A/N: This fic contains references to safe and consensual BDSM between women (nothing graphic, no humiliation or torture). Please read at your own discretion. It also contains a bit of fabric and lace and a couple o'whalebones. We're talking Madam Malkin, after all.
I would like to thank my fantastic beta, The Real Snape, for her great input!
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Madam Malkin Calls It a Day
by Tetley
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~1992~
Dressmaker Madam Malkin looked at her clock.
With gentle movements practised countless times over the years, she picked up the parts of a half-finished corset, folded them into a neat packet, and carefully wrapped them in white, rustling paper. It wouldn't do to spoil the expensive brocade; although her cleaning charms were legendary, she tried to avoid having to use them wherever possible. It kept one disciplined, and no garment liked too much cleaning, however magical.
Gently, she laid the pieces into a large, oaken chest. Her corset chest: drawers deep enough to accommodate the dozens of whalebones laced into brocade, cotton, sometimes leather, and wide enough to keep the parts separate so the laces and hooks didn't become entangled. There was a drawer for white, one for black, one for reddish tones, and one for bluish ones.
And all of them were always full. Madam Malkin, after all, had a reputation.
After a satisfied look around her shop, she turned the sign on the front door to "closed", set the password charm, and left the room through the door to her private quarters.
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions was closed for the day.
Yet Madam Malkin's day wasn't quite over. She passed by the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea – nothing but water in the shop; she was strict about that – and grabbed an apple from the buffet. Not for dietary purposes; Madam Malkin liked her ample shape. She enjoyed having a body that required space, never could understand how a woman would want to shrink herself to near-invisibility. But it was all a matter of the right balance, she thought as she took a bite of the Granny Smith. Every indulgence was more fun with bit of restraint; every sweetness so much sweeter after a something a little astringent.
Nobody knew better than she.
She reached the end of the narrow corridor that wound itself around her shop and opened a small door. This was her otheroffice. It had taken her years of hard work to put it together, and it made her proud.
At first glance, Madam Malkin's other office looked very much like a bedroom. There was a large four-poster by the wall, with wrought-iron posts that could change colour from dark grey to shimmering silver, and the hardest mattress that galleons could buy. Its canopy and sheets were midnight blue today, heavy silk, as per order. There were two nightstands with drawers, filled with different delights each time, and a chaiselongue, illuminated by the dim light of an art nouveau lamp.
Nobody who entered this room for the first time would suppose what appeared when just a few, select panels were removed from the ceiling or floor, or from the wall opposite the heavily-curtained windows. For it was only upon invitation, and only when she so decided, that Madam Malkin revealed the secrets of her other office. And she would reveal only as many as she chose. The steel rings that protruded from the walls, perhaps. The St. Andrew's Cross, or the chains she could make tumble down from the ceiling, to suspend a swing of leather or fabric, or simply the limbs of someone who would thank her for it.
She opened a door by the bed and peered into the antechamber that connected this room with the shop in front. A flick of her wand lit a torch on the wall, a safety spell prevented fire hazards as she left it to burn there alone. The wardrobe was well-stocked, and the strawberries were fresh. No champagne, as requested, just cold sparkling water in a slender bottle.
Yes, this would do.
Already she heard the footsteps in the shop, quick and heavy ones, and the password charm being muttered as the glass door fell shut. Madam Malkin smiled to herself as she withdrew from the antechamber.
Seemed like only yesterday that aspiring Hit Witch Amelia Bones first entered this room, twelve years ago.
~1980~
Amelia ran a hand through her dirty-blond hair and looked at the grubby piece of cardboard in her hand. She'd learned its content by heart long ago; the word pencilled on it really wasn't all that long.
"Don't lose it," he'd growled at her, "she'll have my sorry excuse for an arse if it ends up in the wrong hands."
What had she been thinking?
She was sitting outside Florean Fortescue's ice-cream parlour, black coffee in front of her, cigarette in hand, and waited.
Diagon Alley was busy at this hour. Too busy for her taste, entirely too busy for what she had in mind.
"Afternoon, Officer Bones," she heard more than once. Being known around here came with the job. And there was a "hello, Amelia," from Andromeda, her clumsy though undeniably amusing brat in tow, one from Alice, and several from various faces she couldn't put a name to and didn't really mind, half of the time. It was a small world, the wizarding one.
Which was actually part of her problem.
Small worlds weren't practical when one had rare desires. And hers were rare, much too rare for a population no bigger than that of a small town, with the corresponding mentality.
It was hard to find a lover in such a world when one was a witch who liked witches. Witches who, ideally, had a place of their own, flexible working hours, an interest in law and abiding by the same, and, as an added bonus, perhaps a bit of padding and long hair. True, she'd been lucky on occasions, lucky enough to find partners who fulfilled at least some of those criteria. And, to be fair, it had always been sort of nice with them, in a not-being-alone kind of way. The kind that didn't sweep you off your feet but provided you with dinner conversation, a plan for Christmas and the holidays, and a level of sexual satisfaction that surely shouldn't give rise to complaints, comparatively speaking.
