The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

85. Fourth Year — XXVII (b)

The walk to wherever they were getting their fancy clothes was rather longer than was comfortable in the cold rain — Susan obviously hadn't anticipated the weather — they'd been rushing along for a couple minutes before Liz gave up, covered herself with warming and imperturbable charms. It still wasn't comfortable, didn't do shite for the wind or the raindrops prickling at her, but it'd stop her clothes from getting soaked through at least. Picking up on the misery of the other girls, she tagged them all with the same spells one by one, the rest of the walk still rather unpleasant but at least not quite completely miserable.

The store they finally stepped into wasn't so different to seamsters' she'd been to before — open floor, sizeable but much smaller than a proper big muggle store, with rather fewer clothes out than you'd expect, normally only a couple different sizes and colours of each thing. After all, most not dirt-cheap magical clothes were all supposed to be made specifically for the wearer, because of the sensitivity of the enchantments — the clothes hanging out weren't actually for sale, but just give you an idea of what the finished product would look like. So, there was also rather more open space around the stands, more room to move around, or clump up looking over one thing in particular, move things around, blah blah, whatever.

As soon as they walked in, Liz and Susan walked over toward the counter, the proprietor — a tall middle-aged woman with a very cool, formal air about her — sweeping over to meet them. The woman spoke English, thankfully. They were slightly early, there was someone in here ahead of them, but once they were out the shop would basically be closed up for their group alone — in the meantime they could poke around, the workers just wouldn't be dealing with them until they were ready. Liz handed over her draft book, the woman flipped it over, nodded approvingly as soon as she saw the Gringotts seal. (She didn't need to confirm Liz could actually afford it, nobody was stupid enough to try to rip off the goblins.) Liz's draft book was squirrelled away in a drawer under the counter, where it would stay until they were finished — the thing would be useless to anyone else without her signature, and this way Liz would have to leave it behind to swipe something and skip out without paying. She could just get a new one, but it would mean indisputably incriminating herself, so.

Once that was all straightened out, their whole group clumped together again, Susan and Hannah trading off explaining what was normally expected at events like these, using one thing hanging up here or there as examples. (The fashions of the fancy types in Holland were basically the same as back in Britain, which Liz guessed was why they were here and not in France or somewhere else.) There were three general styles of dress you tended to see at these things, and it could be kind of complicated, because which one you went with could have social and political implications, which was very silly. Modern muggle-style stuff was fine — well, 'modern', the dresses Susan pointed out looked more like the sort of thing women wore in pictures from like the 20s, but Liz guessed that was more modern than a lot of magical fashion — but it gave a way more casual impression, and of course might get them nasty looks in a crowd of silly purebloods. Which didn't necessarily mean don't do it, just keep that in mind, was all.

And, of course, dress robes were an option — the same basic idea as any other robes, with the fitted inner layer and the loose billowy outer layer, but made with nicer materials and with more elaborate decorations and shite. Wearing dress robes might also give an impression, though it was a little more complicated, the exact vibe depending on style details. Wearing robes were very much a thing particular to the nobility, though they were also common these days with people who followed the weird not-Roman religion thing, regardless of class. (The obvious disdain Susan had for mos maiorum — which she didn't even bother hiding today, with no one who followed it around at the moment — Liz realised by now was characteristic of Mistwalkers.) Dress robes were particularly common in the Light nobility, whether they had anything to do with the religion or not, for complicated cultural history reasons Susan just brushed over — basically, depending on the details, robe-style formal wear had associations with the weird neo-Roman religion thing, or with certain more 'conservative' segments of society. The point being, the same people who tended not to like muggleborns much, so they might want to avoid dress robes just for that reason.

The third style was the one Susan (and Hannah) most recommended for social/political reasons (unless they found something they really liked in one of the other styles). Unlike the robes, which had been created from scratch during the attempts to recreate an 'original' magical culture that had been going on from the Renaissance through the first century after the Statute, and the more modern dresses, which were imported from the muggle world, the third style was directly descended from the stuff women had already been wearing when they'd gone into Secrecy. Which, she guessed the muggle-style dresses technically were too, the magical side had just evolved much more slowly — fewer people involved coming up with new stuff, and a harsher conservative bent in Britain in particular — and had also shifted in somewhat different directions. Corsets and low, wide neckline were common, the skirts sometimes (but not always) filled out a little with crinolines and the like to make them more poofy, and they tended to be super colourful, different panels with different colours plus a bunch of embroidery, metal- and glasswork making it all sparkly in the light.

Liz really liked those ones, honestly, but she'd avoided them last time she'd needed to get a nice dress — they kind of required proper tits to pull off right. At the very least, it'd be very obvious that she didn't have anything up there in one of these, so.

Over the next minutes, the other girls started poking over the racks, looking over one dress or another, chatter occasionally broken with giggles. Liz just, kind of, hovered, following along behind Hermione — not an active decision, just hung close to her without thinking about it — arms folded firm around herself, and... She didn't know. She didn't like shopping, generally, and shopping for clothes tended to be especially bad. All the pretty shite around, all the girls babbling over one thing or another, wasn't helping to make her less self-conscious about it.

It hadn't really occurred to her as a problem ahead of time, but she probably should have seen it coming. Just, sometimes she could go a while without really thinking that hard about how much she hated how she looked — like, the low key normal daily stuff, sure, but not really intensely, you know. She'd known what she'd be doing today, but it'd kind of snuck up on her, the other girls starting to look at stuff, and Liz couldn't help thinking to herself, yeah, I'm gonna look terribly lopsided in basically all of these.

Frustration bubbling thick and hard in her throat, making it a little hard to breathe, it was all Liz could do to keep a glare off her face. She wouldn't have said she'd been in the best of moods a few minutes ago, but she was certainly in a shitty one now.

They'd been here for maybe five, ten minutes before a couple women — one obviously much younger than the other, probably a mother and daughter — came out of the fitting room, talked at the counter with the proprietor for a few minutes. And then the pair were walking out, once the door was closed behind them the proprietor hanging up a sign. (Facing out, Liz couldn't read it from here...and it was likely in Dutch anyway.) And then the proprietor and the few assistants she had started focussing on helping their group out much more directly, joining the chatter over one thing or another. One was over here, talking to Lily and Hermione, but Liz just kept hanging back, trying not to look miserable.

She kind of didn't want to be here anymore, but leaving without actually accomplishing the goal of this whole trip would be fucking pointless. Also, her draft book was still tucked away under the counter...

Liz really couldn't wait until the summer. She should be able to do the blood alchemy thing during break — Severus was currently trading letters with colleagues on the Continent, asking around for who might be the best option — by the time she came back to school for fifth year she should be fixed. And she, just— She fucking hated this shite sometimes, that was all, she couldn't wait until she didn't have to deal with it anymore. And ugh, her hair, she was so getting rid of her stupid magic hair...

"And what are you thinking over there?"

She twitched, lost in her own head enough being directly spoken to caught her by surprise. The apprentice seamstress (Liz assumed) was pretty young, maybe twenty, in the close-sleeved robes typical of people who worked with their hands, all blonde and brightly smiling, trying to be friendly. The question had been in French, apparently that was a common language over here — Hermione had been translating the French for Lily. It took long enough for Liz to find her voice that the woman started wondering if she didn't speak the language, glancing back toward Hermione. "Um, I don't know. One of the robes would probably be better, I guess..."

Eyes flicking back to her, the woman smiled. "Oh sweetheart, no reason to be shy! I saw you looking at this one here..." She reached toward one of the racks, pinching at the skirt of a dress just under the waist, pulling it out to better display the whole length of the thing. The skirt (probably meant to be ankle-length) was mostly white stitched with gold — actual gold thread, glinting metallic in the light — a couple pale blue panels here and there toward the hem for contrast, the panels of the stiff middle part also white and blue, layered over it a much thinner, almost lacey layer in a darker blue — nowhere near thick enough to hide the corset underneath at all, just for contrast — suspended on the threads beads in white and metallic gold and a few speckles of red, apparently just for flavour. There weren't proper straps, the sleeves instead off the shoulder, the cloth here the darkest blue yet, almost black, but partially transparent, loose diaphanous folds that would probably only cover part of the forearm from the elbow to just under the shoulder.

The colours weren't Liz's favourite, but she still thought it was really pretty — because it turned out she was extremely girly like that sometimes. Liz hadn't realised she was staring at it, consciously, distracted with unpleasant thoughts, but she wasn't really surprised. Unfortunately, actually wearing something like that would be... There would be difficulties. "Well, yeah, but..." Her stomach lurching, she grimaced, glanced helplessly at Hermione.

Hermione hesitated for a moment, frowning back at Liz, her mind busily ticking away. (The almost clockwork feel Hermione's thoughts could get sometimes was interesting — Liz didn't know what that meant, or if it was even meaningful at all.) After a couple seconds, she came to a conclusion, Liz saw it happen but she didn't react quickly enough to stop her. "Margriet, this is Ellie Potter."

