Author's Note: After getting some really lovely complimentary reviews on my other stories (thank you, HB's Favourite and typicalRAinbow), I've been feeling confident enough to go rifling through my writing stash and find some more Worst Witch fanfic to post.
Warning: This one contains references to self-harm and physical abuse.
I never meant for it to happen; I should never have let it happen. It is wrong, wrong in every way, wrong and wicked and weak.
Form 5's last lesson on a Friday afternoon is Potions with Miss Hardbroom, widely known as the most terrifying teacher in the school. I can't pay attention; my thoughts are all elsewhere. The fact that I am the terrifying Miss Hardbroom just makes it worse.
I set them all work from a textbook, retreat behind my desk and pretend to lose myself in marking. But the essays before me blur and are meaningless; all I can think of is her - her, Imogen Drill!
It's been three weeks now, three weeks since she kissed me that first time. How have I let it last so long? She knows nothing of me, and yet she says she loves me. Sometimes I truly lose my mind, and let it be understood that I love her too. I have loved her for years, loved her before I was even aware of it. It was only when she kissed me that first time that I began to realise it, but I loved her before then; I can't remember how or when it started. It was wrong of me, and is wrong of me still. I am a woman who plays by the rules, and knows that rules are there for a reason.
I have to tell her the truth about myself, of course. I must, I need to. There is only so long I can keep her distracted with kisses and caresses, only so long before she peels away my disguise and discovers my secrets. I have to tell her, tell her the things I've told no one before, tell her - and then what? Will she still want me when she knows how broken I am, and how weak I've been? Will I still want her, when all I can see in her eyes is the reflection of that truth? I am so afraid of feeling; sometimes, in the aftermath of her sweetest kisses, I want to shout at her to go away and never darken my door again. She has this way of making me smile, making me laugh, making me do all those things I never do. She has a way of awaking desires I've denied, and emotions I thought were dead. She's thawed my lips and my heart. I'm falling and can't stop myself - sometimes I don't even want to stop myself.
It is all so wrong, so wrong and wicked and weak. Voices from the past recur in my dreams and tell me so. I wish I had no need to tell her, wish she could simply read my soul, poor shrivelled thing that it is; then I wonder if maybe she can, and am afraid.
The sound of the bell comes as a relief, as much to me as to the grateful Form 5. They thrust their books into their bags, and are gone like greyhounds out of a trap the moment I dismiss them. I make my way to my own quarters, locking the door behind me, breathing a sigh of relief at being free of the mêlée at last.
And then I see her, perched on the edge of the narrow little bed that isn't big enough for two, all smiles and so very beautiful.
"You're early!" I bark it out in the tone I usually use to inform my erring students that they're late; she recognises it, I think, and grins.
"I let my last class go five minutes early. I couldn't wait to see you."
"Imogen..." I've so much I could say, reprimands meant for both of us and all the rest. I've confessions that ought to be made. But a moment's hesitation is all it takes; in that moment, she crosses the space that divides us and kisses me gently on the lips, and I forget everything I meant to say.
How does it always happen thus with us? She drives me to distraction; I never can quite bring myself to stop kissing her or to let her go, especially when she smiles at me just like that, or leans against me and murmurs my name - oh, to be Constance to someone after so many years of being Miss Hardbroom to everyone! She told me the other day that it feels "a bit wrong, calling you by your first name".
"Wrong to call me by my first name, but not to kiss me?"
"Oh, no," she said, "There's never been a time when that hasn't seemed a good idea!"
How I wish I had confidence and courage. Perhaps I have, somewhere, buried deep.
Somehow we've come to be laid on the bed, our shoes kicked off and entangled on the floor; my hair has come loose; her lips bear the stains of my lipstick. I wonder if she knows at what cost I make these surrenders?
She leans her head against my shoulder, and drapes her arm around me, as she asks me about my day, and tells me about hers, as if we were playing at being an old married couple. I forget myself and talk too much of the complexities of teaching Potions to a band of inattentive adolescents; I fear she must be bored, and glance at her; but her green-eyed gaze has not wavered. She is so very beautiful, I think, and lose the thread of what I was saying.
The sun is beginning to set outside my window, and the sky is turning to a deeper blue. The birds are singing, and I feel strangely alive. Of course I am alive, but I don't know that I ever felt it so strongly before. I feel suddenly vibrant, radiant, alive with sensation; the Ice Queen is thawing, and much good may it do her!
