The trouble with waking up Chapter 7: Do not meddle, a worst witch fanfic

Chapter 7 – Do not meddle in the affairs of sleeping Headmistresses

As anyone who has ever met a witch will tell you, they are very secretive in nature. In addition to closely guarding ancient spells and family arts with fierce determination, they will also strive to keep any embarrassing information about themselves private with the same amount of, if not more, determination.

Miss Cackle saw this as one of the most sensible things to remember for any young witch choosing to learn at her academy, regarding the spread of gossip and rumour as things unbecoming a dignified witch. In fact, one of the first things she would tell hopeful new first years when introduced to the school was; "The only thing that will betray you worse than a friend is an unguarded secret."

A sensible thing to remember indeed. In theory.

Young witches saw secrets as some of the most valuable tings to be learned once entering Cackle's academy, regarding the spread of gossip and rumour as things completely becoming of teenage girls. One of the few things agreed on by all hopeful first year girls after being introduced to the school was; "Find a secret, any secret, and sooner or later you'll be better off for it."

In a nutshell, this meant that the fact that Miss Cackle was the most awful snorer within the whole castle was both the worst and best kept secret in the school.

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It hadn't taken Enid too long to learn this piece of information about their dear headmistress, some careful questions posed to the second years and she'd learned all about the horrible noise likely to crash down from the teachers' wing of the castle most nights.

This information by itself wasn't much help to her though; she'd already recorded horrible noise to wake Mildred up and wasn't too interested in doing it a second time. However the spell they were learning about in class today seemed to be just what Enid needed to devise another wake up alarm for tomorrow morning.

"Today class," Called Miss Cackle from her place at the front of the classroom, "we will be learning the switching spell. This spell can change the positions of objects around within an environment."

She gestured for Ethel and Drusilla to stand from their seats and continued, "For example, say I wanted to swap Ethel from where she is standing to where Drusilla is, I would say the incantation: elabeo, elpositus, elagito, elparvulus."

With a wave of her hands and in a bright stream of magic, Ethel and Drusilla found themselves swapped to where the other had stood a moment ago.

"Thank you girls, you may sit down." Miss Cackle said with a smile. "Now, shall we practice? Repeat after me class, elabeo, elpositus, elagito, elparvulus."

It didn't take more than twenty minutes for the entire class to memorise the spell and practice it out until everyone could perform it successfully. It took even less time than that for Enid to perfect her alarm plan using the spell.

Tomorrow morning promised to be as amusing as ever.

It was debatable of course, exactly who the morning promised to be amusing for. Mildred was certainly not amused when she was violently awoken by the cacophony of grinding and grating noises that morning.

Understandably, at first Mildred had absolutely no idea what was going on and in her drowsy state, wondered if a dragon had poked its head through the open window and was preparing to burn her to cinders.

The reality was oh so worse.

Sitting up and cautiously turning her head to the right, Mildred was greeted with the alarming sight of Miss Cackle, wrapped in a ball of bed sheets, snoring away on her bedroom floor.

At a loss for a moment, Mildred simply stared in horror at the sight of Miss Cackle, before her common sense reminded her that yes, now would be a good time to panic.

"Oh no…what am I supposed to say when she wakes up?" Mildred whispered to herself in terror. There was absolutely no way she could explain this situation away without being put into detention for the rest of the school year.

The only form of escape was the door which the sleeping headmistress was planted in front of, meaning Mildred had to step over the snoring bundle and attempt to get out into the hallway with as much stealth as she could muster.

Doomed was not a strong enough word to describe what Mildred would be if Miss Cackle woke up.

Getting out of bed and tiptoeing around to the side closest to the door, Mildred decided that the best solution would be to step directly over her headmistress and open the door enough to slip out and retreat to the hallway. Taking a moment to steel herself up, she tentatively lifted her leg up and over the bundle on the floor, placing her foot on the opposite side nearest the wall.

Bracing her hands against the wall for balance she quickly brought the other leg over and attempted to maneuver herself over to the door in the small space given to her, ignoring the rasping snores emanating from Miss Cackle.

In the few moments it took Mildred to reach the door, she let herself relax somewhat, surely nothing could go wrong now that she was so close to escaping. Letting out a small sigh of relief, Mildred gripped the handle and inched the door open ever so slightly.

Fate decided however, that something could go wrong.

In that moment that Mildred pulled open the door, Enid was on the other side opening the door herself to see the results of the switching spell she had cast on Miss Cackle and the pile of discarded uniforms on Mildred's bedroom floor.

The result being that Mildred, not expecting the extra force from the door, was sent tumbling backwards with a squeak, straight on top of the sleeping headmistress.

The whole room was silent for a single instant; Enid was stood in the open doorway frozen in shock, gazing down on Mildred who seemed to be sat on the pile of blankets that was Miss Cackle, which seemed to have stopped snoring.

"Mildred Hubble." Came an exasperatedly groggy voice from under the bed sheets, "Would you care to explain exactly why I am on the floor of your room at this moment in time?"

"W-well Miss Cackle…" Mildred stammered back, glaring at Enid as she quietly shut the door and escaped. "You see I'm not entirely sure of that one myself…"

AN. And I'm back once again! Seriously though, I can't apologise enough to you guys who are still following this story, I really didn't intend for chapter 7 to take this long. I blame a combination of evil A-levels and a writer's block a mile long (playing Persona 4 for almost 2 weeks straight didn't help either).
I still hope that there are some people reading this fic, long update times aside I worry that it's not interesting enough to keep people amused, so any thoughts are more than appreciated. Can't say when the last chapter will be up, but there will be one. I don't plan to abandon this right before it ends.

Hope you liked it~