"So what's spelldrive?" said Iris. It seemed to be all the other students could talk about.
"You kidding? What sort of backwater community did you come from that you don't know what spelldrive is?" said Ace.
"I'm from Lost Avalon," deadpanned Iris. "And I could say the same about you when I mentioned Quidditch."
"Wait..." said Deuce slowly, looking at Iris with an expression of dawning horror. "Isn't Lost Avalon where that magical terrorist started up a civil war?"
Iris' face went blank in an instant.
"Yes," she said curtly.
"Civil war?" said Ace confused.
"Don't you pay attention to the news?" said Deuce. "Lost Avalon had some sort of nasty civil war going on between the old blood faction and the new bloods. There weren't any clear details given, but it got really, really bad from what I heard. My mom was really worried because she had a cousin from that part of the world."
"Really? Who is your cousin?"
"Well I have two younger magical cousins named Dennis and Collin."
"Wait...as in the Creevey brothers?" said Iris. Deuce nodded. "I know them. They were in my house at Hogwarts. Collin is a sweet kid, but he was a bit of a shutterbug. And Dennis was adorable, but rather excitable like a puppy."
Deuce was surprised to hear that, but glad he now had a proper source of information regarding his baby cousins. He had gotten really worried about them after hearing they were trapped in the middle of a magical civil war zone.
"How are they?" he asked.
"Collin is doing better, and last I heard he had an internship with the Quibbler. No one trusts the Prophet anymore, save for the pure bloods," said Iris without hesitation. "Dennis is doing better now that he's getting proper physical therapy."
Deuce looked visibly relieved to hear that.
"So what was the war about anyway?" asked Ace.
Iris had a pained expression on her face.
"Long story short, a wizard with serious daddy issues challenged a senile politician because he was the only real threat, and everyone else got caught up in their spat because of the sheer charisma they both had," she said exasperated.
Seeing the expressions on their faces, Iris sighed.
"If I have to tell the full story, then I'll want some proper booze and I only plan to explain this once," said Iris.
"Fair enough," said Ace.
"Explain what?" asked Cater.
"I know the full story, or the majority of it anyway, behind the civil war in Lost Avalon," said Iris.
Cater's eyes widened. That was a big deal, because there was a lot of speculation about what the story behind that was as the mages of Lost Avalon had kept a tight lid on the whole matter and refused to talk about it.
Hearing the truth from a survivor was major news. And not in a good way either.
"So what would it take to get the full story out of you?" asked Cater, already texting Trey. If he did this right he could get out of an assignment in Trein's class for the next week. He was already super behind on it and Riddle had been breathing down his neck last night.
Iris snorted.
"Good quality booze, and I mean the hard proof stuff... If I have to retell the full story to people, then I don't want to be sober doing it."
"Mind if we share this with Professor Trein?" asked Cater. "He'd probably be very interested in hearing the story and we might get a grade out of it."
"Only if you allow me to check it first. If I'm going to share this story, then I don't want anything to be misrepresented. It caused too much pain and suffering for the story to be written by a biased observer," said Iris sharply.
"Fair enough."
Trein not only approved of the project...which Cater would be recording so he didn't have to bug Iris too much while writing down the story... he gave Cater the location of a small shop that sold hard enough booze that students could afford.
Iris made a point to give Cater more than enough for him to buy something strong.
In the Heartsabyl gardens...
Iris refused to discuss this topic anywhere near Ramshackle. It reminded her too much of the Black family home before she went to war with it and cleaned the living hell out of the place.
Heartsabyl was an acceptable compromise, and meant Cater wouldn't have to fight as much to get a decent lighting for the recording.
Besides, he wasn't the only one highly curious about this particular subject.
Iris was sitting down, radiating the aura of a queen. Grim, sensing this was a...painful...subject, was sitting in her lap and curled up against her to provide some measure of comfort.
Cater got the cameras set up, and once everyone was settled in, gave her the thumb's up.