The woman — Margriet, apparently — twitched with a gasp, the dress falling out of her hand to swish back into place. She stared wide-eyed at Hermione for a second, before turning back to Liz, all oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise, and it's a pleasure to blah blah blah, the usual shite.

Liz just grit her teeth through the whole thing, glaring up at the ceiling, trying not to squirm at the slimy feeling of Margriet's attention on her — she really wished Hermione hadn't said anything. It hadn't occurred to her that people here would give a damn about the asinine Girl-Who-Lived stuff, but she guessed it probably should have. Britain and Holland were really close, for various reasons...and the Dutch kids at the duelling tournament over the summer had been a little silly about it too. Just, annoying, that was all. Thankfully, Margriet seemed to realise she was making Liz uncomfortable, trailing off before too long, some uncomfortable warm lurching feeling pulsing off of her making Liz's skin itch.

Before an awkward silence could linger, Hermione jumped back in. "I'm only guessing here, but I think the problem Liz is having is related to that Hallowe'en. There's some...unfortunate scarring from the Dark Lord's curse, you see."

Her arms reflexively tightening around herself, Liz grimaced — she realised Hermione was just trying to help, but did she have to just come out and say shite like that...?

"Oh!" Her skin crawling, Liz felt Margriet's gaze flick down to her chest, just for a second. "Oohhh... I understand the problem now, but you can find a way around any issue if you're creative enough. Tell me honestly, if you didn't have to worry about covering anything, hmm, sensitive, what do you think you would like best?"

...Well, that wasn't a difficult question to answer, honestly. "Yes, I guess, something like these, with..." Liz sidled a little closer to a nearby rack, poking at a dress there, running her thumb over the corset part. The cloth was thick and stiff, stubbornly holding its shape, the embroidery thick on the surface rough against her skin. Feeling the warmth on her face — for some reason, she didn't know what she was being so fucking awkward about — she let go, took another step away. "I've never worn something like that, because, you know, but I think they look comfortable. And they're pretty, with all the stitching and the beads and shite."

Margriet's lips twitched a little at her language, faintly amused. "They are that, aren't they. But there's no reason we can't get you something you like — and you're going to be up in front with the Champions too, yes? You may as well go in something you'll be comfortable in." Oh god, don't remind her about that... "We can have a gown go up the front, like this," she said, gesturing from her own chest up to the sides of her neck, "and perhaps it will help to— Hold on a minute." Margriet turned away from them and raised her voice a bit, asking what was probably a question in what Liz assumed was Dutch. There was a bit of shouting back and forth, a word here and there sounded familiar but Liz couldn't really make it out at all...

Over the next few minutes, Liz and Margriet, with the occasional comment from Hermione or Lily (and even Susan when she swung by once), gradually pieced something together. Hers ended up being a little more complicated than Hermione's — also going in one of the more old-fashioned dresses, just less difficult to figure out — and way more complicated than Lily's — she was getting one of the more modern dresses, which was a bit of a surprise, but okay then. (Lily was a pureblood, though Liz guessed she didn't know much about her family's...anything, really.) Unlike for Hermione's, there wasn't any one single dress in a similar style hanging out that they could use as an example, Margriet actually pieced it together with illusions instead — which was a little bit of a pain, because illusions and mind mages (and Seers, for that matter) interacted oddly, but they mostly got through it.

The idea Margriet had come up with came in three pieces. The bottom was basically the dress part of the dress, which Margriet was calling une gonne — Valérie had known the word, but on the muggle side it was apparently only used for, like, the mediaeval version. (Liz assumed the use of the term was just archaic, because mages could be old-fashioned like that.) That part was basically just a dress, if made out of a nice silky material and with more fancy embroidery and shite than Liz would ever wear on a normal day. It also didn't really have a back above the waist, the front coming up to tie closed behind the neck, which was...odd. Like, Liz had seen that sort of thing before, sure, but she suspected she was going to be rather self-conscious about it. But after a bit of thought she agreed, tentatively, that that might work. For one thing, she always found it a bit distractingly fascinating when Daphne's dresses didn't have a proper back to them — it was worth remembering that this was for a date, might as well return the favour, you know — and it wouldn't be showing any of the scars she was sensitive about, and there would be other things over the gown part, maybe she'd be fine. She would definitely look into getting cannabis from someone to make people's attention less uncomfortable, maybe there was a more long-lasting potion she could try, but she thought it'd be fine.

The part over that Margriet called le corsage — Liz was pretty sure that was a word for a blouse, but Hermione said it could also be translated "bodice", which she guessed was closer. Which was weird that it went over the dress part, because Liz was pretty sure corsets were supposed to be basically underwear? It was a little more complicated than that, apparently. According to Margriet (with an occasional clarification from Hermione), these sort of things were related to, like, waistcoats and things, just gone through a different series of changes. Earlier versions were just normal cloth, and laced up the front, gradually getting tighter over the centuries, and eventually they came up with a stiffer, figure-defining version, at that point the laces switching around to the back, looked better that way, the modern bones and stuff added some time later. They were still laced on over the gown then, but usually under an upper layer, and as the layers people were expected to wear changed over time the corset part was increasingly hidden, until it was basically considered underwear. (Which was interesting, going from a kind of jacket to underwear over the course of centuries, history was weird sometimes.) As rules about how many different layers you needed changed, articles of clothing ended up kind of fusing together, and so you have how a lot of the dresses here had the corset built into the dress itself, one big thing. You could get the corset part just by itself, of course, but those were mostly considered underwear now.

The way clothing changed over history was complicated, turned out.

Anyway, the corset part laced over the gown, pinning the cloth against the wearer, so, piece number two. Piece number three was...a kind of shawl...thing, Liz guessed? Like, a big long strip of cloth, that would just be wrapped around her shoulders. Margriet had trouble getting the transparency and the shadows on the illusion to come out right, she walked them over to show Liz the sort of fabric she was talking about. It was thin enough that Liz could easily see her hand behind it, but muted, and it was weirdly light, enough that gravity didn't quite squish it down all the way, keeping a bit of whatever billowy shape you put it in. (Liz assumed the thread must have been treated with some kind of potion to get that effect.) The partial opaqueness of the fabric would blur out the fine details, yes, but that in combination with the billowiness was the effect Margriet was going for — wrap this stuff around her shoulders a couple times, and it would hide her profile enough that it should stop anyone from noticing how weirdly bottom-heavy she was. Margriet was confident that, with a little creativity, it should easily hide anything she was self-conscious about, and let her wear something she actually liked.

Looking at Margriet's illusion, she did have to admit that she liked it. They spent a few minutes tweaking the style, the illusion altered with more details to fit more like what they might want the final product to be. Margriet gave the sample of the pattern for Daphne's dress a sort of funny look — she immediately identified it as something particular to one of the weird isolated communities in Britain, though she didn't know enough to be more specific than that — agreed that Liz's idea of lavender and black would be fine, with some white and a little darker purple for flavour. There were multiple different kinds of corsets, so that took some talk to get through. One of the styles for the decorative bits Margriet pointed out had a bunch of ribbons and little bows and shite worked into it, which Liz thought was cute, but also super embarrassingly girly, so she checked herself before she said anything — but Margriet noticed and adjusted her illusion to reflect it, giving Liz a sunny, playful sort of grin. Thankfully, everyone was tactful enough not to draw attention to the heat Liz felt on her own face.

It took a while, but eventually they had it all worked out, Margriet memorising the illusion before dispelling it with a wave of her wand. The fitting room was occupied at the moment, so Margriet went to claim a spot in the queue — and also pick up the unenchanted versions of stuff for the fitting while she was at it — while Liz and Hermione and Lily waited, talking about shoes and other stuff. They'd all need shoes, and Liz at least would definitely want gloves. Lily wanted some too, but wasn't sure if she was allowed to ask, since she might not be able to pay Liz back, but that was silly — just consider the balance a Christmas present, seriously, don't worry about it...

(Liz suspected Lily might not have any real understanding of how filthy rich she was...though the over-the-top hero-worship for Liz's parents she'd grown up with probably wasn't helping either, her face was so red...)

Some minutes later, the fitting room opened up, and it was their turn. It was little different than the one back in Malkin's, plain wooden floors and walls covered in mirrors, a little thing off to the side if they wanted privacy to change underclothes. And then they actually had to do the undressing part — unsurprisingly, that was seriously fucking uncomfortable. Before setting her bag aside, Liz snuck a sip of her calming potion — she had the feeling she was definitely going to need it — and then awkwardly got to it. Liz and Lily didn't need to undress quite as far, since they were both in the shorts and vests you were supposed to be wearing under robes and things, but Hermione was in muggle clothes, which were more of a problem. Obviously the seams and the buttons and things from her jeans would just get in the way, and her dress was one with a built-in corset part, and that wouldn't exactly mix well with her bra in there, would it. After a bit of fiddling around, Hermione yanked her bra out through one of her sleeves (which was a neat trick), leaving her sitting waiting for the seamstresses to get back in just her tee shirt and knickers.

