A/N: This chapter is a bit of fun, and despite that, elements of it will turn up again later. :) There will be a couple of chapters of preparations like this one, before the show really gets on the road...so you might think things are a little slow, but it all adds to the characters and the atmospherics of the period.
Although I can't always promise that the history will be kept accurate, because it's secondary to my story and needs a tweak for my purposes, I'll try to keep the essence and main parts authentic. It's a period of social and military history I've always had an interest in, particularly the roles of women then. I'm also a collector of medals and militaria and love looking at uniforms and insignia. I've been very fortunate to have many family members with memories of living through that time...it's so sad that that generation are becoming fewer each year and are leaving us. :/
11: Uniforms
A while after talking over their meeting with Dumbledore, Ginny and Hermione decided to go upstairs and look for the clothes the wizard had told them about.
First they looked in the bedroom they had slept in, but the small wardrobe in there was empty. They went to the second bedroom to the larger wardrobe and opened it to find several items of clothing on hangers.
Hermione pulled out one hanger which held a jacket in a military style, in a material that didn't look the most comfortable. It wasn't denim and it wasn't brushed cotton, but somewhere in between, and it was of a grey-blue; under the jacket on the same hanger hung a very straight-lined skirt in the same colour material.
"I always wanted to dress like a frump!" Hermione said with a tone of sarcasm.
Ginny felt the garments and scrunched her face up slightly. "Almost itchy, isn't it?"
They looked over the uniform's attached felt and embroidered badges. There was an eagle in flight on the top sides of both shoulders, below which was a square badge of a fist holding lightning rods.
"Look," Hermione pointed to the badge."I'm pretty sure that means 'communications' but it almost looks magical." Under the telecommunications badge were two chevrons, point downwards. "And I'm sure that's for the rank of corporal." Hermione said.
Hermione looked at the other hangers in the wardrobe, and found another jacket in a less smart style and more itchy than the first one, along with a pair of matching trousers; there was a light blue blouse, with a small dark neck tie, and then she found a couple of jackets and trousers for the male uniform. The male uniform had the same eagles on the shoulders and the lightning fist badge, but no chevrons. There were also two large overcoats, in the same grey-blue; they didn't look all that wonderful, but were probably warm at least.
Hanging from another hanger were two box shaped bags, in a non descript shade of grey-beige. Ginny opened one and pulled out the contents.
"What the hell is this?" said the redhead, holding at arm's length from her and with a look of distaste, a black rubbery item, with what looked like goggles attached to it.
"Oh!" Hermione said, with realization. "That's a gas mask. Everyone was issued with them. Although thankfully, I don't think there were many times, if any, when they were ever used, beyond drills."
"A gas mask?" Ginny asked confused.
"It was feared that not only bombs would be dropped on Britain, but also poisonous gasses or chemicals. These rather horrid things," said Hermione, taking the mask from Ginny. "were meant to protect the wearer from breathing anything in." Hermione thought about trying it on, but as soon as her nose got near to the place to pull the mask on, she had to back away from the horrid smell of rubber.
"So we don't have to wear them?" asked a very worried Ginny.
"No, thank Merlin," said Hermione, putting the mask back in the box. "But I think we'll have to have them with us at all times, like everyone else."
"Maybe we should take them back to Hogwarts when we go," Ginny said with a wry smile. "Try and scare the Death Eaters with our own masks!"
There was a shelf in the wardrobe to one side and on this they found a small folder. Ginny picked it up and opened it to find a couple of magical photos of how the smarter marginally less itchy uniforms should look when worn. They both had no idea how Dumbledore had got a photo of muggles wearing the uniforms as it seemed unlikely he would trust anyone to model it for photos. The magical photos were very helpful as the viewer got an all-around view of the person wearing it, as they moved about.
There was also some information about simple things, to do with travelling and what papers were needed for specific things. As Hermione had thought, the gas masks were mentioned as something to always have with them. It was with relief that she read WAAFs didn't always have tin hats with them...because she couldn't imagine having to lug that around too. It seemed there were none in the wardrobe anyway.
On the same shelf Ginny found the folder, were two hats. From the photos they were able to tell that the flatter peaked cap was for the men's uniform and the stranger hat, almost puffy in shape was the female version. The hats were also in the same grey-blue colour; and both had a brass cap badge affixed to the front, showing the letters RAF surrounded by a laurel wreath and topped by a crown.
"This hat is going to be hideous! It looks like a pudding!" Ginny said, disliking the clothes they would be wearing in the near future more and more with each part of them she saw.
"Are there any shoes in the wardrobe?" asked Hermione as she was still looking at the photos in the folder.
"Yuck!"
"What?"
"Yes, there are some shoes," Ginny said. "Possibly something Auntie Muriel would wear!"
