The Worst Witch - Constance Hardbroom - There Is Beauty In The Breaking
Medium: TV
Fandom: The Worst Witch
Subject: Constance Hardbroom
Title: There Is Beauty in the Breaking
Notes: I spent hours and hours on this! Mostly the graphics to each song. To every song there is a little 'backstory', a short drabble. The ones who are familiar with my I Feel Everything might find out that the Constance in this fanmix is the same as the one in my story - she has the same backstory (spoiler alert!). It accompanies my fanfic in a way but it can with no problem stand solo, as the life of Miss Constance Hardbroom.
[download all 10 songs - .zip]
Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Home [download][lyrics]
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.
[her parents’ death; 12]
She was only twelve years old when she got that letter from their family maid, Miss Edwards, telling her about the death of her parents. Dear Miss Constance, she read, with a great sorrow in my heart I feel the need to deliver you the sad news. Your parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hardbroom, passed away yesterday in a fire. I am very sorry for your loss…she let the piece of paper fall to the ground and lied in her bed, not a single tear escaping her eye.
A few hours later, Mistress Broomhead would become her legal guardian and her life would change from bad to worse.
Eliza Lumley - How To Disappear Completely [download] [lyrics]
Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
[discovering what happened]
At first, they did not want to tell her how her parents died. There was fire, it was an accident, they would say. But then they would refuse to let her read the newspaper for some time and it was a few weeks later, when she snuck out to the town, that she saw an old newspaper on the ground and picked it up, curious about why there was a picture of her parents on the front page.
When she read the headline, she gasped: Father killed himself and his wife in a fire...her eyes skimmed through the article and stopped at the word 'witch'.
“Before the fire, he came to me and said she was a witch,” a family friend shared with us and added that Benjamin Hardbroom, who worked as a priest in the local church, was obsessed with the idea that his wife was a witch.
Constance sank to the ground and cried.
Lindsay Haun - Broken [download][lyrics]
Little girl don't be so blue
I know what you're going through
Don't let it beat you up
Hitting walls and getting scars
Only makes you who you are
No matter how much your heart is aching
There is beauty in the breaking
[Constance under Heckitty’s rule; young Constance; 14 years]
Her powers seemed to develop as fast as her body. At the age of fourteen she was already two heads taller than most of the students (she could never really call them friends), her arms and legs long and awkward. She used to hide herself behind her long, silky black hair with her face buried in a book.
Mistress Broomhead became her personal tutor and she was obliged to spend ever other afternoon in her office, learning to control her powers.
Or that was at least how the headmistress used to call it. All the other teachers always whispered about abuse. No one would say that out loud for the next five years.
12 Stones - World So Cold [download][lyrics]
There's a sickness inside you that wants to escape
It's a feeling you get when you can't find your way
So how many times must you fall to your knees
Never, never, never, never, never do this again
It starts with pain followed by hate
[never surrender; cold heart; 19]
“No wonder your father killed your mother if she were such a lousy witch as you are,” Heckitty grinned when after two hours of training the high achieving student was not able to heal the deep wound in her own forearm that the cruel headmistress had caused her. With those words, Constance looked with hate in her brown eyes at her tutor and forgot about her bleeding arm.
“Don’t talk like that about my mother, you…” she growled and cast a spell that was supposed to harm Heckitty. It threw the older women to the wall and that sight made Constance crave for revenge, she wanted to hurt the woman she hated. She wanted to kill her.
“Don’t be a fool, Constance. You are powerful but you still need to learn to focus,” she said as she pointed her finger at Constance and cast a spell that sent terrible pain throughout the student’s body and made her fall to her knees.
“You still need to learn.”
Ingrid Michaelson - Soldier [download][lyrics]
I don't believe in anything but myself
But then you opened up a door, you opened up a door
Now I start to believe in something else
The battle with the heart isn’t easily won
[falling in love; rejecting her own feelings; 21]
“You’re impossible,” Elizabeth grinned and pinned Constance against the ground, her blonde hair falling in the brunette’s beautiful face.
“I just don’t think I could ever fall in love with such a boy,” Constance rolled her eyes and turned her head to the side in order not to have her best friend’s hair in her eyes.
“Ah come on, he’s been trying for weeks. Flowers, poems, love songs…what does it take to win the heart of Constance Hardbroom?”
Constance closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of Elizabeth’s body against her own skin. She breathed in the summer air mixed with the girl’s intoxicating smell and looked up at the clouds.
“My heart doesn’t have to be won. All it takes is to ask me for it.”
Kristin Chenoweth - Witchy Woman [download][lyrics]
Raven hair and ruby lips
Sparks fly from her finger tips
Echoed voices in the night
She’s a restless spirit on an endless flight
[finding her own way; becoming an adult witch]
She graduated as the best witch from her class, her spells flawless and her appearance perfect. She could fly unnoticed at any time of the day or night, her cat always followed her orders as if they had a strange, secret agreement between a human and a feline creature, her nails were always perfectly sharp, her potions never mixed up and she could shut anyone up with her smart remarks.
She was Miss Constance Hardbroom, the perfect witch.
Evanescene - Breathe No More [download][lyrics]
Shards of me,
To sharp to put back together.
To small to matter,
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces
[self-destructive behavior]
Her best friend was dead and it was all her fault.
Her world broke into million pieces along with her heart. The terrible feeling of guilt made her go in all the wrong places that night, a decision she would later regret. The only memory of that night she had was breaking all mirrors in the bar and then running away through the dark streets.
She also remembered it was raining.
Ingrid Michaelson - Locked Up [download][lyrics]
Shall I show them all my scars?
Cherry red bleeding burn
If I look to my right or if I turn to my left
Will I see that I've kept my heart locked up?
Locked up so tight
[not deserving Amelia’s motherly affection; starting to work at Cackle’s; 25]
“Are you sure you want to teach here, Miss Hardbroom?” the sweet headmistress asked her when she came to be interviewed for the job of a teacher at Cackle’s - an academy for young witches.
“Yes, Miss Cackle, I am sure.”
“With your skills your qualifications you could work at the Ministry of Magic or teach at Weirsister’s. Why Cackle’s?”
She thought for a moment. “I’d rather not tell my reasons,” she finally said, knowing that sort of secretive behavior would surely not be tolerated.
“Well, we all have our reasons I suppose. Welcome in the family, Constance,” Miss Cackle smiled again and put her hand on Constance’s shoulder.
KT Tunstall - False Alarm [download][lyrics]
I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I've drugged it in its sleep
There isn't many memories
I'm comfortable to keep
[using the wide awake potion; trying to forget]
One bottle a day kept her up all night.
The girls thought she drank the Wide Awake Potion in order to spy on them. The teachers thought she worked during the night on her speech for the next Conference. Only her cat, Morgana, knew that the witch minimized the time she spent sleeping due to her never ending nightmares.
“You think you got rid of me, Constance, but I will haunt you in your dreams,” Broomhead had whispered in her ear when she had been shaking her hand goodbye. Constance hadn’t been properly sleeping ever since.
Beyonce - Save The Hero [download][lyrics]
I lay alone awake at night
Sorrow fills my eyes
But I’m not strong enough to cry
Despite of my disguise
I’m left with no shoulder
But everybody wants to lean on me.
I guess I’m their soldier
I bottle all my hurt inside,
I guess I’m living a lie
[life at Cackle's; feeling lonely]
"Are you all right, Miss Hardbroom?" the young girl asked with genuine concern in her voice.
"No, I am not all right, Mildred Hubble," Constance answered. I never were, she added for herself.
And I never will be.