"You don't have to hold your head up high. Round and round, I won't run away this time, till you show me what this life is for." – Imagine Dragons, "Round and Round" (2012)
round and round (i won't run away this time)
The sound of her footsteps on the creaking floorboards was the only thing that broke the blissful blanket of silence that existed before 10am on weekends, with the other inhabitants of the college dormitories preferring to sleep until the last possible moment, too tired (or more likely, hungover) to rouse themselves any earlier. She turned the corner to the main staircase and ran into someone very dishevelled… but unmistakeably pink.
"Pippa!" she exclaimed, a small smile breaking across her face as her best friend jumped back with a small squeal, dropping her stilettos that she had been carrying as she did so.
"Christ Hecate, you scared the shit out of me!" Pippa said, as both she and Hecate bent down to pick up the dropped shoes. Hecate reached them just before Pippa did, her fingers closing around the back straps as the tips of Pippa's fingers brushed against the back of her hand. Hecate felt a tingle run up her arm and into her body, settling at her heart where it burned like a freshly lit fire in the grate. She heard Pippa laugh her tinkling laugh and the two pulled back from each other, Hecate handing the shoes back to Pippa slightly awkwardly as she straightened up.
"What are you doing up so early," Pippa asked, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she pushed her messy hair back behind her ear, "I thought I was safe for sure."
Hecate laughed softly, "I normally wake up around this time." she said, "I like to get up before everyone else does."
"You're a freak of nature," Pippa said, looking at Hecate with laughter her kind eyes, "Where are you headed? Breakfast?"
Hecate nodded, "I thought I might go off campus and get something from that café across the road."
Pippa groaned with longing, "The one with the incredible croissants? Do you mind if I come?"
"Not at all," Hecate said, smiling slightly. Pippa grinned and turned around to face the way she had come, setting her shoes down and stepping gingerly back into them. "So," Hecate asked as they walked, "Who was it this time?"
Pippa squeezed her eyes shut before looking sheepishly at Hecate, "I'm an idiot," she said frankly, "It was Jackson."
Hecate pursed her lips and shook her head, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Typical Pippa, always rushing into it with the wrong people.
The two of them walked in silence as Pippa, as she always did, recounted the events of the previous night, starting from seeing Jackson at the party and ending with all of the grisly details that made Hecate extremely uncomfortable. Because truth be told, Hecate hated hearing about Pippa's… extra-curricular activities with the boys in their year. And even more than that she hated the hot jealousy that rose inside of her every time Pippa came back from the many parties she attended with stories of her latest hook-up. She hated the way it consumed her every thought and feeling, hated the way it impeded upon her ability to think and concentrate, but most of all, she hated the way that she felt like this. It was wrong on all sorts of levels, her grandmother would turn in her grave if she could see Hecate now, struck utterly dumb by her best and only friend, a fire alight and burning with want and rage inside of her.
"You okay, Hecate?" Pippa asked as the two of them took their seats in the café. Hecate gave a small smile and nodded, picking the menu up and looking down it without reading the words. She could see Pippa still looking at her over the menu and wished she would look away. The eccentric witch could always tell when Hecate had something on her mind.
"What?" Hecate asked as she looked up from the menu, only to see Pippa still staring at her. Pippa just smiled.
"It's just… I think this is the first time I've seen you with your hair out," she remarked. Hecate's hand flew to her hair immediately, panic gripping her as she began to twist her long hair back into a bun.
"No, stop!" Pippa exclaimed, Hecate hesitated, "Leave it, please… It's beautiful."
Hecate's heart hammered in her chest as her hands fell back to her sides, letting the hair fall back down over her shoulders. Pippa's words playing over and over again in her head beautiful. it's beautiful. leave it please. it's beautiful.
"It's so pretty and long, why do you wear it up all the time?" Pippa asked nonchalantly, attempting to get the attention of the nearest waiter so that the two of them could order, "Practicality?"
For just one single moment, Hecate was tempted to tell Pippa the real reason. The reason that made her heart seize up whenever she thought of it, the reason that plagued her nightmares each night since it happened. But the moment passed as soon as it had come. She could not let Pippa know about her past.
"Yeah…" she murmured as a waitress came over to them, pen poised and ready, "Practicality."
"Excellent, Hardbroom," the tutor remarked as Hecate sat back down, her fingertips still tingling after performing the complex concealing spell. Her breathing was somewhat laboured as she fought not to think about the context under which she had been forced to learn the spell in her youth.
