The Training begins

Harry sighed and slumped down on his four-poster bed. "Ow," he moaned.

"I''m hearing you mate." Ron agreed as he, too, fell onto his own bed.

"Yeah," as each of their roommates agreed from their own beds.

"So Neville, why don't you go first. How was your day in Hogsmeade?" Seamus asked as all the boys shifted their bodies so they could hear Neville recount his day as he went shopping for a dress for the Ball.

"Well, it started out alright. Parvati and I were in this small store that sold women's clothing. We were joking around, looking at clothes, you know having fun. I found a very nice yellow dress that had black polka dots on but apparently it wasn't good fashion or something. But she had to go and ruin the lovely day by making me try on this dress. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice dress but...it was a little tight. So there I was standing in the dressing room in only my boxers and a dress just above my shoulders when Parvati asks to see. Well I started to panic because right now I'm only in boxers. I start to squirm and wiggle. I mean I'm doing everything but the thing does not move. Finally I manage to get it to move but I slipped and banged against the door, which opened. I start to feel triumphant because I manage to get the dress down past my shoulders only to find an entire store of women staring at me. So I did what any man would do, I ran back into the change room so I could commit suicide. However Parvati changed that by telling me it looked great and to change so we could buy it.""

"Bloody hell mate." Ron gasped out between laughter.

"I can't believe you bought the dress." Harry managed to get out before falling down with laughter. Seamus had tears streaming down his face so he was in no state to talk at all. Dean was the only one not laughing.

"Man, I know how you feel. You think you got it bad? This is how my day went. First it started out all right. We went to this nice store, Madame Lexicon's Dresses for Formal Wear, and Hermione found me a simple dark blue dress that wasn't too expensive. The problem was we didn't know what size I was so I just tried on their largest size. The thing is the dress was a little tight but I managed to get it on. It looked really weird because there was a whole bunch of extra material around my chest and we got it taken in. I thought everything was going to be fine but when I went to buy the dress it ended up costing me a bloody fortune. Okay, I could have sworn the label said 150 sickles, not 150 gallons. The worst part is that I had to pay for it because it had been fitted to my size. Now that's a horror story." Dean finished and instead of getting sympathy like he expected, he got looks of disgust.

Seamus, unable to contain himself any longer blurted out, "You call that a bad day? So what you spent a bit more money than you should have, at least you weren't publicly humiliated."

Sensing something bad happened to Seamus, as he wasn't one to yell at his best friend, Dean asked him how his day went.

"My day was horrible," Seamus started, "we went to this robe shop and none of the dresses fit. I mean none of them. Their largest size wouldn't…it wouldn't..." Seamus looked down in shame, " it would fit over my butt." He whispered out. This statement was met with howls of laughter and jeers of being fat from the other boys.

"Shut it, that's not the worst part. Well, I had tried on dozens of dresses and I didn't want to try on another dress. I ended up trying to pull it down and I finally got it over my butt. The only problem is when I tried to turn around I couldn't move my legs and the dress ended up ripping. It was so loud and the entire store seemed to go silent just to hear it rip. It was awful and I had to buy the damned thing. My only comfort is that Ginny promised to fix the rip and make to bigger." Seamus finished his tale and looked mournfully at his roommates as if expecting sympathy. Instead he was met with laughter.

Dean, in order to get his own back, burst out "Ginny must be proud that her boyfriend has a bigger butt than her." At this the entire room burst into laughter.

The boys then turned to Ron expectantly and he started his tale.

"Well, you all know Luna, she's very ...unique and she took me to this unique store. I'm not sure what it was called but the name had lots of loops and stars in it. We went in and Luna made me try on a gazillion dresses, all of them had some sort of complicated knot or zipper on them. One had sparkles and string threaded around. It was really weird and almost took me an hour to get into. Luna then found a dress that had different stones on it and was sparkly, it was purple and had yellow strings randomly falling from it, and it was quite weird. I ended up finding a blue dress that had green sparkles, and purple strings." Seeing the looks on his friends faces he indignantly said, "What, its actually quite nice!"

"Sure it is mate." Seamus told him supportively.

The other boys all turned to Harry and he began to panic. Oh no, thought Harry, how do I tell them about my day, after nothing bad or embarrassing happened?

"Come on Harry, its your turn." Dean told him as Ron elbowed him in the side.

Here goes nothing, thought Harry as he began his story. "Well I was shopping with Lavender and she's into fashion and was able to find me a very nice dress. I tried it on and it looked good, but I wanted a second opinion. I called for Lavender to come into the change room because; well…there is no way I'm going out in public in a dress. However it seemed I had to go outside because Lavender been't coming to see me. I stepped outside and ran into this guy. I started to apologize but he interrupted me and said it was his fault. He seemed really nice so I told him I was looking for my friend and he offered to help. We looked through the store but couldn't find Lavender. The guy then grinned at me and said the nicest thing. He said that maybe it been't so bad that we didn't find Lavender because he got to spend time with me instead. Been't that nice?"" Harry asked as he looked at his friend's faces. They all look shocked so Harry asked them what was going on.

"Well, mate…you see the guy been't just being nice…he umm-" Seamus started.

"He was hitting on you." Dean finished.

"What!? No, your crazy! He was just being nice because I'm famous!" Harry tried to explain.

"I think they're right Harry. I mean, was he gay?" Neville asked.

"I don't know, he was just a nice guy helping me out. Anyway, he introduced himself to me, and he was about to give me something but Lavender came out of nowhere and took me to pay for the dress." As Harry finished he realized his friends might be right.

"Mate, you got hit on by a guy!" Ron burst out with laughter. The other boys joined Ron in laughter as Harry sat there wondering why he didn't realize the guy was flirting. As his friends started making jokes about him, Harry recounted his friend's stories and he started to realize that this ball would be more than any of them bargained for.

Ahhh, another chapter. Thanks to my Beta reader darkfaerie55. Please review so i can use your suggestions for chapter 3.