The second to last lesson Dora needed to learn, which had to come just before she and her mother thought she was ready to begin sleeping laced up, was how to lace and unlace on her own.
It was certainly the hardest of the lessons, even though Dora could see its importance. She couldn't go to school without being able to put on and take off her corset. Even if there were other girls in her room who would be wearing them, it would be rather embarrassing to need their help getting into and out of her clothes! Besides, as her mum had pointed out, lacing up on your own meant you could control how tight your corset was. Suppose she had advanced to her mum's 18 inch corset, but was only ready to be taken into 19, or 19 and a half? And one of her roommates accidentally laced her too tightly?
No, she had to learn how to do this on her own, even if this took all summer.
Dora was rather surprised, and relieved, to find that unlacing was easy enough, once she paid attention to her mum's tricks. Clumsy as Dora was, she could untie a bow. From there, it was a matter of using her full-length mirror and her hands to manipulate the long ribbon until there was enough space in between the eyelets to lessen the tension. Then, once Dora no longer felt herself being hugged by the corset, she could undo the clasps, and get out of her corset entirely.
Easy enough, really, and she mastered this skill in a few attempts, all in the first day of trying.
The far, far harder part was lacing up. Getting the clasps fastened was trickier than getting them unfastened, but after a bit of practice, she still managed the hang of that within a day-although with more attempts than unlacing had taken.
What she found to be the most difficult part was getting a good enough grip on both ribbons to pull it tight enough (but not too tight, as she was still laced at two inches below her natural waist, and this meant there had to be a one-inch gap between the eyelets on each side of the corset)...without getting the ribbons tangled up, unevenly laced, or even laced at all.
It was not as simple, Dora quickly realized, as pulling at each ribbon that were set at her waist part of her corset, and then tying them off when it was tight enough. There was something her mum referred to as "slack," which she thought referred to the ribbons being loose when they weren't supposed to be, and that had to be dealt with all over her corset.
It would have been easier if the ribbon laces weren't behind her back. She reckoned that lacing up would be easier if it was in the front, but her mum said that corsets weren't made like this because they weren't nearly as good.
"Clasps in the front are a fairly new invention, also invented by the muggles," Andromeda remarked. "Before then, the front was solid and you got into your corset by loosing the laces at the back enough to wiggle into it. It must have taken yards and yards of ribbon. I've never worn one like that, mind, but I can't imagine how much more difficult that would have been."
So, Dora supposed that she should be glad that she had to deal with less ribbons, at least, than her great great great great grandparents had.
"Aren't there spells for lacing and unlacing?" Dora complained, after her third attempt on her second day of trying to self-lace. "We have spells for just about everything else."
Andromeda shuddered. "When I was away at school, I tried one, once. It was truly awful. You couldn't control the speed of the lacing, so you were at your natural waist one moment and your corseted waist seconds later. Your body needs time to adjust to the compression, no matter how many years you've been training."
Dora sighed. "And they can't alter the spell?"
"Go into spell creation," her mum offered, with a smile. "If you can find a way, I expect that many mothers and daughters would be grateful."
In the meantime, Dora had to learn the hard way-the muggle way, really.
"Not quite right, I'm afraid," Andromeda told her, after her fourth attempt, "although you are getting better at it."
Dora craned her neck as she tried to see what she'd done wrong this time. If it weren't for the mirror, she'd have given up.
Oh. The laces just above and below her waist were slack. Well, that explained why she felt the familiar pressure at the top and bottom of her corset, but very little around her waist.
She managed to maneuver her fingers into the ribbons and pulled them outwards in both locations with one hand on each side. Then, she pulled at the ribbons/laces again, and the slack disappeared and the laces came out.
A bit too far, though. The one inch gap that was supposed to be there disappeared, and Dora felt herself laced to twenty inches far before she was ready.
"Help!" she managed to get out.
Andromeda immediately took hold of the laces and the extra pressure released. Dora took several deep breaths before attempting to speak.
"I was really not ready for that!" she finally managed. "Your mum laced you to twenty on your first day?"
Her mum nodded, and Dora shuddered.
"I became used to tight-lacing quickly. We all did," she explained. "Mind, what her mother did to her was far worse."
