Disclaimer: I don't own The Worst Witch. And the song lyric belongs to Lana Del Rey ;)

A/N: Apologies for the delay, life has kept me busy and I am having a few *ahem* ... issues with my laptop, in that it's starting to fall apart, which is why it has taken me a bit of time to get here. It actually cut off whilst I was typing this chapter up, so this version is done from memory more than anything else so I hope it reads okay ... *fingers crossed*

Thank you for the reviews so far and extra special thanks goes to the lovely Dissecting Pomegranates who has put up with my bitching and played idea ping-pong with moi. *hands cupcake*:)

'Oh, she starts to cry, mascara runnin' down her little Bambi eyes'

Chapter 2

Closing the heavy wooden door and sliding the bolt across she was finally alone. Free from the concerned looks her colleagues had been exchanging all day when they thought she wasn't looking, ever since the letter had arrived. There was an eerie sense of deja vu: the situation mirrored that of the previous year, when the arrival of a letter had shaken the usually unflappable deputy; something that hadn't gone unnoticed by the inhabitants of the school. And the subsequent arrival of her former tutor, who had been made her legal guardian, following the death of her mother when she was just 8 years old, had shown there to be faint cracks in the mask of indifference she portrayed.

A small sigh escaped from her lips as she leant against the back of the door; her perfect posture slumping slightly from the weight of carrying the world on her shoulders, coupled with the exhaustion of keeping up the pretence that she was 'fine'. It still shocked her how easily the word rolled off her tongue, especially when it was a lie; so far from the truth, and yet said so often it was almost believable … almost.

She allowed her eyes to momentarily close as the revelation of the day finally washed over her, like the waves of a rough tempestuous tide crashing onto the beach and sweeping away the tiny granules of sand with its sheer power; it held no prisoners, it granted no mercy. Long suppressed memories outwith her control were beginning to bubble up to the surface as images flashed before her mind; screams echoed in her ears, screams that had once fallen from her own lips. Screams she knew to be futile. Screams that had eventually died away to nothing more than whispered pleas of innocence and apologies as she had begged her tutor to stop; barely able to get the words out such was the agony she was being subjected to.

It was something she had wanted to avoid at all costs, yet it was something she had envisaged, for Constance Hardbroom was nothing if not a realist, and the logical part of her mind had always known it could be a possibility again ... one day. Especially since Heckitty now knew where she had been hiding for all those years, having discovered at the inspection last year. She had sniffed her out like a shark sniffs out the blood in the vast waters of the world, before sneaking up on the unsuspecting human and devouring them whole. Heckitty knew where she was, and she was never going to let her be free. Her nightmare the previous evening had told her that much, and the letter had merely confirmed it. Secretly though she had prayed that's all it was, just another nightmare. Another nightmare of the past; something that she would never escape.

It turned out that 'one day' was to be a lot sooner than she thought or would have liked. In all honesty though she could have a lifetime to prepare and it would be nowhere near enough to ready her to face her again. Luck nor time was on her side and in just three days time Cackle's Academy would receive another inspection from OFWITCH, to be carried out by non-other than the very woman herself: Mistress Heckitty Broomhead.

And in all honesty she was petrified.

Beyond petrified.

Her sense of terror so heightened it was taking every inch of control she possessed not to break down there and then; to fall to her knees screaming how it wasn't fair, but it wasn't her. It wasn't how she did things. It was even reflected in her name: she was constant; resolute; loyal in times of trouble and difficulty. She was the Academy's pillar of hope; their tower of strength, and their fountain of knowledge. Everyone thought that the formidable potions mistress didn't suffer from fear and that's what she led them to believe; it reinforced the image she portrayed to the world, but it was far from the truth. She suffered from fear alright, just like any normal person did: the only difference was she'd learned to control her fear. To stay calm in the face of adversity, for if you allow your fear to consume you then you would never get anywhere. To cower was to give in; and giving in was not something Constance Hardbroom did easily.

