A/N - Thanks to everyone who has read this so far. This is my first time writing a fic, so I would love to hear what you think. Does anyone seem out of character, can I improve on anything?
Hecate arose earlier than usual, thoughts of Pippa Pentangle and their conversation had plagued her sleep. Why had she agreed for Pippa to come to tea at Cackle's tonight? She felt nervous even at the thought of it. She was still not sure what to make of their newly rekindled friendship, if you could call it that yet. Surely the glamorous, popular witch wouldn't really want to be friends with her? Hecate didn't have many friends. Her closest confident was her colleague and boss, Ada. In moments of self doubt, Hecate often wondered if Ada would still be her friend without the confines of the school forcing them to spend time together.
She quickly dressed in her usual dark robes, and put her hair in a practical tight bun. She glanced in the mirror, and satisfied with her appearance, the witch transferred herself to the dining hall.
A large cauldron of Miss Tapioca's signature porridge sat on a bench at the head of the otherwise empty hall. Upon finding that no one else was yet awake, she breathed a sigh of relief. After her angry outburst to Mildred the night before, she wasn't sure she was ready to deal with more students quite yet. She ladled herself a lumpy bowl of porridge and transferred with the bowl back to the comfort of her chambers.
Once back in her chambers, Hecate grimaced at the grey sludge in her bowl. Even after years of teaching at Cackle's Academy, she had still not gotten used to the appalling food. The witch took the offending porridge to her cupboards and attempted to make it edible. If only magical food had nutritional value, she mused. She added a generous helping of the honey from the previous evening's tea and used her magic to warm the porridge.
After her disappointing breakfast, Hecate transferred herself to the potions room. She had always taken pride in how orderly and well stocked her classroom was. Knowing that her students had access to high quality ingredients was of the utmost importance when teaching about their potency. Her upcoming meet with Pippa crossed her mind once more, alongside the feeling of trepidation in her stomach. Although maybe that was the porridge's doing.
She began to busy herself prepping the ingredients for this morning's lesson, beauty spells. This was a popular potion with the girls, who seemed to favour their looks over their academic achievement. Hecate snorted derisively at the thought. Of course there was always one student who added too much thyme and ended up with foot long eyebrows. Smiling at the image, Hecate had a quiet chuckle to herself. She already knew who that would be.
She started carefully but nimbly stripping thyme leaves from their stems, sorting the green leaves from those that had began to turn brown. She settled into a steady rhythm, enjoying the soothing repetition that allowed her to clear her mind. This was soon interrupted, and here was a knock at the classroom door.
"Come in," she waved her hand to open the door. Much to her surprise, Mildred Hubble stumbled in. "You're up early Miss Hubble," Hecate said. Mildred nodded shyly.
She placed a hand written document on her potions teacher's desk, which Hecate immediately recognised as the lines she had set the clumsy student the night before. At least the girl had taken her punishment on the chin. Mildred opened her mouth to apologise for being up after lights out. Hecate cut in "Mildred, you may think I am being harsh on you, but you know the rules. As you are here early, why don't we begin your first detention with you helping me to prepare potions ingredients."
Relieved that her teacher hadn't shouted at her again , Mildred agreed and moved next to her teacher. Hecate began to show her how to prepare each ingredient properly, telling her young student the properties of each, and how to get the best results from the array of magical plants on the table. She noted that the girl took much more care when she was learning in a one on one environment, and was surprised when the girl even began to ask questions to expand her knowledge further. Hecate loved to talk about potions, and not enough students were interested in the reasons behind the properties of the herbs. She began to deliberately steer the conversation towards the beauty potions the first years would be brewing later that morning to warn the young witch of the adverse affects of incorrect ingredient proportions, particularly thyme.
The learning moment was cut short by the loud clattering of a copper pot full of ragwort hitting the floor. Mildred yelped in surprise at her clumsiness and looked embarrassed. She hurried to scoop the golden flowers from the floor. "Sorry Miss Hardbroom, I didn't notice it was so close to the edge," Mildred apologised, annoyed at herself for ruining the first time Miss Hardbroom had not been angry with her. "No need to worry girl, no harm was done." The older witch snapped her fingers, and the pot and its contents returned to the table. Confused at this response, Mildred looked at her teacher with her eyes wide and bated breath. Surely her teacher had a quip for her careless student. Even Hecate was surprised at how calmly she had reacted to her student's clumsiness. Pippa's cheery influence was clearly rubbing off on her already. She shook her head at the thought.
