Much like the previous day, everyone slept in a bit on Sunday morning. There was an air of excitement in the room as the girls rose, clearly caused by Sarah and Elizabeth's decision to try out corsets. Would they wish to wear them again today?

There was rather more giggling than usual as the girls got ready. The Hufflepuff house was easily the most accepting one-you didn't earn a reputation for loyalty if you snubbed your friends, or even your peers-but that didn't mean that there was an underlying current of peer pressure. Especially for thirteen year old girls. It struck Dora as rather ironic that she, who had been afraid of being looked down upon or misunderstood because she chose to wear an "old fashioned" undergarment in lieu of the more modern bra, was actually part of a majority who had encouraged Sarah and Elizabeth to give corsets a try.

This didn't necessarily mean that they would remain interested. They had been enthusiastic throughout the evening, but Dora knew that girls could change their minds on a whim. It was entirely possible that, especially with the likely obstacle of their mothers, Sarah or Elizabeth (or both) would put aside the whole idea.

Dora knew that she and her peers wouldn't think any less of them because of it...and yet, she rather hoped that they would stick with it, and be able to convince their parents.

The muggle borns were the last to rise-again, hardly a surprise, there. They usually rose later than everyone else, and besides, they had been corseted until less than an hour before going to bed. Dora had eased into this, so she certainly hadn't experienced any of the soreness Sarah and Elizabeth felt, but she could imagine that they would be flat out exhausted by the end of it.

Sarah rose first, giving her standard, "Good morning" to the girls in the nearby vicinity, with her equally usual smile.

Of the two, Sarah was the more quiet, even bordering on shy. She was like Becky in that way, and if the two hadn't come from such opposite families, Dora imagined that her best friend might have been Sarah's instead.

Not that Elizabeth was necessarily loud. It was just that, if the two had the same question or statement, she'd be the one to voice it.

The girl rose a few minutes later, stretching and smiling at Sarah, first, and then the others.

"Good morning!" she greeted, still smiling.

"Good morning, yourself," Morwenna answered, teasingly. "How'd you sleep?" she added, in an almost motherly voice.

"Very well," Sarah answered. "Quite soundly."

"Yeah, I slept like a rock." Elizabeth grinned. "Except, rocks don't really sleep, so I don't see how you can really sleep like one."

Dora giggled at the mental image. "It's an odd expression, for sure."

"Then, you didn't have any more soreness?" Morwenna prompted.

But both girls shook their heads.

"No, I felt as relaxed as a sleepy kitten," Sarah replied, laughing a bit.

"Sleepy puppy, for me," Elizabeth countered, smiling. After a pause, she added, "And, if you don't mind, I'd rather like to try lacing up again today."

"Me too!" Sarah added, with enthusiasm.

More smiles came from all around the room, as well as some chatter.

"Really should start slow..."

"And you ought to learn to self lace..."

"You won't believe how nice it feels after a few days..."

There were other comments, but those were all that Dora could make out clearly.

The girls, realizing they were talking over each other, stopped talking. After some nods, Hannah spoke up.

"I don't expect that any of us minds you borrowing our spare corsets," she began, then paused, waiting for confirmation. The smiles and shakes of heads confirmed this. "Right, clearly not. However, yesterday was rather an...immersive experience. It's better to begin slowly, a few hours at a time, then lengthening it until you're at a full day." She chewed on her lip a bit, considering. "During the week, we have an hour for lunch. Easily enough time to change out of your corsets and make it to lessons in time. After lessons, you could wear them again for a few hours."

"We don't want you to hurt yourselves, or decide you don't want to continue, just because you wore them for too long, too soon," Demelza put in. "I love wearing my corset, truly, but I also love eating ice cream, and I get dreadful headaches if I eat it too fast. You see? It's best to take it slowly."

"That's a good comparison," Dora agreed, who loved ice cream almost as much as chocolate cake. "Also, if you eat too much ice cream, you'll get ill, and may feel as though you never want to eat ice cream again."

Polly laughed. "You're making me hungry for ice cream!"

"Me too!" a few of the other girls agreed.

Demelza chuckled. "Then, it's a good comparison, isn't it?"

