…it's like all the people they killed mean nothing to her. My parents, Tonks, Harry's godfather? None of those people matter," he said, suddenly jumping up and starting to pace.
"Neville… she's eleven, and all of those things happened before she was born," Hannah said gently.
"I know Hannah, I know, but it just…seems wrong. She doesn't know or care about the pain her family caused. Hannah, they're dead, but what they did, the pain they caused, it still lives on…and she doesn't care. She doesn't even feel bad that they're dead…she feels nothing toward them at all. I could have accepted it better if she'd felt bad about her parents…but she just doesn't care…it's so much like…Bellatrix Lestrange didn't care what happened to the people around her either." Neville looked over at his wife, trying to make her not think he was so crazy.
Hannah stood up and walked over to him. "Neville Longbottom, you are a very fine man, and I love you. I know that the Lestrange family has hurt you a lot, but you need to be careful with this girl. She's just a child, and right now there's still the chance that she might not turn out like them. You're also responsible for her, so you can't just be mean to her because she might turn out—"
"I know, Hannah," Neville cut her off. He'd heard it from Professor Sprout already; he didn't need it from his wife, too. "I know, I'm the adult, I have power over her, and I can't just abuse it because I don't like her. It's too…Snape-ish for me to do," he said, sounding every bit as distressed as he was. Harry'd forgiven Snape for what he'd done; one of his sons was even named after the old headmaster, but Neville hadn't been so easily able to forgive the abuse he'd suffered under the man.
"I know, Neville," Hannah said. "It's why I married you. You're a good man, and you'll figure out what to do, and I'll be here to remind you whenever you forget," she said. "Now, I think you've worried about this enough for one night. Now, it's late. Alice and Augusta are already asleep. It's time for bed. Tomorrow you can play with the girls, and you can worry about this again on Monday. We made a deal to leave out things outside when we're together on weekends," she pointed out. "You've worried about this for a while, and it's time for a vacation from worry, got it?"
Neville smiled and pulled his wife into a kiss. "You're the boss," he said, with warmth in his voice.
"You better believe it." Hannah had a smirk on her lips that Neville had always liked.
On Saturday morning, Tacita sat curled up in the library. She'd gotten up before any of the rest of her dormmates, pulled on her robes, grabbed her big genetics book, and headed quietly down to breakfast, grabbing a couple of rolls before sneaking off to the library. She quietly bypassed Madame Pince. The young man who was helping the older woman was slated to take over in a few years. Pincer, as the students called him when no one was around to hear, had every bit of the legendary eagle eye that Madame Pince had for the protection of her books. Luckily, Pincer wasn't up that early, so Tacita found her way to a quiet back corner and began eating her breakfast and trying to understand her giant book.
She quickly gave up on understanding the text. She'd have to steal a dictionary or something over one of the breaks. Instead she pulled out the picture of her and her father. She only had memories of him looking down at her, with the blankest expression, an expression very like her own. But in the moving picture, Rudolphus Lestrange would smile a little every now and then. Tacita found herself waiting for that little smile, and wondering about the man in the picture.
Her meeting with Professor Longbottom had been better than she thought, but he still gave her odd looks, the way other people would when they knew who she was. She'd heard a lot of stories of her mother's exploits, but little was known to Tacita about the man in the picture. He had a lot of money, yet he chose to send her to a Muggle school. He and his wife were in Voldemort's inner circle, but he'd spoken of Muggle concepts like inbreeding and genetics. Not for the first time, Tacita wished she could ask him a few questions.
"Hey, whatcha lookin at?" came a voice from behind her. Tacita jumped and slammed her book shut, turning around to see a sandy-haired boy wearing Hufflepuff robes.
"What do you want?" Tacita asked, glaring at the boy who'd interrupted her train of thought.
"Easy, easy," the boy said with a friendly smile. "My name's Granville, Granville Jorkins," he said.
"I know who you are," Tacita said. "You spend half your time in the common room talking about how your older brother's on the Quidditch team, but only if he can get his act together in Potions. The other half of the time you spend bragging about your little sister," she said.
"And I know who you are," Granville said, pulling out the chair next to her and plopping down in it. "You're Tacita Lestrange, who spends all her time either reading, or in the Potions classroom with Slughorn. Grimwold says that you're already getting the potions he's struggling with," he said with a big smile.
"You still haven't told me what you want," Tacita said, reaching out for her textbook.
"Hey, what's this?" Granville asked, grabbing up the book faster than Tacita, even given the warning. "Concepts of Genetics," the boy read aloud. He had a very naturally loud tone.
"Shhh!" Tacita snatched her book away. "Not so loud," she hissed.
"What's genetics, Tacita?" Granville asked.
"It's the study of the building blocks of a life," she said. "And who said you could call me by my first name?"