Which seemed like it'd be terribly uncomfortable to Liz, but she already knew from Hermione's memories and the occasional thought here and there that she was far less neurotic about this sort of thing than Liz. Personally, she couldn't imagine actually going to nude beaches, but. That was France for you, she guessed. If Liz weren't a cheating mind-mage she probably wouldn't have been able to tell that Hermione was even the slightest bit self-conscious about it at all. And even that was mostly just because Liz and Lily were both skinny little bitches — Hermione's thing about her weight hadn't just magically gone away since the last time Liz had noticed it.

Liz was way more uncomfortable than Hermione, and she wasn't, just, sitting out in her knickers. She was wearing one of her overly-tight vests, but without the additional layer of her dress, her...lopsidedness was perfectly visible. It'd be even worse if she hadn't taken the calming potion, she was sure, but even so she couldn't help hunching in, arms hugged around herself in a probably futile attempt to hide it, her stomach twisting and eyes crawling on her skin like ants. Which was a little annoying, because Hermione and Lily were (politely) not even looking at her, for fuck's sake...

They didn't have to sit around too long...but, unfortunately, that meant they actually had to do the fitting part now — which was, of course, intensely fucking awkward. Margriet had brought along two friends, each of them carrying bundles of cloth they unceremoniously let ploof onto the floor, but Margriet made straight for Liz, her mind open enough for Liz to pick up that she assumed she'd be more comfortable with her than either of the complete strangers. (Which was fair enough, Liz guessed.) Margriet had Liz step up onto the little stand thing, Liz reluctantly loosened her grip from around herself and stood up straight, so Margriet could take the stupid measurements. She used the charm instead of an actual tape measure, magic crawling over Liz's skin a couple times (she tried not to cringe), before picking up something out of the pile of cloth she'd brought over. It was the gown part, she quick hung it up in mid-air with another charm, did a few transfigurations to tweak it closer to the right size (so it wouldn't slip off of Liz immediately, she assumed), checking her work a couple times with more measuring charms.

Thankfully, Margriet finished quickly — or at least she got to the point that Liz could cover up quickly, which was the important thing. The gown went over her head, Liz holding her hair out of the way so Margriet could properly tie the neck closed. Margriet transfigured the bit at the back of her neck some, trailing ribbons stretching down her back, though Liz couldn't really tell they were there with her vest in the way. After a couple quick transfigurations to get the gown to sit right, Margriet paused to ask if she liked the way the skirt fell loose and straight from her hips, or if she wanted to try a crinoline to give it a bit more shape.

...Well, they could try that, she guessed. Yeah, sure, why not. Margriet pulled another bit of cloth from the pile, a skirt made out of multiple layers of a rather stiff-looking netting, started adjusting it with some transfigurations. (Not aiming any more measurements at Liz, she must have memorised the numbers she needed.) While she was busy with that, Liz's eyes wandering, by complete coincidence Hermione nearby happened to be pulling off her tee shirt. Oh, um, okay then, that was happening now. Thankfully, it was only a handful of seconds before the seamstress working with her was helping her into the dress, so Liz didn't have to try not to stare for too long.

(She completely failed, naturally, but she was pretty sure Hermione hadn't noticed.)

Getting the underskirt on under the gown was kind of awkward, but Liz was honestly grateful that Margriet had tried to do it this way around — the extra layer of the gown was mostly hiding her lopsidedness, so. Margriet also had Liz do it herself, first showing her how the buttons worked before handing it over. She had to pull the skirt of the gown way up to do it properly, pinning it to her chest with her chin so she could actually get the buttons closed, but she was still wearing her shorts, so it wasn't a big deal. Then there was more transfiguration, adjusting the thickness and stiffness of the layers on the thing, asking Liz now and then what she thought. She did like the end result, maybe. It wasn't super poofy or anything, not like any of those ridiculous drawings of old-fashioned ladies she'd seen, just a little bit, an extra layer to stop the cloth of the gown from clinging against the edge of her hips or along her legs. She'd see how she felt about it once the whole thing was together, but for now it seemed fine. She thought it was a little weird that the hem of the underskirt was actually visible below the hem of the gown, but Margriet said that was on purpose, she'd show her later.

Margriet quick charmed her vest invisible — not a big deal, she was covered by the gown now anyway — and then it was time for the corset part. The transfiguration part before actually putting it on took rather longer this time, Margriet taking a few more precise measurements of various angles on Liz's torso, carefully adjusting the corset part as she went. It looked like the transfigurations themselves were even taking more effort, which was fair enough — it was made out of multiple layers, and multiple different materials, she could see how that would be a problem. It took a couple minutes, but before too long she was done. She undid the laces entirely, the thing swinging open, wrapped the stiff panels around Liz's middle. Hold this in place, perfect, Margriet quick guided the super-long string through the holes with her wand, the whole process taking maybe fifteen seconds.

The lacing part she actually did by hand, though — like other clothes Liz had that laced closed, the finished, enchanted version would tighten on its own, but this one didn't have the enchantments on it, obviously. Also, Margriet recommended that the first time in a proper corset it should always be tightened by hand, as well as the first time you wore every new one. (The enchantments would 'remember' the way she liked it, but it needed to be worn for at least a couple hours for that to sink in.) Apparently there were certain details about how it was supposed to sit on a person and posture and stuff, and you wanted to make sure you got that right the first time, so you didn't do it wrong in the future and accidentally hurt yourself. Margriet wasn't talking, like, seriously hurt yourself, more concerned about pulling muscles or making it hard to breathe, that sort of thing — as long as you did it correctly, she claimed these things were perfectly comfortable, but sometimes it could suck if you wore them wrong.

So, Margriet spent a little while with it only loosely laced, adjusting how it was sitting on her, making sure it was in the exact correct place. She also tugged at the gown a little, making a couple extra little transfigurations on that, pointing out to Liz the seam in the fabric where the edge of the corset part was supposed to sit. Once everything was straightened out correctly, the actual tightening part was done gradually, bit by bit, the firm fabric wrapped around her cinching closer from top to bottom. The first time through, Margriet only tightened it so it was sitting right against her skin, held in place by friction and the curve of her hips, quick checking Liz's posture, nudging her into standing up straight properly — with a stranger poking at her it was really difficult to not cringe away or curl up a little, probably wouldn't be able to manage it without the calming potion — and then she started over from the bottom, tightening the laces with sharp little tugs. As the stiff shell tightened around her, Margriet was somewhere in the middle when Liz let slip a little gasp — the seamstress paused to ask if Liz was alright, but she was fine, it just felt good was all, keep going...

Liz really had no idea why she liked tight clothes so much, just one of those things. It did feel good, though, her skin tingling and her heart throbbing, she closed her eyes and just focussed on breathing normal.

Margriet finally got to the top again, quick tying the laces off. It could go tighter if she wanted, but they were going to go ahead and leave it like this for at least a few minutes, to make sure she was comfortable enough. The pressure clenched around her wasn't that much firmer than her red and black robes could get, but it was a lot sturdier, like a hard shell around her — she could still bend her back a bit, more front to back than side to side, but her movement there was definitely somewhat limited. Not that that really bothered her at all, it wasn't actually that restricted (not enough to make her begin to feel trapped), and you were supposed to keep your back as straight as possible while duelling anyway, it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. She thought she liked it, actually, her hands running over the stiff surface over her stomach, along her hips, her lips visibly twitching in the mirror.

So, while they were waiting for those few minutes, they might as well fix the colours and the decoration while they were at it. Margriet had already charmed the gown lavender and the corset part black, the ribbons woven along the seams of the panels in the corset part done in white, the hem of the crinoline poking out at the bottom also mostly black. They adjusted the colour a little, Liz wanted the lavender to be lighter, but still seem really purple, but without starting to look too much like pink — also, a lighter colour would make the black parts pop more. It took a bit of fiddling, not helped along by Margriet starting off using colour-changing glamours, which didn't quite look right to Liz — she grimaced a little as she made the switch to colour-change transfigurations, which were much more difficult, but didn't complain about the added effort — but before too long it looked more or less like what she had in her head.

