Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So tell me, how is your mum?”, Lesso called out behind her while searching her desk for something to go with the new tea she was trying this week.

“Her business is still going well, I hope?”
Having found a tin of biscuits, she turned back to her visitor. “Does she need any herbs at all?”

“She’s okay I guess. A bit of a cold. Said to greet you”Agatha of Gavaldon smiled at her, shaking her head. “I really don’t know why she still has customers, Miss Lesso, her potions never work.” 

Lesso repressed the urge to correct the Reader’s form of address, she had tried before and gotten nowhere (“it’s Lady Lesso, Agatha.” “Are you part of the aristocracy?” “Not anymore, but-“ “then it’s Miss, Miss.”). “Which ones?”, she asked instead.

Agatha nibbled on her biscuit. “All of them, I’m afraid. The other week, she made a love potion for Mrs Bates and forgot to add the rose petals.”

Lesso narrowed her eyes, mentally going over the potioneering process. “Should still work, they’re only added for taste.”

“Well, it didn’t.”

“Hmm”

“I’m starting to think she might be losing her talent.”

“Being outside of our world for long can do that to someone. But are you sure she didn’t just forget the hemlock?”

Agatha furrowed her brows, deep in thought “Maybe. I don’t know. I keep thinking if I had Potions and Poisons as a subject, I could help her.”

“Why don’t you?”

Agatha looked like Lesso had just asked her why the sky was blue. “I’m an Ever?”

“So?”

“The school for good doesn’t offer that course.”

“It’s all one school now. Just swap it for something else. What’s a subject you hate?”

The Reader snorted. “Beautification”

“Well there you go! Just swap Beautification for Potions and Poisons and it’s all good.”

Agatha refilled her teacup with newly acquired grace, stirring it with elegant, precise movements. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t. Professor Dovey wouldn’t allow it. I asked her last year.” 

Of course, Lesso thought. As much as Dovey may have presented herself as pro-unity, she had always been desperately possessed by the idea of a true hero.  And when Agatha  had turned up at the school for Good fulfilling wishes and putting others before herself, Lesso had had a front row seat to Dovey’s rants at the staff meetings about a 'new era of true Goodness'.

“Shouldn’t we be having this tea in your brand new office, by the way?”, Agatha  enquired, “Or are you hiding from my dean?”

“Ex-dean”, Lesso grumbled. “She’s being her usual insufferable self, so I left her to it. Besides, I had an appointment”

Agatha hummed in return. “Career Day is coming up. I think she might be thinking about trying to convince me to follow the fairy godmother path.”

Lesso couldn’t hide the small smile creeping onto her face as she added another sugar cube to her tea. She had a feeling that Agatha would excel should she choose to follow in Dovey’s footsteps (but she’d never admit that).

“Just be sure you don’t end up like her.” 

“How do you mean?”

Lesso exhaled sharply through her teeth. “I’m not sure how to describe it.”, she admitted, and under Agatha’s challenging gaze quickly added: “Proud. But in a condescending, self import way.”

    ~ 

        Aggie was glad to be back in Lady Lesso’s office, really she was. The former dean for evil, as feared as she may be throughout both schools, had been very kind to her the last school year.

Chance meetings had turned into fixed tea appointments and the woman had become a big influence in her life. Still, as glad as she was to be back, even Aggie knew better than to mess with an angry Lesso.

She had needed some time to get used to the woman, to be able to differentiate the light chuckle Lesso used when something was amusing from the breathy laugh of disbelief she offered shortly before attacking someone (both physically and verbally). She could tell the difference perfectly now and Aggie didn’t like what she was hearing.  
 
 A comfortable silence had settled over them.  In the light of the afternoon sun, Lesso’s locks practically shone; orangey-red flames, flickering to life, often underlined by singular streaks of gold, ever changing with every movement of her head. Aggie wondered if she could achieve a similar effect with products, maybe If she toned her hair a similar colour? Used something to lessen her unruly curls and put them into waves? 

As soon as the thought emerged, Aggie chastised herself for it; Professor Dovey hadn’t shown her how beautiful she truly was only for her to ignore all the lessons she had learned by it. Coming to think of it, she mused, Dovey had hair like hers, perhaps she could help her control her locks. 

  Lesso had turned to look at her again. “Tell your mother to think of the hemlock next time. And to keep an eye on her mandrakes. There’s no use in cultivating them if you’re just going to let them dry out.”

“Yes Lady Lesso”, Aggie said in an obvious parody of a henchperson. Lesso raised a brow in mock shock. “Lady, is it? Why are you suddenly using your manners with me, Agatha?”

Aggie smirked. “I’m doing my good deeds for the elderly project.”

Lesso chuckled. “And here I thought I was getting somewhere in corrupting Dovey’s favorite student.”

Aggie’s eyes widened. “She said I’m her favorite?”

The look Lesso gave her would be incredibly funny if Aggie wasn’t so baffled: her eyes were widened, her mouth slightly open as if she were about to say something, but didn’t know what.

“Don’t you know that? Ever since that stymph accident she’s been giddy as a leprechaun on drugs. Told everyone that she had found someone truly good.”

Aggie shook her head as Lesso scoffed.

“Well I guess she’s even too busy to tell the people she makes plans for about them”.

~

“Shouldn’t you be settling in?”, a voice startled Sophie out of her daydream.

Turning around, she faced the dark haired woman in the elegantly draped silk dress. Nervously pulling her own clothes (a plaited green skirt and black blouse) into place, she met the teachers scrutinizing gaze.

Sophie felt awkward. Increasingly so. As she looked at the Professor whose class she had been aching to take since day one, she was unsure wether she should hold out her hand in greeting or not. After a short inner conflict, she settled for a neutral “Professor Anemone”.  

She had hoped to make a better impression on the teacher for Beautification, but she supposed after the disaster of last year, it really didn’t matter. “What are you doing here?”

