don't wanna be torn

0.2

while at the manor, she learned a few lessons quicker than others: 

firstly, that as a pureblood she was superior- though she didn't understand why.

secondly, the only acceptable house in all of hogwarts was slytherin- where her aunt, uncle, and her parents before her had all made their homes during their school days. when she went to hogwarts in two short years, she was also expected to be placed there by the hat.

thirdly, the weasleys were never to be spoken about. there would be no concern for or contact with 'filthy blood traitors.' 

and lastly, despite her curiosity and the way that everything her aunt and uncle told her seemed to contradict everything she'd learned up until that point, she mustn't question them. she was expected to absorb their teachings, take them to heart, and put them into immediate practice. 

failure to comply with these lessons and ideologies would result in a swift and brutal punishment - especially if it involved a weasley. she learned the last lesson the hardest when she asked after the funeral if there had been any word from them about why they couldn't make it. when she wouldn't let it go and continued to ask even back at the manor, her uncle dealt her a swift backhand. she couldn't let it go though. she couldn't just let go of years of friendship, shared holidays, days spent with molly and the boys at the burrow, or the twins in so short a time. she didn't want to. though it never seemed to end well for her.

she sent them letters in secret for almost a year in her new life in greengrass manor, and she never once heard a word back from them. it didn't make any sense to her after all the time she spent with them and the fun they'd seemed to have together. molly had cared for her while her mother worked for nearly a decade, and ginny had always appeared to like having another girl in the house- even if she was only 5. bill and charlie always let her crawl up to sit with them and said she was the only one who knew how to stay out of trouble- had that been a bad thing? it had been a difficult feat and a small miracle when she'd spent most of her waking hours in the burrow with fred and george. she didn't let herself think about them often because they hurt the hardest. even percy had let her look at his books with him when she got tired of rolling around in the mud with the other boys.

she had let herself cry about it at the time, had taken the beatings from her aunt and uncle when she asked about them or mentioned them in conversation. she'd sat through all of the endless discussions about how they were beneath her- that she had better start acting like she understood it. until finally, when no letters arrived on her 9th birthday from anyone in ottery st. catchpole, she'd cried herself to sleep one last time. at that moment it was decided that she couldn't cry over the weasley boys forever. or anything else for that matter.