Hecate quickly redirected Mildred's attention to some burdock root which required turning into a powder using a pestle and mortar. Sighing at her student's half heartened actions, she snatched the pestle and mortar back and began to grind the root with strong, precise movement. "It won't ever turn into a powder with such a pathetic attempt, Mildred," she said, enunciating Mildred's name with particular emphasis. "Here, try again, but this time with purpose." The older witch passed the half powdered root back to her student, and was pleased to see her take her advice on board. "Very good," she commented.
Mildred was almost disappointed to see her classmates arrive. "Getting extra help with your potions?" sneered Ethel as she took a seat, "You'll need it if you ever want to pass your end of term exams." Mildred looked at the ground embarrassed. Was it worse to admit she was stuck in early morning detention, or the fact that she very much would like extra help with her potions?
Luckily she didn't have to answer as Maud and Enid came in. "Millie! We missed you at breakfast this morning, where were you?" Maud exclaimed. Mildred left Miss Hardbroom with the finely powdered burdock root and a small smile. "Early morning detention, I was helping Miss Hardbroom with ingredient prep" she explained, gesturing almost proudly at the pile of fresh ingredients.
"Enough, girls," said their teacher. "Please take your places at your cauldrons, this morning we will be working on beauty spells." A wave of excitement spread through the girls, friends turning to each other in glee, wondering how a beauty spell would change their classmates. Ethel opened her mouth to make a callous comment towards Mildred, but was interrupted by her teacher. "Your ingredients and instructions are on page 89 of your potions textbooks, you may begin." Miss Hardbroom said.
Immediately the girls sprung from their seats, racing to gather enough ingredients for their potions.
Mildred, Maud and Enid returned to their bench with their arms full of magical ingredients. As they followed the recipe, Mildred noticed the recipe called for thyme. She racked her brain, wondering why thyme was flagging something up for her. Miss Hardbroom must have mentioned it in the morning, what did she say? It was something about too much… Or too little. Mildred puzzled over it for a moment and then remembered - too much will cause something bad to happen! She didn't catch what would happen as her teacher had been talking about it when the pot of ragwort had crashed onto the floor. Triumphant, Mildred returned her focus to the potion her friends were making, and noticed with disappointment that the pile of thyme had already been deposited into the potion. She hoped that Maud had been the one to add it in, she would have measured it correctly.
The potions turned a pretty lavender colour, and the excited class all rushed to grab spoons of their potions to try. Mildred breathed a sigh of relief that her group's potion was the same colour as everyone else's. As girls around the room took sips of their potions hot from the cauldron, their appearances started to ever so slightly change.
Miss Hardbroom watched amused from her desk as the girls started to look like airbrushed versions of themselves. Disappointed, Ethel looked at her reflection and exclaimed "I still look like me, but not real." Many other girls nodded their heads in agreement, they were still all recognisable as themselves, but something just didn't quite look real. It was as if their skin has been replaced by a thin layer of wax, and the quirks that made them them had been ironed out.
As with most spells covered in her classes, this was a great opportunity to offer the girls a life lesson. Hecate stood up to give her usual "Beauty comes from within and looks won't get you very far" speech, when giggles erupted from the middle of the classroom. Mildred, Maud and Enid had just tried their potion. Their eyebrows began to sprout long flowing hairs that came down to their shoulders.
"Enough!" Exclaimed Miss Hardbroom, looking for the cause of the commotion. The girls turned their heads to face their angry teacher, their eyebrows swinging around following the movement of their faces. The teacher clicked her fingers and everyone's faces returned to normal.
"Can anyone tell me the reason this happened?" Enquired Miss Hardbroom menacingly.
Mildred tentatively raised her hand. "Mildred Hubble," she said.
"Uhhh, I think, um it's, um too much thyme?" She said, grinning after she had said it, sure she was right.
"Correct," said her teacher, "and if you knew this, then why did you still add too much?" she asked, glaring at her young student. This girl was insufferable with the mistakes she made. Ethel stifled a laugh at the back of the classroom.
"I uh, must have missed that step?" Mildred offered, immediately knowing that was the wrong this to say to her teacher.
Miss Hardbroom's face angered and she said "So you admit you weren't paying attention to your potion? Pity. That will be another week of detention, Mildred Hubble." She stared at Mildred's disappointed face, she had so much potential, but made so many easy mistakes. "Class dismissed." Miss Hardbroom vanished before Mildred could respond.