“I believe I just asked you the same question. Why don’t you answer mine and after, if I still want to, I’ll tell you.”

 Defeated, Sophie looked at the ground. “I don’t think my roommates would want me there”.

Anemone tilted her head slightly, indicating for her to go on.
 
“After what happened last year… with Rafal… I’m getting dirty looks from everyone here. And I can’t even blame them. I knew that returning to the school would be a… delicate affair, but I couldn’t possibly stay another day in that village.”

“How come?” “ My dad fell very ill while I was gone, when I came back he was delirious, he denied knowing me. I have nowhere left.”

 Anemone hummed. “You know, as the official head of the history department, I can confidently tell you that that is how a lot of fairy tales start.”

Sophie smiled sadly. “Yeah, for the Evers. I’m done chasing  Happily Ever After, I’ve seen what that does to me”

An awkward silence followed that sentence.

Sophie wanted to hit herself. Here she was, reminding the one person who actually wanted to talk to her why that wasn’t a good idea.
In an effort to keep the conversation going she gave a little chuckle (Sophie liked to think herself skilled in the art of deceit, but this time she was sure the elegant pearly laugh she’d intended came across more like a nervous goose than a princess). “So you are head of the history department?”

Anemone gave her a look that told her she knew exactly what Sophie was doing, but she let the topic be changed nonetheless. “Yes, I actually had that position for quite some time until I was demoted to Beautification. History has always been one of my interests, I was glad to be able to make it my profession.”

Sophie felt the edges of her mouth rise. This, she could talk about. “I used to read all of the fairytales back in Gavaldon. I’d visit the bookshop every week asking if they had anything new.”

“That’s usually the first step.” Anemone nodded. “Which was your favourite?”

 “Cinderella”, Sophie cringed, remembering her dreams of balls and grand announcements, turning heads and gaining power.

The teacher simply smiled at her. “Have you read multiple editions or just one book over and over?”

“Multiple.” That’s how she ended up in this whole mess.

Anemone’s eyes practically sparkled. “Did you notice how certain elements changed over the years?”

 Sophie tilted her head.

“Take Clarissa - Professor Dovey for example”

“She was the fairy godmother” Sophie remembered.

Anemone grimaced. “She was. Eventually.”

Sophie’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Originally, Cinderella’s gown came from a tree that had grown on her mother’s grave.”

“Professor Dovey was a tree?” Did that not happen to bad students?

“She wasn’t, actually” 

If Sophie hadn’t been confused before, she certainly would have been now.

“Professor Dovey was called in later, to redo the storyline.”

“So… What you’re saying is that technically the two versions are two separate fairytales?”

Anemone was grinning ear to ear now. “A tree became a fairy, three nights turned into one and the pitch on the stairs turned to a fortunate accident.”

“Oh my god, I never thought about it like that!”

Anemone hummed. “Few people ever do. I’m surprised you’re talking history with me though, I would have thought you’d be more interested in Beautification.”

Sophie sighed. “I am, but I thought you didn’t teach it anymore?”

“Well it will still be an elective, I tried to make Dovey dispose of it all together, but apparently she got a lot of angry mail from the parents about it. So maybe I’ll see you there after all.”

“I don’t think you will”, Sophie grumbled, “It’s an Ever subject”  

Anemone put her hand on her shoulder. “It’s a new school now. Who knows what will happen?”

~

“Tada!”, Dovey smiled.

Her arms were stretched out, dramatically presenting the new furniture decorating the headmaster’s tower.

She was disgustingly over motivated, Lesso decided as she let her eyes take in the room.

Dovey had obviously taken the idea of unity and ran with it: the room shone in gold and purple (how the fairy had found out her favourite colour, Leonora didn’t know, but she appreciated the thought).

The lonely chair by the window had been replaced with a big sofa, sitting on top of a beautiful rug, joined by a singular comfortable looking arm chair. The dusty ebony  was gone; a new round conference table with four chairs made up the previous dining area.

She was surprised to see that Dovey had kept the small kitchenette, the brass handles gleamed and were reflected in the shining tile floor, which eventually disappeared into the wood underneath the table.

Leonora swallowed, was the room getting hotter somehow? Did Dovey install central heating or something?  Her throat felt heavy.

“Well?” Came Dovey’s voice, ripping her out of her musings.

Lesso blinked rapidly, meeting her colleague’s exited eyes. “I don’t hate it.”, she managed. 'I don’t hate it at all'.

Clarissa clearly took the compliment as what it was; excitedly gesturing around herself. “It’s just this I’m afraid, I wasn’t able to open your office. I managed to find a few exclusive pieces; Master Gepetto seemed to think he still owed me for that wish a few years ago, he was quite insistent…”

Leonora hoped she still looked like she didn’t care. Twirling her cane in her hands, she sat down at the table. “I see you went with the full on unity theme”

Dovey’s cheeks darkened. “Yes, well, I tried. I thought the black-and-white was a bit boring, so I decided to just go with our favourite colours, we do have to live in it.”  She suddenly turned to Lesso “it was purple for you, wasn’t it?”

Lesso nodded and she visibly relaxed.

“While we’re at the topic of unity: I’d like to start a new chapter.”

At Lesso’s questioning glance she continued: “As headmistresses we should set an example for all our students and be friends. Or… get along at the very least”

Lesso leaned back. “I suppose we need to finalise our lesson plans anyways.”

With an elegant hand motion (that she had definitely not frantically tried to remember while Dovey held her little speech) she produced a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Care for a drink?”    

~

Clarissa shuffled awkwardly in her seat as Lesso poured her another glass, slender fingers supporting the bottle, delicate rings gleaming in the fading sun.

Lesso’s gaze was fixed on the glass in Clarissa’s hand, her lower lip between her teeth and brows furrowed.

Catching herself wondering what lipstick the woman was wearing and whether it was smudge proof, Clarissa cleared her throat.

Lesso’s eyes lifted and settled on her, a clear question of “what?”.

