It's so painfully obvious
How could you miss
Something that's this plain to see
When it's glaring, and staring
Right at you
So obviously

She still remembers why she ran away from the world she was born into. She simply couldn't take it anymore. All that the Wizarding world of Britain had given her were shifty eyes, fake smiles, and false reassurances... and the feeling that she was not good enough to be like them. They were disappointed in her, all of them. How could they not be? She was the daughter of two of the most famous people on the side of the Light. Two people who had defied Voldemort thrice. They deserved a daughter who would make them proud, who would avenge them. But she couldn't.

She could see it in everyone's glance: What a tragedy. The daughter of the Longbottoms, their eldest child, a squib.

Oh they would never dare it say it out loud, of course. For the sake of propriety, for the sake of their pity which she was really much better off without. Or perhaps because they were afraid of what Alice or Frank might do to them. The atter would never be an issue, she knew, in her heart. Her parents had learnt to hide their disappointment better than the others, perhaps because of the practice they constantly got, but she was no less a 'tragedy' to her, than she was to anyone else.

And yet, 'they would never love her less for it.' She wondered if it were true, why it needed stating so often? She was not deaf or blind, despite what they clearly seemed to think. She saw the strange glances the people on the street gave her. The hushed whispers that followed them whenever they were in public. And so soon enough Iris Longbottom had found herself virtually under house arrest, partly self-imposed, when the jabs and sneers started bordering on slightly less subtle, and partly imposed by her oh-so-caring parents.

She didn't really blame them. They were trying to protect her, and give a relatively 'normal' and 'muggle' despite their lack of knowledge on the subject.

But she didn't want that. She didn't want the pseudo-muggle life, hidden behind walls, that was the best thing she could ever get in Wizarding Britain. She deserved better. She deserved happier. So she did the only thing she could do.

Run.

Notes: A rewrite for this has been in my mind for a long time, so here it is! This will be chapterwise, and hopefully better written than the previous version. (Original found at: .net(slash)s/11953837/1/Irises )

The song lyrics at the beginning are from Dear Evan Hansen's "Obvious".