"I agree that we were rather too eager to wear them for the entire day," Elizabeth agreed. "I was comfortable throughout...well, maybe until dinner. Didn't feel sore, exactly, until after it came off."

Sarah nodded. "That's rather how it was with me. I'm glad you'll be able to help us. I certainly don't want to overdo it again."

"Of course!" Polly put in. "That's one of the benefits of having roommates, isn't it?"

More nods, and smiles.

"There's another thing, too," Dora added. "One of the first things my mum taught me was how to lace up and unlace on my own. It's rather tricky, and requires a lot of practice, but it's definitely worth knowing."

"Dora's right. As pleasant as it can feel when another laces you up, when you do it, you control how tight or loose your corset is. And, in the event you need to unlace or loosen your laces in a pinch and there's no one who can help, you're not stuck," Morwenna added. To Dora, she said, "It was also one of the first things I learned."

"Well, shall we start now?" Elizabeth offered. "I'd fancy mastering this skill as soon as I can."

"Yes, I certainly don't want to risk being in a pinch." Sarah made a face as she spoke.

"Why don't you start by watching one of us?" Demelza glanced around the room, checking to see who was fully dressed, and who was still in their night corsets. "It's Dora, myself, and Morwenna."

"I can go first," Dora offered. She blushed. "Once I change out of my nightgown."

"We all need to do that," Morwenna noted. "All right, so if you two will stay put?"

"Well, we need to put on our chemises, not to mention brush our teeth and our hair. Also, I shower in the morning," Elizabeth noted. "Say, we meet back here in about twenty minutes?"

They all agreed to this, and set about to their morning tasks. Dora set about to brush her teeth and hair, then exchanged her nightgown for her chemise. Clad only in this, she felt almost naked and rather awkward, tentatively took a seat near Demelza, who was similarly attired.

Privately, Dora had often wondered why her roommate hadn't been Sorted into Ravenclaw. Her marks were the highest of the group, usually the highest in their entire year. It wasn't uncommon for her to receive over 100 on a test. She even rather looked smart-pretty, but smart-with glasses that rather resembled the ones the headmaster wore, and with her red hair often back in a bun. Demelza had a serious nature to her, too, as though she was seeing the world not through a teenager's eyes, but someone much older.

On the other hand, Demelza had told her roommates that her entire family on her mum's side had been Hufflepuff since the 17th century. So, perhaps, whatever Ravenclaw qualities she possessed didn't make up for family history.

"Can you self lace?" Dora asked, for lack of anything else to say.

"Passably," Demelza answered, with a shrug. "I prefer to be laced up by someone else, as it's usually faster that way. But I lace myself up at least three times a week, because I worry I'll get out of practice. You," she added, with a smile, "are quite adapt at self lacing."

"Oh, it took me days to master it!" Dora laughed. "I once overtightened myself by mistake, when I was still learning, and Mum had to unlace me entirely."

"I expect we've all done that," Demelza reassured her. "How tight did you go?"

"Well, it was still the first week, and I was becoming comfortable with going to twenty-one, which was a two inch reduction. But my corset closed at twenty, and I pulled a little too hard, and ended up there." She winced. "It was awful! My mum's mother had her lace to twenty inches on the first day, and she had a twenty-four inch waist. I'm surprised she didn't faint dead away!"

Demelza winced in sympathy. "I only overtightened by a half an inch, and managed to get myself sorted out. All the same, it was far from pleasant. I don't know how our mothers and grandmothers, especially, could endure."

"How d'you mean?"

"Well, when metal eyelets came about, witches took to tight lacing even more than muggles. Everyone laced before, you know, but only a few inches at a time. The fabric couldn't handle much more than that," Demelza explained. Dora nodded, having read all about this. "Well, after the metal eyelets came about and, for us, charms to enforce their strength and the endurance of your laces, a corset could be laced to as small as you wanted."

"Over time," Dora countered. "Just because you can lace to fifteen or fourteen doesn't mean you should on the first day."