Panicked, Clarissa latched onto the first thing she could think of (she was also quite drunk, that may have heavily played into it). “So did you already have plans on how to combine the syllabi?”

Lesso snorted. “Oh, yes, I have no life outside of the school”

Clarissa could feel the blood rush into her cheeks. “I just meant -“

“It’s fine princess.”

With a flick of Lesso’s wrist, a stack of paper appeared on the side table.

“I’m not even kidding”, the dean of evil told her. “I literally have no life outside of school.”

 Clarissa smiled a pained smile and conjured her own stack. “Yes, I know the feeling.”

Lesso snorted. “Well, shall we compare the two?”

“Sure. What’s your plan for the final career paths? When do we decide good and evil?”

Lesso sighed, scratching the back of her neck. “Well I have two options, one is actually good and the other is easy.”

“Let’s start easy.” 

 Taking a piece of paper, Lesso drew a straight line.

 “We start with one group, some universal courses like surviving the woods or sword fighting or  channeling emotions - although we have to wait to unlock the fingerglows since those are two individual keys - and we keep it like that for the fist year, give them all a fair start.”

Clarissa hummed.

Lesso drew a few circles and filled in half of them. Drawing lines from the circles to the original drawing, she continued.

“Then in Year Two we let them choose electives, some Good, some Evil.”

“Is there a minimum number for one of them, or do they just explore a bit?”

Lesso grimaced. “I don’t like it, but I fear we may have to let them freestyle a bit. Let them choose either good or evil in second term and then repeat the classes they still need. That way they have a fair chance later no matter which they chose and magical bullying is limited to the upper years.”

“That’s always… Good? Why encourage it for your future students?”

Lesso’s cheeks took on a pink tint. “I’ve been reading a few books on the topic of childhood impressions -“ (Clarissa could have sworn she saw at least three books on parenting in their shared bookshelves get charmed with a notice-me-not spell at that) “-and it’s important that the primary childhood residence is a safe space. So I have been looking into ways to help achieve that without losing my standing in the faculty.” (It was here that Clarissa decided that yes, Lesso was drunk as well, and yes, she would be amazing to work with) 

“I like it. How can I help?”

Lesso leaned back, her face serious. “I need you to be that”

“Be what?”

“I can’t be nice, but you have to be, so you will insist on creating a safe space.”
 
Clarissa felt her heartbeat quickening and heat rush into her chest. “Yes, I can definitely do that”.

The corner of Lesso’s red lips tilted upwards. “Good. Now, as I was saying, we cut back the bullying, let students discover their passions. Then, in the middle of the year, they choose their side - and we pray to whatever higher power lowers itself to laugh in our faces that some of them actually want to be evil - we unlock their finger glow, they start their magic classes.”

Drawing two lines coming from the first one, she continued. “Then they get about two terms to figure their shit out -“ “Language!” “-and then we give them their path options as usual et cetera et cetera, blah blah bla.”

Clarissa eyed the piece of paper. “That’s a good plan”

Lesso’s eye roll could be seen from miles away. “Don’t sound so surprised, princess”

 “What, no! I just meant-“

 “Now do you want to hear the actually good one?”

She nodded. “Okay” 

Lesso poured herself another glass of wine. “This one is a little more complicated. It requires an entire education reform”

 “Well I suppose we are the only school, so we can do what we want”

“We start like I said - basic courses et cetera - and then we give them some minor choice like, oh I don’t know, wether to take curses and death traps or charms and enchantments”

 Clarissa hummed “what if they need the other later?”

“Well in this specific case we’ll have changed the system so they won’t have to. Besides, curses and charms don’t differ too much, it’s just the intend that matters.”

“I suppose you’re right, so do we keep doing this for every course, or..?”

 “Well, I suppose some of them should be the same, you know, so that the whole one-side-having-an-advantage-in-training thing doesn’t happen again.”

Lesso put her head into her free hand and began messaging her temples.

 “The only problem is that in this variation, we don’t sort them into the schools until the last year, meaning we would have to find a way to unlock their magic without the school keys.”

“Maybe the Storian can help us there“

„Oh, we’ll have to work together with that feathery motherfucker either way, she’s the one who is going to force our kids to play her sick little game, and I’d rather prepare them accordingly than just do an all rounder.”

“Mmh”(Normally Clarissa would have spouted something about the authority and wisdom of the ancient quill, but something about hearing the students being referred to as ours made her stop)

“So, will we toss all students into the new system or start with the first years?”, Lesso asked her.

Clarissa gulped. “No”, she heard herself say, “let’s start with the first years. The older ones are already somewhat pure good or evil.”  One last try , a traitorous voice in her head seemed to whisper, one last try for true goodness.

She smiled. “No need to confuse them further. Besides, we already unlocked their magic and permanently sorted them”.

Suddenly, Lesso sat up straight as a candle, eyes wide. “Maybe we can improve the infrastructure of the evil castle while we’re at it: get some proper roofing, plumbing - maybe even central heating!”

Clarissa hummed. “Might have to do something about that moat though, that could be the source of all your evils. Ha! Get it? All your evils?”

Lesso threw her head back in laughter and Clarissa couldn’t help but imprint the wine-infused blush of her cheeks into her memory.

“Could you imagine?”, she asked, “if all it took was throwing them in there? Years of you training Apathy and Distain - literally down the drain!”

The former Dean of Evil snorted. “We don’t teach apathy. We teach Selfishness.”
 
“What?”

 “Apathy is fragile: slip once and it all comes crashing. You can always be selfish, it’s harder not to care. Besides, you need emotion to trigger magic. What good is a great Villain if they can’t even tap into their feelings? Even worse: not caring means having no nemesis, that would mean no reason to be a villain at all.”

Clarissa’s brows furrowed. “But we teach empathy, and you’re our opposite, so it has to be apathy!”

