Confidence and control. Calm indifference and composure was the giver of sanity and strength for Constance Hardbroom, and was such a necessity for her in the staff room, especially now, with such a chaotic character thrown into the mix. As she sipped her first tea of the term, she surveyed the newest member of staff who had been shooed in with the sixth form scrapings from some ridiculous closed-down day witch-school; Lacewing Academy. Miss Rocky Fluxweed. What kind of a name was that anyway? Miss Hardbroom couldn't deny that they needed an extra teacher with the number of new students they had taken on this year, not to mention the fact that there would be an extra class. Although exactly why Miss Cackle had thought it would be appropriate to just insert a sixth form composed mostly of girls from a completely different school, was still not clear to her. And their tutor! Her hair was an untidy mixture of shades of red and brown; she wore jeans underneath her red and black witch's cloak, whose pockets were also particularly rattly whenever she moved around; she was also wearing fingerless gloves despite it being a warm summery day; and she had been continuously eating biscuits all morning. She moved to glance out of the window, catching a glimpse of some of the new girls frolicking in the courtyard. Some discipline will need to be in order for these girls, especially with a tutor like
"Why on earth are you wearing those?" Her gaze had fallen to Rocky's trainer-clad feet, which she had rested on a spare chair.
Rocky looked from her new colleague's face to her own feet and back again, taking a moment to realise what she had meant.
"Oh, sorry," she said, still munching on her current biscuit, "I don't fly well in heels," whipped up her spell-casting fingers and transformed her shoes into something more appropriate, pretending to ignore Miss Hardbroom's slight scowl. Watching the tall witch as she turned back towards the teapot, Rocky wondered just how appropriate a person could be.
"Alright, girls?" Rocky had been put in charge of supervising dinner, and was using the opportunity to catch up with some of the girls from her class, "I hope you've all had an enjoyable day?"
Fenella and Griselda were amongst the sixth years who had returned to Cackle's alongside the girls from the former day witch-school. They had been in the middle of telling Mags and Kada, two of the new girls, how Miss Hardbroom was known to turn sub-standard pupils into slimy frogs and warty toads.
Rocky noticed the disgusted look which was still clearly evident on Mags's face, and Fenella and Griselda's sly smirks.
"Well, I bet I can tell what you four have just been discussing," a smirk flickered across her face as she waved a hand in front of her as though reading a news broadcast, "Evil teacher transforms pesky student into soggy pond creature..."
Fenella and Griselda exchanged 'how did she get that?' looks, whereas Mags and Kada both suppressed a giggle; over their years at day witch school, they had grown accustomed to Miss Fluxweed's uncanny ability to tell exactly what was happening in a situation.
"I know exactly who you were talking about too, and I would advise you," she paused, "not to"
"Why don't you teach us potions, Miss?" Griselda asked cheekily, "Mags said you taught them sometimes at Lacewing-"
"What I did at Lacewing Academy is... irrelevant now," she scowled at the girls, "I promised you the best when we came to Cackle's, and whether you like it or not, Miss Hardbroom is the best."
With that, she stood up, shaking her hands to release her casting fingers from her cuffs and began to magically clear the remaining debris from the other tables, musing on how she had just defended someone she hardly even knew. Maybe she was a little in awe of her colleague; perhaps even a little jealous. She had barely seen Miss Hardbroom perform any magic, but she could tell how powerful the other witch clearly was.
Constance glared at the newcomer across the dinner table. She was truly irritated by her few brief encounters with Rocky, but she couldn't decide what, in particular, was so annoying about the woman. She despised the way she presented herself; she disapproved of her general attitude. Despite those irritating gloves – if you could call them gloves; Constance had thought of them as rather inconvenient to a witch – she had noticed how her new colleague cast spells in the same way that she did, yet she seemed to use magic for the most trivial things... and she certainly didn't like that.