Apologies again for being an absolute donkey at uploading chapters. I don't want to sit here and make promises I can't keep...but I will do my best to get the rest of this story posted as soon as I can. There should be another part up before the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone who's been so patient, and thanks for taking the time to review. I really have appreciated it.

SD

Mildred paced back and forth across the room. Enid and Maud looked on, concerned that their friend was worrying too much. She'd been in an agitated state since she'd entered the room.

"They can't stop HB from being a witch," Maud spoke up finally; striking at what she thought was the heart of Mildred's current unease.

Mildred stopped her pacing and turned to face her friends, folding her arms across her chest.

"They can," she told Maud firmly. "And it looks as though that's exactly what Miss Spellbinder is trying to achieve."

"Well we have to stop her," Maud said decisively.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Enid asked her flatly. "And more to the point, do we want to?"

Mildred looked at her friend in shock.

"Oh come on Millie," Enid sought to justify what she had said. "We all know what HB's like. Can't you honestly say that you wouldn't enjoy school more if HB wasn't in it?"

Mildred opened her mouth to answer Enid and then promptly shut it again.

"You see," Enid told her firmly. "I'm right."

Mildred shook her head. "But I don't want her to lose her status as a witch. She might be scary and impossible to please but I wouldn't wish anything that bad to happen to her." Mildred shivered. "I just can't imagine HB without her magic; it's just wrong somehow."

Maud nodded in agreement with her friend.

"And I don't trust that Miss Spellbinder. I think she's up to something."

Mildred thought about telling Maud and Enid about her theory that Miss Spellbinder had cast some sort of spell on her, but she wasn't sure that she wanted the information to get out before she had some kind of proof. Enid was a good friend, but she was rather quick with her mouth at times. It would be just like her to blurt it out and get all of them in a lot more trouble.

Mildred bit her lip. "I think I'm going to talk to Miss Drill, see if she can't help us."

Enid let out a short laugh. "What's Miss Drill going to be able to do? It's not as though she's the greatest authority on maintaining witch status!"

Mildred shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "But I'm convinced that Miss Spellbinder's up to something and I think we're going to need help to prove it."

Maud looked quizzically at her friend. "What makes you think that Miss Drill will help? She's never exactly had the best of relationships with HB?"

"I know," Mildred admitted. "But I can't ask Miss Cackle or Miss Bat to stand against a member of the Witches' Guild. They'd never be able to do it, even they wanted to."

"You've got a point." A nasty thought struck Enid. "But if Miss Spellbinder finds out that we're up to something then she could take away our witch status." Enid looked down at her feet. "You're asking a lot."

Mildred looked from Enid to Maud and saw the trepidation on their faces.

"I don't expect either of you to help me," she told them firmly. "But I just can't sit back and let Miss Spellbinder do what she's doing. I'm going to try and do something about it."

Maud looked at the determined expression on her friend's face.

"I'm sure I'm going to regret this…" she replied quietly. "But I'm with you... Enid?"

Enid stared at the pair of them for a good few seconds.

"Let me get this straight; you want us to help out the one teacher who has spent the best part of the last two years trying to get Millie expelled and has made my life a misery with impossibly hard homework?"

"That's about the size of it," Mildred admitted.

Enid shook her head. "I must be crazy," she told her friends. "But count me in."

"How would you describe your relationship with Miss Hardbroom?"

Imogen glanced briefly in the direction of her colleague but Constance was still staring motionless ahead, as though she were somehow removed from the proceedings.

"Miss Drill?" Hortense pressed. "If you wouldn't mind."

"Sorry." Imogen switched her attention back to Hortense. "If I'm honest, I've never had the easiest of relationships with Constance."

"Honesty is exactly what we're after," Hortense told her smoothly. "Would you care to elaborate on your reply? In what way is your relationship with Miss Hardbroom 'difficult'?"

"I never said it was difficult," Imogen replied quickly. "I said that it wasn't the easiest." Imogen glanced quickly at Constance again. "My colleague is something of a perfectionist. That can be hard to measure up to."

