The Merging: Hackles Academy Of Witchcraft And Wizardry.

Chapter 16

Parents evening; two words that all parents, teachers and students hated. Hogwarts didn't usually host parent-teacher conferences but Cackles did one every year. Albus had shot the idea down almost straight away when Ada had suggested that his school should take part in it too. He didn't want to have to spend his night talking to boring, whiney parents about their equally boring, whiney children, but Minerva had told him that she thought it was a fabulous idea and that it would be good for the parents to be in communication with the teachers. She had even went further, and pointed out that the students were more likely to behave if they thought that their parents were going get a rundown of everything they had been up to each year. Albus had reluctantly agreed that he would try it this time but if he hated it, then it wasn't happening again. Minerva had nodded and sent him an innocent smile that suggested that it would definitely be happening again, whether he agreed to it or not.

Julie Hubble was pacing Hecate's quarters nervously. They had been dating for two weeks now and so far it had been perfect, but she was worried that tonight would throw a spanner in the works.

She was brought suddenly out of her thoughts by Hecate's door swinging open, as the woman in question walked over to place a kiss on Julie's cheek. She started to grin before remembering why she was here and sobering up.

'Hello, my dear. What are you doing here?' Hecate inquired, while she headed into the kitchen to put on some tea.

'Well, it's nice to see you too. Can't a woman just pop in to see another beautiful woman without there being an ulterior motive?' Replied Julie with bit more snark than she intended. She quickly apologised, while wringing her hands together nervously. 'Sorry, my love. I didn't mean that, I'm just nervous.'

Hecate stopped what she was doing and walked over to her, taking both of her hands in her own. 'Why are you nervous? Has something happened?' She asked gently.

She smiled at the softness in Hecate's tone, her gentle cadence always seemed to calm her nerves. 'No! Nothing's happened. It's just that Albie has decided that Hogwarts is going to be a part of this parents evening, after all,' she sighed.

Hecate looked at her questioningly. 'I know, Severus has told me. I've just had a lesson with him, actually. Are you worried about how to handle it?'

'No! Well, yes, but that's not the problem. It's well... Since I'm participating now, I'm going to be far too busy to see any of Millie's teachers. And before you say it, I know that I can just ask them in the teacher's lounge but I don't want Mildred to miss out on this, especially since all of her friends will have some sort of guardian there.'

Julie stopped and took a deep breath, hoping with everything she had that Hecate wouldn't take her next words the wrong way. She knew very well that she could be temperamental sometimes, due to her own insecurities of not being good enough. But Julie tried to reassure her every day, that she was exactly what she wanted.

Hecate waited patiently for her to continue, while wondering what in the world it was about parent's evening that could have Julie so out of sorts. She didn't have to wait too long before she spoke again.

'I had a mirror call with Pippa earlier and I mentioned it to her. She suggested that maybe she could come and be Mildred's pretend mother for the night. I thought she was joking at first, but she was being deadly serious. I said I would mirror her back after I had spoken to Mildred about it,' Julie finished and waited for her reaction.

Hecate, for her part, couldn't understand why she had been so nervous about that. It made perfect sense to her, if Mildred wanted someone to be there and Julie was going to be too busy. Did she honestly think that it was going to upset her? And if so, why?