"Exactly." Demelza made a face. "But the women who had grown up with waists no smaller than twenty inches, and that's if you're thin to begin with-" She gave Dora a pained look, and Dora remembered that her roommate's starting waist was twenty-five, two full inches larger than hers. "-Wanted minute sizes for their daughters. Some went at it in a reasonable manner, others pushed too hard. They call the 1880's the 'Era of the Twelve Inch Waist,' which is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Grandma's waist was twelve and a half when she married, and she remembers that her mother's was a bit over twelve. Mum could go as low as thirteen, only she says it's painful after having kids, and mostly stays at fourteen or fourteen and a half. Anyway," Demelza concluded, "punishment corsets for girls who didn't want to go the extra few inches were invented around then, and they didn't go into disuse until the 1960's, when Locking charms became the method of control. Punishment corsets are now illegal...officially, anyway."

Dora understood the meaning all too well. There were laws for the rest of the wizarding world, and then laws for the rich pure bloods, whose money caused the Ministry of Magic to operate. Unlike the muggle world, the wizarding world required no payment of taxes from its citizens. Rather, the rich (and they were universally pure bloods with nearly endless access to money, since goblins ensured a minimum of an annual 15% rate of return on all Ginggots investments) gave donations in the form of annual sums of money, and endowments that generated the same rate of return. Which meant, as Dora's father pointed out, that any witch or wizard who worked for the ministry or opened their own shop-like Madam Malkins and Madam Barnatte-owed their livelihood to families like the Blacks and the Malfoys.

And when the entire wizarding world was in that sort of situation, it rather meant that they could have rules bent for them, even ones that would send an average citizen to Azkaban for life. Andromeda had witnessed her sister use the Cruciatius curse on her cousin, Sirius, but all she could do was give sympathy and command one of the more sympathetic elves to prepare the necessary potions to draw out the poison.

"Ah! There you are!"

Dora's thoughts were interrupted at Demelza's exclamation, and she noticed the return of Sarah and Elizabeth, followed by Morwenna, all with damp hair and smelling of the various flower-scented hair products.

Morwenna smiled. "Here we are," she agreed. "Shall we begin?"

They nodded, and Sarah spoke first.

"I can't speak for Elizabeth, but I rather expect it would be helpful to see someone who can self lace do so, first, and describe it as she does," she said, slowly and hesitantly.

Dora smiled encouragingly. "That's a great idea, Sarah! I could begin, if you like?"

"You'll want to start with seeing Dora," Demelza said, smiling. "She's the best."

"I'd hardly say the best!" Dora rolled her eyes in a self deprecating manner. She went to her trunk and picked up her sixteen inch corset. "All right. So, at the moment, I am at seventeen and three quarters inches, so I wear a corset that closes at sixteen. It belonged to my mum when she was around my age, and we have very similar frames, so it worked out that I can wear hers."

"Which means," Morwenna intervened, with a teasing note, "that Dora essentially has custom corsets that she never had to break in."

"Well, after my dreadful experience with bras, I rather needed some good luck," Dora answered, with a smile, causing laughter all around. "Anyway, it takes about a year to size down an inch after you reach eighteen, so I expect I will wear this until the end of my fourth year, if not a bit later." She undid the clasps. "The standard model has clasps at the front and lacing at the back. You can't use the clasps instead of laces for tightening it, and you have to make sure the laces are very loose before you undo the clasps." Dora fastened her corset around her waist, and began to fasten the clasps, standing so that everyone could see. "Now, it's time to do up the back."

"The hard part," Elizabeth noted.

"It's certainly more challenging," Dora agreed. "Now, I breathe in and stand up straight, and pull in the laces." She turned around as she began to work, allowing them to see her, pulling in the laces in the back.

Morwenna, thankfully, began to narrate.

"See how Dora has to pull out the ribbons around the top and the sides? You can't always just pull the laces in the middle, and expect them to tighten all away. They don't get stuck, exactly, but they don't pull straight when it's you who are lacing them up."

Dora stopped pulling, having reached her comfort level. "Yes. Thank you, Morwenna. So, now, I am tight enough but still comfortable, so I tie them off." She made a bow. "And I tuck them into the sides, both so they don't come undone, and I don't need to worry about them dragging when I use the loo."

There were some giggles at this.

"And...that's it. So, I'll put on a pair of weekend robes," Dora concluded, and carefully reached into her trunk.