"Well done, smarty pants," she heard a smiling voice in her ear and turned to see Pippa grinning widely. She forced a small smile back, although it was more to do with how she felt about Pippa's pride at her success, than how she felt about successfully performing a spell that made her break out into a cold sweat. And oh, how she loved Pippa's smile, she loved how genuine it was, how it showed of her perfect teeth and matched her twinkling, kind eyes. It was what got her through most days, thinking of Pippa's smile, thinking of how Pippa made her laugh and how she was able to drive away the swirling tornado of post-traumatic stress that followed Hecate wherever she went. Pippa let her forget about that day one year ago. She let her forget about the crime scene tape, the officials moving in and the black body bag being levitated out of the doors after it was all over, carrying one of their own.
"You're honestly too smart for your own good," Pippa said as the two of them moved out of their lesson towards the Great Hall for lunch, "I don't know what I'd do without you!"
Hecate didn't know what she was supposed to say, that she had mastered the spell at fourteen years old after discovering that one of her classmates was being heavily abused by their headmistress and her magic was suffering as a consequence? That she had kept up the concealing spells for her friend for years as her magic dwindled and she was unable to perform it, before she was inevitably brutally murdered by said headmistress as she was no longer useful?
The world knew about what had happened at Mistress Broomhead's Witch Training College the previous year, how could they not? It was the biggest scandal that the Witching World had seen in a century. But Hecate could barely deal with thinking about what had happened, let alone having it common knowledge that she was a student at the WTC. So, she had lied. Had told Pippa that she was home-schooled for the majority of her life, and had drunk in the stories that Pippa had told her of her time at Miss Spellbinder's Academy for Promising Young Witches.
"Hecate, can I ask you a question?" Pippa said as the two of them sat down for lunch.
"You just did," Hecate said smoothly, smiling slightly as Pippa rolled her eyes.
"Why do you hold your hands like that?"
"Like what?" Hecate said, confused. Looking down at her hands as they rested on the table.
"Like you're always ready to cast a spell." Pippa said. Hecate moved her hands quickly from the table and folded them in her lap. Holding her hands in her casting position was a trait that most of the students who attended the Witch Training College had developed quickly, mostly out of fear than of anything else, for the students never knew when a teacher was going to hurl a curse at them. She opened her mouth, wishing that the words that she was about to say to Pippa were the truth, but she just couldn't do it. It would destroy their friendship, and this was the only thing that had mattered to Hecate in a long, long time.
"I… didn't notice," she said softly, "I guess it's just better to be prepared for everything."
"How do you keep up with them all?" Hecate asked as she and Pippa walked side by side into the Great Hall for breakfast, Pippa having just farewelled a group of girls that Hecate had seen maybe once in the last year at Witch Training College, but whom Pippa had greeted like they were childhood friends.
"What? Eleena and Hettie?" Pippa asked, laughing her tinkling laugh, "They live in the opposite halls. Really funny girls."
"I bet," Hecate grimaced as they sat down opposite each other, "It's really funny the way they look at me like I'm a piece of gum on their shoe."
"Oh, calm down, Hecate they just don't know you like I do," Pippa winked at her as she reached across the table to serve herself some bacon. Hecate felt a hot blush rise up her cheeks and grabbed the nearest newspaper to hide behind, Pippa's words making her heart soar to new heights. A feeling that was quickly replaced by the self-loathing that always accompanied times where she allowed her true feelings for Pippa to slip through.
She forced herself to focus on the article in front of her, and suddenly, she was staring down at a face she had not seen in nearly a year. She would recognise the piercing blue eyes and curly blonde hair anywhere in the world. Her eyes found the headline of the paper and her world crumbled down around her.
MURDER IN PARIS
Queenie Moonshine, 18, was found murdered this morning in her Parisian flat. Signs of forced entry were found at multiple points, the flat ransacked, and most of Moonshine's possessions were missing. This tragic event has happened a year to the day since Anwen Lightspell was murdered at Mistress Broomhead's Witch Training College, at which Miss Moonshine was a student at the time. Miss Moonshine was a British exchange student, studying at the Armitage University for Witches in Paris. Continued on Page 5.