"What was that?" Dora asked, not sure she wanted to know.
"They began with a five inch reduction," Andromeda began, "and if you misbehaved, which included complaining about the restriction, there were punishment corsets involved. Now, my mother may have been severe on us, but one thing I will say is that she never used a punishment corset on us, nor threatened to. And they were awful. Bella and I found one of hers once in one of the attics. Positively dreadful things. Made our corsets look like nothing. Bella held it up against her, as she and my mother were the same height, and we could see that once it was on, it held you entirely rigid from just below your shoulders until past your knees."
Her own stopped just at her hips, allowing her to sit with relative ease. Especially now that she was used to sitting upright all the time.
Dora stared at her mum. "How could someone go to the loo in one of those?"
"You held it in. Or you didn't, and I imagine suffered more punishment." Andromeda shrugged. "They were made of some kind of leather, and with steal bones all over, not just on the back and front, and along the sides." She gestured to just above her waist. "Mother said, her mother wouldn't just lace her and her sister to whatever waist size they'd been training in before. It would be always be at least two inches tighter. Even if they fainted, she'd just have the house elf continue, and use their magic to bring you back from your faint. She said they'd be kept in those dreadful things for one day to start with, two days for the second offense, and an extra day for every one after that. Whatever my mother put me and my sisters through, I knew her mother gave it to her far worse."
Dora shuddered. "How small was your mum's waist when she married?"
"Thirteen inches. Thirteen and a half after Cissy's birth. She could never lose that half-inch, as much as she tried corsetry and magic." Andromeda shook her head. "As proud as Bella was of her fourteen inch waist, I imagine that our mother was rather disappointed that she married an entire inch larger than she had."
Andromeda's corseted waist, which Dora was now allowed to see without a robe or dressing gown covering it as she got ready for the day, because her mum thought it would be useful for her, looked positively minute at sixteen inches. She couldn't imagine anyone living at three inches smaller. Or even two.
Her mum changed the subject. "Let's try one last time."
With that, she loosened the corset laces completely, and Dora hid a sigh as she struggled to lace herself up-and not over lace herself into near oblivion.
A few minutes later, and Dora had successfully managed to lace herself up to twenty-one inches. She beamed, and so did her mum.
"Can we say that's enough for today? My fingers feel like they're ready to fall off," Dora half-complained, half asked hopefully.
"All right," Andromeda laughed, giving Dora a hug. "For today, mine. Come, put on your robes, and we'll have breakfast."
In the end, it was a full week after Dora had begun wearing a corset that she could lace herself up without any help. By then, in part because she was now laced up at least fourteen hours each day, she'd managed to lose another inch along her waist. The twenty-inch corset closed nicely around her upper body, and when she twirled around for a moment-clad only in the chemise and corset-she thought she looked very small indeed.
Andromeda, who was still there in case Dora needed any help, smiled affectionately at her. "You look lovely. Do you want to continue to train your waist down, or shall we leave it at twenty inches?"
Dora stared at her reflection in the mirror, and then at her mum. She knew it was hardly a competition, that she might never be as beautiful as her mother even if she had a fifteen or sixteen inch waist. At the same time, Dora had a competitive edge with herself. If she received a 95 on an assignment, she'd be a little disappointed she hadn't received full marks. If Professor McGonagall gave her a handful of points for a correct answer, she'd aim for twice as many for two correct answers the next class. Hufflepuff hadn't won the House Cup since she'd started school, and Dora knew her five or ten points likely wouldn't secure or lose them a victory or defeat, but she still wanted to put in her hard work.
"I think I'd like to go on training," she determined. "But I don't want it to hurt, or find it hard to breathe."
Andromeda put a hand on her shoulders. "You won't, not if you listen to my instructions for training, and following them closely."
Dora nodded. She'd been doing reasonably well so far, except that one night she became ill, but she supposed it bore repeating. Anyway, Dora reckoned that her mum was thinking about her own waist training experience. She'd survived, of course, but comfort had never been something she'd experienced while laced up.
Once Dora was dressed in a pair of yellow robes, Andromeda let her into one of her closets. There, she showed her the collection of corsets she'd used since she was thirteen, with tags inside each denoting the waist size they would close at.