Once the basic colours were right, then Margriet was going off on her own ideas, charming in embroidery with conjured thread. Apparently, while the girls were undressing and the seamstresses were grabbing blanks, Margriet had quick looked up the Potters in the books of stuff for important families they had here, checking for the family's colours and whatever symbols they had — the Potters obviously had a thing for hippogriffs, and Margriet had the idea that a forest theme might be neat. Like this, see, magically stitching into the top layer of the corset part little stylised images of squirrels and birds and deer and, yes, a couple hippogriffs along her sides, claws near her hips and feathers spreading out toward her back. Liz knew that fancy noble types thought that wearing your family's stuff was kind of gauche, confused Margriet for a second, she explained that the tacky thing was to wear the actual arms, like the shield and everything, symbols that the family used were fine. Especially if it was more subtle, part of a theme like this here, that was fine. Liz would be double-checking with Susan, just in case, but sure, why not, it was kind of neat. How about a red instead of white, though? Margriet let out a thoughtful hum, charmed the thread she already had in and turned to look at Liz in the mirror, tweak it a little darker...sure, yeah, that could work, quick replaced the colour-change charm with a transfiguration and continued on, adding more little details, swirly bits of decoration along the hem, and some gold to accent the whole thing — actual gold thread, she meant, though her transfiguration couldn't quite pull that off right — like along the hippogriffs claws, along the hem here, edge some antlers here, a little bit of texture on the squirrels' fur...

Then they moved on to the gown part. Margriet did a little bit with the patch over Liz's chest, between her collar and her throat, but that'd mostly be covered by the thing that'd go around her shoulders anyway, she didn't spend a lot of time on it. Most of this part, Margriet was going in circles around Liz, little conjured spools of thread in her hands, charming embroidery into the surface of the gown inch by inch. If the corset part had the animals for the forest theme, the gown part had the plants — in black and red and glinting fake-gold thread against the pale lavender of the cloth, spreads of leaves and wandering vines. Liz noticed that the leaves didn't tend to have the proper veins, instead curly shapes that vaguely reminded her of the spirals on some really old British stuff, she assumed Margriet was doing that on purpose. After going at it for a little while, Margriet hummed to herself, transfigured two narrow strips down her left and right sides (about the width of Liz's middle three fingers) into a vaguely floral-looking lacey pattern — which looked like it was really difficult, Margriet kneeling next to Liz and working down inch by inch, frowning in concentration — coloured with beads here and there in purple and red and yellow, bunched together like little glass flowers. The lacey pattern went all the way through the fabric of the skirt, the holes big enough that you could make out the layer below, but the underskirt was dense enough that you couldn't see anything through that, just a black backdrop for the lace and the beads.

The stitched-in drawings of plants thinned out down around her knee-level, leaving just the pale lavender of the skirt. Margriet carefully tinted it paler toward the hem, at the very bottom almost white, making the black of the underskirt poking out very obvious. The hem of the underskirt was already lacey-looking, but Margriet adjusted the pattern, making it more obviously floral-themed, conjuring more beads as she went, making a slow circle inch by inch around Liz — she assumed the matching strips down her sides had been done because Margriet realised partway through what she wanted to do with the bottom hem. Once the hem was done, Margriet gave her a once-over, and then adjusted the stitching on the corset part, around where the trails of ribbons went through, charming in little curly vines, like the plants on the gown part were reaching up through the corset part. She even adjusted some of the little bows at the top to have beads in the middle, kind of turning them into oddly-stylised flowers.

After another quick examination of her work, Margriet shot Liz a bright grin, and then slipped away to retrieve the last thing, whatever the hell it should be called. (Liz's first impulse was to call it a shawl, but she wasn't sure that word was technically correct.) The semi-transparent fabric started off black, which Liz had thought was the plan, but Margriet glanced back and forth between Liz and the bundle of cloth and then painstakingly transfigured it purple, a darker shade than the gown — Margriet wanted her hair to be more clearly visible against it, which Liz guessed was fair. Margriet conjured a little pin, attached one end of the cloth somewhere on Liz's back, and started wrapping the cloth around her. Mostly over her shoulders, loose enough to droop down her upper arms a little, but at least once under each arm, pulled close enough that it wouldn't hide any of the stitching on the corset part. Once it'd gone around a few times, Margriet took the remainder of the cloth and just flopped it over Liz's shoulder, letting it hang down her back.

Right, that was about it, but — Margriet stuck a finger under the corset, behind her shoulder — they could tighten this more, if she liked. It did feel a bit looser than it had a few minutes ago, but Margriet said that was normal — the body did relax into it a little, but the fabric stretching out just slightly under the pressure probably made the bigger difference. That was part of why you were supposed to do it by hand the first few times, so the materials and the wearer could both get used to it. Liz didn't really have to think about it for a second, yes, of course they were doing that. Margriet had to brush the shawl thing and the ribbons hanging from the top of the gown out of the way — pausing to transfigure some beads onto the end of the ribbons while she was at it — unknotted the laces and then got to it, first nudging Liz to make sure she was standing right and starting from the bottom and working her way up.

As the fabric tightened further around her, Liz closed her eyes, trying not to fidget, gritting her teeth in an effort to stay quiet. It just felt good, that was all, and no, she still couldn't explain why. In fact, when Margriet got to the top again, before she could start tying it off Liz asked if they could go tighter than that. Margriet hesitated for a moment, her mind flickering, wedged a finger under Liz's arm, in a few places along the opening at the back, asked Liz to take a few deep breaths, carefully watching her, asked a couple questions about how it felt. And then finally, yes, they could do that, but tell Margriet immediately if it started to get uncomfortable. It was obvious that yanking on the laces was taking rather more effort, Margriet actually needing to place one hand on Liz's back to hold her still as she pulled.

And it it took rather more effort from Liz to not make any embarrassing noises, her breath tense in her throat. Her skin tingling, smooth and warm, she could feel her heart pounding in her teeth, an odd rush pulsing through her, her fingers even twitching a little. She had no idea why this was doing this to her, it was very weird, but it felt nice, so she wasn't exactly going to go questioning it too hard.

After long minutes of the stiff shell being gradually tightened around her, Liz concentrating very hard on not being weird about it, come on, Margriet was finally done, looping the laces down toward Liz's waist and tying them off. And then Margriet had some more transfiguration work to do — apparently the corset was tightened more than she'd been planning on, which messed up some of the angles on things, some of the material around her middle vanished, the stitched-in figures adjusted somewhat. Margriet gave Liz another long once-over, wandering in little circles around her — Liz still had her eyes closed, relishing how her slow breaths pushed against the pressure around her, trying to control the urge to fidget, could tell where Margriet was from the feel of her mind, the weight of her gaze — made a couple quick adjustments here and there.

"Ah, perfect," Margriet breathed, taking a step back. "Go ahead and take a look, schatje, tell me what you think."

Liz frowned at what she was pretty sure had to be a term of endearment of some kind, but decided to just brush it off. A little reluctantly — Liz really liked how the dress felt, at least, she was kind of worried she'd end up hating how it looked — she opened her eyes and turned to look in the mirror. The pale lavender was a nice, soft, almost pastel colour, the black making a sharp contrast; from this distance, the embroidery was mostly noise, swirly shapes that were hard to pick out, giving the material some texture and more colour. Liz tipped off the little step — her breath hitching at the way the corset part held rigid around her, even more obvious when she moved, the smooth inner layer of the underskirt brushing cool against her legs — she didn't have to get much closer until the patterns came in clearer, the animals and plants heavily stylised with lots of pretty swirly shapes but still recognisable, and thin enough that it wasn't too crowded, plenty of the base fabric still showing through. The beads at the bottom hem glittered in the light as she moved, the ribbons trailing down her thighs from the seams in the corset part wavering a little with her momentum — she hadn't noticed Margriet put beads on those too, those were going to flutter all over the place when she was dancing...which might be the point, honestly.

The rigid top cinching in close, narrowing her waist, made her hips super obvious — that was pretty much the only part of Liz's body that had developed properly, but it was still way more obvious than usual. Liz started drawing her wand, but Margriet got there first, casting mirror charms around her so Liz could see herself from behind, and the way the underskirt pushed the gown out a little bit, yes, helped to make her hips even more obvious, but basically completely hid the curve of her arse, which was the way Liz liked it, honestly. (If nothing else, people staring made her uncomfortable.) Her hands running over the stiff fabric of the corset part — she couldn't even really feel it, the thick material completely blocking it out, just a sense of undifferentiated pressure — around her waist and over her hips, her heart pounding and her breath catching, feeling all tingly and twitchy, she didn't...

She couldn't really make out the profile of her chest at all. The shawl part wasn't so opaque that she couldn't vaguely see the outline of the part of the gown reaching up her chest and around her neck, but it was pretty subtle — and it hid her figure enough that it really wasn't obvious that she, just, didn't have anything up there. In fact, maybe this was just Liz's imagination, but the volume of the weird billowy fabric kind of made it look like she did. Or, at least, that she might, and you just couldn't see much with the shawl thing in the way. She'd thought it might be a little awkward, this shite wrapped around all ploofy, but it wasn't that much different from wearing one of the scarves she practically never went anywhere without these days, so. Yeah. Did its job, good.