Lesso snorted. “No you don’t. I mean, you might but only because you’ve given up teaching those silly little princesses to put others first. True Good is selflessness, everyone knows that. Empathy helps, sure, -“

Lesso’s eyes pierced into hers as her dark lips formed a sentence Clarissa would spent nights tormenting herself with, asking herself ’Is that it? Have I been doing it wrong all these years?’

“- But true Good would help someone to be happy even if it doesn’t share their motivations”

Chapter Text

“So if you all just look over here…”, Professor Dovey told the class.

Aggie looked out the window instead.

Maybe she could write to her mother later. It was high time for a letter and Lesso had given her an interesting looking potion recipe to include.

“-gatha? Agatha!”, Professor Dovey’s voice pulled her out of her daydreaming, “It’s bad enough we have to catch you guys up to speed during the holidays, this is an important lesson!”

Aggie snorted. “Right. When I’m being pursued by a villain I’m definitely going to conjure up a bouquet to get me out of there.”

Dovey sighed (she seemed to do that a lot around Aggie).  
“Agatha. It’s important to have full control over your finger glow. If you cannot summon flowers, you won’t be able to summon animals, that’s why it’s important to pay attention now - so you won’t fall behind and have to catch up later.”

Aggie put her head on her hands.
“Or we could take a few Never classes and actually learn to defend ourselves.”

Dovey took a deep breath.
 “Agatha how many times? You are an Ever. That means taking Ever courses in the Ever castle.”

“You said there would be a reform. You promised.”

“Yes, for the new students! Your finger glow has already been unlocked! By the Ever key!”

“How many times are you going to say ‘Ever'?”

“As many as necessary.”

“You know that there cannot be any such thing as ‘Good’ without Evil, right? Duality of Man and all that? Yin and Yang?”

Her teacher took a deep breath.
“Yes”, the woman said slowly. “And you are the Good in that analogy. Good and Evil, Ever and Never.”

Aggie huffed. “I suppose you think free will is a predestined category as well.”

Her dean whirled around from where she had been writing on the blackboard. “Agatha, I know this isn’t ideal for you-“

Aggie snorted.

“-but this is what the Storian has decreed.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Professor Dovey”, Beatrix piped up from the back of the class, “if she insists that she’s a Never, who are we to say she’s not?”

Dovey was silent for a while. Finally she turned and faced the blackboard.
“If you don’t want to learn, you’re free to go. Just stay on this side of the schools.”                  

~

Sophie braced herself.

Lady Lesso paid her no notice as she sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk.

Writing with a black fountain pen, the dean finished her sentence, capped the pen and mustered her student.

“You cannot refuse to participate in Uglification.”

Sophie gulped. “Yes, I can”

“Three fails, reader. You have three fails and then that’ll be it.”

Sophie looked to the floor.
“Yes”, she whispered, wishing to be anywhere else.  
“I didn’t mean to, it just happened and I know I said  I wouldn’t do stuff like that but he was talking about permanent disfigurement and I -“

“How do you take your tea?”

Sophie blinked.“What? I-“

Lesso was looking at her expectantly.

She didn’t seem upset, so Sophie decided not to question the situation. “A spoon of honey.”

Lesso nodded. With a wave of her hand, three cups appeared on the desk. 

Sophie mustered the third cup. “I think you might have -“

Lesso shushed her.

Holding three fingers in the air, the woman looked towards the door. Lowering one finger, she began counting down.

Three

Two

One

The door flew open.

To Sophie’s shock, Aggie of all people entered the office without knocking, throwing open the doors and heading straight towards the desk.

“I cannot believe that woman”, her best friend exclaimed, “first she pretends that flowers are hard to conjure and then she says I can’t take anything but Ever courses! What kind of bullshit excuse -“

Coming to a halt in front of the chair Sophie was sitting in, Aggie finally noticed her.  
“Oh, good, you’re here too”, she said and took a seat in the other chair, accepting the cup Lesso extended towards her as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Turning towards the Dean of Evil, she made a grabbing motion, causing Sophie to fear for her friend’s life but all the woman did was roll her eyes and slam a packet of biscuits into her hand.

Taking off the packaging and dunking her  biscuit into her cup, Aggie continued her tirade.

“I mean you’d think the woman would be happy to help us survive! You’d think she’d realise that knowing how the enemy fights would help us fight back! But no! No, she doesn’t! What does she expect us to do? Throw flowers at them!?”

Lesso snorted. “Probably, yes”

Aggie sipped at her tea.

Sophie looked at Aggie. Then at Lady Lesso. Then back at Aggie.

“What -?“

Aggie shrugged. “We complain about her to each other, it’s a whole thing.”

Lesso’s lips curled into a smirk. Turning to Aggie, she raised an eyebrow. “I take it that’s a no for Potions and Poisons?”

Sophie watched as Aggie dunked another biscuit into her tea distainfully.

“What do you think?”, her friend grumbled.

Lesso grimaced. “Yeah. But to be fair, we both could see that one coming from a mile away.”

Sophie blinked, waiting for her brain to catch up. “I-“, she started, “What is going on?”

Lesso huffed. “Well, Reader, your friend here has been trying to get into my Potions and Poisons Course for almost seven months now -“

Sophie’s eyes widened.

“-but she needs her dean’s approval to be allowed to enter a Never class.”

“Are you mad?”, Sophie hissed at her friend, “Potions and Poisons, Aggie? That class has the highest fail rate in the school!”

Aggie crossed her arms defiantly. “Not my fault if people take an elective without knowing what it takes to pass.”

Lesso snorted.

Sophie glared at her.
 “Are you trying to kill her? Why would you allow this? Those guys in there - they will eat her alive! Are you absolutely out of your -”

The yellow eyes of the Dean of Evil darkened.  
“Careful there, Reader”, she hissed, “it seems that you are under the impression that you can address me as though you were my equal. I would strongly suggest that you rein it in.”

Sophie felt like she was paralysed into place.
Glancing at the ground and trying to inconspicuously blink away the tears that had formed in her eyes, unprepared to be scolded, she muttered a small “Sorry Lady Lesso”.