They were all very pretty, if you ignored the mass of ribbons. But Andromeda had removed them on Dora's current corset, and Dora expected she would do the same for any others she'd use.
"This next one," Andromeda said, holding up a white one with the same sort of embroidery, "was my second. It closed at eighteen inches."
Dora frowned, just a bit. "What about nineteen?"
"That's how my mum ordered them. Even numbers, not odd ones."
"But...you said your mum had you laced up four inches on your first day," Dora recalled.
Andromeda laughed. "My waist was a bit larger than yours when I began. Twenty-four inches. Bella's was twenty-three, and Cissy's was...twenty-three and a half, I believe."
"Did your mum take you all down to twenty on the first day, then?"
Andromeda pursed her lips in concentration. "I don't recall much of Bella's training before I began. Perhaps, just a week or so, as I knew I'd be starting soon. Cissy was laced to twenty...yes, that's right. I remember thinking it was terribly unfair that she was allowed to be a half an inch looser than I was when I started. Bella told me that if I wasn't such a fat pig, Mother wouldn't have needed to tell her to take me in as much at once."
Dora glared at the imaginary Bella. "That's awful!"
"That's Bella for you. You don't go to Azkaban for torture and following the Dark Lord by being nice," her mum reminded her. "So, yes, I suppose we all were laced to twenty, and from then, Mother generally had us taken in by an inch or a half an inch, depending on how tight we could stand it."
Dora glanced at the eighteen inch corset. It wasn't entirely identical to hers-the embroidery was similar, of course, but not the same patterns exactly-but nearly everything else was the same. Well, except for the lack of the two inches that would, eventually, take her waist in.
"How long did it take for you to go from twenty to eighteen?"
"I'd have to check my diary to be sure." Andromeda's face took on a far-away look, one Dora recognized as recollecting some ancient memory. "Ah, I recall reaching eighteen and a half just before school resumed, and thinking that I could take it a bit easy without Mother breathing down my neck. Unfortunately, she was still able to cast the same spells for the corset laces to lock at a certain point, even though she wasn't in the country. A very powerful witch, my mother." Andromeda's face took on a look of concentration. "Certainly before I finished my third year. She sent me the sixteen inch corset before I'd begun my exams, but said I needn't begin wearing it until after my last one."
"Then, you basically went from twenty to eighteen in about ten months?"
"Around then, yes. Of course, we'll take it slower for you. No locking spells, for instance. I'd rather you be able to enjoy the activities that breathing freely entail over losing an inch or a half inch a few months sooner. Slowly and steadily, that's what I say."
"Is that what you did after I was born, Mum?"
"It was. My natural waist was twenty-four, same as before. Now, before I became pregnant, my natural waist had shrunk to just over nineteen, because I laced down whenever I wasn't bathing. A twenty-four inch waist after giving birth rather meant that I was where I had been at thirteen. Except, this time, I had years of training behind me, and I was free to lace entirely at my own pace. Before you turned three, I had reached sixteen inches," Andromeda recalled. "I had begun to try for fifteen, but it was so much more effort, and I wasn't even sure I'd ever make it. I decided that a sixteen inch waist for a mother of a very rambunctious child-" She grinned, and so did Dora. "-Was quite small enough."
"I think you're perfect, Mum," Dora told her.
Andromeda blushed. "Thank you, honey."
As Dora had decided to train her waist below her current twenty inches, her mother thought it was time for her final (for now) lesson: sleeping while laced up.
"You'll make far more progress this way," Andromeda explained, once she'd taken her old corsets and placed them inside of Dora's top drawer. "You'll use the twenty inch for sleeping, and begin with the eighteen for daily wear. If you get below eighteen, you'll use the sixteen for daily wear, and the eighteen for sleeping."
"What do you sleep at?" Dora asked. "Now, I mean."
"Eighteen. Seventeen if I expect to attend a formal event. Those corsets close at sixteen inches, but they're a bit longer and more heavily boned, to create an emphasis on my waist," Andromeda answered. "Not anything you'll be wearing anytime soon, although if Hogwarts holds dances in your later years, my older ones would look lovely on you."