The back she was slightly uncomfortable about, honestly. From where the gown was tied at the back of her neck a long ribbon hung down, nearly down to her waist, bunches of beads knotted into it here and there down the length, swaying with the slightest movement. Despite the fact that Liz knew the corset's laces were knotted at the top, Margriet had somehow worked the excess length down to the very bottom, the heavy lacing transfigured into a wider, flatter ribbon in the same red as some of the stitching across the surface (the laces had been changed to match since the last time Liz had seen them), tied into a sort of bow sitting right at the base of her spine, the remaining ends trailing down for a bit longer along the back of the skirt. Those parts she kind of liked, honestly, but she had more mixed feelings about the gown not having a proper back. Her shoulders were mostly obscured by the shawl thing, sure, but Margriet had left out the panel that went under the laces Liz had seen on other stuff, a strip of her back visible down, down, Liz could make out the little knobs of her spine, skin criss-crossed by the laces, until finally vanishing right around where the bow sat, where Liz knew the waist of the gown came around.

That was...a bit much. A bit much in the sense that this was probably the sexiest thing Liz had ever worn — definitely the sexiest thing she'd have ever worn in public — and she just knew people were going to stare.

...But maybe that wasn't a bad thing, honestly. It was worth keeping in mind that this was a dance, a dance she'd be going to with her girlfriend — wearing sexy shite was kind of the point. (Within the rules of what the mages considered appropriate to wear in public, but still.) Trying not to get too distracted by imagining how uncomfortable who knew how many people fucking staring at her would be, she did have to admit that it looked fucking great, and Daphne would undoubtedly love it, so, yeah. She was only fourteen, sure, but some of the skirts she saw on muggle girls, this wasn't that bad, really. And the kinds of dresses she knew a lot of other girls would be wearing would be designed to try to show off cleavage and shite, which, Liz just had to work with what she had, right? She didn't have the tits for that, so...

Yeah. Yeah, she thought this was good. It felt great — all twitchy and giddy, she could see her reflection smiling, enough it was honestly a little hard to stand still (and no, she still couldn't say why) — and she thought it was fine, look-wise. She'd need gloves and shoes, of course, and she'd have to do something with her hair, but...

Yeah. This would do. Glancing at Margriet behind her through the mirror, her voice sounding a little higher and breathier than normal even to her own ears, she said, "I love it." Whatever doubts she might have about getting through the Ball in this without getting overwhelmed, that much was the truth, at least. "I'll take it, just like this."

Margriet and the other apprentices had to work up some paperwork and stuff, and of course there was another group who needed to get fitted — the fifth-years were about ready for their turn, looked like, Liz thought they were the last group. If they wanted they could stay in their new clothes until it was time to finish up, get a feel for them in case any issues came up, show off to their friends. Now that Liz was thinking about it, she had seen some of the other girls out there all dressed up, and there were little piles of clothes set aside in a corner, just hadn't been paying attention. So yeah, they could do that, why not. Cheating and using her foot — she wasn't wearing shoes at the moment — Liz draped her dress over her bag, pulled the strap up with a wandless charm.

She was just crouching down to pick up her boots (her breath catching at the feeling of her dress shifting around her, alternately stiff and warm and smooth and cool), when she felt the familiar mind approaching her. "Wow, you look amazing!" Liz felt her hair being pushed aside, she lurched away — the corset holding her back straight, she nearly lost her balance, instinctively throwing her arms out to catch herself. "Oh, sorry, Liz, I wasn't thinking."

Liz took a shaky breath, squeezed the top part of both boots in one hand before making to stand. "It's all right, you just startled me." Turning to face Hermione, she paused to take in the dress. She'd already known Hermione was getting one of the more old-fashioned-style ones, with the corset and everything, hers primarily in a deep emerald green accented with blue and white — Liz knew green wasn't Hermione's favourite colour, but Neville had gotten his dress robes first, so. The embroidery was a little less detailed than Liz's, just giving a bit of texture over the corset part and a few little swirls along the skirt, and she didn't have any beads or the like. (Which wasn't a surprise, Hermione didn't like the more over-the-top details on a lot of magical clothes and stuff.) Hermione's waist wasn't taken in as much as Liz's, but the off-the-shoulder thing these dresses seemed to do a lot left her neck and shoulders completely uncovered, the low neckline and the squeezing from the corset part making her tits super super obvious, all pushed up and...

A warm shifting feeling in her head Liz didn't know how to read, Hermione said, "I take it you like the dress?"

"What?" Belatedly, Liz realised she was staring. "Oh! Sorry, I was... Yeah, it's nice. Sorry." Feeling her stomach twist and her face warm with embarrassment — more from the awkward stammering than being caught staring, honestly — Liz edged past Hermione to head toward the corner where everyone else had stashed their things. She didn't know why puberty had needed to turn her into such a fucking mess sometimes, she was so bad at feelings...

"It's alright." Hermione's bare feet were silent on the wood floor, but Liz could hear the faint rustling of her dress, the presence of her mind following close behind Liz. At least Hermione wasn't annoyed or offended or whatever by Liz being hopelessly gay, seemed more amused than anything. "I like this," she said, Liz felt a faint tug from behind — Hermione's fingers on the laces, she thought, didn't actually touch her skin. "And the beads are pretty."

...Liz didn't know how to take the first thing Hermione pointing out being the sexy part. She was pretty sure she didn't mean it like that. But, in case the conversation in the carriage hadn't made it clear, Hermione definitely hadn't figured out her own sexuality yet, so who could say.

(No, bad pervert brain, don't offer to help her figure that out, what the fuck is wrong with you...)

The three of them went out into the rest of the shop, where it quickly became apparent that Liz and Hermione both looking great was a common opinion. Honestly, Liz thought pretty much everyone was kind of distracting all dressed up — not Mandy and Lily so much, but she didn't like the more modern-style dresses the same way — but she was trying not to be a perv about it. She actually caught Hannah getting her own distracted moment the first time she saw Liz from behind...which was kind of gratifying, honestly, Liz feeling all twitchy and even a little dizzy, ugh, what was wrong with her...

For some reason, the combination of the dress just feeling really nice to wear, and everyone being all distractingly pretty, the happiness and excitement from everyone's minds around her, feeling the occasional lingering looks and more compliments than she knew what to do with (not that she ever knew how to respond to compliments), all of it together quickly started to make Liz feel a little...overwhelmed. It kind of snuck up on her, the warmth bubbling in her chest wasn't immediately recognisable as a problem — until Liz felt the telltale prickling in her eyes. Ah fuck, seriously, what was wrong with her, she quickly slipped away, heading for one of the chairs lined up along the front wall. (For tagalongs to wait while people were getting fitted, she assumed.) She collapsed down to a seat — the way her skirts foofed around her was weirdly pleasant — and focussed on just breathing, trying not to lose her shite like a crazy person.

It would never stop annoying her that the times she was most likely to cry was when she felt good — her stupid fucking brain, honestly...

Turned out corsets were a little awkward to sit in, the bottom edge pinching into her sides and the top of her bum a little, but it wasn't that bad. It was forcing her to sit with rigidly-correct posture, which was a little uncomfortable, Liz hadn't realised how much she must slouch when she was sitting down...

Liz had mostly managed to get control of herself again — though now that she wasn't distracted by everyone and getting inexplicably emotional, she was starting to realise she was actually kind of turned on a little, because of course, she couldn't expect her body to just calm the fuck down for a few hours at a stretch — when she felt a mind pull away from the rest in the shop, her approach silent save for the rustling of skirts. Hermione again, Liz wasn't really surprised — Susan was busy with all the muggleborn girls' questions and Liz wasn't particularly close to anyone else here, if someone decided to check up on her of course it was going to be Hermione. Swishing to a stop in front of a chair next to Liz, Hermione started sinking down, holding the somewhat poofy skirt of her dress out of the way with both hands, before giving up partway and just plopping down the rest of the way, hard enough the chair rattled a little. "Ugh," she groaned, "that's going to take some getting used to. I don't know how some women wear these all the time..."

...Liz might, or at least when she didn't plan on staying in and reading all day, but she wasn't going to go buying a whole new bloody wardrobe until after the blood alchemy thing. "It's not so bad. You slouch a lot, that probably doesn't help."

Liz wasn't looking, but she could feel Hermione's frown anyway. "Do I?"

"Mhmm."

"...Huh. Don't really notice, most of the time. But anyway, are you doing okay over here? I saw you getting, well."

"Yeah, I'm fine, just..." Liz hesitated for a moment, not sure if she wanted to admit this. But it was just Hermione, it's not like she'd be awful about it or anything, it was fine. "Feeling happy," or as close as she got to the proper emotion, anyway, "tends to make me cry, sometimes. It's very frustrating."

"Oh!" her mind ringing with surprise and...something else, Liz wasn't sure. "Well, I'm pretty sure crying from happiness is perfectly normal, actually."

"That's what Severus said, yeah. I'm told being a mind mage and being shite at feelings in general doesn't help, either. It's still annoying."

"Right." Whatever thought that was Hermione was having fading away, the air around Liz was instead coloured with warm, soft sort of amusement. "I take it you like the dress, then."