She was ashamed to even admit that the notion of running away had crossed her mind, if only for a second, but when it came down to it, she couldn't do it: she had a duty to her colleagues and her girls.

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes but she quickly blinked them away, refusing to let them fall. Refusing to show weakness; even the slightest chink in her armour, the slightest thing that could be used against her, even though there was no one there to witness it. If you were to merely glance in her direction you would be none the wiser, if you were to blink, then you would miss it, as on the surface she still remained her usual calm and composed self; the ice-queen of the Academy, but underneath, she was anything but, the panic so extreme it threatened to overwhelm her.

The panic.

The fear.

It was like the feeling of a bony hand crushing down on her windpipe and cutting off her oxygen supply: the same bony hand that had once wrapped itself around her fragile neck; their grip getting tighter and tighter while she fought desperately for air, her fingernails clawing desperately to try and release the grip suffocating her before the blackness threatening to envelope her seeped across her vision for good. Reaching up she undid the top few buttons on the restrictive collar of the neck of her dress in a bid to let some air flow back into her lungs.

Whether it was unbridled fear, the lack of air, or a mixture of both, she didn't know but she felt very light-headed, her shaking limbs were betraying her; failing to support her weight. Placing a hand on the wall to use for support she slowly made her way over to the chair at her dressing table and sank gracefully, and gratefully into it. Taking a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart down, she slowly raised her head and stared into the mirror: her eyes, the only thing that betrayed the façade completely; wide-eyed she was unable to hide the terror in them, unable to hide the glimmer beneath the surface.

Like herself, Heckitty also wore a mask; the only difference was that whilst her own concealed the broken woman she wanted to shield from the world, hers hid the true darkness of her character: the very definition of pure evil on the surface, but underneath it, she was so much worse; the way she could manipulate a situation and use it to her advantage ...

It was everything about the woman; the deadly eyes that burned into her own; the clipped tones of pure poison that fell from her tongue and venomous syllables that dripped in her ear, the sound as the heels clicked against the stone floor: it was everything that reminded her of a past she had tried hard to forget.

Her past was her best kept secret, or her worst depending on how one looked at it. Whilst her colleagues were now aware that Heckitty Broomhead had been her personal tutor whilst she had been at Witch Training College, no-one was aware of the true horrors she had suffered at the hands of that woman.

Heckitty Broomhead had ruled with an iron fist, stepping out of line was at your own peril, and no-one had ever dared to put so much as even one toe over the line for fear of the consequences. Not that it had made much difference where she had been concerned. She'd kept her head down as much as she could; not spoken unless she was spoken to; tried her hardest to deliver total perfection at all times in her spells, potions and general decorum and yet it was never enough. It never even came close. That gaze had burned into her like a red hot fire, watching her 365 days of the year, following her like a shadow, never giving her a moments respite, hunting her down. Like an arrow she'd targeted her, picked on her, broken her down to nothing but a mere shell and then rebuilt her as a carbon copy of her own ice-queen image. Never allowed to smile, laugh, or cry.

She could still feel the tears as they burned in her eyes and blurred her vision; the image of her reflection now nothing but a blur, a distorted picture. Almost mockingly a lone tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek, she wiped it away but another soon fell, then another and another. The barrier broke as the metal eroded on her cage of self-control; the cage that housed every emotion and feeling locked away tight out of sight, and tears that weren't caused under the effects of a nightmare streamed down her cheeks for the first time in over a decade. Her mascara smudged from the water of her tears, causing the streaks of black to trickle down her cheeks. Standing out against her porcelain skin; it was a stark reminder of her tainted past.

A sly smile spread across Heckitty Broomhead's face, her thin lips curling into a cruel smirk as she swirled the brandy glass in her hand; the brown liquid splashing up against the edges of the glass. Faking the letter had been so easy. The plan was in motion and soon, she picked up an old photograph from the desk; it was in black and white but there was no mistaking one of the people in it. Tracing the outline of the figure with her finger, the lifeless eyes in the picture stared back at her, she would have her prize.