"Would you prefer if I call you Lestrange?" Granville asked with a smile, getting her name right.
"No," Tacita said. "Look, will you just tell me why you're bugging me?"
"Geez, no need to be so snippy. I'm hear cause I want to talk to ya," Granville said.
Tacita narrowed her eyes, mistrustful. "What for?"
"Well, I know you stay all by yourself, but Hufflepuffs are supposed to be the friendly lot, right?" he asked. "And I figured that you're a Hufflepuff, so you must got something in you that makes you like me. So then, I figured that it makes no sense for no one to like you, 'cause you're like us, and we're supposed to be the friendly lot," he said. "You understand?"
Tacita shook her head, having understood his words, but the meaning stayed just out of reach for her. "No, I have no idea what you're saying."
"I'm saying we should be friends," Granville said with a smile. "What?" he asked, seeing her eye him suspiciously.
"You just want me to help you with your homework because you're not doing well in Herbology," she said.
"Well, maybe; but you know who I am just as well as I know who you are, and you're lonely, so we should be friends," Granville said.
"I'm not going to be friends with you just because I'm lonely," Tacita said coldly, glaring at the overly cheerful boy.
"Did I say you were?" Granville asked. "Look, it ain't right you being all by yourself all the time. I've seen you in class. You're always really quiet except when you're answering a question. But you were nice before people started teasing you…so I figure you're not all bad, you're just lonely; and if you had someone to talk to, then you'd go back to being nice again," he said.
Tacita stared at him for a long moment. "You're insane," she said softly. "I should know, I'm related to enough of it," she said, sounding bitter. She stood, holding her book to her chest and glaring at Granville. "Will you just leave me alone?"
"No," he said with a smile.
"Well, why not?" she hissed quietly, not wanting to get thrown out of the library.
"Cause you're a Hufflepuff. Like I said before, you could have been in Slytherin, everyone thought you were going to be, but you got put with us. So you have to have something good about you, and I want to be around when that something comes out," he said.
Tacita stared at him again for a long while. "I asked the hat to put me in, I did it because I wanted to make my aunt angry," she said.
"So?" Granville asked.
"You just said that you thought I had something special in me because I was in Hufflepuff. The only reason I'm here is because I chose to be, it's not because I'm special," she hissed.
"Yeah, but you asked the hat to put you with us…and I don't think any of the rest of us thought of doing that. If I'd known I could have asked…well, I probably would have said Hufflepuff too, 'cause my brother's in the house, but still." Granville shrugged.
"I'm going away now," Tacita said, starting to walk away.
"Cool, I'll follow you, we can go get breakfast," Granville said, popping out of his seat and following after the other Hufflepuff.
"Why?" Tacita asked. "Why in the world do you insist on talking to me? Everyone thinks I'm evil or something. So why don't you leave me alone like everybody else?" She was feeling a little desperate for him to leave. She didn't want a friendship out of pity. She'd rather be alone.
"Because I want to be friends with you," Granville said.
"And that's it?" Tacita asked, her voice getting louder. A very audible Shhh! could be heard, and Tacita winced. She lowered her voice to a whisper and looked back at Granville. "That's it?"
"Well… yeah, I mean, there are other friendships built on less. My brother's best mate is a Muggle-born. They got nothing in common, but they're really close," Granville said. "Look, I want to be your friend and I'm just going to keep following you until you let me be your friend."
"But I don't want you," Tacita exclaimed, heading out of the library before she could get shushed again.
"You haven't even tried yet," Granville said. "Look, give me a week, if you don't like me after a week then I'll leave you alone."
"You're awful sure of yourself," Tacita said.
"Yeah, it's one of my best features," Granville said, walking around her until he was walking in front of her, backwards, with that big goofy grin on his face. He managed to walk into a suit of armor, and knocked it over in the process.
Tacita's mouth split open and laughter spilled out. The whole thing was absurd, but she couldn't help herself. "Alright," she said, once she calmed down. "Alright, I'll be your friend for a week…and then we'll see how this goes," she said.
"Good," Granville said. "Now, will you help me put this back together before Filch finds this?"
"Why?" Tacita asked, but started helping him put the suit back together. "We can just blame it on Peeves. No one's around anyway," she pointed out. "What?" she asked, noticing that Granville was staring.
"You're wicked," Granville said with an appreciative smile. "I knew I made a good choice to want to be friends with you," he said.
(A/N: Yeah, finished with this chapter. No, I didn't make Granville up. His name appears in the 7th book in a Daily Prophet listing for the birth of his sister Griselda. His brother is Grimwold, and his mother and father are Primrose and Albert Jorkins. I decided to make Grimwold two years older than Tacita (making him a third year), and Griselda will start the same year as Teddy Lupin (in Tacita's third year). )