"Hecate, are you okay?" Pippa asked, worry lacing her voice as Hecate dropped the paper back onto the table in front of her, her face fixed in what she knew to be a horrified expression. She didn't know what to do, how to react. Her heart, so full just minutes beforehand felt like it was cracking apart in her chest. Queenie, the first girl she had ever loved, was dead. She looked up at Pippa, her eyes pleading and wide, wanting nothing more than to transfer to her room and be alone. But she couldn't, not without having to explain to Pippa the reasons why this article had made her so upset. Pippa snatched the paper up from the table and skimmed the front page, her mouth falling open.
"God that's horrible!" she exclaimed, "The poor thing! I bet Mistress Broomhead's hired someone to kill off all the students that witnessed that Anwen girl die last year."
Hecate's throat constricted at the words. She looked down at her lap and shook her head, hoping, praying for words to come so that the tornado of panic wouldn't sweep her up and take her away. "It's terrible," she finally managed, her voice thick with emotion.
"Hecate," Pippa said softly, her hand resting on Hecate's, "Are you sure you're alright?"
Hecate looked up at her, employing an old tactic that she had perfected at Witch Training college of voiding her eyes of all emotion, "Yeah," she nodded, "Fine."
The day should've been a happy one. The end of their first year at Weirdsister College, the results were out and both of them had passed with flying colours. The celebration picnic had been Pippa's idea, just the two of them, toasting to the best first year they could've had. But Hecate's spirits were anything but high, her ability to feel joy severely impeded by the news of Queenie. She had been looking out for news in the paper every day since it had happened, but apart from a small obituary the previous week, there hadn't been anything. But she had gone along with Pippa anyway, desperate to keep the façade up.
"Hecate, what's wrong?" Pippa asked as they sat down on the picnic rug, gently placing her hand on top of Hecate's. Hecate jerked it away sharply. She should've known that she couldn't deceive Pippa for much longer.
"Nothing," she said shortly, "I'm fine." Her voice betrayed her instantly, breaking on the word fine. Her eyes instantly welled with tears and she bit down hard on her lip.
"Oh Hiccup!" Pippa exclaimed, her eyes full of empathy and worry. She moved around onto Hecate's side of the picnic rug and drew her into a strong embrace. It was as if the touch of the eccentric witch broke down the dam she had put up inside of her mind ever since it happened and she suddenly found herself clinging to Pippa Pentangle for dear life, disgusted at the loud, guttural sobs that emanated from her mouth as she fought to regain control over her emotions.
To her credit, Pippa did not question, nor did she try to stop the taller witch from crying. She simply sat there, with Hecate wrapped in her arms, holding her tightly as she lost all dignity and decorum.
They seemed to sit there like that for an age, Hecate weeping twelve months' worth of unshed tears of sadness, anxiety and fear. Crying out in pain for the first time since she had lost her parents all those years ago. She cried, not only for her lost friend and the way she had broken her heart, but because this was the first time that she had let herself go in front of anybody other than Queenie Moonshine.
"I-I'm sorry," Hecate choked, pulling back from Pippa and wiping her swollen eyes, "Th-this is p-pathetic."
Pippa looked at Hecate, her blue eyes brimming with tears at the sight of her best friend, her Hiccup, so lost and broken, "No," Pippa said, clasping Hecate's hand in her own, "No, Hecate, there's nothing to be sorry for!"
Her kind smile triggered another wave of tears from the taller witch and Pippa gathered her in her arms once again, her heart breaking as Hecate's body racked with sobs against her, "I wish I could take it away," Pippa muttered, pressing her lips to the top of Hecate's head to stop her own waterworks from bursting forth, she hated seeing people cry, "I wish I could shoulder it for you, Hiccup."
"You d-don't want to h-have to shoulder this b-burden," she said shakily into Pippa's chest, her red rimmed eyes still spilling over with uncontrollable tears. Pippa tightened her hold on the black-clad witch, tears slipping down her own cheeks as she did so, "I can't sleep without seeing it all play back before me, Pippa." Hecate choked, "I see her face every single day."
"Who's face?" Pippa questioned softly, heart aching as the normally strong and stoic Hecate Hardbroom continued to sob into her chest. Hecate reached inside her jacket pocket, pulling out an old photograph that had evidently been folded and unfolded over and over again, the creases telling more stories than words ever could. Hecate unfolded the picture with trembling hands and held it out to Pippa. Pippa took it from her and gazed down at a young Hecate Hardbroom, laughing, arm in arm with a shorter, curly haired, blonde girl. Realisation crashed over Pippa as she recognised the girl from last month's paper. Queenie Moonshine, 18, student, found murdered in the Catacombs of Paris.
