The next morning, Dora woke up feeling far more tired than usual. It was her own fault, for staying up so late, but she didn't regret not going to bed immediately. Still. If it had been an average Saturday, she would have gone back to bed for another couple of hours. But the carriages wouldn't wait for sleepy students, nor would the train.
At this realization, she smiled. She was going home for two weeks-a bit longer, this year-home to her parents. Dora hadn't missed them in an almost painful manner since the first couple of days of the term, but that didn't mean she didn't now long to return home.
She rose from her warm bed, felt the brief chill before donning her dressing gown, then collected her robes and a daytime corset from her trunk before heading to the bathroom.
Everyone had showered after the dance the previous night. The hair potion had to be scrubbed away within twenty-four hours, but Morwenna had warned them that it tended to leave clumping in your hair if you slept with it still in your hair. So, everyone had scrubbed away their makeup, undid their elaborate hairstyles, and went to bed with clean hair.
"It was nice to feel pretty!" Sarah had joked, as she walked into the dormitory.
Morwenna had hugged her. "You are still very pretty! We all are."
Dora had felt rather skeptical about the extent to which this applied to her, truly. She hadn't worn makeup to the dance, of course, but now that her hair was in its regular loose hairstyle, and she wasn't wearing dress robes, and was only laced to nineteen inches...well, truth be told, she no longer felt like a younger version of her mum. Not that she would go as far as to say she was plain or flat out unattractive, but she certainly didn't feel "lovely."
Well, she couldn't wear dress robes all the time, but perhaps she would allow Polly to style her hair a bit more.
The mood at breakfast was still rather festive. Even with the dance behind them, there was still the prospect of over two weeks of Christmas holidays. Because Christmas fell on a Wednesday that year, and New Year's was always a week later, the Board of Governors had decided to allow the school year to begin the Monday after, rather than start on a Thursday or Friday. Dora and her roommates would take the Hogwarts Express train to Hogsmeade the Sunday before term.
Some students were planning to remain behind, like Katie and Brian, but Dora hadn't any idea of the full tally. Usually, it was a very small minority of students, comprising of those who had OWLs and NEWTs to prepare for, or those without happy home lives. Dora knew that child abuse was not exactly rampant in the wizarding world, but it existed all the same. And if you came from a long-standing pure blood family, the Ministry rather ignored it.
Dora tried not to think about this as she enjoyed her bowl of porridge. The warm, healthy dish tasted especially good this morning, and was also very easy for her reduced stomach to digest. Really, foods with plenty of nutrients were the same way. It was only the snacks and sweets that caused problems, and only if she ate large amounts in quick succession. She knew better, now.
She wondered if, with the dance letting the student body know once and for all who was waist training and who wasn't, if there would be more discussion about it that morning. But, she learned quickly enough, that wasn't the case. Even though girls often tended to eat together, there were still boys at the tables. Dora supposed that it was probably for the best.
Makeup and hair styles, on the other hand, were not at all taboo. She could hear pieces of conversations throughout the Great Hall involving both. Some featured the application process ("After you finish the two braids on the side, you can add the knot in the middle," "Don't add the potion too high up, or your hair will become frightfully oily! Start at the bottom," and, "Once you finish the crown of braids, then you add curls in the middle, but no more than five!"), while others admired the result. Dress shoes were also a common topic, even though their robes were floor length and Dora expected that few boys would even know the color of their dance partner's.
After the meal ended, they returned to their rooms for the final bits of packing. Sarah, Dora could tell, was uncertain about bringing either of her two corsets home. Morwenna, who had loaned them to her and now had little use for her eighteen inch waist (except, perhaps, for sleeping), urged Sarah to return home with one, and not to worry if her mother threw it out.
It took all of Dora's self control not to say what she would think of a mother who threw out her daughter's belongings, especially as they were borrowed! But Sarah already seemed uneasy about returning home, and Dora didn't want to make things worse.
They made it to the carriages with time to spare, which was both good and bad because it was frightfully cold outside. Even the Heating charms couldn't quite protect their faces from the gusts of wind. Dora remembered Aldershot writing that both muggle females and witches veiled their faces for a span of three hundred years, and in light of the cold, Dora thought it was rather a pity that this practice had ended.
