That night after dinner Ron, Harry, Dean, Shamus, and Neville went up to their dormitory to get a closer look at Ron's new dress robes. Ron took them out of the box and held them up to him. They looked like his size. The boys couldn't understand how someone as poor as Ron, could manage to acquire robes almost as expensive as an international broom. Ron then packed them up and locked them up in the bottom of his trunk; the ball wasn't until next week.

Harry and Ron then walked down the spiral stairs into the common room. Ginny was talking to Hermione. "What's wrong Ginny?" asked Ron, who noticed Ginny looked bothered.

"I don't have any dress robes this year, I outgrew the old ones from the Yule Ball" she moaned.

"Wait Ginny, I have an idea," said Hermione, who ran up to her room. Two minutes she came down with a box in her hands. Inside the box was a set of periwinkle blue dress robes, made out of a light floaty material. Harry recognized these as the robes she wore at the Yule Ball. "I got new robes this year" said Hermione, "And I brought these for backup" Ginny smiled.

"Will they fit?" asked Ginny.

"I think so," said Hermione in a reassuring voice, "But if they don't I could shrink them or make them a little bigger" Ginny took the robes and handled them as if they were made of glass.

"Can I really keep them?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, I don't need them," said Hermione. Hermione went upstairs.

. . .

By this time the news of the new girl being Ron's date passed around the whole school. None of the other boys were happy though; they gave him dirty jealous looks whenever he was around, but no one more than Draco Malfoy. Malfoy and his friends were clearly the most jealous of Ron. Malfoy would try and trip him in the hallways, and whenever he was around Malfoy would say things like, "Well she can't be that good, after all, she's going with Weasley." But Ron didn't mind so much, since he knew that they were all jealous. Ron found out later that Malfoy had no date at all, (Pansy Parkinson was going with someone else, and all of Malfoy's jeering gave him a bad reputation, so everyone else turned him down.)

. . .

It was dinnertime, two nights before the ball. Harry and Ron ate with Elizabeth and her friends. About ten minutes into their meal an owl flew in and dropped an envelope at Elizabeth's place. Elizabeth opened it, read it silently, and then she put on a horrified face. "What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"My parents are going to be in town next week, and Dumbledore invited them to drop by for a while." she moaned. "I can't bear to have them come to the ball, it will ruin everything" She was fighting back tears as hard as she could.

The next day went by uneventfully, until after lunch where they had potions class. Elizabeth and her friends sat down at the table next to Harry, Ron and Hermiones. Today they were making an intelligence-raising potion, which they all found way to hard. Elizabeth was having terrible luck with hers. It was yellow when it was supposed to be dark blue. She went back to her directions to see what she had done wrong, when Professor Snape came on over. He stared his big nose down into her cauldron. "Yellow, Elizabeth?" he asked with a sneer, "Are you really as stupid as I thought, stupid like your father?" Elizabeth was fuming with anger.

"MY FATHER IS NOT STUPID!!!!!!!! YOUR'E JUST JEALOUS, AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION HE IS COMING TOMARROW NIGHT, SO YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR STEP, AFTER WHAT HE DID TO YOU LAST TIME!!!!!!!" At this Snape put on a terrified look. Elizabeth picked up her bags, and stormed out of the dungeon.

"I wonder what Elizabeth's father did to Snape, that makes his so scared?" asked Ron.

"I dunno" said Harry