As she spoke, she unlaced Dora's day corset, and carefully put it on a chair to, as she put it, air out.
"How tight will I have to lace while I'm sleeping?" Dora asked.
"Two inches looser than your daily ones, I think, to start with. We can experiment and see what's the most comfortable."
Dora frowned. "Then, I'll be sleeping at twenty-two inches? That's what I was on my first day. How will that help me get my waist smaller?"
"Because, sweetie," her mum explained, patiently, "even one inch of pressure around your waist when you're asleep is far more effective than none at all."
She supposed that made sense. She'd still be at twenty during the day-at least for now.
"Don't you want me to lace myself up?" Dora asked, as her mum worked on the clasps.
"In a day or so," Andromeda promised. "I'll still only lace you to twenty, but this is a new one, and it's smaller, even if it won't feel smaller around your waist. Let's get you used to that before adding on self-lacing."
It did feel a bit different, especially once her mum had taken her into her usual twenty. Dora had become used to feeling a diminishing gap around her back, and had come to enjoy the sensation of her laces being closed. Now, she was almost back to her first day, when her mum had taken her in one inch.
"How does it feel?" Andromeda asked.
Dora answered honestly. "Like I've become rather larger."
Her mum nodded. "I know. I always felt that way. We all did. But, as you see, you're still the same size as you were before. And, soon, we'll work on closing the gap-slowly, at your own pace, of course."
They decided to start that very night. Dora expected it to be easy, even for her corset to feel too loose. After all, she was downright comfortable at twenty inches, and now she was to sleep two inches looser? When her mother put her in her now "sleeping corset," laced at twenty-two inches, Dora felt only light pressure around her waist and chest. It was nothing like she was used to. She didn't complain, though. Her mum wouldn't be brought around by that, certainly not on the first night. Perhaps, over the next few days, Dora could persuade her to let her sleep as tight at night as she was during the day.
Dora lay on her side, trying to fall asleep. It was more difficult than she had expected. She was used to being hugged by her corset during the day, when she was sitting or standing or moving around most of the time, but not when she was laying down and trying to fall asleep. Dora sighed. She realized she was used to sleeping just in her nightgown, as she had done for all of her life, and not with all that extra fabric and steel holding her upright, and what would have felt too lose during the day felt rather...restrictive...at night.
Eventually, she found herself in a nightmare, featuring her aunt Bella (who she'd never met, but seen old pictures of both in her mum's family album...and newer ones in the Daily Prophet when they recounted captured prisoners who had been sent to Azkaban) laughing in a maniacal fashion as she pulled the laces of Dora's punishment corset tighter...and tighter...and tighter.
She woke up suddenly, and tried to sit up, but her corset pushed her back down. Then, she tried to take a breath...but she couldn't. She could barely get any air into her lungs. Dora gasped, and gasped, and was sure she was about to faint-when in came her mum and dad, both with lit wands.
The wards, she realized.
Every sensible adult witch or wizard with kids used them. They would detect physical danger, of course, but also danger that wouldn't put a child's life at risk. Parents would put their own parameters on the wards, with extra protections for small children, and ones that only detected a legitimate threat of danger on near adult children.
A nightmare wouldn't have been enough to send Dora's parents running into her room, not normally. Her mum must have changed them, must have known that even sleeping at a one inch reduction would be a lot harder than Dora would have realized.
At the moment, though, Dora was beyond relieved to see her parents, even as she still struggled to take a deep breath.
"Oh, honey," Andromeda soothed, wrapping her arms around her, and then untying the bow in the back. "Don't worry. We'll have you out of this in just a moment."
The pressure ceased, and Dora practically swallowed the air into her lungs.
"Ted, can you undo the clasps?" Andromeda asked, rocking her daughter back and forth. "Or, Dora, can you?"
But Dora's fingers were shaking, and her dad came around so he was stranding in front of her.
"Let me see..."
Dora couldn't see her father working on the clasps at the front, but she suddenly felt the sides of the corset separate completely. Her mum removed it from her body and placed it on the bed. Then, she turned her attention back to Dora, holding her against her chest with one hand, and rubbing her back with another. Her dad, meanwhile, had lit the lamp on her bedside table.