Hecate appeared silently in the kitchen behind Miss Tapioca, The cook had been napping in her favourite chair next to the warm oven, but the arrival of the other witch caused her to jump up and spill soup onto the hob. "Don't you knock? Complained the witch in her Birmingham accent.
"I would like your assistance with something," Hecate said. "I am entertaining an old friend for tea this evening, and I would like to be able to offer her some food too. Would you be able to provide us with some cakes and sandwiches?"
"What's in it for me?" Replied the cook obstinately. Hecate frowned, why did everyone have to make things so difficult.
"What is in it for you, is that I don't tell Miss Cackle that you have been sleeping on the job" she replied bluntly.
The cook nodded, caught out. "Okay, okay, but you have to collect them from the kitchen later, I'm not bringing them to you." Hecate agreed, and transferred herself out of the kitchen.
Back in her classroom, Hecate had a free period. While Hecate usually enjoyed the quietness of a free period, she found she couldn't focus on her marking. She was too nervous for this evening. The potions teacher flitted between activities, finding for the first time in years, she had no focus at all. Sighing in resignation, the teacher transferred herself outside the door of Miss Cackle's office. Perhaps Ada could help quell her nerves. Hecate gave a sharp knock on the wooden door and entered when invited.
"Ah Hecate," smiled her colleague. "Do sit down, I've just brewed a pot of tea." Hecate sidled woodenly into the chair opposite her friend and accepted a freshly poured cup of tea. The two friends had been having tea together for many years, and Ada no longer felt the need to ask how her deputy head took her tea. She could tell by the mood of her colleague. Today was a three sugars day.
Ada didn't have to wait long to find out the root of Hecate's discomfort, Hecate opened her mouth and said matter of factly "I have invited Pippa Pentangle to tea tonight, I hope that is okay." Ada nodded, "I did hope that seeing each other again at the spelling bee would bring the two of you together," she smiled. "You used to be so close." Hecate shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"I was wondering if we might make use of the clearing in the woods, the evenings are becoming lighter now, and we are less likely to be disturbed by students..." Hecate stopped herself, tailing off into a whisper. She was embarrassed to admit she didn't want to be seen with Pippa by her students. They were just friends after all. It wasn't embarrassing to have friends. Ada gave a knowing smile. "Of course." she said. "why don't you take the rest of today off to prepare, I'm sure you will have lots to catch up on" she suggested to her tall colleague.
"I couldn't possibly-" protested Hecate, she had proudly never missed a single lesson's teaching in her whole career at Cackle's. As if reading her thoughts, Ada interrupted "All will be taken care of Hecate, an afternoon off will do you good, you never miss lessons."
Hecate finished her tea in silence and thanked her friend. Perhaps Ada really would want to be her friend outside of Cackle's she thought hopefully.
Back in her chambers again, Hecate set about feeding her familiar. Morgana meowed gratefully as her mistress placed a bowl of cat food on the floor by the fireplace.
She tidied a few items needlessly before realising she only had a few hours until Pippa's arrival. Hecate was surprised at how eager, yet on edge she felt for Pippa's impending arrival. She hardly dared think about it for too long, she couldn't admit to herself that perhaps what she felt for Pippa was more - no, she mustn't let herself think like that. Pippa was only an old school friend. Nothing more. She couldn't be anything more.
Trying to distract herself, Hecate moved into her bedroom. What was she going to wear? Hecate hadn't had to think about her outfit in such a long time. Every day she wore a long black robe, and when necessary a black flying cape cape and hat too. Perhaps too much black, she thought, remembering Pippa's comment about it being last century. Hecate opened her wardrobe and looked at her clothes, biting her lip in thought. Almost everything she owned was black. She reached in and pulled a few dresses to the side to reveal yet another black dress. This one, however had a layer of rich dark purple silk that showed through the black lace of the skirt when it caught the light. Realising she was now tight for time, Hecate snapped her fingers and the new dress replaced her usual teaching attire.
Now for her hair. Hecate was a big fan of a practical bun, but would Pippa think her stuffy? She moved her fingers around her hair, expertly using her magic to flick through multiple hairstyles until she found one she liked. She settled on a bun again, but this time with a neat braid encircling it.
She bid her cat farewell and transferred to the kitchen to collect the food she had requested earlier.