Yet there was always one thing that effectively brought an end to the various relationships of Amelia Bones, if her work schedule didn't do so first. And that was when, after long months of thinking and dropping hints, she finally dared speak of her otherdesires. The ones that were even rarer than rare.
That had been the last she saw of Alberta, and the last she saw of Jill. Alberta had left her on the spot, with a brief, "You're sick!" as her farewell. Jill's verdict was longer, something to do with playing the game of patriarchy, and a slap in the face of all those who fought domestic violence and the degradation of women and stuff. The tirade went on for so long that Amelia didn't bother to point out where she saw the flaw in the logic.
She'd simply put her shirt back on, buttoned it neatly, grabbed her coat, and left.
She knew that she could try the Muggle world. With a population of millions, Muggle Britain must boast a few women like her. But what would fleeing to the Muggle world be other than trading the denial of one aspect of herself for that of another? No. If she did this, she'd do it being allof herself. The Islington resident who could do magic. The lover who took emergency calls in plain foreplay. The law enforcer who, very occasionally, would like to hear the sound of a pair of handcuffs clicking around her own wrists.
The cigarette was finished, and Amelia pondered lighting another one. She picked up the piece of parchment and twirled it in her hand. Pure coincidence was how she'd got it. Laughable, really, she thought as the flame flared up from her lighter. A round of drinks, or three, with her favourite colleague, to unwind after yet another stressful day at work. A joke about his missing arse cheek, and one thing leading to another, culminating in his playful threat of a whipping in Interrogation Cell Seven. And then, her guards lowered by two and a half pints and Alastor's general lewdness, her question: "Got Polyjuice?"
Alastor Moody wasn't easily fooled. He knew seriousness behind a joke when he heard it. He also knew what their daily lives had turned into of late. Being in charge each day, pretending they had everything under control while they fought a losing battle. Watching their backs with each step because if they made a wrong move, they might die; if they hesitated, a colleague might die; if they took a wrong turn, a whole family might die. And when they were done watching their backs on their job, they proceeded to watch them after hours, cutting down on time with friends and family, not even trying to find lovers, for fear of exposing them to the ever-growing ranks of Death Eaters.
And so Alastor Moody had asked a few questions, given a few grunts, and scribbled a simple word on a soggy coaster.
"There. Doesn't take everyone, but she's not opposed to women. Known her since we were toddlers; she's a trustworthy one. Use it or not, but don't lose it."
Diagon Alley was emptying, and the handwriting on the coaster was fading fast. Another two hours, and the charmed code word would be gone from the cardboard, Vanished from her brain. Now or never.
So now it would be.
Amelia Bones stubbed out the half-finished cigarette, pushed herself up from the metal chair, and crossed the street to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
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A bell rung as Amelia entered the shop. The sound of the establishment where quality merchandise was on offer, she thought as she closed the door behind herself. A spanking and two drams of insult, please. No need to wrap them, I'll have them right here.
Madam Malkin was sitting at a table by the window, transferring some pattern on dark green fabric. She was clad in a free-flowing, white linen robe, as always, and a lock of blond, wavy hair, laced with a hint of beginning grey, had sprung free from the loose bun that she'd pinned up in her neck with her wand.
She hadn't looked up yet; she never did right away. Whether she hated to be interrupted or just didn't want to impose, Amelia never knew.
The summer collection still seemed to be going strong. Baby blue, cherry red, lemon yellow. Subtle wasn't the flavour of the year. To the left there were the usual four racks of school robes, like every July and August. And behind those, much to the dismay of the more conservative parent, were the displays of Madam Malkin's specialties.
She had one of those, Amelia. In black. Short waist, everything else looked ridiculous on someone her size. Tight all the way up, no cups. She didn't have much opportunity to wear it in public, for corsets were neither practical in combat nor likely to win her points on the rare nights out with her politically-minded friends. But she loved the feeling of whalebones against her ribcage, the slight shortness of breath they imparted, and, just for the hour or two that she could stand the tightness, hardly a trace of the two heavy melons on her front.
She'd always wanted a burgundy one. Perhaps she'd just forget about this spanking thing and ...
"May I help you, Madam Bones?"
Madam Malkin had put away her tracing wheel and looked at her over the top of a pair of green-rimmed reading spectacles.
"Are you looking for something in particular?"
"Yes."
Madam Malkin had circled her cutting table. She took off her specs and cocked her head: "I'm listening."
Amelia opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"I see," Madam said and folded up her glasses.
She flicked her wand at the sign on the door, and a bolt slid into its holder.
"Come."
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions was closed for the day.
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... to be continued