She stayed like that for awhile, happy to be held, relieved to be able to breathe without any restrictions on her. She no longer felt the need to practically swallow air-she could breathe just as she used to.
Finally, Dora looked up at her mum. "Could you stay with me, Mummy? Until I fall asleep?"
"Of course. I should have stayed with you all this time, it being your first night," Andromeda answered. She flicked her wand to move the corset over to one of the chairs, and then tucked them both under the covers.
Ted gave Dora a kiss on the top of the head. "I'll see you in the morning, hon."
Dora felt relieved as he left, but also guilty. She'd been closer with her dad than her mum up until this summer. Now, with all of the changes inside and outside of her body, her mum had almost taken his place.
At least for the time being.
"I had a nightmare, Mum," Dora said, nestling into her mum's side, enjoying the feel of her dressing gown against her cheek.
"So I gathered. Would you like to tell me about it?"
"Aunt Bella had me in a punishment corset, and she kept pulling it tighter."
It sounded so silly. She'd never even met her mum's older sister.
Likely never would.
Andromeda sighed in sympathy. "Those sorts of nightmares are common enough when you're first trying to sleep laced up."
Dora shuddered. "It felt so real."
"They always do." She adjusted the blankets so they covered them a bit more fully. "They go away, after a bit of time."
"Does the feeling of not being able to breathe when you wake up?"
"It does. Your body needs time to adjust, as does your mind. I know you've laced down three inches during the day without any problems. You've done remarkably well. It's only, well, lacing at the night is entirely different. You're held rather more rigid, even if your corset is looser, and your mind is free to wander. It's no wonder most girls get nightmares of being strangled or laced close to fainting in the beginning," Andromeda explained.
"You mean this is normal?"
"I'd have been very surprised if you didn't suffer some discomfort during your first week, honey. Although I'd rather hoped you wouldn't have any nightmares. I can't say I'm entirely surprised that you did have one, mind," Andromeda concluded.
"Then, I just have to endure it until it goes away?" Dora asked, with a sigh.
"Well..." Andromeda thought for a bit. "What if I stay with you until you're truly at ease during the night? If you have any nightmares or feel like your sleeping corset is too tight, I can loosen it or remove it completely."
"Won't Dad mind, though?"
Andromeda tucked a stray piece of hair out of her face. "No. On any account, it won't be long until you're fully at ease."
Dora sighed again. "I dunno, Mum. I can't imagine ever getting used to sleeping like this."
"You don't have to, sweetie. You can just train during the day," she reminded her.
"But then I won't get as small."
"There are far more important things in life than a minute waist," Andromeda scolded, gently. "Besides, this isn't something you need to decide on right away. If you'd rather try without sleeping in a corset for a bit, I can certainly understand."
Dora shook her head. "No. I want to keep trying. As long as you stay with me."
"I will. I promise."
"Mum?"
"Yes?"
"How long did it take you?"
"Oh, about a week."
"Is that how long is usually takes?"
"Less, I'd say. My mother's training was more severe than most. I wouldn't be surprised if it took you half as long."
This was reassuring. Andromeda let her eyes close, enjoying the closeness of her mum, the feel of her arms around her.
She had no more nightmares that night.
Author's note:
While this is a work of fiction, I wish to be as accurate as reasonably possible with the process of learning to wear a corset and waist-training. There's no universal experience, of course, but there are common experiences that I wish to reflect upon writing this. In particular, self-lacing is something that people experience any number of mild to extreme difficulties with (and there are, of course, numerous videos online to provide aid in the process). Given Dora's clumsiness, I thought it reasonable that she would struggle, but her persistence and practice would pay off.
Dora's experience with sleeping in a corset her first couple of nights is very much consistent with many other people's. Even if you wear it looser than you would during the day-a recommendation, though not a requirement-it's common to wake up and experience the need to take it off. Like self-lacing, persistence is key if you choose to sleep in a corset. It is possible to train your waist and experience results without corseting ALL the time, and it's an indication of the hardcore waist-trainers-OR those who can't train during daytime hours-if you sleep in one.
Next up:
An easier solution for Dora's struggles includes an outing with her mother.