“Good”, Lesso nodded.
“I can assure you I have every confidence in Agatha’s ability to catch up academically. And since I have seen her sharp wit in the past, I have no doubt that she will be able to handle herself just fine. Don’t forget that it was her who saved the entire school last semester.”

Sophie looked up at Aggie who had a small grin on her face.

Lady Lesso scoffed. “Wipe that smug smile of your face, young madam.”

Aggie immediately straightened her shoulders and adopted a mask of indifference. 

Lady Lesso withdrew a piece of paper from a drawer in her desk.

“Now, what are your schedules ?”

~

“You want to do what?”

Leonora sighed. “Change one reader in my course for another. I don’t see the issue in that.”

“Oh, don’t you now? What happened to keeping the courses as they were for established students? The readers have already had their finger glow unlocked, you can’t switch them around like that!”

“Why not? It’s not like I’m forcing them out of their favourite courses. Also there is no magic required for either course. It’s also not like your little princesses need to make themselves  all that much prettier.”

Dovey huffed.

“So what’s the harm in letting them change this one class?”

Dovey fixed her with furious eyes.

“Absolutely not, Lesso. This is how it starts. First it’ll be Uglification and Bautification, and before we know it, there will be villains learning how to rule kingdoms and princesses brewing poisions!”

Leonora took a step back. Yellow eyes pierced into Hazel ones.

“What do you mean?”, she asked her voice a dangerous calm.

Dovey stopped in her tracks. “Well, I just mean -“

“That you do not, in fact, want the schools to be unified?”

“Now, listen, Lesso -“

Leonora raised her head high. “I think I have heard enough now.”

Dovey crossed her arms defiantly. “Well then perhaps we might talk about how youre trying to turn my star pupil into a witch.”

“And what about it? Agatha came to me about the recipe for a luck potion, I was happy to assist”

Dovey huffed. “She is meant to be a princess, god damn it! There should not be anything of the sort in her repertoire!”

Lesso scoffed. “In my experience, every girl should know how to poison their enemies.”

“This is no joke, Lesso! The young lady’s life is already stressful enough as it is. She doesn’t need you wispering in her ears!”

Leonora’s eyes narrowed as she leant down to eye level with her new co-headmistress.

“You know she would exell on the path to witchcraft”, she hissed.

Turning towards the door, she left the room without another word.

~

Emma Anemone really had better things to do in this moment.

She could have prepared a new curriculum, put together a project for the students next week, anything but sit at her desk listening to Clarissa Dovey ranting on about her red headed rival.  

“I mean seriously, Emma, it’s not like it’s rocket science! We agreed to keep the established Evers and Nevers, so she really should not be asking me - no! telling me to let the readers swap!”

Emma hummed, remembering the Never reader from her walk around the gardens; remembering h er guilty conscience, lowered gaze, and awed amazement upon discovering the renewed branches of story lines long fallen out of relevance and forgotten.

“-And what is she even trying to say? That I can’t manage my own students efficiently enough?”

Emma looked at the clock. Maybe throwing her friend out would be acceptable after nine o’clock?

“- At least I don’t have to force the mantle on my kids, her Reader is still hung up on being a princess, I hear. Agatha saved the school like a true heroine all on her own, you know!-”

Emma hummed.

“-can’t understand why Agatha would want to learn how to poison someone, The proper way to resolve a conflict will always be to talk it out!”

Emma couldn’t help the snort that came out of her mouth. “Is that what you tried to do with Red? Talk?”

Clarissa pouted offended. “If Lesso would just keep to the agreement, there would be no need to talk.”

Emma looked at the clock again.

“I mean it’s not as if Agatha would ever truly consider becoming a witch, right?”

“I don’t know, Goldie, she’s always been quite interested in potions. Her mother is a witch, did you know?”

“But Agatha is Good! She saved that little girl from the pond, she saved the school, she-“

Emma hummed. “See, the way I see it, if Agatha is meant to be Good, she won’t let knowing a few spells corrupt her. And if she wants to be a witch then maybe she was never meant to be a princess. And that’s okay too.”

Clarissa’s eyes widened to an unnatural level as she took a deep breath and Emma briefly wondered if she should submit her friend to the fairies for a wellness check.

Chapter Text

“So what will it be, Reader? Witch or Crone?”

Sophie furrowed her brows, and looked at her teacher. “Are those really all my options?”

Lesso shrugged. “You could always just take the courses I recommended you. I really could see you on the Stepmother path.”

Sophie scoffed. “I really would prefer a princess path if you’ve got one.”

Lesso threw another brochure on the desk between them.
 “Stepsister then, with any luck you’ll have a title, depending on the man your assigned mother chooses.”

Sophie pushed the flyer back towards her dean without looking at it once.
 “Can’t you just finally combine the schools and let us do what we want?”

Lesso sighed.  
“What about becoming a Poisoner? You could work behind the scenes that way.”

Combing through the flyers in her desk drawer, she slammed two more on the table.  
“Or maybe a henchperson if you’re not interested in being the one planning the mayhem.”

As soon as the words left her mouth she grimaced and took the flyer back.  
“No”, she decided,”that isn’t a good fit for you. What about the capitalist businesswoman out to get what she wants no matter the cost? Cruella certainly got far there. You could continue to design your little dresses and actually expand to business”

Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“No flyer for that?”

Lesso sighed.  
“It’s not a very often trod path. You would have lessons in fear mongering and disdain, of course, but the success of your endeavours is not a guarantee. Very few who try to get far on this path succeed.”

Sophie hrmph-ed.  
“Perhaps Beautification as well?”, she enquired, “It would certainly help me with the designs.”

Lesso glared at her.
 “For the last time, Reader, your year is to remain as it is. There is to be no talk of Ever subjects.”

Sophie jumped up, her hands on the table.
 “Yesterday, you said you’d been trying to help Aggie for months! How is this any different?!”