"I don't mean to sound rude or anything," Elizabeth began.

"Go ahead," Dora answered, now fully dressed in a pair of rose colored robes.

"It's just...you're so small! Everyone is, but you especially. And evidently you can breathe...so, how do you manage?" Elizabeth went on, turning rather red.

Dora smiled. "It's a gradual process, and sleeping laced up helps. When there's pressure around your waist nearly all the time, your waist becomes used to it, and become smaller."

"The human body is very versatile, my dad says," Hannah added. "He says that the female form changes far more when you're pregnant than when you're laced up. He hasn't delivered pregnant women since his residency, but he certainly knows about human bodies, as a cardiologist. A heart doctor," she clarified.

Dora didn't know that, but she supposed a muggle doctor would know what he was talking about.

"There is a limit to how small you can get, but it varies from person to person," Demelza put in. "Some witches never get before eighteen. Others can manage thirteen or fourteen with relative ease, after training for years."

The muggle borns nodded. "Could we see lacing up again?" they asked at once.

Morwenna stood. "I'll go."

Elizabeth and Sarah were ready to try on their own afterwards.

Dora thought it went rather well, certainly far better than her early attempts. The girls managed to fasten and unfasten the front clasps with ease, but struggled a bit with the back laces.

Sarah, especially.

"My hands feel like they're falling off!" she complained.

Morwenna gently took her arms and repositioned them. "That's because you're pulling out, not to the side." Still holding her hands in her own, she helped Sarah pull at the laces of her corset until the gap diminished by about an inch. It only closed about a half inch around her waist. "You see?" At Sarah's nod, Morwenna let go of her arms. "Try having a go on your own, all right?"

With a look of intense concentration on her face, Sarah carefully mimicked the movements, and after a few seconds, she grinned. "It's working!" Then, she pulled a bit more, but nothing happened. "Did it close?"

As the corset she was wearing closed at eighteen inches, Dora doubted that, at least after only a day of wear, her roommate would have any doubt if she had managed to close the corset.

"Not exactly. You need to pull in the upper and lower ribbons, now. May I show you?" At Sarah's nod, Morwenna repositioned her hand, and pulled at the loose ribbons on the top. "Now, we'll do the same at the bottom. Good. Now, give the middle a good pull...exactly!"

Sarah made an excited noise as the corset closed and inch or so.

Morwenna measured Sarah's waist. "Twenty and a half. How does it feel?"

Sarah took a deep breath. "It's snug. I can breathe all right, but I can certainly feel it around my frame."

"It's not uncomfortable?" Morwenna asked, studying her in a manner not unlike how Dora's mum did with her after Dora managed to lose another half or quarter inch.

Protective, Dora realized. Not wanting Sarah to hurt herself, or even be in any discomfort. But proud, too.

Because you could train your waist, even to small sizes, without feeling as though you couldn't breathe or move with ease.

"No, I can honestly say it's very comfortable," Sarah determined. "But...isn't two inches the right amount to begin with?"

"Two inches if your starting size is twenty-four or twenty-five feels far different than if you're twenty-two," Demelza countered. "You're already very small, so you ought not push yourself. I started at twenty-five, and only recently reached nineteen and a half. But that's nearly a six inch reduction for me. Do you see?"

Sarah nodded. "It's rather about ratios, isn't it?" At the confused looks on their other's faces, she explained further. "Say you have two dogs. One is positively tiny, only seven pounds. The other is a much larger breed, over fifty. The fifty pound dog could lose a few pounds and you wouldn't notice, but the tiny dog would be losing half its weight!"

"Well, I don't fancy being compared to a dog," Demelza said playfully, but still caused Sarah to redden and stutter, "but I understand the gist of it. And yes, that's a good way to see your frame."

"I'm sorry," Sarah murmured, looking at the floor.

Demelza hugged her. "Don't be."

Elizabeth, being assisted by Becky and Polly, seemed to be having an easier time from the start. In fact, it rather looked as though Elizabeth might become an expert at self lacing.

Sarah unlaced and relaced until she could manage with relative ease, and after three attempts with only minor corrections from her roommate, the girls decided to halt the lessons and go down for breakfast.