Ginny pulled out a pair of black shoes, which had no redeeming feature other than looking robust and hardwearing; mostly they looked very matronly. The men's version were nicer, but they knew they couldn't wear those without it looking a little strange, and they didn't want anything about themselves to draw attention, if it could be helped.
"Right, well, let's try transfiguring the second uniform," said Hermione, sounding all business-like.
They laid out the smarter of the uniforms, side by side on the large double bed, and Hermione studied the woman's outfit, then drew out her wand and began changing the men's clothing into a replica of the women's.
First the jacket shrunk a little, and became a little more tailored at the waist, and then the trouser legs blurred together as they joined, flared out and shrunk upwards. The men's shirt was easily turned into a better fitting version for Ginny. The hat was a little trickier, but having the template of what it should look like next to it, made it easier. After the hat, the shoes were more simple, and after a few minutes there were two reasonably smart WAAF personnel uniforms on the bed. The second overcoat, Hermione was able to transfigure as it hung in the wardrobe next to the female one; by this point she felt almost expert at transfiguring clothes.
"Say, you couldn't transfigure me some corporal stripes, could ya?" Ginny asked, hopeful.
"No," Hermione laughed. "Besides, you don't have the papers to match the rank."
"Papers can be changed," pouted Ginny, but with good humour.
"I think we'd better stick to the plan on this."
"You would say that, you get to order me around!"
Hermione laughed again. "It's only hypothetical ordering around, I doubt I'll have to pull rank at any time. We're in this together, remember? We're both just as valuable as each other!"
Ginny smiled back at her. "I suppose we better try these...uniforms...on?" Ginny said, asking but not really wanting to bring that time any closer. "The rougher uniforms looked more comfortable, but it looks like we'll be wearing these ones," she sighed.
Hermione gave a small expression that was somewhere between a grimace and amusement. She began unbuttoning her shirt, giving a resigned grin to her friend, who rolled her eyes and started to undress too.
They left the muggle photos on the bottom of the bed to refer to if they needed. On went the blouses and the shortened neck ties. On went the rather plain-cut skirts, and over the top the frumpy service jacket with its belt.
"Don't we get socks? Or something?" asked Ginny, looking over at the photos and information papers again.
"No, we wear stockings, though," Hermione said, going over to the wardrobe and seeing a couple of packets of new stockings, but of grey lisle WAAF issue. There were a couple of packets of what looked like WAAF issue underwear with a built-in suspender belt with hooks, which didn't look at all comfortable.
"If you think I'm going to wear a suspender belt, then you can think again!" Ginny protested.
"Well you'll look a bit funny with your stockings around your ankles, won't you?" the brunette chuckled. "You wear these instead...built-in belt," Hermione smiled as she chucked a pair of the horrid industrial strength panties at Ginny.
"Ye gods and fairies! I can't wear these!" Ginny said horrified. "I suppose magic is out of the question?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure if even a small holding-up-stockings spell will be safe, where we're going," answered Hermione. "I think we'll have to opt for these belts."
Awkwardly, they both tried on and adjusted to their new underwear to accomodate their extra requirements and put on the stockings.
"Eww!" Hermione exclaimed after she had put on the rather thick stockings. "I feel and probably look like Nora Batty!"
"Who?"
"She was this old character on a muggle television show. Her stockings were always wrinkled and frumpy looking."
Sitting on the bed to put on their shoes, did little to detach the Nora Batty thoughts in Hermione's mind. "Okay, just the hat," she said. She tied her hair back and then picked up the rather horrid looking hat and plonked it on her head.
Ginny looked at the hat, as if it held poisonous spiders or might carry a contagious disease. She too, tied back her hair and donned the hat.
"How do I look?" the redhead asked, with almost closed eyes, waiting for the ridicule.
"Look in the mirror," Hermione said, grabbing hold of Ginny's hand and pulling her over to the mirror on the inside of one of the wardrobe doors.
"Yuck, yuck, yuck!" Ginny said. "This is so much worse than school uniform."
"I don't know, you look good in uniform," Hermione said. "Where as I look like an over enthusiastic Girl Guide about to go on a picnic!"
"No, you look better than me, Hermione," said Ginny, brushing a loose thread off the back of her friend's jacket.
"I must admit, it feels easier becoming someone or something else, with a costume like this," said Hermione, turning to the side to look at the cut of the jacket. "It's very like slipping on a new character as well as a new coat."
"So, we've completed the clothes part of our agenda," Ginny said. "What's next?"
"I suppose there's not much actual big planning we can do. Not until we get to where we need to be," Hermione said, thinking. "It's small stuff we have to prepare now."
She looked at her watch and saw that they had spent a lot longer upstairs with the uniforms than she thought.
"For now, how about we get something for lunch?" asked Hermione.
"Can we get out of these things first?" asked an almost pleading Ginny.