"More than I thought I would, honestly. I mean..." Liz wasn't really trying to look, but she still caught Hermione noticing that Liz was idly finger the stitching on the corset over her stomach — she hadn't even realised she was doing that, just. "I mean, I already knew I liked tight clothes, and it is super pretty," she said, pinching up a bit of the skirt for a second, the swirly leaves there stitched in black and gold, before letting it fall back into place. "If I have to put a word to it, I guess I feel extremely girly? You know?"

She wouldn't have thought to put it like that, if she weren't actively trying to verbalise what was going on in her head, but she thought being able to feel the corset tight and rigid around her was making her very conscious of her own figure in a way she normally wasn't. Her chest might be fucked, but she was growing proper hips and shite, she'd long ago lost count of how many times she'd caught someone checking out her arse over the last however many months, so... Yeah. Add in all the pretty details in the stitching, and the lacey bits, and the beads, and yeah, extremely girly felt like the thing to call it. And not in an embarrassing sort of way, either, like she could get sometimes — though that one time Severus drily reminded her that she was a girl grew increasingly funny in retrospect — but in a way that was...kind of nice. She couldn't say how, like what the proper feelings word for it was, but it was still making her all warm and twitchy and...she didn't know.

It was seriously fucking difficult to figure out how feelings and the words for feelings were supposed to match up — I feel extremely girly was the best she could come up with. It was nice.

But she felt the confusion coming from Hermione, which she guessed was fair, since Liz didn't entirely know what she was trying to say either. "...No, not really." There was a brief pause, wavering on whether she wanted to admit something herself, before Hermione let out a little sigh. "Quite honestly, I'm not sure what that means. Feeling girly, I mean."

"...Huh?" Was Liz just not making sense? That had seemed more or less straight-forward, but often the things that seemed obvious to her weren't to normal people...

"I don't know, I... Sometimes I feel like I don't quite get these things like other people do. Gender in general, you know. I can't say I've ever felt like a girl, I have no idea what that's supposed to feel like."

...Okay, Liz was the one who was confused now. "Er."

Giving her a sheepish sort of smile, Hermione shrugged — which was sort of distracting in this dress, the motion drawing Liz's eyes down to her chest for a second before she managed to force herself to look away again. "I never really understood this stuff, honestly. I remember when I was...gosh, five or six? I went to an all-girls school, and I made a comment about the uniform — at the time they required skirts, but they've changed that recently — and then there was a very confusing conversation, and, well. I've always thought it was odd that some things were for girls and some things were for boys, and, I thought those were just the rules everyone followed because they were the rules." That was a very Hermione conclusion to come to, when Liz thought about it. "I didn't realise there was anything more to it than that until that one confusing conversation...not that it really explained anything.

"I don't mind playing along, you know — it doesn't bother me that I'm a girl, or anything like that." Liz wasn't looking that closely, just trying to follow what Hermione was saying, but that was enough for her to get that Hermione was making sure Liz didn't come away with the impression that she was transsexual or something, which was...not something Liz would have thought of on her own...? She hadn't even realised people did it that way around, but that was a stupid thing to assume in retrospect, of course they did... "But I don't really get it, it is mostly just playing along. If you know what I mean. So, no, I don't know what you mean when you say you feel really girly, that's, just, not something I can say I've ever experienced. It is a good thing, though?"

...Liz was still a bit confused, but she could feel the discomfort and wariness wafting off of Hermione — worrying Liz was going to think she was a freak or something, she thought — so she just brushed it off and moved on. "Yeah. I mean, it is this time, sometimes it's...kind of embarrassing? You might have noticed I'm super girly sometimes."

A little flicker of amusement in her head, Hermione drawled, "Now that you mention it. I still think those times you reach for culinary metaphors are adorable."

She rolled her eyes, not sure how else to respond to that. "Yeah, well. When someone points something like that out, it's kind of embarrassing, honestly, I'm not sure why."

"Going out on a limb here — like I said a second ago, I don't get these things to begin with — but I'm guessing internalised misogyny might have something to do with it?"

Liz opened her mouth to say something, no, that was ridiculous, but then she immediately closed it again, frowning to herself. "...You know, you might have a point there. One time over the summer, I want over to Severus's house to cook — I swear, that man does not eat enough, he's such a hypocrite—" There was a warm soft fluttering from Hermione, wasn't sure what that was, decided to pretend she hadn't noticed. "Anyway, we were talking about how I like cooking, actually, and I was being self-conscious about it, said it felt kind of girly to admit it. And Severus is all like—" Liz forced her voice as low as she could, tried to imitate Severus's flat, drawling tone. "—I hate to break it to you, Elizabeth, but you are a girl."

Hermione snorted, her mind fluttering with an odd mix of amusement and affection and relief, for some reason. "Of course."

Of course Severus would say something sarcastic like that, she meant. "Yeah. He didn't really know what I meant by it, and I never really thought about it before that. I mean, in retrospect you probably have a point about the misogyny thing, and he realised that too, so was playing dumb on purpose to make me actually think about what was going on in my own head, but, still. I just feel weird about it sometimes, you know, being all into duelling and generally a scary dark witch or whatever, but also super girly."

"You're allowed to be both athletic and feminine."

"Yeah, I know, just— I don't even mind being super girly or whatever. I mean, I only ever tolerate wearing trousers if I really need to, and this shite is just pretty," she said, fingers tapping at the shell over her stomach, "and I like cooking and, you know, girly crafty stuff. I just get a little self-conscious about it when someone points it out. So, yeah, you probably have a point. Anyway, if being super girly means I get to wear shite like this all the time, I'm definitely not complaining, this is great. I was kind of annoyed with you at first for telling Margriet all that, but I don't think I would have been able to do it myself, so. Thank you, really."

"You're very welcome, Liz. I'm happy you like it." Hermione was pleased about it too, not just saying that, even if she was still didn't really understand the feeling super girly and that being a good thing part. But that was a cool, distant sort of confusion, not something that was really pressing for her to figure out — which, if Hermione had never really understood gender in general, as she'd put it earlier, than Liz guessed she was probably used to the feeling.

"I'm guessing you don't feel the same about yours, then? I mean, I think you look fucking great in that, but." Liz twitched, frowning to herself. "I'm sorry, am I being creepy? I can shut up." Or she could try to, anyway, Hermione's tits were way more distracting than usual at the moment...

"No, you're sweet, Liz, don't worry about it too much." Liz was categorically not sweet, but if Hermione wasn't offended by Liz kind of perving on her a little, she wasn't about to start complaining about it. "I like it all right, I guess. It's always nice to be, ah, appreciated—" There was slight a teasing edge to Hermione's voice, Liz felt herself blushing again, ugh, stupid body, stop it... "—but it's rather uncomfortable, isn't it? For a special occasion, I suppose it's fine, but I wouldn't want to wear anything like this on an ordinary day. Honestly, I don't like bras either, but." Hermione shrugged.

"...I guess it'd be kind of obvious if you weren't wearing one, sometimes." If Hermione didn't wear so many, like, tee shirts and jumpers and stuff, maybe not, but.

Hermione snorted. "A little, yeah. But enough about that, seeing you wander off had me thinking, um, how have you been doing lately? I know there's a lot going on, with the Tournament and everything, I haven't been seeing you at class as much. I've been wondering." Worrying, she meant, but she didn't want to put Liz on the spot.

"Oh, I'm fine, I've just been skipping class." Hermione turned to give her a raised eyebrow, confused. "Champions are excused from end-of-year exams, remember? And it's not like how we do in school actually matters, besides the OWL and NEWT scores, so, I might as well not bother, you know?"

"Ah, that makes sense." Hermione was thinking that their marks in school might not matter for Liz, since she was the only member of an absurdly wealthy noble family — for more competitive positions and apprenticeships, sometimes they did check their school records — but she kept that to herself. "So, you've just been giving yourself enough breaks to deal with it."

"Yep. Also, um..." Liz glanced toward the other girls, all still halfway across the shop chattering about whatever, but she lowered her voice a little just in case. "I've also been using the extra free time to study for Competency exams. You know, so I can transfer schools? Spending less time in classes and skipping a lot of the homework just because I can means I have much more time to work on catching myself up. It sucks that I'm stuck in the bloody Tournament, and people are being complete bastards about it, but, honestly, I think I'm doing better, mental health -wise, this December than I was the last, or the year before. Being able to take breaks whenever I want helps, and it turns out snogging in broom closets is great stress relief, so." Belatedly realising what she'd just said, Liz felt her face go even hotter than it'd been a second ago, her skin crawling, but she tried to ignore it. "Um, yeah. So. I'm fine, honest."

Hermione had been feeling mostly relieved, more intensely than Liz had expected — she must have been worrying about Liz rather badly for a while, which, somehow she'd completely missed that. (Now that Liz thought about it, they didn't spent a lot of time alone together these days, and Liz was less likely to pick up things in a group.) Of course, with the comment about snogging in broom closets, the feelings pulsing off of her shifted to something giggling and smirking, kind of silently making fun of her. "That's good. And I take it you and Daphne is going well too, then."