Afterwards, the muggle borns looked rather pale, and belatedly, they realized that they had been eating with a one and a half and two and a half reduction, while during the previous day, it had been less than one inch and two.

"I feel very full," Sarah said, mildly, once they had returned to the dormitory. She had her hands over her stomach, as though expecting her corset to burst open.

"I feel rather sick," Elizabeth put in.

"Time to unlace," Dora determined, and the other girls nodded.

Once their robes were removed, Dora unlaced Sarah entirely, and Demelza did the same with Elizabeth. Freed from the restriction, their faces turned to normal.

"Oh, that's so much better!" Elizabeth practically moaned. "How do you manage to eat anything?"

"Smaller portions, smaller bites, and lots of practice." Dora sat next to Sarah, who looked better, but still rather pale. Tentatively, she began to run a hand over her back, and the girl sighed and leaned against Dora.

"It's our fault," Morwenna admitted, sitting in between the two. "We didn't think to insist you loosen your laces before eating."

"I won't make that mistake again," Sarah murmured, still leaning against Dora.

Dora spoke, still running a hand over Sarah's shoulders. "I expect it's a mistake everyone makes at least once. Especially when there's a delicious meal in front of you."

"There's less room in your stomach, now," Becky put in, taking a seat on the other side of Elizabeth, "and you might find that, in the beginning, you can't stomach certain foods."

"Like what?" Elizabeth asked, slumping a bit.

"For me, dairy. Mostly milk, sometimes ice cream. And cheese. Mum says it's likely to go away, that I need to start by eating small amounts, get my body used to it. Of course, that's easier to do with cheese and ice cream than milk, so I avoid it. For now." She gave them a reassuring smile. "It's getting easier."

"Can't you eat what you want, unlace, and then relace?" Elizabeth asked.

Becky shrugged. "Probably. But it takes time, and it doesn't really solve the problem."

"I tend to drink too quickly," Polly put in. "Gives me terrible pain afterwards. But, I go to the loo before too long, and then it goes away."

"Don't worry, though," Morwenna reassured them. "Eat less, lace a bit looser than you can handle it, at least in the beginning, and if you have trouble with a food, avoid it or eat smaller amounts until you become used to it. The beginning is the hardest, but it becomes easier, and you generally won't have to cut out favorite foods for very long."

"How long would you say?" Sarah pressed.

"Oh, perhaps a couple of months," Morwenna answered. "Really, lacing looser for meals helps immensely."

"Mum says that's what adult witches used to do, as well as muggles. You didn't tighten your laces until after you ate, so the food settled a bit in your stomach," Hannah mused.

"And if you like, you can just stay at your waist size throughout the day. You will still make progress," Becky added.

"This is all very useful," Sarah murmured. "Thank you for helping us. I just wish I could get my mum on board."

"Well, if you send her an owl after you've been working on it, and have solved any problems, she might see it's not at all harmful," Hannah suggested. "She might want you to wait to sleep in them."

"I'm of two minds about sleeping in a corset," Elizabeth admitted. "On the one hand, it sounds very pleasant once you get used to it, and you get a smaller waist faster. On this other hand, I was flat out sore and exhausted after yesterday, and I don't know if I could stomach that all the time."

"You build up to it," Dora reminded her. "And I expect that you could alternate nights in the beginning, if you wanted to."

The idea had just occurred to her. Dora's mum hadn't suggested this when she had begun to sleep laced up at night, but it might have just resulted in it being harder to sleep. All the same, it was an option...

"Best not to think that far ahead," advised Polly. "Start with full days before thinking about nights."

"Good idea," Elizabeth agreed. She took a deep breath. "I expect I am ready to lace up again."

"Well," Hannah noted, "it's only an hour and a half before lunch. Perhaps, you ought to wait until afterwards."

Everyone agreed to this idea.

Those with assignments to complete by Monday spent the following hour and a half on them, and those who didn't (Dora among this number) read ahead. Then, they headed to the Great Hall, where they (including Sarah and Elizabeth) consumed enough food that could fit reasonably into their reduced stomachs, leaving them neither hungry nor overstuffed.