Lesso snarled.
 “Well, as you can see, Reader, your little friend is also stuck in her own courses. So, perhaps, this is me being fair.”

Sophie screamed in frustration and turned, slamming the door on her way out.

~

Aggie burrowed her head in her hands as Professor Dovey twirled in front of the pinboard, skipped back toward her desk and sat down in a flourish of golden silks.

 “And of course, Flora was not as proficient in weather magic, but then again, Fauna never really cared for it either-“

The sun was beginning to set and Aggie could see the sky light up in hues of pink and purple out the window.

“-Now Merryweather, she knew the true gift to give. Of course happiness is no good if you’re dead, so she had to change it after the whole debacle-”

“Mmmh”, Aggie closed her eyes.

Her dean frowned at the report card in her hands.
 “Of course your Beautification grades will have to be better, there can be no transformation scene without a proper beautification.”

Aggie was sure her eyes would fall out of her head if she rolled them any harder.  
“They wouldn’t be so low if the course was remotely interesting”

Dovey sighed and laid the clipboard back on the table with a sharp clack.
 “Young lady, are you suggesting that Professor Anemone is incapable of designing engaging lesson plans?”

Aggie shrugged.  
“I’m saying that not even Professor Anemone is invested in lipstick shades and sleeve cuts.”

Dovey pursed her lips.  
“Agatha, you are in no position to-“

“ Have you ever been in one of her history lectures?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Professor Anemone. Have you ever seen her teach?”

Dovey blinked, her mouth remaining slightly open, as if she wanted to argue but didn’t know what to say.

“Her eyes light up.”, Aggie told her, “She re-enacts fights and impersonates important figures, she really loves her subject.”

Dovey remained silent, her features softening, the furrowed eyebrows returning to the normal neutral.

“But Beautification?”, Aggie laughed softly, “She just stands there and follows the textbook. There’s no motivation in her teaching and she’s appealed to have the subject removed three times now. But you’re too scared of the parents to even think about making it optional.”

Dovey sighed.
 “I didn’t summon you here to admonish me about how to do my job, Agatha. There are things you don’t understand yet, and that’s fine, but you do not get to take your frustration out on me”  

Standing up, the dean for Good towered over the young reader, pushing the flyer into her hands.  
“Professor Anemone is a brilliant historian and as much as it pains me, the parents of our students are still kings and queens with both political and financial power over the school. So whether you like it or not, you will have to get your Beautification grades up.”

Aggie shuffled awkwardly.  
“How about I get my Potions and Poisons grade up instead?”, she dared to say.

Dovey looked her in the eyes.
 “Agatha, you have such intrinsic goodness in you. Why would you want to throw that all away? Did it not feel good when you freed that girl? The Wish Fish? Agatha you might be very last truly Good princess here!”

“What”, Aggie huffed, “And you think me taking a measly course is going to change that?”

“Agatha-“

“No, that’s okay, Professor. Tell me when you’ve found your spine.”  
Aggie left the flowers she conjured on her teacher’s desk as she walked out.

~

Sophie had been staring at her reflection for a while now, daring the tears in her eyes to fall.

Professor Manly could go crawl back into the hole he broke free from, she decided, nobody would force her to drink uglification potion.

She reached out with a trembling hand, careful not to pop the zit that hat formed where the disgusting tincture had hit her skin.

Maybe it would be fine if she left it alone. Most pimples were.

Glancing at the clock she counted another hour till lunch.  

She gulped down the sob sneaking its way up her throat.

To early to see Aggie then.

She was currently in History of Magic, her favorite class, and there was no way she would have skipped that.
 And even if she had, getting from her dorms to the School for Good would be impossible without a hall pass, which Sophie didn’t have.

Looking back to her face, she mustered the fraying ends of her make-do bob and sniffs.

Lady Lesso had done a terrible job at hacking off her beautiful curls last year and Sophie had had an excuse to give herself a styling and even out the cut, but since then she hadn’t so much as taken care of split ends.

Her previously meticulously cut bob had grown down to her shoulders and, without the proper care, deteriorated into her current style.

Closing her eyes, she counted to ten. Then to twenty. Than ten again.

“Compose yourself”, she hissed at the mirror.

Silently thankful that no tears had fallen (she really didn’t have the facial structure to pull off red, swollen eyes), she opened a drawer and pulled out her hairbrush.

Silently counting to ten, she took a deep breath and set the brush to her head.
Since she was five years old she had completed a hundred brushstrokes a day and she would not let that horrible git get in the way of what little comfort of home she had left, Professor or not.

“Please tell me you’re not about to sing”, a bored voice rang out behind her.

Sophie whirled around on her chair, eyes widening.  
The brush in her hand fell to the floor, hitting the ground with such force that the handle split clean off of the wooden instrument.

Lady Lesso raised an elegantly shaped eyebrow.

Sophie gaped at her.  
Her breath caught in her throat as she frantically tried to formulate an answer.

The dean of Evil pursed her lips.
 “Well I must say I’m disappointed. After that  never ending tirade you let Manly hear, I’d have thought you would have at least something to say to me.”

“How did you get in here?”, Sophie found her words.

Lesso mustered her with a look of distaste.  
“You were so busy moping, I could open this god forsaken door and walk through the entire room without you noticing. Which, I must say- “, she gestured at the metal cane next to her, “is quite a sign of your sheer incompetence”.

Sophie blinked.

Lady Lesso tilted her head, yellow eyes gleaming.  
“You undermined Professor Manly’s authority in front of the entire course.”

Sophie gulped.  
“He was trying to force us to drink Uglification Potion.”

“You called him a frog brained maniac who wasted his life getting high off of mushroom dust and fairy wine.”

“Permanent Uglification Potion!”

“When he told you to be quiet you violently sprayed him with perfume and ran out of the classroom.”

“Permanent Uglification Potion that lasts forever!”

“Well done.”