The corset holding her back straight was making it kind of impossible to sink into her seat, or even shift awkwardly in place without making it super obvious. Avoiding Hermione's eyes, her gaze instead followed her fingers, playing over the fabric of her skirt, tracing along the stitching Margriet had charmed in (the magic of the conjuration a faint tingle against her fingertips), doing her best to not look terribly uncomfortable and no doubt failing miserably. "Yeah. It's, um... Well, you know how bad I am with feelings, and it turns out romantic relationships are really weird and complicated?"

"Yeah, I had gotten that impression," Hermione drawled, mind flickering with irritation...but not pointed at Liz. Wondering what that was about, Liz peeked quick and, oh, she was still annoyed with Neville for not just telling her that he liked her, okay then.

...For a second, Liz almost felt kind of sorry for Neville. Hermione was probably going to put him on the spot about it, the next time she saw him — if it were Liz in his place, she was sure that conversation would be incredibly unpleasant. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, since Hermione did still intend to go to the Ball with him — and she was even willing to call it a date just to see how that went, which was probably more than Neville had been expecting, Liz thought — but personal confrontations and talks about feelings were always, yeah, and Hermione wasn't exactly the most tactful person in the world. Which didn't bother Liz, of course — in most situations, she tended to prefer it when people just came out and said what they meant instead of dancing around the point — but she wasn't the one trying to date her. Yeah, Liz didn't envy him right now...

Which wasn't her problem, thankfully. "But yeah, it can be really confusing sometimes, but Daphne's great, and really, er, patient about me being a neurotic mess, you know, so. Sometimes, I..." Liz trailed off, suddenly not sure if she wanted to tell Hermione about that. She didn't have a whole lot of people to talk to about...things. Which was sort of by design, she guessed — Liz was a neurotic mess, after all, there were some things she just wasn't comfortable talking about, so she kind of kept her distance from the more touchy-feely people in the study group Hermione and Dorea had put together. Like Hannah in particular, and some of the other Hufflepuffs. This right here was about as personal as her conversations with her friends got, and this was pretty surface-level stuff, really, which was generally the way she liked it.

It was less helpful when she actually had a personal problem that she might want advice on, and didn't have anyone she could talk to about it.

She'd always thought Daphne's unreasonably high opinion of her was weird. Like, Liz was a creepy freakish devil child — she was a childhood legilimens, kind of came with the territory — and definitely an evil dark witch — as much as the Light kids who said that shite all the time had very little good reason to think so, she could admit that they were accidentally correct anyway — how the fuck had Daphne come to the conclusion that she was actually somehow a good person? She was literally a murderer — only the one time, and it'd kind of been an accident, but still. It was, Liz knew, a significant part of why Daphne liked her. Not the all of it, of course, but definitely part of it. It hadn't really bothered her at first, besides being a bit baffled, and she still didn't know how Daphne had come to that conclusion, it was seriously fucking weird.

And, sometimes, Liz couldn't help feeling like she was lying to her. Which was somewhat irrational, because it's not like Liz had actively tried to trick her into thinking she was a good person or anything like that, but...

It had started to bother her, a little, but Severus had just had to go and make it worse, recently. She'd been hiding the Valérie thing from him, because, she'd literally murdered a woman, and she'd kind of assumed murder was a red line for most people? She really didn't want Severus to hate her, kind of unnerved herself with how much she gave a damn what he thought of her, honestly. (It turns out all relationships were weird and complicated, not just romantic ones.) But then he, just— He'd been really weirdly nice about it, honestly, and she didn't know how to deal with that, honestly. It'd been what felt like ages since she'd been a little kid, but a bad thing she'd done being met with patience and understanding and forgiveness was...like it was a trick, almost hard to believe it was really happening. The couple times she'd talk to him since she'd been kind of stilted and weird, still not...

Severus knew she'd killed a woman, and he didn't care, still wanted her around. She had absolutely no idea what the fuck she was supposed to do with that.

(Besides cry about it, but that hadn't really helped, obviously.)

But Severus was pretty damn fucked up himself — Daphne's reaction wouldn't be nearly as... She wouldn't react well. Daphne was almost...delusional, Liz guessed was the word, about what kind of person she was, was irrationally inclined to always put everything Liz did in the best light. It was the strangest thing, honestly, Liz never knew how...

If Daphne ever learned what she was really like, Liz knew she would hate her. And knowing that kind of sucked.

And Daphne actually was a good person. Not only with how unreasonably understanding and patient as she was with Liz — like, Liz was such a neurotic mess, if she were Daphne she'd never put up with her unrelenting stupid horseshite for nearly as long (Liz was fucking tired of dealing with it, and it was her own brain) — but she was nice to other people too. There were people she didn't like, sure...mostly cruel people, like bullies and stuff, and the racist bastards around the school. But for the most part she was polite to them, at least, if often in a distant, overly formal sort of way — she had a reputation with a lot of people for being something of a cold bitch, which was fucking hilarious, obviously they'd never seen her alone with her friends for even five seconds. If someone hadn't done anything to offend her too badly, she was like distilled sunshine, all light and cheerful and friendly all the time, and not in a superficial way either, really believed in all that peace on earth and goodwill toward men shite. That was Christian language, obviously, Liz wasn't sure how the Mistwalkers would put the same idea, but their intense, pacifistic, highly communal thing they had going, all that. Liz knew Daphne well enough by this point to know that a lot of her general kind-warm-good-person-ness was definitely religious...or cultural, it was sort of hard to separate the two when you got deep into it...

She was super nice, and pious or whatever, and moral and shite. And Liz was none of those things. Liz was a creepy devil child, after all, a freakish little monster, the sort of person who fiddled with people's minds just to get them to leave her alone, or left snakes in children's beds to scare them off of messing with her, or held another girl under a pain hex to torture her into giving Liz what she wanted, or accidentally broke a woman's mind trying to learn French, or snuck out of school in the middle of the night to practise the Unforgiveable Curses on random forest animals.

Honestly, sometimes, Daphne being such a bloody good person made Liz feel...kind of shitty about herself. And she didn't know what to do about that.

And there wasn't really anyone she could talk to about it. Only Severus and Tamsyn knew about the worst things she'd done, and even if she did work up the nerve to ask them, she already knew what they would say, or at least she was pretty sure. Severus would say that, if she didn't think she could be completely open with Daphne, she should consider just breaking it off now. (Which made Liz wonder what his relationship with Síomha was like, but that wasn't her business.) Tamsyn would say she just shouldn't stress herself about it too much — and, as soon as the negatives start outweighing the positives, then she should break it off. Which was all very nice and rational, but she didn't think going through the motions and actually having those conversations would help her any.

She suspected they'd both say she should consider breaking up with Daphne, but she didn't want to do that. She liked Daphne, she— She wanted to make it work, she really did. It wasn't... They wouldn't help, not really.

Daphne coming to hate her was going to hurt, and she didn't know what to do. Besides try to make sure she never did, but Liz didn't know if she could keep that up forever — she wasn't sure how Daphne had ended up with such a positive opinion of Liz in the first place, so...

Of all her friends, she thought Hermione probably had the most realistic opinion of Liz — it just didn't bother her as much as it did other people. Like, that was sort of why their little three-best-friends thing hadn't worked in the end, when Liz thought about it. Dorea had also had an unreasonably positive opinion of Liz (if not so positive as Daphne's), but as she learned more about her it'd gotten more complicated, until she... Well, Liz kind of thought Dorea didn't actually like her much. If you asked Dorea, she'd probably say she still wanted to be friends — assuming she should get over the gay thing and the scary mind magic, anyway — but Liz wasn't entirely sure why she'd bother. Liz kind of scared her, had for a while now. But then, she wasn't sure why most people would bother hanging around her just in general, so maybe Liz's impression didn't count for much. Still.

Hermione noticed all the creepy and kind of scary shite Liz did sometimes, but it didn't quite connect, somehow. She meant, sure, Liz was objectively scary, but Hermione didn't think Liz was a threat to her — so that she might theoretically be a danger to someone else was really just academic. And that was the right word, really, Liz being a creepy mind mage and possibly a scary evil dark witch were just facts she knew, like something she'd read out of a book. Liz had never used any of her creepy intimidating magic to hurt Hermione — though she had used it in Hermione's defence before, which probably didn't hurt — and even tried to teach her things sometimes (like the patronus or wandless magic, for example), so it didn't really register as something she had to worry about. A little bit like how Liz was well aware that Severus could seriously hurt her whenever he wanted to, but she didn't expect him to so she didn't really think about it...actually, sort of exactly like that, when she thought about it...

