ActionScript 1/2 :: Nesting Movie Clip (with Script) Into Button?

First off I am creating an online gallery. It is made up from several thumbnail images of the art pieces which, when clicked, show the image in a larger format. I achieved this by duplicating the frame 12 times (how many images there are on the page) and linking each thumbnail to its corresponding image which runs through the frames 1-12.I had this working perfectly, except for my thumbnail mouseover animation which animated fine when the mouse was in the hit area, but once outside the animation just snapped back. This was done by simply nesting a movie clip symbol into the Over state of the button (which didnt require any code).

However, once I searched the internet for ways to allow the animation to go back to its non-active state with a rewind animation once the mouse is off the hit area, I hit a new problem entirely. Of course, this effect required some basic coding, and wasn't relying on the button's Over state to activate the animation. This meant that when I tried to nest the new animation into the button the hit area of the animation was over the hit area of the button, disabling its linking capability. I've tried everything I can think of, but I cannot get the animation to be triggered when the user hovers over the button as well as the button being able to link to its frame.