"We have to get used to them, but I agree this time."
They were faster in taking off the uniforms than they had been putting them on. As they both stood there in their underwear, with Hermione fiddling with her suspenders, not being used to stockings, Ginny started laughing.
"What?" asked Hermione.
"Us!" laughed Ginny. "I mean, look at us! Prancing around in suspenders and stockings! We look like something out of one of my brothers' sad magazines they oggle over!"
Hermione looked down at herself and had to laugh too. Even though the clothing bordered on the grandmotherly rather than the height of fashion, she had to admit that they both looked a little sexy, attired in their current state.
Now, greatly tickled by the situation Hermione stood up straight and flung an arm out wantonly to lean on the wardrobe door, flicking her head back like models did in shampoo adverts on the television. She got completely behind the door, then stuck a leg out, feeling the edge of it seductively with her foot and peeped sexily around the door.
Ginny was in hysterics, she was laughing so hard, she had to flop down on the bed to avoid falling down. "Oh god!" laughed the redhead. "Don't!"
Hermione snorted loudly and had to collapse on the bed laughing too. After so much pain and stress in recent days, it felt so good to have a laugh. Not just a giggle, but a big gut-achingly good laugh, however silly the provocation to it had been.
As they had crumpled there in laughter one of their information sheets turned over, flipping over a photo in the process. Hermione picked them up and groaned loudly. "Why didn't we check the back of these?" she asked, annoyed.
"What does it say?"
"It says," Hermione read from the information page. "'Although WAAF personnel mainly wore the smart 'service dress' with skirt, they often wore more practical...TROUSERS and Battle Dress jacket..especially when on work assignments'! We're so stupid sometimes! We wouldn't have had to muck around with these awful bloody things, if we had only checked the other side of this page and the photo! I admit the even more itchy uniform doesn't really appeal, but it's better than this terrible outfit."
"So wearing these horrid suspender pants wasn't necessary? It was optional?" asked Ginny. However, the annoyance in her voice soon turned to a snort of laughter. "It's pretty funny though, isn't it? I mean, look at us?" she illustrated her point by pinging one of the suspender hooks.
"I'm so glad Dumbledore didn't come back without us knowing!" Hermione said. "What on earth would he think of us?"
"I've no idea," Ginny said, still tittering a little. "My brothers would have enjoyed it I'm sure."
That calmed them both to a silence again. Ginny's brothers. It kind of gave them a reality check of what had happened and why they were here. Both women knew what the other was thinking and they reached for each others hands.
"We're going to see them again, Gin," said Hermione firmly. "I'll do anything to try and succeed here, and we'll both see them again. I'll do anything to make that happen and avoid anymore loss."
Ginny gripped her friend's hand tight. "I know."
"I suppose we had better get out of this stuff and I'll quickly turn those other trousers into female ones. We can't stay like this, that's for sure! It's unlikely anyone will be dropping by, but I'm not sure this is the side of me I want to present to the world," said Hermione amused again, as she moved to sit on the edge of the bed and stood up.
"I don't know, it's not a bad side," said Ginny, who then playfully swatted Hermione's backside with the back of her hand, and started to chuckle again.
Hermione spun round and grinned. "What is it with you Weasley's and my backside?"
"You're using Weasley in the plural?" asked Ginny, highly interested.
"Let's just say everyone, except your parents, has now had a feel-up in one way or another!"
"Oh! I hereby apologize for my lecherous brothers," said Ginny, now moving herself, to finish taking off her own stockings and beginning to dress again. "Hang on a minute! Ron has felt-up your arse? Already?"
"Not really," Hermione smiled, she had disentangled herself from her stockings and she pulled on her trousers. "But sometimes that supportive arm of his that has wound its way around me, often drops...lower...quite a bit lower."
"Yeah, that's definitely Ron's style," said Ginny, no longer surprised. "A quick grope, when he thinks no one will notice!"
Hermione laid the other more itchy male trousers on the bed and transfigured them to a more female shape and altered them to Ginny's size.
Both young women put the uniforms back onto hangers and made their way downstairs to come up with an idea for lunch.
Hermione walked through the kitchen and into the pantry, wondering if by looking at their food stock, they would come up with a nice idea, as Ginny went to get some plates and cutlery out. It was Hermione's turn to be surprised though.
"Ginny! Look!"
Ginny walked through to the pantry to find several dishes on the shelves that weren't there before. Hermione lifted the cover on one and it looked like a shepherd's pie. Ginny lifted the cover on a dish nearest to her and it looked and smelled like stew. And another one was almost certainly an apple lattice tart.
"Hogwarts' elves! It has to be!" Hermione said, almost excited.
It was then they found a small note on the shelf next to another dish, which contained a roast chicken, written in Dumbledore's familiar slanted handwriting. It said simply:
I thought you might like to sample some of Hogwarts' finest.
