For Forever

Hazel - Head Girl

Hazel stared at the clock outside the office, counting the seconds as they slowly ticked by. It was almost time.

Five...four...three...two...one.

The minute hand ticked to 3:04 and, with a smile, Hazel opened the door to the Headmistress' office. "Hello, ma'am."

The Headmistress put on a stern face, though Hazel could see her eyes sparkling. "Hazel, I could see your shadow outside."

"Convenient, at least you knew I was here on time." Hazel smirked as she took the seat the Headmistress gestured to.

Headmistress rolled her eyes. "One of these days, Hazel, I'm actually going to do something about your tardiness."

"Whatever you say, ma'am."

Headmistress hid a smile as she took a seat behind her desk. "I assume you know why I've called you here, but first of all, to make it official, the school would like to offer the position of senior head girl to you this upcoming year."

Hazel smiled. "Thank you, ma'am. I accept."

"Excellent. Now that that's out of the way, we can get to why I've actually had you come down." The Headmistress pulled out a small stack of papers.

Hazel huffed. "First the records, now the forms. You delight in making me fill out paperwork, don't you?"

"It is the reality of the situation, Hazel." The Headmistress gave her a pointed look, and Hazel pulled a pen out. Then, after a moment; "We're considering moving the paperwork to a digital format next year."

"Headmistress, if you do that, and I mean this, I will be Head Girl for a fourth year, just to spite everyone."

"Excellent. We'd love to have you."

Hazel tried very hard to look annoyed, but cracked a grin after a moment as she quickly glanced over and signed several forms. Most of them were the exact same ones she'd already filled out twice, and they were quickly back in a neat stack.

"Very good. We should also discuss the rest of the student staff this year."

Hazel nodded. "You have your head boy, presumably?"

Headmistress looked mildly amused. "I'm certain you are well aware who it is, as the entirety of the school is."

Hazel rolled her eyes. "I mean, obviously it was going to be me and James, but there could have been at least a bit of dramatic tension, don't you think?"

"Unlikely. On that note, however, we need to discuss who you will appoint as prefects."

"Does James have his chosen?" Hazel asked, looking only somewhat interested in the response.

"Nothing has been made official yet, though I am quite sure Jason Daniels will be one."

Hazel nodded again. "Tracks. I don't really know. Does the board have any suggestions?"

Headmistress glanced at a few papers, then nodded. "I have a list of students who have been granted board approval. If you choose from this list, we won't have to go through extra approval steps, but if you would like to plead someone's case, it can be attempted. However, I should inform you that anyone who is in a relationship with a head student will probably not be approved."

Hazel found that any response she could come up with was quite stuck in her throat, and all she could manage was, "she'd be an awful prefect anyway."

Headmistress smirked. Hazel hid her face in her arms, her mass of curls tumbling onto the Headmistress' desk. "End me now."

Headmistress simply smiled and slid the list over. Hazel peeked out behind her curls to look at it.

"What do you think?"

Hazel considered. "Philippa Clarence would be a good choice, I think. She's a bit quiet, but I know she's got good morals and I think she'd be able to handle the duties." Pippa was a girl she knew from orchestra, and they got along quite well, which would make things much easier.

Headmistress nodded. "I agree. Do you have any strong opinions on the others?"

"Do you have any personal suggestions?"

Headmistress glanced at the list again. "What about Emily Franklin? She's one of the top choices, and is a bit more assertive than Philippa, which may be helpful to the team in general."

Hazel was quiet for a moment. It was true what the Headmistress said: Emily was definitely assertive. And kind of stuck up. And a know it all. But... she really didn't have any problems with her, and knowing Emily, she'd do more work than she had to, which would take a lot of pressure off Hazel. Plus, Hazel didn't know many girls on the list, seeing as how a lot of her friends were younger.

"I think that should work well, ma'am."

Headmistress seemed satisfied. "Excellent. I'll call them down tomorrow morning and speak to them about it, and if they both agree, we'll schedule a meeting, perhaps Friday afternoon?"

"That will be fine."

"Good. One more thing, senior Heads have access to personal suites which include a small office, so you won't have to worry about signing up for housing."

Hazel paused. "Could I possibly take the office without the rest of the suite?"

Headmistress glanced at her. "That's quite unusual, but I suppose we could make an exception. Is there any particular reason?"

Hazel cleared her throat a few times. "Well, I suppose, I mean, it can be nice to have someone there with you in the dorm."

Headmistress continued watching her, and Hazel felt her face grow red once again. "I...think I should be going now. Goodbye ma'am!"

Hazel fled the office, but not before hearing the Headmistress begin to chuckle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So, how'd it go?"

Hazel rolled her eyes. "I thought having my friends tease me about my love life was bad, but Headmistress is so much worse."

Raven laughed at Hazel's expression. "So she does know about us?"

Hazel shrugged. "I've never actually admitted it, but yeah, she probably definitely knows."

"Great. Remind me to avoid her."

"I always do, love." Hazel teased.

Raven rolled her eyes at Hazel, then pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. "And you're going to be her pet again next year."

"But of course. Because the people that I'm dying to work with are James and Emily."

Raven scrunched her nose up. "Gross."

Hazel flopped back on her bed. "At least Jason and Pippa will be on the team, that will make things less awful."

"That's good." Raven joined Hazel on the bed and slid a protective arm around her waist. "And I'll always be by your side supporting you, too."

"Thanks, Rave."

Hazel cuddled up next to her girlfriend as her mind floated towards next year. Despite everything, she felt confident.

This is going to be just fine.

AN: Hello! Welcome back to another new book. I'm really excited about this one, but fair warning, I'm still figuring out exactly what's going to happen and when, so it might be a little while, but I really did want to get the first chapter out to y'all.

A couple notes: This chapter takes place about a month before the end of For Good, so there's that. We're gonna jump forward to the beginning of the year in the next chapter. Also, for this book, I'm going to attempt to have the chapters be from different character's perspectives because there's sort of five main characters here, so we'll see how that goes! (Think like, the writing style of the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan)

Alright, that's all I have for now! I'll see you in the next bit, until then, thank you for reading!