"So she forces her impossibly high standards onto you?"

"That's not what I said," Imogen argued.

"So you're saying that she doesn't expect you to treat the pupils in exactly the same way as she does?"

Imogen opened her mouth to reply, trying desperately to think of someway of phrasing the answer that didn't sound bad.

"I'm sure she'd like me to treat the girls in exactly the same way that she does, but I think she realises that everyone has to do things in their own way."

Hortense flicked casually through the notes that she had in front of her.

"I see here that you and Miss Hardbroom chaperoned some of the girls on a trip this year."

Imogen felt the colour drain from her face.

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"And that trip went by without a hitch?"

Imogen searched for the right words. "Everything turned out fine," she answered cautiously, not sure how far she could stretch the truth in the presence of the honesty spell.

"Really!" Hortense's tone made it clear that she didn't believe a word. She consulted her notes again. "According to the local news for the area, there was a particularly heavy fall of snow…interesting when you take into account that this trip was in May!"

Imogen closed her eyes. "There was some slight exuberance from some of the girls but it wasn't allowed to get out of hand."

Hortense turned her attention to Constance.

"Would you perhaps like to tell me your version of the events?"

"The girls indulged in some ill-advised magic and I had to put a stop to it," Constance replied flatly.

Hortense arched an eyebrow. "But for the magic to get so out of hand that it registered with the meteorological society, it must have been brewing for quite some time. Just why did it take you so long to act?"

Imogen crossed her fingers and hoped that Constance would pick her words carefully.

"Miss Drill had insisted that the trip was to be one without magic."

Imogen's little bubble of hope burst as she heard the answer, and she felt rather than saw Hortense's attention fix itself back on her.

"You insisted that the trip be one without magic?" she questioned. "You were on a school outing with a group of young witches and an experienced practitioner of the arts and you decreed that no magic was to be used?"

Imogen shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, feeling for the moment that she was the one on trial.

"This was an outward bound trip," she tried to explain. "I wanted the girls to learn how to survive in the wilderness using their wits, not relying on their magic."

Hortense tipped her head slightly to one side. "And you are aware that this is a school for witches?"

Imogen suppressed a sigh. "I thought that it would benefit the girls."

"You thought that depriving young witches of their magic would in some way benefit them?" The incredulity was plain in her voice. "Would it be more accurate to say that you are uncomfortable in the presence of magic?"

"That's not the case," Imogen replied quickly. "I don't have a problem with magic."

"Would it perhaps be more accurate to say that you have a problem with certain witches and the way that they use their magic?"

Imogen wanted to reply that that just wasn't the case, but found that she was unable to do so.

Hortense raised her eyebrows as she waited for an answer, knowing full well that Imogen was being affected by the honesty spell.

"Miss Drill, if you would please answer the question."

Imogen swallowed and tried to put a sentence together. "It would be fair to say that I am still capable of being surprised by some of the things that people around here can achieve."

"Do these things scare you?"

Imogen pulled a face. "I'd say that some of them take some getting used to."

Hortense frowned as she realised the game that Imogen was playing. If she was going to get the answers that she wanted, she was going to have to play things a different way.

"I'd like you to tell me about the events leading up to parent's evening?" Hortense abruptly changed the topic of conversation.

"Why?" Imogen's mouth was dry with fear.

"Why?" Hortense's voice was incredulous. "Because I want to know how you saw what happened on that day. As a non-magical member of staff, your view is unique."

Imogen moistened her lips. "The whole day is a bit of a haze," she chose her words carefully.

Hortense leant forward, placing her hands on the table in front of her.

"Well then tell me the parts that you do remember."

Imogen ran back over the day and tried to choose a good place to start.

"I met up with Miss Bat in the staff room and she was looking smart in her gown…" she began but Hortense waved at her to be quiet.

"Back Miss Drill, back. I want to know what happened during the day, not just the evening itself."

"But nothing happened."

Hortense smiled. "Humour me."

"I don't see what any of it has to do with the entity," she argued. "I don't see what relevance it can possibly have to the events of the evening."

