She was going to utterly MURDER the inventor of corsets! Bring them to their pitiful knees with the Criticus curse before cutting their internal organs out with a spoon; all in revenge for the fact that hers were now, thanks to said invention, struggling with oxygen deprivation.
"I'm...I'm gonna die in this thing!" she protested weakly as the last of the lases were pulled taut with the binding charm. Draco's scoff could not be mistaken from across the room.
"Don't be so melodramatic...and come out so I can see you."
It was only with a steadying hand on the back of a chair that Ginny managed to manoeuvre herself out from behind the screen and into Draco's view. His reaction once accomplished was entirely worth the struggle it took to stay upright. Ginny watched as her best friend's eyes opened to the circumference of a small dinner plate and his gaze swept rakingly over her.
"Bloody hell Car; if I weren't such a raging poof..."
Ginny rolled her eyes as she beckoned him forward.
"Stop being an idiot and come help me to the mirror, I think this thing has cut off the circulation to my legs."
For once, Draco Malfoy actually did what he was told, moving to her side and taking her hand as she attempted to walk on legs that were becoming increasingly harder to feel. She was fairly sure that wasn't a good thing; legs were traditionally supposed to have feeling as far as she knew; it prevented them from dropping off. Maybe if they started going blue...
All thoughts of the welfare of her limbs flew from Ginny's mind as soon as she stepped in front of the mirror. The dress had looked fairly simple on the hanger, but on her...
The fabric fell about her as a finely spun cotton overlay on an emerald green silk backing. Ginny had scrunched her nose at the colour at first, sure that with her red hair she was going to look like one of Santa's elves, but now that it was on...words were failing her...though that may have just been the lack of available breathing room. The dress hugged her upper body with the vehemence of an infatuated lover, displaying her chest in a way that made her want to cringe, hide and strut down the street at the same time. The skirt was long and flared, as was the fashion in the time she was to be attending, accentuating her curves and seeming to harmonise the usually unruly kinks in her hair. Ginny couldn't help but gasp...though again, that may have been the corset.
Standing before her was a veritable princess; decked out in the tradition of glamour and coifed to her very last coif. She looked, to put it mildly, utterly amazing.
"...Wow..."
It was the only thing she managed to utter before she dropped to the floor in a dead feint.
Yep, definitely needed loosening.
Draco was having a bit of a hard time keeping up; which, upon contemplation, was rather embarrassing considering his companion was wearing her own weight again in fabric.
"Gin...could you slow down a bit for Merlin's sake...it's not like the seventeenth century's going anywhere..."
Ginny, ahead, didn't even glance back as she answered.
"We had to be there by eight Draco! EIGHT!"
Draco almost cringed at the volume with which her hysteria was conveyed. Well as least they could be sure she had fully recovered her lung capacity. It had taken a whole half an hour to wake the little weasel after she'd decided to take a badly-timed nap sprawled across his apartment floor; he was still sporting the black eye from trying to slap her awake. And so, they were late. Only ten minutes, granted, but it seemed enough to send his best friend into hernia-land for the mentally-insane.
Draco grunted as he ducked his head and stepped up his run...only to collide solidly with a great mound of expensive silk. Ginny's dress absorbed most of the impact for her so she simply swayed a little while Draco suddenly sound himself sitting on the polished museum floor, his butt aching to high heaven.
"Bloody hell Weasley!"
He only ever used her last name when he was really irritated with her but for then the girl didn't seem to notice as she gazed down at a well-known display case in front of her in rapture. Draco groaned upon spotting it as he climbed to his feet.
"Come on Car, we don't have time for this."
Ginny didn't take her gaze from the case.
"I just wanna see it once more, that's all...just once."
Draco sighed as he approached and stood as close as he could with the poufy dress in his bloody way to his friend's side. The display case was relatively ordinary, a simple sheet of glass covering the coveted object inside, the flames from the nearby torches casting a flickering light over its polished exterior. There were no charms on the case, no magical forms of protection at all; the curators obviously sure in the objects security - Draco couldn't help but agree. Who would ever want to steal a crusty scrap of paper leading to a long since discovered treasure? One look at Ginny's shining face had him thinking that maybe he should warn the security to keep an eye on her. It was no secret Ginny was utterly obsessed with the ancient record; so much so, she was basing her entire thesis on it. Unheeded, his eyes travelled up to the faded plaque proclaiming the cases contents.
"Mappe to the moste secret and coveted treasure of Uric the Oddball"
Uric the Oddball - often said to be the weirdest wizard of the age, renowned for wearing a jellyfish as a hat. See, he'd payed attention in History...mostly. What he certainly hadn't learned about the Mad-hatter of the Fourteenth century at Hogwarts however was that, apart from being exceedingly bizarre, Uric the Oddball was in fact, the greatest thief of his age.
Draco had sat through many an intellectual ranting by Ginny on the subject of the wizard's exploits. Apparently the old coot had been a bloody genius or some such rubbish; hiding his methods and takings so damn well, his nature for taking what wasn't rightfully his hadn't been picked up until his map had been discovered around about six-hundred years after his death. But then that's where things got really strange. Draco could still remember Ginny's eyes lighting up as she told him the tale of Uric's stash and the secret to him not being caught once in all those long years with an object on his person that was not his own. It seemed, according to the map at least, that Uric was a bit of a hoarder - rather than spending his stolen goods, he hid them using a mix of Wizarding shielding spells and good old muggle-pirate booby traps. No one and nothing could ever get to that treasure without a map; either the one now sitting crustily in the Prague Wizarding Museum or the one, no doubt, that was once imprinted upon the memory of Uric the Oddball himself.
When the map had surfaced, a great wave of excitement had gone through the wizarding world as it spoke of some of the most valuable, though thought lost, artefacts of the age, including but not limited to, the legitimately made FIRST Philosopher's stone, a prototype made by Nicolas Flamel sometime in the fourteenth century. There had been a great clamour to get to the Caribbean that year - the alleged hiding place of the Uric treasure. Ministries were up in arms and diplomacy had been stretched to breaking point, but finally the cavern had been opened and the discovery been made: A note, short and handwritten in long since dry ink:
Better Luck Next Time Mates.
A timing charm had revealed the note to be a little over 300 years old, disproving the suggestion that someone else had got a hold of the maps co- ordinates and raced them there. It was evident that whoever stole the treasure, had done so a long time ago...and without a map because, as Ginny had conveyed to him, practically stuttering in excitement, the only existing map of the time; the one that now lived in this very museum, was only written after the treasure had been stolen, around the same time as the note found in the cavern in fact.
Some had argued that it had been Uric himself who claimed his bounty, perhaps using the Philosopher's stone but most would admit; the mystery of the missing Uric treasure was still unsolved.
Draco had to admit a slight fascination with the treasure of Uric the Oddball though he knew his little inkling of curiosity was nothing compared to Ginny's all out obsession. A quick glance over to her face saw the same infatuation he knew she'd been displaying the day two years ago when she'd fist clapped eyes on the mouldy old bit of paper. Draco rolled his eyes; sometimes he worried for his friend.
"Gin?"
She seemed to shake out of a trance as she looked up at him and her eyes widened.
"Damn!"
And the chase was on again. Draco sighed; now this he wasn't going to miss with her galabanding around the time space continuum - let someone else chase after her skinny butt for a while.