“You don’t understand, Lady Lesso, I-“ Sophie blinked,  “What?”

The Dean of Evil looked at her.
 “I will not repeat that.” “You’re not angry?”

Lesso snorted.  
“What, that you let go of social ideals and showed your true self in the class about letting go of social ideals and showing your true self? Why yes, I’m absolutely furious.”

Sophie stared at her.  
“But I didn’t drink the potion.”

Lesso shrugged.  
“I didn’t either when I was at school.” That had to be true, Sophie realized.  
Her dean had no warts or boils or crooked teeth. If anything she had flawless skin and pearly whites (even though those pearly whites were rather fang-like). 

“Uglification”, her dean said, stepping behind her and looking into the mirror, “is the art of unapologetically being one’s self”.  
Placing her hands on her student’s shoulders, she mustered her. 

Sophie met her eyes in the reflection.
 “I am not ugly”, she said, fighting the tears trying to creep back into her eyes.

Lesso sighed.  
“I am not talking about looks. Uglification serves to strengthen you. Because it doesn’t matter what you have that you are proud of - money, fame, looks…  - when you play the villain, you are certain to loose yourself in it.”

“Is that why you cut off my hair? Because you thought I was conceited?”

Lesso reached out and took a strand of her loose hair into her hand.  
Twirling it around thoughtfully she looked into her eyes.
 “Weren’t you?”

Sophie shifted.  
“Well, yes. But it’s not like your impromptu haircut helped with that. It only got worse, didn’t it?”

Lesson’s gaze darkened. 
“Indeed. Just as he had hoped.”

Her dean lowered her eyes, looking down at Sophie’s hair, to the floor - anywhere but her.

Glancing at the broken brush on the floor, she made a downward motion with her hand and Sophie looked on in awe as dark metallic strands of liquid hardened into an ornate brush.

“Uglification”, Lesso said quietly, raising the brush to the strand in her hand slowly, as if to give Sophie time to move away, “makes you face yourself without all the things you love about you.”

Sophie watched her in the mirror as she slowly and carefully started to brush her hair.

It reminded her of carefree mornings in Gaveldon long ago, when a different woman had brushed and braided her hair, had kissed her head and sent her off to school; of calm evenings when her mother had come home tired from work but would still smile when she saw her, wrapping her up in her arms and carrying her into the house; of her first day of school years back where she had requested a hairstyle so complicated, her mother had worked on it for hours.

She pushed down the sadness that came with the memory, the pain of the loss. It would not do to cry in front of the Dean of Evil, no matter how nice she was currently being.

 Said dean had moved on from the strand and was now brushing the rest of Sophie’s hair, never pulling, always careful.

“Uglification makes you look at yourself at your lowest and forces you to find something you like, no matter what.”

Sophie blinked. “So what did I find?”

Lesso gave a small smile that she would normally have found threatening, if she couldn’t see the softness in her face.

 “Social competence. Not everyone can make a comeback like that. Charming a prince and gaining a following in only a week? That’s almost impressive.”

The brush stroked through her hair gently and Sophie closed her eyes to avoid the tears from falling.

“My mother used to brush my hair”, she heard herself say, immediately cursing her mouth for speaking without her brain controlling it.

Lesso halted for a brief moment, if Sophie hadn’t been nervously looking for a reaction, she would have missed it entirely.

“Oh?”, her dean asked, brushing slightly slower than before.

Sophie nodded, her hair moving with her head.
”She used to braid it too, every morning before school.”  
She didn’t know why she was telling all this to the woman, but it felt right.

Lesso hummed.  
“My mother never braided my hair”, the Dean of Evil told her, “she said it was too wild.”
She looked as surprised as Sophie to have told her that.
 “She used to on special occasions though”, she continued.  
“Like birthdays or holidays.”

Sophie smiled.
“There was this special braid my mom did then.  A crown braid.”

Lesso snorted, brushing at a normal pace again.  
“That checks out.” 

Sophie smiled. 

A comfortable sort of silence befell them.

Lesso kept brushing her hair and Sophie watched her, silently formulating sentences to say and discarding them again.  
Lesso was at her last brushstroke when she blurted out: “I’m sorry I was so cruel about your past.”

The Dean of Evil finished her work, then looked at her.  
“Whatever do you mean?” 

Sophie gulped.
 “Last year. When I was… When he was…”

Lesso’s face softened.
 “Well”, she said, her fingers finding their way back to Sophie’s hair and beginning to make repetitive motions, almost as if she needed to calm herself.
 “First of all, if you are going to be evil, never apologize. Second, I think we both know better than anyone that that wasn’t you talking.”

Sophie nodded slowly.

Lesso met her eyes in the mirror, taking a ribbon from the dresser and tying it into a bow.

“If you need anything, anything at all, you can always come the Dean’s office. That’s what we’re here for.”

The Dean of Evil turned to leave. She stopped in the door and turned back around.
 “And don’t tell anyone I’ve gone soft”, she added with a sly grin, soft enough to be encouraging, but sharp enough for Sophie to take the warning for what it was.

She agreed and Lady Lesso quietly shut the door behind her.

When Sophie turned back to her reflection a single tear made its way down her face, the crown of hair Lady Lesso had braided glistening in the midday sun.

~

“Ladies”, Emma Anemone acknowledged the two friends making their way through the gardens towards her.  
Mustering the young prodigy for Evil, she nodded appreciatively.
 “That’s a lovely hairstyle, Sophie!”

Sophie smiled.  
“Thank you so much! It’s a traditional style from Gaveldon.” 

Professor Anemone looked at Aggie pointedly.
 “You refuse to even braid a single strand for my class and then you go and do that? Agatha, I am hurt!”

Aggie shook her head.  
“Wasn’t me.” 

The teacher turned to the blonde girl next to her. 

Aggie looked at her.  
She could practically guess what was going on inside her head.
The braids in her friend’s hair were woven perfectly symmetrical at the back of her head, in a pattern so complex, she was unsure if even Emma Anemone would be able to braid it onto herself.