Iris took a fortifying drink of the bourbon Cater had managed to get. It was the strongest thing on the shelf that he could find that was within her price range. It gave a satisfying burn down her throat.
"The war itself started long before the chief antagonist was actual born. It was through a tragic accident that shaped one of the most recognized mages in Lost Avalon and his beliefs," started Iris.
Iris talked for several hours, only pausing to drink the bourbon in her glass. She spoke of how the loss of his sister shaped the belief of Dumbledore, how Grindlewald had introduced the man to the concept of 'greater good' (Iris couldn't quite hold back the growl in her throat speaking of that wretched concept) and had convinced his lover into a blood oath which stayed his hand for too long.
She spoke at length of Dumbledore's sudden rise to fame and power...and then shifted to the other major player in the war. A mage by the name of Tom Riddle, born from atrocious circumstances. How his mother drugged and raped his father through love potions and foolishly thought her lover wouldn't kick her to the curb once they wore off while she was pregnant with his child. How Tom grew up in an orphanage and later tracked down and killed his uncle, thus branding him a kinslayer.
How he rose to power as 'Lord Voldemort', and tricked countless old blood families into an ideal he didn't even believe in all because of his daddy issues and the fact Dumbledore had failed so spectacularly in recognizing the threat Tom possessed in spite of the fact that he had literally killed a girl while still in school and blamed another student for it.
Iris knew it was better to get the entire story all at once, which is why she didn't stop until she spoke of the incident which had all but ruined her childhood and made her live a living hell.
Cater had to pause because it was closer to dinner and everyone was starting to get cramps. However Iris assured him that she would continue the next part of the story tomorrow once classes were over.
It was beyond fascinating, hearing the full backstory of a massive war, rather than just the highlights. Even Riddle was paying rapt attention to the whole thing.
The next afternoon, Iris sat down again and had another glass. This time she had the sense to eat something before she started.
It was weird, talking about how "Potter" reacted to being thrown into the magical world that had been expecting her to act as the savior while she was completely ignorant of her story. Pretending to be a Gryffindor who watched it from the sidelines was weird, but it made it easier to act as though it happened to someone else.
If anyone noticed the odd way she spoke of "Potter", they made no mention of it.
The third day was when she spoke about the war itself. And the toll it had taken. So many lost over a pointless ideal that no one actually believed in to begin with...or if they did, then it had become twisted to the point it had become unrecognizable.
Of how Potter had pulled a final prank on Voldemort, only to take the insane, murderous bastard down.
The part that really got to the students was the way she spoke about the aftermath. If the war itself had been horrifying, nothing compared to having to actually process what had been done under the madman's false banner, and of the toll it had taken on the community.
There was a damn good reason Iris had been cleaning up Ramshackle and turning it into a proper home. She refused to go near England until after she graduated. Her friends and family had more than understood and had made her swear on her magic that she would at least stay in contact...even if it was via Fleur. Hermione was so put out that there actually were magical cell phones, it was just that Lost Avalon refused to acknowledge them for being too muggle.
By the time she was done telling them the full story, not just the abridged highlights, she could see how it affected the other students. They knew nothing of what real war was like, and it scared them that one of their classmates had to actually live through something like that.
Even Cater, who was a perpetual jokester, quietly hit the stop button on the cameras and gave her a hug.
Once he was done editing the videos, he would be putting a special post on his feed with all the disclaimers he could come up with to warn people it wasn't for the faint of heart. Particularly the third one.
Iris was fine with this, because she wanted that story to be heard as much as possible, if only to prevent a repeat of it ever happening again. Cater would blur her face and make sure no one recognized her or Grim, but they would still hear it.
(Oddly enough, it was through those videos that Iris met one of Cater's club mates and the vice-housewarden of Diasomnia. Lilia was likely one of the few who fully understood the horrors Iris went through and was more than happy to offer her a sympathetic ear to vent to about the trauma she suffered.)
