That morning, Dora rose feeling a bit homesick, and rather dreading the events of the morning that would follow. At least there were four of them who wore corsets-herself, Polly, Becky, and now, Morwenna. Possibly, Hannah and Demelza would be added to the number. All the same, Dora was quite certain that her two muggle-born roommates (Elizabeth and Sarah) had opted for bras, and likely considered the rest of them to be downright mad.
A few months ago, Dora would have been inclined to agree. At least, to a very limited extent.
She just hoped there wouldn't be any fighting or bullying between those who laced and those who chose not to. Hufflepuffs were a loyal house by nature, but that didn't mean all of her seven roommates always got along.
Also, Elizabeth and Sarah might feel that if they were among the few girls who didn't lace, they would be more isolated from the wizarding world. Being a muggle born, Dora supposed, was far from easy.
Well, Dora knew that she ought to get up. In addition to no longer feeling the least bit tired, she rather had to use the loo, and it would be best for her to face whatever was going to follow.
With the chill in the air, she was glad for the Warming charm she'd cast the night before, as well as the dressing gown behind her pillow. She reached for it with ease, and pulled it around her night clothes before drawing the curtains aside.
"Ohhh, that looks lovely!" she could hear one of the girls saying. "Maybe I can convince Mother to buy me one of those for Christmas."
"It's rather stylish, according to Madam Bernatte," Polly replied, with a laugh. "She calls it 'beautiful without being overstated.' You should see the ones my mum wore as a girl. It looked rather as though the whole corset had been swallowed up by ribbons. I thought if I wore it, I would look like a birthday present!"
The first girl, who Dora now recognized as Demelza Hawkins, giggled.
The need to use the loo was becoming very pressing, and Dora made her way to the other side of the room containing the facilities rather faster than she would have otherwise. Once there was no more risk of danger-to her body or to her corset laces-she returned to the shared bedroom at a more sedate pace.
Both girls were wearing chemises that reached a bit below their knees, and corsets on top of them. Well, Demelza was fully laced-Polly was in the process of putting hers on over her head.
"You all right, Dora?" Polly asked, now standing in front of her roommate. "You were practically running. Do you feel all right?" She turned her head to Demelza. "Not too tight, please. Nineteen and a half inches, no more."
"I promise, not an eighth of an inch more than twenty and a half," Demelza assured her, as she began to pull at the laces.
Dora chose then to answer the question. "I'm fine, I just had to use the loo before my bladder exploded."
Demelza giggled. "We all know that feeling, I expect." Glancing at Polly, still pulling at the laces slowly, she added, "I was showing off my new ball corsets, and some of the other ones. Mum thought it was past time that I began to work on my figure." She pulled out her wand and measured the space around Polly's waist. "Nineteen and a half. How does it feel?"
"Loads better than I felt this summer. I can take a full breath, for starters, and you're far better at lacing me in than my mum or my sister. Mind taking on that job for the next four years?" Polly asked, as Demelza tucked the laces into the bottom of her pink satin corset.
"I don't mind at all," Demelza promised, giving her roommate another once over. Satisfied, she turned to Dora, whose dressing gown hid her frame. "What about you, Dora? Have you gone the path of training your waist, or the muggle bras?"
Demelza, if Dora remembered correctly, was a half-blood because one of her grandparents had been a muggle, and another one a muggle-born. The other side of her family was wizarding through and through.
"Oh, waist training for sure," Dora answered with a laugh. "My mum said I needed something, whether it was a bra or a corset. The bras were ten times worse than I had expected, and the corsets twenty times better than I would have thought."
Demelza perked up. "Are you wearing one now?"
"Yes. Whenever I'm not bathing," she answered, and opened her dressing gown to reveal her night underbust. As Demelza and Polly examined it, she added, "I wear the overbust during the day, of course."
"Sure, as you'd need a bra if you didn't," Demelza noted. "Can you take off your dressing gown, and turn around? Please?"
"It's no good protesting," Polly cautioned, wagging a playful finger. "Between her and Morwenna, everyone's going to see everyone's corsets before the day is up, and we'll know each other's measurements to the eigth of an inch."
Demelza just laughed. "We are all sharing a room," she pointed out. "What do you expect?"
Dora rolled her eyes a bit, but obliged, handing her robe over to Polly. The underbust she wore now closed at eighteen, was a light blue color, and contained plenty of embroidered decorations of flowers. Especially having slept in it, the corset felt rather light against her body, and Dora hoped she'd be "allowed" to change into her overbust soon.
"Oh, that is beautiful!" Polly murmured, and Demelza added her appreciation.
"Madam Bernatte's work?" she asked.
"Yes...well, for my night ones. I'm wearing my mum's for the day. We're about the same form, and they fit really nicely on me," Dora explained. "Shall I fetch one?"
"Of course!" they both answered.
Dora, smiling a bit, walked back to her bed, and took the time to unlace and exchange her nightgown for a chemise. Holding her eighteen inch corset in her arms, she brought it back to the space between Polly and Demelza's beds, where they were still chattering away.
As Demelza seemed to be the one who showed the most interest, she held it out a bit closer to her.
"May I hold it?" she asked.
"If you like," Dora returned, with a smile.
Demelza could immediately see that this particular corset had been the product of the terrible fashion choice of placing ribbons along at least half of the corset.
"Your mum did a brilliant job with removing the offending ribbons! There aren't any holes or loose threads or anything," Demelza noted, turning it over in her arms. "The embroidery is lovely, too. Good thing this wasn't covered entirely in ribbons, or it would be downright plain."
"You mean the corset maker showed some restraint?" Dora joked.
"Or your mum, or her mum," Demelza added. "How small are your measurements? This looks like an eighteen inch."
"It is," Dora confirmed. "I can wear it closed without any trouble."