Dora breathed a sigh of relief when they came to the train station, and another when they were inside the warm building. There was no heating machines in the muggle sense, but the Warming charms worked just as well. The Hogwarts students were far from the only ones there. Witches and wizards traveling to and from Hogsmeade were plentiful on this Saturday, and Dora vaguely wondered if Madam Barnatte would be in Hogsmeade or London on this day. London, most likely.
There was no barrier to cross, this being a wizarding train station, and they need only wait at the platform until the train pulled up. At 11:30, it arrived, giving the girls plenty of time to board and find compartments before it would leave at noon.
This presented a rather difficult situation. The compartments for students could manage six, maybe, if they put all of their trunks in the overhead bins. Four was preferable, though, and there were eight of them. How would they divide up?
"I'd like to be in the same compartment as Elizabeth," Sarah piped up, and her friend agreed.
"If you don't mind, I would like to be with Elizabeth as well," Demelza added.
In the end, they decided that Morwenna, Demelza, Elizabeth, and Sarah would sit in one compartment. Dora, Polly, Becky, and Hannah would sit in another. By a strike of good luck, they found two besides each other, allowing visitors throughout the trip.
Dora was happy to stay seated. She still felt very tired, and even though she was excited to see her parents, the letdown of the dance being over already increased her desire to plop down and take a nap. She sat beside one of the windows, and decided to close her eyes, just for a few minutes.
She rose, or rather, was gently roused by Becky from her slumber, when the witch with the food cart came by.
"Oh! Thanks!" she murmured to her friend, and meant it.
Dora bought several treats off the trolley, a bit of most of the items, with the obvious exception of the dangerous beans. She'd eat a bit now, and save the rest for the holidays. Immediately, she bit into a chocolate frog, and briefly closed her eyes as she savored the flavor.
"Anything exciting happen while I was sleeping?" Dora asked, half serious, half teasing.
"Troll attack," Hannah replied, sounding so serious Dora almost believed her.
"Any casualties?" Dora pressed.
"Just a bunch of compartment doors. They belonged to Slytherins who were snogging," Polly put in.
They sniggered at this.
"You were sleeping very soundly," Hannah told Dora. "I wasn't sure if we should wake you."
"Becky has some experience rousing me. I spent a couple of weeks at her house the summer before last," Dora explained. "They get up at sunrise."
"Not quite that early!" Becky protested.
"Nearly!"
Her friend shrugged. "Do you think you'll visit this summer?"
"I don't know yet. Depends how long we can stay at our beach home," Dora explained. "I'd like to, though."
There wasn't exactly an obligation for Dora to return to Becky's house that year, as each had already been to the other's house once. But it would seem odd to invite Becky over before visiting her first.
Of course, each had other friends they wanted to spend time with outside of school. The past term had made that quite evident. And several had homes large enough to accommodate a variety of guests.
Dora smiled at Hannah and Polly, not wanting them to feel left out. "What do you usually do for Christmas?"
And they spent awhile chatting about their families' traditions, ranging from Hannah's younger siblings waking everyone up on Christmas morning to open presents, to Polly's family tradition of spending the day in their sleeping attire.
"Of course, Mum and Ivy wear their corsets under their dressing gowns, and I expect I'll do the same this year," she added. "But I believe we stay in our nighttime measurements. It would be hard to enjoy the food, otherwise."
A thought occurred to Dora. "Polly, did you ever tell us about how you grew up with corsets?"
Her friend laughed. "I forgot! We were so busy getting ready...do you want to hear, now?"
She spoke the last part with rather uncharacteristic uncertainty.
"Yes!" all the other girls answered.
Polly laughed again. "As you know, I'm a half blood. My mum's family is magical as far back as she can remember. So is my dad, but only on the female side. His father's parents were both muggle born, and they met at school. My dad's maternal grandmother did train her waist, but that's because muggle females still wore corsets, so it wasn't anything new to her," she explained, "and she did put her daughters in them, even though it was going out of fashion, because our world is more traditional. She didn't have them go to any extreme smallness, just the eighteen inches that was becoming the standard. And my mum, well, of course with pure blood family, she was expected to train, and hard. Her waist was fourteen inches on her wedding day, although that was the most she could handle, so for no more than a couple of hours at a time."
"How'd she manage the entire wedding?" Dora asked.
She knew that a wedding celebration could take an entire day.