The greenhouse was coming along nicely. Which was to be expected when her inevitable insomnia hit and hit hard after telling the other students about the war. Grim was getting the hang of repairing the glass panels, and was secretly happy she trusted him to get such an important project done.
Iris had already cleaned the outside to acceptable standards, and had been working on the inside part for over a week now. Picking up heavy bags of soil and the special fertilizer Ruggie provided (in exchange for the cleaned fish and free meals of course) was deeply cathartic in that she didn't have to think and could just work on getting the place up to standards.
She already had a few patches of strawberries and other edible plants growing in a small corner. There was a small section close to the dorm where she planned to grow some mushrooms...Ruggie had given her a credible rumor that one of the Octavinelle students had a thing for mushrooms and would often go into the mountains to bring back specimens that he would then cultivate himself.
If that was true, then odds were she could swap recipes with him for some of his more edible samples.
She was had finished up with yet another pot of plants and was about to sit down when she saw the faerie lights appear.
"Thorn," she sighed. She looked to the door. "If you're going to walk around outside you might as well come in."
She could use a bit of a break to drink some water.
Thorn walked in, his eyes full of slight concern.
"Are you well, Child of man?"
Iris blinked.
"I'm fine, why do you ask?"
"You've been staying up late working in this little greenhouse for the past four nights, well into the wee hours of the morning," said Thorn. "I have not observed such behavior save for the older Shroud brother."
Iris did not know who that was, but it was nice to know there was another insomniac in the school.
"Just trying to work past old memories. Physical labor helps, because it means I can exhaust myself to the point I can sleep without dreaming," said Iris. She would have cleaned Grimmauld place nearly as fast as she had if she could sleep properly. The familiar repetition of deep cleaning something wore her out and gave her a chance to sleep for a few hours.
The only reason she hadn't bothered to put that energy into cleaning the dorm was because she didn't want to wake Grim up. That would be rather rude to her familiar and he wasn't used to staying away for long hours or operating on such little sleep.
Besides, that would require having a light on which would almost certainly alert someone in the other dorms she was up at some point.
The greenhouse required only minimal lighting and faced away from the school. No one was likely to notice her inability to sleep unless they were already on the grounds of the dorm.
Like Thorn for instance.
"Lilia mentioned that the...videos...that were posted might be taking a toll on you," said Thorn absently.
The fact he knew the vampire fae didn't surprise her... Lilia was in the same dorm after all.
"Eventually my sleep cycle will kick in and I'll black out for a day or two. It's no big deal," said Iris dismissively.
"Sleep cycle?"
"I know my patterns by this point. If the bad memories are stirred up enough that I can't sleep, then my boredom kicks in and I do something to kill the time that will wear me out to the point I can sleep. By which point my brain does a sort of hard reset and then my insomnia starts to calm down to the point I might be able to get eight hours," said Iris absently. She was already putting more seeds into the pots. "I still have some of the bourbon Cater managed to get me, so it shouldn't take as long for my sleep cycle to normalize again."
"Why not take a potion?" asked Thorn, curious.
"I would, except it was rather hard to get back home with how much everyone was traumatized and from what I've read taking it for too long has a nasty risk of creating a dependence on the stuff. Never mind the potential disaster of mixing any sort of sleeping agent with the amount of alcohol I tend to drink on the bad days. My friend scolded me for my bad sleeping habit but agreed it was probably better for both the long term."
Hermione was also of the firm opinion (of which everyone else silently agreed but didn't dare voice aloud) that Iris seriously needed to find someone and get laid.
Iris refused on the grounds that one, the odds of finding someone in the UK who wasn't affected by the war were next to zero, and two, that dumping that much emotional baggage on a muggle was an absolutely horrible idea and that she sincerely wished that the magical community had a proper therapist to vent to.
The odds of her finding an Alpha willing to deal with an Omega who didn't take anyone's shit, could handle the sort of trauma and baggage she had without trying to manipulate her in some manner, and who could actually match her in terms of power were next to nill at this point.
Iris had given up on finding love before she hit thirty, and that was if she was lucky.