AN:

My dear readers,

This is the last in a series of three oneshots slightly related to Christmas. I do hope that you will enjoy reading the thoughts of our well-loved deputy.

A big thanks to all those that read and reviewed my other two oneshots! You guys are the ones that keep me writing (and thus sane). Special thanks to NCD for adopting me as her little sister.

Lots of love,

Lemondrop

Disclaimer: I don't own Worst Witch. I wish I did, but I don't!

Paper Roses

Constance Hardbroom wasn't a woman who dwelled on the past. For the sake of her sanity she couldn't afford to. Nor was she a woman who thought of the future. There had been many times during her less than stellar past when she had had absolutely no prospect for a future whatsoever and she had thus learned to never have expectations for the following day. What good were hopes, dreams and expectations anyway if they were going to get crushed? Some might say that she lived a bleak life. A colourless, odourless, tasteless existence without expectations and consequently no disappointment. Some might have pitied her. After all what is the rationality behind living if one is unable to experience two of the cornerstones of life? Some would have been wrong, for the deputy of Cackle's didn't have a bleak or sad life and was more than able to feel both things. She could not feel them regarding her own life but she felt them regarding everyone else's.

In that respect Miss Hardbroom was a realist. She was a thirty five year old woman stuck in a dead-end job in a second rate academy. What grand expectations could she have for herself? What wonderful things could she accomplish for herself? She had made the choice for her future almost fifteen years previously and she had been well aware that by begging Miss Cackle for a job she would be choosing security in favour of success. She might have been seen as a coward but she was perfectly content with her choice and was afraid that any kind of aspirations she might form would disturb the status quo. Hence she didn't allow herself to hope for anything regarding her own future and translated all her dreams upon those who mattered most to her: her students.

Based on her conduct in her classroom few would believe her, but Constance enjoyed being a teacher. She enjoyed modelling young minds and was well aware of how important her job was, not only as far as imparting knowledge was concerned but also setting a model that the girls would want to follow. That was her greatest failing for as she looked at her reflection in the body-length mirror apart set on the door of her wardrobe, she was painfully aware that few of the girls would want to follow her example. After all, who wanted to become an embittered woman who knew close to nothing about the world outside her comfort zone? She was setting a flawed model. Truth be told, had she been able of change she would have changed, not for herself but for her students to be able to relate to her better. But the desperation with which she clung to her status quo had made Constance Hardbroom unable of change. While she did indeed want her girls to follow her example as far as some things, like her work ethic, were concerned, she was terribly afraid that they would also take away the things that were less than satisfactory about her character. She wanted to be an influence but she did not want to become a model, a pattern. Constance fixed the last strand of hair in her tight bun and went towards the main door to greet the students that were returning from winter holiday.

She could see Miss Drill there, already helping some of the girls with their trunks and she fought the urge to issue a cutting remark about letting the girls tend to their own things. Even if she could not stand the woman at most times, she was grateful for her presence in the academy. Imogen Drill was so unlike her that it was almost uncanny. She looked at the smiling woman, her skinned more tanned after her trip to Canada and her hair cropped slightly shorter, as she talked to Maud about the holidays. While the girl would have squirmed if she would have had the same conversation with her form tutor, she seemed to bask in the gym mistresses' attention and Constance instinctively gave a wry smile while she barked an order for a second year student to take her broom to the broomstick shed. Miss Drill had so many ideas and concepts she didn't approve of that it was hard to keep track of them. Her subject was also an entirely useless one as far as a witch's preparation was concerned. Yet, what Miss Drill did, and she did so brilliantly, was exactly the same thing that Constance failed at: setting an example that the girls not only wanted to follow but that also was relatable to them.

When she had been young she had loved origami. It was one of the few things that had managed to capture her full attention as a child and even if it had been over twenty years that she had pursued that particular activity she still remembered how to make figures out of paper. In certain respects teaching was like making origami: one wrong fold and the entire figure would be ruined. She looked at the young faces that were coming through the door and she wondered how well she was folding these particular paper roses. Like with origami she would not be able to tell if her girls would be successful while she was folding them, while they were in school… She could make predictions, she could hope, she could asses potential but she knew from experience that those students who seemed hopeless, like Mildred Hubble, had the potential to surprise her and become upstanding witches of society. She thought for a bit about all the girls that in fifteen years had passed through her hands and she suddenly felt old. It was a ridiculous feeling because she was well aware that thirty five wasn't old, especially as far as witches were concerned for their lifespan was much longer than that of non-magical people. But thinking of the first students whose form tutor she had been, women of around twenty seven now, possibly with children of their own, made her realize how quickly time had passed.

