𝒮𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓂'𝓈 𝒜 𝐵𝓇𝑒𝓌𝒾𝓃'

July 5th, 1994

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒯𝒽𝓇𝑒𝑒

Anger is a funny thing. A dangerous thing. A terrible thing. It makes people lash out, brings out something in people that they almost shouldn't be capable of. Anger makes people do things. It makes them get back at those who wronged them in the most cruel of ways.

Controlling your anger can be among the most valuable of skills. Finding healthy ways to expel your anger, not to let it fester and build. To not let yourself snap.

Control.

Iris would admit that she lacked control over her anger. It came too easy to her. Too quickly. And she knew how to get back at people. How to ruin them, even if just for a moment. She knew what words to say, the right words to tear apart a person from inside out. To scare them into submission. To push them to the brink of lashing out right back at her, making them become just as harsh as her.

Honestly... it would almost be better if Iris would just take up fighting. A punch perhaps less cruel than the words she could create.

But whether through words or through a punch. The cruelest of paybacks, of reactions... tend to come from the silent actions.

Which is why that morning, still fresh off the anger from the night before... Iris packed her bag and left without a word.

Only to Sally-Ann's, they had been planning the sleepover for weeks... but of course, Remus didn't know that.

A silent action... a reaction caused by anger. Remus would wake to find Iris and a few of her belongings gone... and coming fresh off the words left for him the night before... The panic he would experience upon waking up was incredibly cold... cruel.

Iris Blackwell knew how to hurt people.

~~~~~~

As her friends arrived one by one, Sally-Ann took notice of the lack of energy in each and every one of them. Tracey fresh off a long vacation in Paris. Jane fresh off a fight with her family. Iris... just distant.

She could at least count on Valeria to be normal, but still, with most of the group out of commission... a day in was definitely the play.

So with Sally's parents off at some wedding for the next few days and her brother at a friend's for the night... the girls took over the living room.

And Iris would admit to most of that day being one big blur. Her attention not really quite there. She would be pulled in from time to time, making brief notice of what she was doing... but mostly one big blur. And if any of her friends had taken note of it... they had the courtesy to just let it slide.

And by the time the sun was long gone... well, Iris just laid on the couch, gaze on the television. Only vaguely aware of the conversation from her friends.

"Okay, Iris, you have to break the tie. Is Roger attractive, yes or no?"

Iris blinked herself back to reality. Glancing at Jane and then back to the television. Only then seemed to realize what she had been watching for the past few minutes. 101 Dalmatians, Roger being the owner of one of the dogs in the movie.

Thinking it over for a second, Iris watched as Roger started singing the melody to the movie's very own villain song, and narrowing her eyes, she nodded a bit, "He is one of those guys you come around to."

Sally laughed aloud, "What does that even mean?"

Shrugging as she watched the scene on the screen unfold; Iris elaborated, "He isn't attractive in the way that you take immediate notice. But as you get to know him, your perspective of him shifts, you take notice and start to find him attractive," she paused. "He has attitude, sings, and dances... I would marry him."