"I never heard anything?" questioned Ginny.
"Did you ever hear the elves clean your dormitory at Hogwarts? Or clean the Common Room?" Hermione said, her eyes bright. "I expect they just Apparated here, left the food and note and Disapparated back."
"It settles lunch then," Ginny said, lifing the lid on the shepherd's pie again and taking a sniff.
The dishes only needed to be heated up for a short time, and for that they used the range, preferring the quaint way of heating up lunch instead of all wand-work. Besides, they would soon have to get used to not using their wand for mundane things.
After enjoying a magnificent tasting shepherd's pie, which made them both feel wistful about Hogwarts and about home-cooked food, they decided on the apple tart for dessert. Hermione went to get some of their papers while Ginny cut them a portion from the tart.
"Maybe be can make a start on the details for the first part of our journey," said the brunette sitting down with the papers which faked the passes for their travel arrangements.
Having such a lovely lunch, and tasting the food of Hogwarts again had made both women feel confident and somehow stronger, in a way that couldn't be described and not completely understood by themselves.
Hermione passed Ginny's papers to her, and had a mouthful of apple tart as she read over the main things they needed to know.
"We need to get to Halifax," Hermione said. "So from here Dumbledore or whomsoever else involved, wants us to travel from London. Wow! From Kings Cross station in fact! Once at Halifax it then seems to be very vague and looks more like compass directions after that."
"Can we Disapparate to London?" asked Ginny.
"I think we can, because we'll still be a long way from our destination."
"I think we should Apparate just outside The Leaky Cauldron," Ginny suggested."I don't think our sudden appearance on a muggle platform would be advsiable. And also magical activity around the Cauldron won't be noticed."
"Good idea," Hermione nodded. "I think in this particular time, people appearing out of nowhere would be even more troubling than normal. I think where Godric's Hollow is we are actually nearer to Bristol or a Midlands city, but we basically know Kings Cross and I think it's a direct route. A different station might mean we had to change trains a lot."
"It looks like our passes give us free travel or something. 'On War Service' it says here," Ginny read from her travel papers.
"Yes, it seems so," answered Hermione, studying her own pass. "I think it then gives us a good reason not to have to answer any questions about what we're doing or exactly where we're going. It's like secret military business. It should help a lot being able to use those papers."
"It's going to feel funny going to Kings Cross but not walking through the barrier to the Hogwarts Express," Ginny said.
"It will be very odd. It makes me sad that we won't be going to Hogwarts," Hermione said, wistfully.
"We don't know how long we'll be gone do we? Not even a rough estimate?"
"No," the brunette answered. "I don't think we have any way of knowing that."
"In that case, I think we should pack plenty of edibles in that bag of yours," Ginny said adamantly.
Hermione laughed, but agreed. "Yes, it would be nice to have something in reserve. I know we can buy things, if there's anything available and there's sure to be pubs, but we might end up somewhere with no facilities at all."
"What packs up well, except sandwiches?" Ginny asked
"I'm not sure," said Hermione thinking. "I suppose things like cornish pasties, or little pastry pies, which can be eaten hot or cold. Maybe some apples."
"HEY!" Ginny almost shouted.
"What?" Hermione asked, very alarmed.
"Why don't we ask the Hogwarts elves to prepare some things for us?"
"Dumbledore didn't seem to want any contact with us until we had the Ring or it was urgent," said Hermione.
"I know," Ginny went on. "But we could pass a message on through Mrs. Haughty-Face upstairs and when the elves come tomorrow or whatever day we wish, they could bring the extras with them, couldn't they? No one needs to know why we need them, and anyone other than us and Dumbledore won't have any idea about it."
"Hmm. That's actually a brilliant idea," said Hermione smiling. "So when should we leave? I mean, I'm ready to get straight into it, but we need to both be ready."
"We can't keep pushing it back," said a stoic-sounding Ginny. "The sooner we start on this quest, or whatever the hell it is, the sooner we get it done, or find out..." she tailed off. "One way or another, we'll know. I don't see any reason to wait."
"How about tomorrow then? Usually everything would be shut on a Sunday, but in wartime, I don't think that counted, and certainly not in London."
"If we can get our request in with the elves," Ginny said. "If not we'll just have to pack some other things up."
"Don't worry," Hermione laughed. "We'll make sure our food arrangements are our top priority. I don't want your stomach rumbling loudly when we're trying to be stealthy!"
Ginny gave her a glare, which soon turned into a grin. "Right, let's go and talk to Madam Puffed-Up upstairs shall we?"
Hermione smiled and nodded, but she wasn't looking forward to having to talk to Mrs. Dumbledore again, and certainly not to ask for her help once more.
A/N: I'll explain my location choice of Halifax, as the town nearest to Little Hangleton, in a future chapter.