IN CHARACTER INFORMATION:
character name: Iris Bulstrode age & birthday: 30 years old. July 10th. Cancer sun, aries moon & libra rising. pronouns: she/her blood status: pureblood occupation: comedian faceclaim: rachel brosnahan
PERSONALITY TRAITS:
positive traits: funny, smart, protective, fair negative traits: impulsive, sarcastic, temperamental, distant
KEY POINTS / BIOGRAPHY
I. childhood and hogwarts years:
After struggling so much to concieve, Iris parents were initially disappointed when they got a daughter instead of a son. Fortunately, that didn’t last long and as a baby, she charmed both her parents. Iris grew up in a respectable and highly influential pureblood family, so her younger years were filled with pureblood balls, tutors and all kinds of activities.
However, Iris quickly realized that there seemed to be two sides of her parents, the one they displayed at home: warm, loving, affectionate and encouraging; and the one they displayed for the rest of the families. Iris noticed how cold they seemed, how they didn’t laugh that much at her clever comments or celebrate any of her accomplishments. Only when she was an adult she understood better. Sometimes, to belong somewhere, one had to play a part.
Iris was always an outgoing and creative person, making friends anywhere she went. Her parents were afraid she would end up being sorted into Hufflepuff, she was too friendly. However, they were relieved when the sorting hat placed her in Slytherin. It wouldn’t be the first time they underestimated her ambition.
At school, Iris did well. She wasn’t necessarily a model student, but she didn’t struggle either. She did participate in different school clubs, such as Slug Club, Charms Club and even the choir. There was something so exciting about performing, it was where Iris felt the safest and most comfortable.
II. during the first wizarding war:
tw: torture, domestic violence
As a pureblood woman, Iris knew what her fate was. It was the first time she realized how unfair the system for men and women was. But at least her parents let her decide which one of the posible suitors would be her husband. So Iris being Iris, she went out for tea with all them and she interviewed them thoroughly. Most of them found it funny, a joke, but she wasn’t joking. Iris rejected five candidates before coming across “the one”.
Sebastian Sewlyn passed the interview with flying colours and he and Iris married a year later. He was smart, seemed serious about his intentions and didn’t think less of her because she was a woman. In fact, Sebastian promised that their relationship would be a relationship of equals. A year and a half after the wedding, Constance was born and that baby changed everything for Iris.
There was a war going on, a war in which her husband was an active member of the Death Eaters faction, but Iris decided to remain neutral because it was easy than saying that it was all madness. She had a daughter to care about.
As the war continued and things got uglier, Iris made Sebastian promise that he would never, ever, bring the war home. Their home was sacred and she did not care what he did outside of it. She would happily look the other way if it meant keeping Constance safe from all the madness. Deep down, she wasn’t comfortable because she thought that what Voldemort claimed was just insane, but these were the moments where she understood what her parents did, that double personality thing. So Iris did the same for a while.
Until that wedding anniversary Sebastian missed. That night she wore her best dress with the pearls he liked so much. She waited at the restaurant for an hour before deciding to go back home, feeling both worried and humilliated. When Iris apparated home, something was off. The house elves seemed all distressed and when she demanded to know what happened, all they told her was that Master Sebastian was in the basement.
Of all the things she expected to find there, her husband torturing a teenager (who was probably an Order member) was not even on her list. She felt repulsed by what she saw, repulsed and disappointed. Sebastian tried to calm her down, to explain that it was the Dark Lord’s request and that he couldn’t say no. But Iris could not unsee what she saw. There was a kid on her basement and her husband was torturing him.
He tried to stop her, he even tried to hex her and he managed to hurt her in the process, but she managed to disarm and petrify him once they got close to Connie’s bedroom. All Iris could think of was her daughter and how she did not want her to grow up in a defiled home. So she packed a small bag with things for her and her daughter, and the first thing she did, was appear at the Auror office and spilled everything she saw to a female auror named Emmeline Vance. This was a month before the war ended.
III. where are they now?:
Denouncing her husband and sending him to Azkaban wasn’t easy and had plenty of consequences that she did not think about when doing it. One being the ostracism that she would suffer in hands of the pureblood community – at least those that were also part of the Death Eaters. Another being the fact that her husband was the one who worked and brought the money home. Iris never worked in her life, she did what pureblood trophy wives did: play the part and raise the kids.
Being rich helped mitigating the economic impact, but Iris hated the idea of living off her parents’ money. But she didn’t know exactly what to do. However, one night in which she decided to drown her sorrows in firewhiskey and wine, she happened to be at the right place at the right time. She got so drunk that she ended up ranting to a stanger and telling him everything that was in her mind. She found it incredibly rude when the man laughed, but she was too pissed to stop talking.
The next morning, she woke up in his couch and he bought her breakfast. Turns out he was a talent manager and he thought she was the funniest and smartest woman he had ever met in his life. She was reluctant at first, but Iris gave it a shot. She started in small places but quickly became very popular. The more popular she became, the less filters she had and because she had been shunned out of her social circle, she had no remorse in making fun of them.
Apart from becoming a famous comedian and a referent on the women’s rights agenda, Iris is also focused on raising her daughter.
