for @hogwartshousesnet​ gryffinpuff vs slytherclaw challenge

Marietta Edgecombe liked to separate her world into truths and lies. She did so every day with a brutal candor that would have impressed the best of lawyers.

Truth: She was her mother’s daughter, having inherited the witch’s critical mind, frizzy hair that looked best in a braid, and genetics. This was too be noted as she had followed her mother to work whenever possible, asking loud questions to her mother’s coworkers and learning to play a dangerous game of politics. This was to be noted as Marietta and her mother became better friends than 

Lie: She liked Harry Potter. Like she would like the boy at all, with his too-green eyes and faked modesty and the way he played games with her best friend’s heart. But he was a good teacher, and apparently able to fill whatever hole Cedric had left in her best friend’s life.

Truth: Cho Chang was her best friend. This was a fact of life, like that clouds carried water and Marietta would undoubtedly make a fantastic Minister of Magic if she ever wanted to be one. The two were inseparable since they had met, and they were perfect together. One to feel, one to think, with a bit of even ground between them. 

Lie: Marrietta wasn’t rebelling. Not at all.

Truth: She was, and she couldn’t help it. Patronus charms were easy and important, and her patronus was a lynx while Cho’s was a sad, sweet swan. It was beautiful. They were beautiful, as the lynx leaped around the perfect swan and the two pieces of spellwork became friends just as fast as their casters had.

Lie: Her signature on paper that Hermione Granger charmed with too much efficiency for any Gryffindor.

Truth: What she told the Ministry. What she didn’t want to tell the Ministry, but what she had to. Did Harry Potter know what it was like to have parents that loved you, that worried about your infrequent letters and grades and activities, that made you worry about them? Did Hermione Granger understand that Marietta was the precursor to a a much bigger battle, and that she cried herself to sleep for nights thinking about the right decision? Did Ron Weasley give a damn if she completed her patronus charm? Was she even important if she was just one of many?

Lie: What they told her about the latter question: yes, yes you are.

Truth: She wasn’t. None of them cared about her charms and spellwork outside of a group; none of them cared about her outside of Cho. Which was fine. They just didn’t have to pretend they did.

Lie: She was fine having SNEAK emblazoned across her faces in the pimples she tried so hard to combat, was fine having that be her legacy. She was okay. 

Truth: She tried to be a good person, she really did. But she was splitting in two, and when you’re sixteen, it was hard to see anything but the shreds of your life before you before they even exist. And her mother had held her when she cried, had told her jokes, had sent her her favorite Muggle chocolate that she couldn’t get in Hogsmeade. Her mother loved her job and wanted Marietta to love it, too. None of these people, except Cho, could ever forgive her for the truths she told.

Sometimes you had to choose who loved you, not who held the wand.