I hear the sounds of the rest of the school in the distance, and Davina's busy little footsteps in the room next to mine; Imogen and I keep quiet until she is gone. Neither of us is on dinner-hall duty tonight; how glad I am of that! They won't miss us in the staffroom either; they know that Imogen often goes out on a Friday night if she's not on duty, and that I often work through supper.
Work could not be further from my mind tonight.
Imogen kisses me and I move my hand to cup her breast, delighting in her every little moan and sigh. Her fingers find their way to the buttons of my dress, and I pull suddenly away; she frowns at me, looking so delicious with her hair even more tousled than usual and her lips all swollen with kisses.
"What is it?" she says; I can only shake my head and turn away.
She slips her arms around me, her body so sweet and warm against my back.
"Constance, dear, I'm going to be completely and unashamedly forthright. We know each other well enough, after all." She pauses. "You've got a total thing about not removing your top. Why?"
"That was very forthright."
"Well, neither of us believes in beating about the bush, so to speak. That sounds like an euphemism, doesn't it? Or is that just my dirty mind? But seriously, dear..." She kisses the back of my neck. "Tell me. Is it that you're shy?"
It's a miracle that I've hidden it this long. Impatient, wanting to get it over with, I pull away from her and unfasten the buttons at my cuffs, roll up my sleeves, and let her see the scars.
"Bloody hell, Constance! Who did this to you?"
I nearly tell her to mind her language. This is what years of teaching does to one.
I speak quickly, brusquely. "As a young girl, it was decided that I had...strong gifts, a special aptitude for magic, more so than the average witch. My parents wanted me to reach my full potential. They had such high expectations for me. I was sent to a special training college for gifted young witches."
Her eyes are wide - not that I can bring myself to meet their gaze.
"And they...they did this to you? Is that even legal?"
"Mistress Broomhead was a teacher who believed in sharp discipline."
"That school inspector woman? I'll bloody kill her."
I smile wanly at her protectiveness of me. "The college has since closed down. I think she's even retired from school inspection since that little stunt pulled by Sybil Hallow." I shrug with more nonchalance than I feel. "It's over now - in the past."
She's looking at my arms; she gently pulls my dress apart, and her lips purse in sympathy at the sight of the scars and burns. I've grown used to them myself; they look better than they once did. I suppose they must look terrible enough to a stranger.
"That's abuse, Constance, actual abuse. Why did you never tell anyone?"
"Who would believe me? She had standing in the community, a lot of influence. She could make or break careers. Besides...some of them were my own handiwork."
She understands; she kisses the scar that marks the place where I used to dig the scissors in - or the pin or the needle, the table knife or the pencil sharpener blade, whatever came to hand. Superficial self-harm, the school nurse called it, in a lofty tone, refusing to give me a bandage on the grounds that I was "just a silly girl". I suppose she saw a lot of cuts and scratches, poor clueless woman. Mistress Broomhead was such a cruel woman; her fingernails were like talons, and the classroom scissors were always nice and sharp.
Imogen finds the scar that makes my left breast so ugly, and utters a wordless exclamation of horror. I know without looking that the scarred skin is jumping with my racing heartbeat.
"Mistress Broomhead didn't take kindly to girls who broke the rules," I say, and my voice is a whisper as I add, "Or girls who kissed other girls."
There is a long silence; my eyes are shut; I know that Imogen is looking over my battered old body, the scars no one has ever imagined might be hidden beneath Miss Hardbroom's austere black gowns. How I hate it, this living record of my past pain.
I learnt many things at Mistress Broomhead's school: to follow rules, to keep my silence, not to kiss other girls. Such principles always served me well, until I met Imogen Drill.
"You see now," I say, "Why I said to you that you don't know me, don't know what it would mean to..."
I am about to tell her that we must go our separate ways, leave and not look back; then suddenly I feel her warm lips against my breast; another moment and we are locked in each other's arms, flesh to flesh, lips to lips, tongue to tongue. What pointless, frustrating obstacles clothes suddenly seem - and how easy it is to be rid of them, when one's a witch.
Imogen grins at me. "You witches - always using shortcuts."
I only bury my face in her shoulder. She is my sanctuary and my saviour, if only she knew it. It may be that I murmur something to that effect; she tells me she loves me, wishes she'd been there for me back in those old days. I say she's here now; it seems for a time as if that's all that matters.
Afterwards, the Ice Queen weeps, and lets her lover kiss away her tears.
It may be wrong, it may be wicked; it's certainly weak. It's perhaps a sort of madness. But, lying in Imogen's arms, I know I'm falling - and I don't ever want to stop.