She wondered how those first girls had grown up. Were they successful? Were they happy? Did they become the perfect, flawless paper roses she had intended them to be? She did not now for she realized, with a pang of pain in her heart, that none of her older students had kept any form of communication with her. She knew that Miss Cackle often received letters from former students informing her of their progress through the years and the woman kept them in an old wooden box in the middle drawer of her desk, together with the deeds of the academy. Miss Bat often boasted in the staff room about the success of former students and she always received a myriad of Christmas and Birthday cards from particular favourites. She didn't know for sure, because the woman never said anything, but she was fairly certain that former students were communicating with the gym mistress, probably using the small black contraption that she had often seen the gym mistress carrying. Constance momentarily felt an awful sense of desolation. She knew that she was not well liked among the student body and she wasn't too disturbed by that, but she would have hoped that, as her students grew up they would understand that her harshness inside the classroom didn't derive from some vindictive need to assess her authority or from plain cruelty. The girls needed to know that there are some things in life which don't come easily and if the price for this lesson was her so called popularity among the students, she was more than willing to pay it.

She once again looked at her blond colleague who was now talking animatedly with Mildred Hubble and her friends and wondered if she would have ever been able to do the same thing. The action of talking, the relaxed body language, the freely given, genuine smiles seemed to come so easily to Miss Drill that she suspected she would have never been able to do the same, even if she tried her hardest. Maybe if her upbringing had been different. Maybe if her schooling had been different. Maybe if she had had a teacher like Miss Drill to model her and show her the ways of the world. Maybe only then she would have been able to make herself more relatable to the girls. But as things stood she was too ingrained in her ways to change and even if she did desire to make a change did the girls really need two Miss Drill in one school? Probably not. Teachers like Imogen were well-liked, even loved, but because of their carefree nature they hardly held any authority and weren't able to establish a sense of structure for the girls. But was it not better to let the young minds develop freely without the confines of authority? Constance believed it wasn't. While it was an attractive concept in theory, developing minds needed a path on which they developed in the right, healthy manner.

What pained her the most was that even if she was the one who created the structure, the authority, the foundation of their development as humans, the girls did not trust her. Of course they did trust her capabilities as an instructor and had faith in her powers to protect them if the situation arose, but they didn't really trust her with the important things so essential for surpassing the tribulations of the teenage years. Constance knew that as far as those sensitive topics were concerned, Miss Drill, or even Miss Cackle, were the preferred choices of advisors. As such they were the ones who truly got to model the girls of today into the women of tomorrow. With a hoarse voice trying to hide a certain degree of disappointment she barked yet another warning to a third year who was trying to levitate her trunk up the stairs.

Later that night, as she was checking the registry for the umpteenth time for potential errors, Miss Hardbroom was joined in the staff room by her blond counterpart. The woman seemed tired, her blue eyes brightened by the exercise of running in the woods and cheeks bitten by the cold outside. She threw herself with the carelessness that characterized her and started to read one of those infuriating modern gossip rags in which she usually found some sort of entertainment that Constance could not understand. For a moment she wanted to yet again chastise the woman for bringing such things into the school but bit back her cutting remarks knowing that they will probably fall on deaf ears. As usual.

"Did you ever make origami, Miss Drill?" Miss Hardbroom asked, breaking the usual silence that reigned the staff room when they were the only two inhabitants, her eyes scanning each and every student name in the registry.

"No… I'm afraid I never did… I was always of an outdoor kind of person and never had the patience or skill to make all the folds in order. The best I can do is a lousy paper airplane" Imogen answered truthfully, baffled at the deputy's choice of conversation topic and the being apprehensive of this being yet another of Miss Hardbroom's twisted tests.

Constance sighed softly. Of course she hadn't learned how to do origami. After all why would she? She suspected that unlike herself who had always preferred to stand on the side and watch other children play, Imogen had been the kind of child that initiated the games. The kind of child that other kids on the playground loved to play with. Even if she had purposefully tried, Miss Cackle wouldn't have been able to employ two people who were more different than the gym mistress and herself. Constance scoffed slightly at how ironical life was. The person who had no idea how to fold paper roses was folding them better than herself.

AN: Well… I hoped you liked this tiny attempt at delving into the deputy's thoughts… Please send me your comments through your reviews. You have no idea how much I love hearing your thoughts!

*hands cauldron-shaped chocolate-chip cookies*

Lemondrop