"Oh very well," Hortense sighed theatrically. "Since you are so determined that I should spell it out. I want to know what you remember about the file whose disappearance from the WTC you helped to orchestrate." She leant forward. "Has that spelt things out clearly enough for you?"

Imogen swallowed and glanced nervously at Constance before beginning.

"I assume that you are referring to the fact that I obtained Miss Hardbroom's personnel file from the WTC?'

Hortense clasped a hand to her chest.

"Well I do consider the action to be a little unusual," she relied. "I mean it isn't the usual thing that one teacher does to another...Well that's certainly true within witch schools, heaven alone knows what they do in the sort of schools that you're used to."

Imogen fought to retain her temper.

"This was an exceptional thing to do," she told Hortense through gritted teeth.

"So what precisely were you planning to do once you obtained this file?" Hortense asked calmly.

Imogen stared down at her hands, feeling more than a little foolish. "I was planning to read it."

"Why?"

Imogen raised her head. "Why?" She was genuinely confused.

"Why would you want to read a file about a fellow member of staff? You've known her for a couple of years now. Surely you could just ask her a question if you wanted to know something."

Imogen searched for the right words. "Constance likes to keep herself to herself."

"And you wanted to know what secrets she had?"

"No…" Imogen protested. "Yes," she added in a much quieter tone, the spell in the air forcing her to tell the truth.

"And did you read this file once you'd laid your hands on it?"

"Davina said that we shouldn't." Imogen closed her eyes immediately as she realised that she'd just dragged Davina into the situation.

"So Miss Bat didn't look at the file," Hortense carried on smoothly, seeming to gloss over Miss Bat's involvement. "Did you? Did you look at the file?"

Imogen opened and closed her mouth, desperately searching for a way to answer the question without lying.

"Did you or did you not look at the file?" Hortense persisted. "It's a simple enough question." She paused again before repeating. "Did you look at the file?"

Imogen looked down at her feet. "I don't know," she finally admitted.

"You don't know." The words were spoken slowly and deliberately. "You don't know?" Hortense's voice shot up, the disbelief dripping off every word. "Are you seriously expecting anyone to believe that you 'don't know' whether you looked at the file or not? Come on Miss Drill, what do you take us for? Did you or did you not look at that file?"

Imogen took a deep breath. "I don't remember everything that happened that day," she admitted. "Maybe the entity…"

"You are not here to guess at what may or may not have happened," Hortense warned her. "I want to know why you're so reticent about revealing what was in that file."

"I don't remember looking at the file," Imogen growled.

"What do you remember?" Hortense persisted. "What do you remember exactly?"

Imogen pushed her hands through her hair. "I don't remember anything 'exactly',"

"And why do you think that is?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," Hortense repeated slowly. "And why do I find that a little hard to believe?"

Imogen shrugged her shoulders.

"So this file...this file that you don't remember reading...where exactly is it now?"

"It was returned to the WTC."

"Are you sure about that? Absolutely certain?"

A look of confusion crossed Imogen's face.

"Yes...I mean that was what I was told...I had no reason to disbelieve it."

"And if I were to tell you that the file in question is no longer anywhere to be found...would you be surprised?"

"What?" Imogen looked around. "Of course I'd be surprised."

"So you've had nothing to do with its continued absence from the WTC?"

"Nothing at all," Imogen fought back against the frustration that was rising within.

"So a file that you went to great lengths to get hold of, you claim not to remember reading and you also expect the court to believe that you have no idea of where that file is now! Come come Miss Drill why on earth should we believe you? Why on earth should we believe such an obvious piece of flagrant lying?"

"I don't remember anything because I think that there is some sort of memory erase spell on me," Imogen snapped, her patience with Hortense finally reaching breaking point.

Hortense folded her arms. "Well that's very interesting...A memory erase spell...That's a very serious thing to suggest."

Imogen let her head drop into her hands. She'd wanted to avoid mentioning her fears about the memory erase spell, but Hortense had led her into a trap and she'd fallen for it... hook, line and sinker.