Afterwards, the muggle borns tried their hand at self lacing. Both needed some assistance when it came to fixing the loose ribbons, but already they had made considerable progress from the morning.

"How does it work if you have a father who's a pure blood or a half blood, and your mum is a muggle or muggle born who's never worn corsets?" Elizabeth wondered. "All of your mums wear them, don't they?"

The girls, recognizing this to be true, nodded.

"I expect," Hannah mused, "that it would be up to the daughter. Unless her father was very insistent upon wearing a corset and training your waist. It might have been something they discussed before marriage," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Your dad didn't want you to do it, did he?" Becky asked.

Hannah shrugged. "I expect that he would have taken my side if I was strongly against it, but my mum rather...recruited...me early on. My dad's main concern was that wearing one at all times would hinder my growth, so since he reckons I will reach my full height by fifteen, I can start really training then. And I turn fourteen in October, so it's over a year to wait."

"That must feel like a long time," Becky said, sympathetically.

"Like Elizabeth, I'm of two minds, depending on the day," Hannah confessed. "Sometimes, I'm glad to be able to curl up and sleep in whatever position I fancy. Other times, I rather miss the hug around my frame. And the progress I would make, of course. My mum's tiny, and I long to be as small as her."

Hannah said this last part with a sigh, and a tremble in her voice. Dora immediately pulled her into a hug.

"You will, I'm sure," she soothed. "It's only a year, and perhaps your dad will let you try sooner."

Hannah squeezed Dora's frame firmly, whispered a low "Thank you," and then let go.

"I rather expect, if the mum is a muggle or muggle born, then the father would enlist some extended family to help. If he's an only child, and without parents or cousins, he might have to grit his teeth and take his daughter to Madam Barnatte's," Demelza mused. "She could provide assistance with self lacing."

"As could a classmate," Polly added. "I can't imagine there's no one in the girl's year or house who doesn't lace. There simply aren't that many muggle borns at school."

They agreed that this was likely. Dora also thought that a girl who initially decided not to wear a corset might have a change of heart if she saw her roommates wearing and enjoying them.

The hours before dinner were a mix of recreation, homework, and exploring the castle. Dora spent the first hour reviewing for her Monday lessons, and the rest immersed in Aldershot's book.

Sarah and Elizabeth unlaced before dinner, and decided to remain so for the remainder of the evening. They didn't feel sore at all, this time around, when they carefully laid aside their borrowed corsets and went to eat.

When Dora went to sleep a few hours later, she thought it had been a good day.

The following Saturday evening, Sarah and Elizabeth had managed an entire day laced up-including meals-with neither soreness nor stomachaches after eating three meals. Certainly, they said that they felt full, but not as though they were about to be ill unless they loosened their laces.

Everyone considered this to be a big accomplishment, and after waiting an hour, celebrated with a "toast" of a leftover chocolate frog apiece from the train ride.

Annie, Elizabeth's sister, was there as well. Elizabeth had told her older sister earlier that week, who took to it well.

"I'm hardly surprised that so many of you are wearing corsets. There are five of us girls in my house who are in my year, including myself. Two wear them all the time, and one always except when she's sleeping. Well, they don't wear them to bathe, or so I would expect," Annie added, with a laugh. "I reckon they started around our third year."

"You never said anything to me about it!" Elizabeth exclaimed, hands on her reduced waist.

Annie shrugged, but looked apologetic. "I figured what witches wore under their robes was their own business. Still do. Now, if you're constantly fainting or your roommates are concerned, I will look into it, but otherwise? It's nothing to me if want to whittle down your waist." She put her hand on her younger sister's shoulder. "That includes you, Lizzie."

Elizabeth had been smiling, but suddenly winced. "Don't say 'whittle,' Annie! Makes it sound like you're taking a knife to it."

"What should I call it, then?"

"Lace or train."

"What about 'cinch?' I have heard that used," Annie offered.

There were some shrugs.

"I prefer lace. Sounds the prettiest," Elizabeth decided.

Her older sister laughed, then pulled her into a hug. "Lace it is. And yes, I will take your side with Mum and Dad. I can certainly attest to seeing my roommates whi-lacing, that is, down without any ill effects. And they are quite small!" Annie added, with astonishment.