So, Hermione was already aware that Liz was a pretty shitty person, honestly...but she didn't know the worst of it. Liz kind of doubted she'd react well to the news that she'd actually killed someone. And Hermione might be somewhat better at dealing with people and social stuff than Liz was — she'd started off nearly as shite at it in first year, but she'd gotten better at it quicker than Liz — but she was even less experienced when it came to, like, dating stuff. Liz was pretty sure she'd at least kissed a boy before, but she definitely hasn't been on so much as a date. So, even under ideal circumstances, Liz didn't know if talking to Hermione about it would actually do any good.

And sitting in a clothing store, waiting for the workers to get their shite together so they could finish up and proceed with the rest of the day's shopping, weren't ideal circumstances.

"Yeah, it's all good, me and Daphne," she said, trying to keep her voice casual — and trying not to cringe at the echo of Petunia yelling at her for telling lies, hissed at the edge of hearing. It wasn't a lie, they were good, Liz was just a neurotic mess, honestly. "Um. I've been meaning to ask, things have been crazy lately, how are Emma and Rachael? Are they still at the Greenwood?" Daphne hadn't mentioned the Grangers lately, but Liz hadn't specifically asked about them either.

Hermione noticed the awkward subject change, but she politely let it pass without comment. "No, they went home a while ago now, I don't remember exactly when. Mum was having a pretty hard time of it for a bit there — she's a little old to be having kids, you know, the birth was rather rough on her." In fact, given that Rachael had been turned around in there wrong before the midwives had done something to fix it ahead of time, Hermione thought it was very possible that Emma might have been in serious medical danger without magic, bad enough she could have literally died. She didn't say that part out loud, though. "She's doing better though, for about a month now they've been taking turns going back into the office. Oh, they're not working again yet, not really, but they have more experience than the new people filling in for them, so they check in to see how everyone's managing and give advice, and also handle the books and the like."

"Good. I do kind of like Emma, so." She didn't realise until after she said it that saying it was good that Hermione's mum hadn't died or something because Liz liked her was kind of off, but it didn't matter, Hermione would know she didn't mean anything by it.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione said, "Everyone likes my mother, she's annoyingly good at that." She was maybe more than slightly jealous, that both of her parents (but especially her mother) were so much better at people than she was. "And Rachael's doing fine too, I'm told. There were unanticipated complications with some of the procedures she needed, but they got it all worked out in the end. All fixed up now — I went back home overnight a couple Saturdays ago, and you can hardly tell she was born with defects anymore. She's healthy, but it's still too early to tell if she's...all there or not, you know."

Retarded, she meant. "Do you know if she's a mage yet? Oxford is a relatively magical environment, and your mum did spend a lot of time around wards and stuff while pregnant." Because apparently being around magic before birth increased the odds someone would get magic — Hermione's parents had had one magical kid already, but they had moved house since having Hermione, so.

She shrugged. "Hard to say. Weird things didn't start happening around me until I was three or four, so we might not know for a while. Oh wait, you could feel out mages when we were trying to find the public floo back home, do you think you'll be able to tell already?"

"I have no idea." Liz hadn't exactly been around very many babies, ever. "Worth trying, I guess?"

They were trying to figure out if there was a time Liz could drop by the Grangers' over the holiday and check — her schedule was pretty full, they might have to wait until the summer — when one of the seamstresses started calling for their attention. It sounded like they were ready to finish up, good then. They were being called back over, Liz started pushing herself up before realising the corset was going to make that uncomfortable — she sidled a little further forward on her chair, getting her feet properly under herself, and then sprang up without too much trouble, there we go.

Without really thinking, she held a hand back toward Hermione — she probably could have stood up without Liz providing leverage, but it did make it easier. "Thanks, ugh, not being able to move normally is uncomfortable." Hermione's dress had apparently shifted a little bit, twisting and tugging a little to get it back into its proper place...which was kind of making her jiggle, a little, Liz caught herself staring and had to force herself to look away again. "I can't imagine that you want to wear things this restrictive more often — I'd think you'd be uncomfortable if you can't defend yourself properly."

...Liz was a little surprised Hermione had guessed that, honestly. She hadn't realised Hermione understood her quite that well. "It's fine, you're supposed to keep your back straight anyway." Liz dropped Hermione's hand — Hermione didn't need the leverage anymore anyway — her wand snapping into her palm with a flick of her wrist. She made the circular twirl of a shield charm, stepping back into— She grimaced a little, the corset pulling against how she wanted to twist sinking into a proper stance. "Hold on, let me just..." Setting her shoulders more firmly back, she swept her foot out more as she dipped, leaning forward a little, turned more sideways against the imagined incoming spell. Then she pushed off the back foot, a slash of a cutting curse and then a harsh jab of a blasting curse, leaning hard into it — to get the momentum right, she had to drop into it at a funny angle, her shoulders back and her hips weirdly far forward, but she was certain the exaggerated somatic form would have still worked. (She had an instinct for these things.) It felt like she needed to extend her off-arm more than she usually would, for balance reasons, but it wasn't that difficult. She leaned out of the way of an imagined curse, letting her off centre of gravity drag her into a spin — she felt her skirts flare out, beads tinkling — putting her momentum into a blasting curse, ducking into another shield charm, glancing over her shoulder—

She quick-stepped over to the pack of their friends, giving Susan's arm a tug — "Hey, Liz, what—?" — to make sure she was firmly behind her shield charm, shot off a couple quick (imagined) hexes at her (imagined) opponent, and then she quick-stepped again, appearing in mid-air over one of the racks of clothes, a feather-weight charm on herself to stop it from overbalancing, she landed lightly on top — gripping the wood with her toes, crouching a little awkwardly, she could feel how much her back being held straight was making her arse stick out, but it hardly mattered — she tossed a couple (imagined) curses over at the counter, the door toward the back, before quick-stepping again, landing right behind Hermione — she had to tip up onto her toes to get her arm around Hermione's neck, but she managed it before Hermione could react, letting out a little squeak and flailing her arms for balance.

Liz tapped Hermione's dress over her stomach twice, her wand making a funny little thumping noise against the corset. "I think I'll be all right." She let go, her wand falling back into its holster.

Letting out a huff, Hermione brushed her hands over her skirt, giving Liz a kind of funny look. "You're very silly sometimes, Liz, you know that. You realise you just hopped around like a hyperactive squirrel in the middle of the store."

She just shrugged, trying not to smile — she couldn't help it, that had been weirdly fun. As they were all shuffled into the fitting room, the seamstresses handing them these little metal pins each topped with a single reservoir stone — enchantments to anchor the transfigurations on their clothes in their present state, apparently, so they'd last long enough to use as a model for the real things — she was getting odd looks from pretty much everyone. Her friends were used to her being weird by now, so everyone was mostly just brushing it off, didn't think Liz is being mad again was worth commenting on. Apparently, the seamstresses wanted them to undress all at once, one of these pins on each article of clothing, and then they'd wrap up and get out of here. They'd go around to loosen things if they needed the help, but if they wanted to get each other's laces while they were waiting, just try not to break or untransfigure anything.

Liz grimaced at the instructions. Changing with three people in the room had been bad enough, the whole group was way too much — especially since she wasn't sure if she could break the charm making her vest transparent without messing up the gown. Oh well, once she was in the room she quick summoned her things, started making her way toward the corner. She was pretty sure she was flexible enough to reach the laces herself, she'd just keep her back to the room and—

Grinning at her as she passed by, Susan said, "What, practising duelling in fancy dresses now?"

"Sure? I just wanted to see if I could do it, with the corset."

"Mhmm. That was seriously fucking hot, you know. If you're going to start showing up to practise all fancy, I certainly won't be complaining."

...Liz had absolutely no idea what the fuck she was supposed to say to that — especially since Hannah was standing right there, that was kind of a weird thing to say right in front of your girlfriend, Susan — so she just continued walking toward her corner without a word. A couple of the other girls burst into giggles behind her, because of course, she could feel her face burning.

(Ugh, and they still had to get shoes and gloves and shite — this was going to be a long fucking day...)

---

And part two! Jesus...

Liz is definitely having a good time, nothing to worry about there, and Hermione continues to be kind of weird about about gender and relationships and stuff. I say "continues", has this ever come up before? I know my other Hermiones usually just keep these kinds of thoughts to herself, she wouldn't have brought it up at all if Liz weren't so very weird about stuff, and unlikely to give a shit about it. (Also, this Hermione is a bit more socially capable and confident than most I've written, thanks to Dorea helping her get out of her shell more going all the way back to first year.) I know Hermione not knowing how to tell if you like someone has come up before, but this might be the first time not getting gender has been mentioned.

Kind of similar to Tamsyn, in some ways, because apparently I like writing weird, kind of scary agendered people?

I had the thought of Liz perching on top of one of the clothes racks doing her little test and it amused me enough I simply had to include it. I don't make the rules.

Anyway, enough from me. Next chapter should be shorter than this one, more character stuff. Keeping it light, you know. Three more chapters to the Yule Ball, see you all next time.