Raising an eyebrow, Professor Anemone looked at the young girl questioningly.  
Receiving only a pleading gaze, she decided to leave the subject be for the moment.
 “I see. Good work, Sophie.”

Aggie grinned.  
“Maybe if she keeps it up, she’ll be able to go to one of your classes?”, she questioned. 

Her friend turned to her, a panicked look on her face.

Professor Anemone hummed.
 “I would love to have you, Sophie”, she smiled, “If only we could get the headmistresses’s approval.”

Aggie scoffed. “I can safely say Professor Dovey would sooner elope with Lady Lesso than let a Never into her school.”

Professor Anemone looked at her, her face contorted as if she had just bit into lemon.  
“God forbid”, she shuddered, “they’re barely tolerable now, if it came that far I would resign.”

Sophie hummed.
 “But she does let Evil into the Good castle, you know? Lady Lesso was in there every week before they became co-headmisstresses.”

Anemone smiled bemused.  
“You know, they are friends, most of the time. It’s just the new order that has them at each other’s throats so often now.”

Aggie looked up.
 “I can’t imagine that.”, she said, “They have always been so mean to each other.”

Anemone made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “It’s their flirting.”

Sophie smirked. “Is it now?”

Aggie’s smile faded as she saw the sly grin on her friend’s face.
 “What are you planning?”

Sophie looked at her innocently. “Nothing.”

Professor Anemone furrowed her eyebrows.

“Well”, said Sophie, “what if it really could be their flirting?”

“What?”

“Think about it, Aggie, they will be so wrapped up in each other that they won’t have time to forbid us from attending these classes!”

“Sophie, I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Come on, Aggie! Live for once! I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong! We just have to make each ofthem think the other is in love with her, it’ll be easy!”

A sharp clearing of a throat disrupted their argument.

Professor Anemone looked at them with warning eyes.  
“Girls”, she said, her voice a sharp whip, “as much as I sympathise with you, you are not, under any circumstances, to play matchmaker to the headmistresses. Am I understood?”

Aggie nodded feverishly. “Yes, of course.”

“Sure”, Sophie grumbled.

~

A loud crash woke Emma from the book she had fallen asleep over.  
She groaned at the pain lying on ‘The History Of Second-Place Roles In Fairytales’ had caused.  

Grudgingly sitting up, she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.

The library was lit by a single candle, its light reaching the two rows of books in the very back.

Glancing at the clock, Emma rose and approached the single figure clad in gold that stood upon a ladder in front of the literature.

“What on earth are you doing?” She whisper-yelled, “It’s almost four in the morning!”

Clarissa Dovey whirled back, her eyes wide and breath flat.

Emma looked at the books scattered around the hall. 
‘The Concept Of Good and Evil’, ‘Introduction To Corruption Of Evers’, ‘Refusal Of The Call - why Evers never had the choice’, she read.

“Why are you trashing the library?”

Clarissa crumbled. Burying her head between her hands, she knelt down in the ladder.

Emma snapped forward, her arms outstretched, catching her fall.

Clarissa wrapped her arms around her tightly, holding in to her friend as if for dear life.

Clutching her tightly, she buried her face into Emma’s neck and burst into tears.

Emma braced herself to stay in the awkward position for some time, rubbing her friend’s back in circles.  
Trying to comfort her, she made little hushing noises. They stayed like that for a long time. When Clarissa stopped sobbing, she drew back .

Emma mustered her.
 “Would you like to tell me what is going on?”

Clarissa took a deep breath.  
“Agatha”, she finally said.

“The Reader?”

“She insists on taking Potions and Poisons, but I can’t let the feeling go that it might corrupt the last truly good person Good has left if I do.”

Emma hummed.

Clarissa covered her face with her hands.  
“I know it makes little sense”, she cried, “but I cannot let it happen!”

“Well”, Emma hesitated, “what if you were to let her try?”

Clarissa sniffed. “What?”

“Just for a day or two, if you think she changes drastically, you can always cancel the arrangement.”

Clarissa shook her head vehemently.
 “I can’t risk that, Emma”, she whispered.

Emma sighed.
“Okay”, she whispered back, and sat with her friend until dawn.      

~

“I still can’t believe you actually said that to her!” Aggie told her friend.

“Yes, well someone had to say it! It was worth a try.”, Sophie huffed, keeping her eyes on the doors to the dining hall.

“And so directly as well! What were you thinking?”

Sophie took a drink out of her cup, scowling at Beatrix, who had been making faces at Aggie over her shoulder.

“Anyways”, her friend huffed, sliding a piece of paper over the table, “here’s what we learned in Beautification yesterday.”

Sophie smiled. “You are an angel, Aggie! An angel I tell you!”

Her friend rolled her eyes in amusement. “Yes, yes”, she smiled, “just make sure to ask Hester about her Potions and Poisons Notes.”

Sophie laughed.
“I can’t guarantee they’ll be legible. Hester tends to set fire to-“

“And I will not tell you so again!”, Professor Dovey yelled as the doors opened.

Lesso huffed and shuffled past her into the hall. “I have no intention of listening to you, Clarissa, I hope you know that.”

“Oh I hope you go back to the hole you crawled out of, seriously, Lesso, there is no need to be so rude!”

“Oh!”, cried Lady Lesso, “boohoo, spare me, please!”

Aggie turned to Sophie.  
“I don’t believe a word of what Anemone said yesterday, you know”, she mumbled, making Sophie laugh, “there is no world in which those two are friends.”

Aggie looked at the approaching figure of her teacher.
 “Oh god!”, she exclaimed, “she looks like she hasn’t slept a single minute!”

Professor Anemone glared at her. “I haven’t actually, but thanks for that.”

Aggie cringed at the realisation that she had been heard.

Anemone leant down on the table, locking eyes with Sophie.

“I’m in”, she said, “how do we do this?”