"You never wanted to try? They're really quite comfortable," Elizabeth asked, almost shyly.

But her older sister shook her head. "They pressed me into trying on theirs, back in the third year. Perhaps, it wasn't because it was made for my form, but I didn't like it. Too...restrictive. I could breathe, but I kept worrying that I couldn't. Anyway, just because it's not for me doesn't mean I'm not happy you enjoy them, Lizzie."

Elizabeth beamed. "Thank you."

"Have you told Mum or Dad?"

Elizabeth shook her head.

"I could help, if you like," Annie offered. She glanced at the girls. "I don't mean to interfere..."

They shook their heads. "You know your parents better than we do," Demelza remarked.

"That's true. All right, let's see..."

In the hour or so that followed, numerous pieces of parchment were discarded, and more than one quill destroyed. Elizabeth and Annie's hands became so black with ink that Annie had to use "Scourgify!" on them more than once. As it was a spell generally learned by fourth year students, it was above all but Annie's abilities.

In the end, the letter read as follows.

"Dear Mum and Dad,

Hope you're well! My third year is going really well so far. I love Arithmancy, although it's quite complicated, and Care of Magical Creatures is also really interesting. Professor Grubbly-Plank says our class is advancing faster than she had expected, and we might be able to cover Nifflers before the end of term. I showed you the pictures in my textbook, and you thought they looked quite cuddly!

I have more work this year than before, but don't worry, I'm not spending all my time with my nose in a book! In fact, I have started to become friendlier with my other roommates. You know that Sarah and I were rather tied at the hip, not being from the wizarding world, but this year, we're starting to become closer with my half blood and pure blood roommates.

I feel a little silly writing this (Annie had suggested, and they had tried it with and without this line on various renditions), and maybe Mum should read this first and just summarize it to Dad...but I thought I should tell you before I saw you in December. You see, the wizarding world is a lot more traditional than the muggle one, and that includes our undergarments. Now, there's no rule that says you have to wear a corset instead of a bra, and my roommates seemed to be surprised that as many of them were wearing them as there were. Sarah and I thought it was very odd, and certainly old fashioned, but we saw over the first week that they were quite at ease in them. Nearly all of them even sleep in them!

Well, Sarah and I were curious to see what it was all about, and we asked to borrow one apiece to try it out. You wouldn't believe how comfortable it was! Really, it was like being in a warm hug! I never felt short of breath, and after a week of slowly easing us into them, we're able to wear them all day.

Annie knows all about this, and three of her roommates also wear them. Two sleep in them. She says they haven't had any problems (although she, personally, didn't fancy wearing one), and wants to help me.

Well, on a less awkward note, I am looking forward to the first Hogsmeade trip of the year. It's usually around Halloween, sometimes a bit earlier.

Sending you all my love,

Elizabeth

All nine girls read and reread the letter before deciding it was all right to send. Before doing so, Sarah copied it out, changing around names as needed. They rolled up the letters and sealed them, then made their way to the owlery.

Dora felt her own heart thumping, even though she had never met either parent. And, of course, it had been her own mum who had patiently and lovingly waited until Dora had been ready before lacing her up.

The muggle borns selected their own owls, took deep breaths, and sent them and their missives into the night.

Author's note:

This chapter was originally going to be two, with the two week later part being its own. However, that one was only a little over a thousand words, and I didn't have much more to write. Anyway, it does seem to flow together, even with the time gap, so if you like, consider this as two chapters published at once-or just a long one? :)

I wanted to include Annie as a character who's made the choice not to wear corsets because it would have felt redundant if EVERY character I partially developed ended up wanting to wear one. Maybe, Annie didn't have one available that fit properly, or maybe, she wouldn't have found it comfortable regardless. She is, however, openminded about the practice of waist training, having seen her roommates do it for a couple of years with no ill effects, and is happy to be an advocate for her younger sister.

While I would like to promise to update at least once a week, I don't know if I have enough WIP chapters to be able to do so. At the moment, this is the work I'm most interested in writing.

As always, I greatly appreciate your feedback, and will respond to any written comments that are constructive. :)

Up next: A visit to Hogsmeade!