Chapter 7 - Roonil Wazlib's Dress Robes

That evening, when Harry was lying in bed reading the Half-Blood Prince's potion book, for the first time he began to find himself slightly tired of it. Not because the Prince's annotations weren't intriguing or useful, but because this chapter, on basic poisons for corrupting the growth of plants (such as the mimbulus mimbletonia and the venomous tentacula), was hardly touched at all. The pages, apart from being scuffed and marred around the edges, looked as if they could easily have been taken from Ron's new copy. Clearly, the Prince was unimpressed by plants, and subsequently, Harry was unimpressed by the chapter.

Just as Harry began to sift ahead a few pages, he gave a long yawn and looked around the room. To his surprise and amusement, Ron was struggling to clamber into his dress robes from their fourth year. He already had the white frilly part on, which finished not at his waist, but straddled half-way up his chest. Now he was jumping into the trousers, fighting a vicious war with them to get the fastening around his waist. Harry gave a laugh. They finished six inches up his shins, revealing fluffy maroon socks and hairy legs.

"What're you laughing at?" Ron said gruffly, pushing one arm through a sleeve of his black cloak and searching for the other arm hole behind his back. Harry just shook his head and fought back a smile. Ron glared at him and shoved his other arm into the sleeve. There was the sound of many fibres being torn apart and the cloak split clean in two down his broad back. Dean and Seamus burst out laughing from across the other side of the room and even Neville glanced up at the ripping noise and gave a smile. Swearing, Ron shook the two halves of his dress robes off his long arms and gave Harry a menacing look which said "If you so much as laugh…"

Harry sucked his lips together and tried to conceal his amusement by nudging his glasses further up his nose.

"I think I need some new dress robes," muttered Ron, yanking the rest of the shrunken clothes off his lanky frame.

"You don't say," murmured Harry. After putting the tattered potions book down on his pillow, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up. "Why don't you send a letter to your mum? I'm sure she could buy some for you."

Ron gave a snort which sounded somewhere between a donkey choking and Dobby sneezing. "My mum would never buy me new dress robes! She's already said these were expensive enough." With a scowl he added, "And there's no chance of her daring to go out to Diagon Alley with that Dementor attack yesterday. Besides, what would she get me this time? An actual dress?"

Ron plucked the frayed frills which he had tried to singe off for the Yule Ball. Shaking his head he mumbled, "What planet is she on?"

Harry tried to give a sensible reply instead of teasing his best friend. "But there's no way you can go in those." Ron looked up immediately and opened his mouth to interrupt. "Ok, ok, so you did go in them to the Yule Ball," Harry admitted, "and there was no chance of you wearing them then either, but this time they are miles too small, and now you've shredded them anyway."

Ron made a face and nodded in agreement. He sunk down onto his bed while Harry picked up the tattered dress robes and tried to imagine when Ron could ever have fitted such tiny clothes. For a moment, the dormitory was quiet and the only sound was of Seamus whispering animatedly over a colourful box which Dean was holding in his hands. Ron gazed absent-mindedly out of the window at the dark, misted panes; until suddenly, Seamus gave a rather loud shout of excitement which caused Dean to drop the rattling box and Ron to swivel round sharply. His eyes fell on the box which Seamus joyfully snatched up from the floor, and Harry caught the words

"Skiiving Snackboxes!

Nosebleed Nougat

you'll never have to endure a bleeding transfiguration lesson again!"

Suddenly Ron's eyes lit up as inspiration hit him and he punched the air. "YES! I'll send an owl to Fred and George! They've got plenty of gold and they live above their shop in Diagon Alley - they can get me some new dress robes from Madam Malkins by Saturday!"

Harry raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "You seriously trust Fred and George to buy you some dress robes?" He thought maybe the dire situation of the dress robes had rather outbalanced Ron's sense of judgement.

"Err – ok, I'll send a couple of sickles to help them on their way," Ron said guiltily. He snatched up Harry's quill and grabbed a piece of parchment from under the snoozing fanged Frisbee which Hermione had confiscated.

"But, do you– why are you using my quill?" Harry demanded.

"Roonil Wazlib? Do you think my brothers will understand any of that rubbish their stupid quill is writing? Come to think of it, I'll send that back along with this too." Ron continued to scrawl along the parchment, leaning down so low in his eagerness to write that the ink was flicking up onto his nose.

"But," stammered Harry, "but, you actually trust Fred and George – Fred and George, who let foul-mouthed fireworks loose in school and set a swamp in a corridor, Fred and George, who make telescopes which punch people, sweets which make people throw up and creamy biscuits which make people sing like canaries, Fred and George, who own a JOKE shop – you trust them to buy you some wearable dress robes?" Harry stared at Ron in disbelief.

But Ron looked up at Harry, his face deadly serious, and merely shrugged. "I trust them more than mum," he answered.