"Oh Hecate!" Pippa breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from the photograph, "Was this girl your friend?" she felt Hecate nod into her chest and Pippa's heart broke all over again for her. She tightened her embrace around Hecate as she was overcome with a fresh wave of sobs. "Hiccup, I am so sorry," Pippa whispered, tears freely flowing down her face now, "I am so, so sorry."
All Pippa Pentangle wanted to do was to take away the pain that was clearly crippling the girl curled into her side like a small child. She wanted to hold her, to kiss the tears away and to make sure that she would never have to feel that pain again.
"I j-just wish that I-I could say go-goodbye," Hecate whimpered, attempting to fight against the tears that were so steadily flowing down her face.
"You couldn't have known," Pippa said empathetically, running a hand through Hecate's ebony hair softly, sending a tingle down the other witch's spine, "There was no way you could have known that would happen."
Hecate shook her head sadly, sniffling as she pulled away and ran her hands through her hair in distress, "It's not that," she said, her brown eyes meeting Pippa's blue ones drawing in a deep breath, "I… h-haven't sp-spoken to Queenie in a year. T-the last thing she s-said to me was that she th-thought we should st-stay away from each other."
Another involuntary sob burst forth and Pippa took Hecate's face in her hands, wiping the tears that had rolled down her cheeks. Blue eyes stared deep into brown for just a moment, "Hecate… I'm sorry, can I just…"
And Hecate felt Pippa's soft lips on her own, she could hardly believe what was happening, could hardly comprehend that Pippa Pentangle, the golden girl of Weirdsister College was kissing her, the recluse whom everyone told the peppy witch she would be better off without. The emotions that Hecate had been holding at bay for months and months suddenly burst forth, the shock of the sudden move on Pippa's behalf suddenly settling in as she realised she could respond, could kiss her back. She began to move her lips against Pippa's, her hands moving from their anxious position on her knees to rest behind Pippa's neck as Pippa tangled her fingers in Hecate's hair, pulling her in deeper as Hecate leant forwards into the kiss, savouring every moment, never wanting to break away from Pippa's warm, perfect lips. She felt Pippa's tongue tease at her lips and she parted them willingly, allowing the warmth of Pippa's tongue to dart inside her mouth.
It seemed an age before the two of them broke apart, breathing heavily, both slightly stunned as to what had happened.
"What?" Hecate breathed softly, the word tumbling from her mouth before she could stop it as she pressed her fingers to her lips to savour the feeling of Pippa's there. Pippa did not hesitate.
"I love you, Hiccup, I have for this whole year, ever since we met on the very first day. You are the most beautiful person I have ever come across in my entire life and you're so funny, and smart and you just understand me in a way that nobody else does. Please don't tell me that you don't want to be friends anymore." Pippa said, not even pausing to draw breath.
"But…" Hecate stammered, "All those boys you slept with? Caleb, Jackson, Noah, Albert?"
"Oh Hecate, they were just a distraction from you! I thought for sure that you didn't like me back until just now… you do… don't you?" Pippa said, suddenly uncertain.
And then, Hecate Hardbroom did something that she had only ever done in dreams. She flung herself at Pippa Pentangle, pressing her lips once more to the blonde girl's as Pippa fell backwards onto the picnic rug. She felt Pippa's arms close around her, pulling her in close as her heart broke free of its cage and soared higher than it ever had done before. And in that moment, Hecate knew that she would not have to run away from her feelings again, that she would no longer have to lie, to conceal her past, to force herself to push back her emotions. Because she was Pippa's and Pippa was hers. She pulled back from the kiss to utter the three words that she had been saying over and over and over in her head for an entire year.
"I love you, too, Pipsqueak."
Author's Note: Merry Christmas everyone!
I wrote this starting at 4am when I got a random plotbunny, it's a Christmas miracle! I have always stood strong by the fact that I think that Hecate is what Constance would've turned out like had she not been directly tutored by Mistress Broomhead. The HB/BH dynamic is my problematic fave and I just had to bring her into the 2017-verse because she's such a good villain!
Please do let me know what you think of the fic!
Cheers,
Nay xxx