Polly nodded, clearly having anticipated this question. "With a lot of planning. The ceremony alone lasted nearly two hours, and she told me and my sister, Ivy, that she had been certain she would faint before the end. Just after she finished greeting her guests, Grandma managed to find her a private room to loosen her laces to fourteen and a half, her usual measurement, so she could have a bit of a rest. And once she was recovered, Grandma tightened her back up and sent her out. Mum says that they must have done this eight times before the end of the day. I can only imagine how tired Mum must have been by the end! I don't plan to push myself like that, but Mum looked back on the day with pride." Polly shrugged.
"My mum says weddings are when witches push themselves the most," Becky mused.
Polly nodded. "She stayed at fourteen and a half...well, until she became pregnant with me. I reckon it was close to the night of her wedding. It's not really advised to lace tightly when you're expecting, but Mum said her family had done so for generations, and she wasn't going to become fat afterwards if she could help it." Polly shrugged. "Well, she had an easy enough birth with me, and a few years later with Ivy. After us, she kept lacing when she was pregnant with our brothers, Herbert and Eustace. She said she didn't want any more children after that. It was too hard on her to carry, she said, and besides, they had the two sons to carry on the name. Her waist is now sixteen inches, but she can manage fifteen the way she could fourteen-with a lot of struggle and for a couple of hours at a time.
"I know I don't have her frame. She's known it since I was a child, too. My dad's side of the family is stout, and I reckon I'm lucky I managed to be in the middle. Mum says I will be lucky if I reach fifteen inches. I'm eighteen and a half now, and you know how hard it is once you reach eighteen. So," she added, with a shrug, "we'll see. I expect she thinks she should have started me earlier, even as young as eleven. That's when she began, even if she hadn't developed or began to bleed."
"That sounds rather intense," Becky commented.
"Well," Polly said, with a shrug, "she's hoping that I can marry into one of those older families. At least, into a pure blood one. I sometimes think she half regrets marrying my dad," Polly added, reflectively. "When she's really mad at my dad, which isn't too often, she'll accuse him of having sullies the bloodline for us."
Dora stared at her, and it took all of her resolve not to comment. Really, it wasn't like Polly's father had used a love potion, or forced Mrs. Harper's hand!
"She doesn't, er, she doesn't call...?" Hannah began.
"Oh, no!" Polly looked shocked. "No, Mum would never use that word! But," she added, rather reflectively, "she doesn't entirely disagree with the sentiment. Says that those not brought up in our world can never fully fit in."
Dora felt herself bristle, thinking of her family.
"That's only because they aren't allowed to!"
"You think I don't know?" Polly shot back. "I love my dad, and all of his family. I don't believe it, and when it comes time to marry, I won't let a stupid thing like bloodlines interfere."
Hannah put a hand on Polly's shoulder. "We know that."
"Yes," Dora added, suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry. Of course, I know that."
Polly just nodded.
After a moment, she spoke up again. "Should have just said my mum trained hard and expects the same of me, eh?"
Hannah wrapped another arm around her. "We're your friends. Pol. Your house family."
"Yes," Dora and Becky both echoed.
But Dora still felt a bit of anger towards Polly's mother.
They were quiet for a bit, then rested, and finally rose and visited with the other girls.
Then, the train pulled into the muggle station, and it was time to go home.
Dora's smile was wide when she saw her parents and received their hugs.
How she'd missed this!
Author's note:
Kind of a transitional chapter, and it's possible that without Polly's speech, it might not be necessary.
However.
I wanted to explore the potential conflicts of a marriage that results in kids that would be considered half blood, without repeating Hannah's story of having a muggle father. I do think that many people that grew up as pure bloods would second guess, at least at some point, what their marriage means to their kids. As I understand it, once you're designated as a half blood, there's no real "turning back." Not before you're dead and many generations have passed, anyway.
Now. If you've read the previous chapters, you know I included Andromeda's point of view more than once. This will continue, although Dora will remain the primary narrator.
The next two chapters, at a minimum, will be "one shots" (for now) from Hannah and Sarah's point of view. Elizabeth may have her own chapter as well...I'm not sure at this point. I have a partial chapter written, but unless I have more to say, I might scrap it. Or save it for a future point. I don't believe that good writing is forced.
So, next up? Hannah visits her family for Christmas, and hopes to be able to wear a corset at night.
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