Demelza gaped at her. "You're joking. What did you start out at?"
Dora frowned. "What do you mean? What did my mum take me down to in the beginning?"
"We mean your natural waist," Polly explained. "Before you began wearing a corset."
"Oh! Twenty-three inches," Dora answered.
"Five inches in two months...that's pretty remarkable," Demelza noted. "You must be incredibly pliable."
Dora shrugged. "I suppose. I never gave my waist size much thought before the summer. Could I, er, have it back, to change into?"
Demelza handed it over with a smile, and Dora got into the business of self-lacing. It was easy enough, by now, and as she could close the corset, she didn't have to worry about measuring her waist. The gentle pressure on her frame grew until it began a very comfortable hug, and when she couldn't get any smaller, she tied off the laces.
"You're not even a bit out of breath!" Polly noted, shaking her head.
"Neither are you," Dora countered, tucking the ribbons into the bottom.
"At two and a half inches larger," the other girl sighed. "And Demelza's only reached nineteen and a half last week."
"How tight do you sleep?" Demelza asked, clearly curious.
"An inch and a half looser than during the day. My mum started me at two inches looser, and recently I got her to agree to let me sleep at one and a half. I expect I could do one, but she says that's too tight for sleeping." She shrugged. "What about you?"
They both said that they slept two inches looser.
"Maybe I'd make more progress if I slept a bit tighter," Demelza murmured.
Polly shuddered. "I wouldn't sleep at all!"
Before Dora could think of a response, a pair of curtains separated to reveal Morwenna in her dressing gown.
"Good morning," she murmured, covering her mouth as she yawned. Seeing the three girls in their chemises and corsets, she smiled. "Ah, that's five of us!"
"Five?" Polly asked, now pulling a pair of blue robes over her head.
"Who wear corsets," Dora volunteered. "Morwenna, myself, Polly, Becky, and now, Demelza."
"I don't expect that Hannah is, unless she's decided not to sleep in hers," Polly noted. "I saw her go to bed last night, and she was only wearing a nightgown."
"And I very much doubt that Elizabeth or Sarah are wearing them, with muggle parents," Morwenna put in.
Well, five was quite good, and all of them slept in their corsets, which meant that they were not just wearing them as a substitute bra, but to get smaller.
"Perhaps they'll change their mind," Demelza suggested.
Dora shrugged. She was of the mindset that bras were every bit as uncomfortable as she once thought corsets must be, but if her roommates wanted to wear them, it was no business of hers to dissuade them.
Just as long as they accepted her and her friends' clothing choices.
They spent a rather enjoyable morning showing each other their new (or inherited) corsets. The styles were the same--all overbust for the day, stopping at the middle of the hips to allow for sitting without any digging in. The colors and designs varied from Morwenna's extremely traditional all white with delicate white embroidery, to Polly's vivid pink satin with a handful of bows. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing. Midway through, Hannah rose, clad only in a nightgown, and watched with interest.
Moments later, she returned with two of hers. One was dark blue, and the other light green. Both had embroidered flowers scattered along the body.
"These are mine," she said, softly.
"Oh, they're beautiful!" Dora murmured.
Becky voiced her agreement, as did the others.
"Are they your day ones?" Demelza asked.
Hannah sighed. "Yes, just for the day. I'm not allowing to lace at night. Not for at least another year. Dad's afraid that it will hurt my health. He's a muggle, you know, and a doctor...but Mum convinced him to let me try during the day."
"You're lucky, really," Polly insisted. "I sometimes wish I would sleep unlaced."
"It will take ages to develop a small waist, though," Hannah pointed out, with another sigh. "I started at twenty-three and a half, and still can't get to twenty. Mum was sixteen when she finished school. I'll never get there if I can't start sleeping in them soon."
Morwenna put a hand on her shoulder. "It's only a year. If you weren't allowed to sleep laced up until you were of age, you likely wouldn't make it below twenty, but a year of waiting likely won't matter much."
"And it's good that your dad cares enough not to push you to lace too hard or too quickly," Becky added.
Hannah looked a little happier at this information. "I suppose." She glanced at Dora, clad only in her day corset and chemise. "You're already quite tiny, Dora!"
Dora blushed. "I suppose."
"She's eighteen inches," Morwenna announced, proudly.
"And you can still breathe?" Demelza asked, with a bit of a playful tease in her voice.
"Well, now that you mention it," Dora returned, rolling her eyes.
Everyone giggled.
"You'll be at seventeen and a half by the dance," Morwenna predicted.
"Oh, that's way off. By then, we'll all be small," Dora answered, pulling her robes over her.
They compared measurements. Polly was at nineteen and a half and Becky at nineteen. Morwenna was at eighteen and a half, although she pointed out that she'd been at it longer than the others. Demelza had reached nineteen and a half, having started out with a waist size of twenty-five, the largest of them. Finally, Hannah was twenty and three quarters.
"See? You're only a bit larger than the rest of us," Becky enthused.
"A bit? You're all in the nineteen and eighteen range!" Hannah laughed. "I feel positively stout next to you lot."
But she seemed to be taking it in stride. Perhaps, Dora thought, she was keeping track of everyone's measurements and planning to send owls to her parents.
As for Dora, she was secretly proud of herself to be the smallest. Just like her mum had been! Of course, she wouldn't brag about it in a letter, but she would let her know come the Christmas holidays.
Provided, of course, that they hadn't caught up to her.
"What have you been giggling about?" Elizabeth asked, emerging from her bed. Then, seeing their frames, her eyes went rather wide.
Author's note:
Slight cliffhanger, I know!
Enjoying? Have ideas? Let me know!
Also, I wrote another fanfic that's called, "She Walks in Truth." It's not in the Harry Potter fandom, but if you are enjoying this, you might want to read that as well. Thanks!