Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Warner Brothers bought me out.

"So Harry," Parvati called across the table the next day at breakfast, "Who are you going to ask to the dance?"  Harry grimaced as he noticed that the main difference between the way she and Ron raised the same question was that Ron didn't wink and bat eyelashes when he asked.

"I don't know," Harry sighed, "But I'm not too concerned with it right now."

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Lavender cooed, "It's never too early to think about the dance."

Ron smirked and called out, "C'mon, Harry!  They either want you to go with them or give them some juicy secret on who you want to ask!"

Harry glared at his friend, until he realized that Ron was trying to help him out.  "Well," Harry said with fake reluctance, "There's this girl I really want to ask.  She's about 1.8 meters tall, has long blond hair, she goes to Beauxbatons, and her initials are H.T.  The only problem is that I'm worried that my step-brother likes her – you do know that I have a step-brother, right?  He goes to Beauxbatons, too."

Lavender and Parvati hung on every word of his completely made up story.  When he finished, the pair huddled in deep conversation, no doubt trying to figure out the identities of his mystery woman and secret brother.

"That," Ron congratulated as the pair left the commons in deep discussion, "was beautiful.  Simple Beautiful.  I wish we had thought of that earlier."

"Yeah," Harry remarked, "except that everyone's going to think I have a date.  And a brother."

Ron stared at him for a minute, finally asking, "You think anyone will believe those two?  Oh, by the way, do you know what that big pile of parchment was?"

Harry wondered what Ron was talking about, until he realized that his friend must have seen his pile of summer work.  As soon as Harry had seen the pile when he first arrived in the dorms, he quickly banished it to the corner of the room and draped his invisibility cloak over it.  Ron must have seen the pile before Harry had gotten up to the room – he was thankful that Ron didn't look closely at it.

Fortunately, Harry was saved from answering by Hermione harrumphing at both of them, "I don't want to interrupt anything important, but we've got Care of Magic Creatures in ten minutes."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, at Hermione's insistence, trudged off to class early.  Harry was dreading what creatures they would be learning about this year, although he was hard pressed to think of a nastier creature than the Blast Ended Skrewts.

"What do you reckon?" Ron asked nervously, "Chimeras this year?"

"Ugh!" moaned Hermione, "They'd be even worse than the Skrewts.  And don't give him any ideas!"

However, the trio was pleased to be disappointed, and found Hagrid standing next to a large group of small iron cages, each holding a ball of light.  "These here are wisps!" Hagrid proudly said, "Wisps are like ghosts, only for animals.  First thing, wisps usually have strong feelings.  If an animal was free spirited when it was alive, as a wisp it will be completely uninhibited.  And if it were cranky, well, hopefully we don't have any wisps like that in the group.  Second thing, wisps don't talk.  They were animals; they don't understand speech any more now than when they were alive.  Anyways, yer job is to spend the hour with one, and if yeh feel up to it, try to communicate with it.  Well, off you go!"

Harry wasn't surprised when Malfoy immediately ran to the silver and green wisp.  However, something must have amused Hermione, as she was giggling at Malfoy's choice.  "What's so funny, Hermione?" Harry finally asked.

Hermione looked back at him and said, "Harry, you should really read more.  Silver and green wisps… oh, Malfoy's really going to have fun!"

Harry could see that Hermione was going to make him wait to see what was going on.  He sighed and began walking along the containers to get his own wisp.  However, as he walked by a small greenish-brown one, he heard the wisp say, "Ridiculous!  I'm dead, so they feel the need to cage me up and let students prod me?"

Harry peered closely at the wisp, who then said, "Look at this ugly one.  Only good note is that his matted hair partially blocks his nasty face."

"Hagrid," Harry yelled across the class, "You said wisps don't talk, right?"  Hagrid looked back at him and simply nodded.

Harry grimaced and wondered if he was losing his mind when suddenly he knew what was going on.  He pictured in his mind a snake as accurately as he could.  When he could even see the glistening scales and beady eyes in his imagination, he hesitantly said, "Do you want me to let you out?  I won't prod you."

The wisp suddenly flashed pure white for a second, and then Harry heard the voice, "What?  For a minute, I though the ugly one was talking to me."

"I am not ugly!" Harry hissed, almost losing focus of the snake in his mind.

The wisp began speaking very fast, "Please let me out and please talk with me.  It's been so very long since I've talked with someone, even, if…well… Sorry for calling you ugly, really sorry!  Just please please please talk with me!"

Harry couldn't help feeling sorry for the lonely, albeit slightly rude wisp.  It did make sense that it didn't get to communicate very often, since it probably didn't meet too many snake-wisps.  Harry realized just how little was truly know about wisps – how long they stayed on the earth, how exactly they were created, and whether they talked with living animals.

"Calm down, calm down," Harry hushed, trying to pacify the gibbering wisp who was spasmodically flashing and beginning to draw some stares from other students.  Harry opened the cage and the wisp immediately took a position several inches in front of his face.  Harry laughed and hissed, "Well, what do you want to talk about?"

Harry and the brownish green wisp talked for 45 minutes, although the wisp seemed to be steering the conversation away from anything involving how they were communicating or how it had died.  Finally, Hagrid's voice called out, "Ok, everyone, time to come back.  And those who were able to communicate with the wisp, you can show what you did."

Harry quickly hissed, "I need you to do me a favor.  Can you do some simple commands so I can show the class I communicated with you?"

Harry realized he must have asked something taboo, because the wisp didn't answer him for awhile.  "Do commands?" the wisp finally asked, "Why would I want to do that?"

Although the tone of voice was mostly guarded, Harry heard a crafty note.  "Ok," Harry shot back, "I'll make you a deal.  You do the simple commands; I'll come back tonight and talk with you some more.  Please?"

The wisp began to glow brighter and simply said, "Agreed."

Harry watched as several of the students attempted to show off their communication.  However, only Hermione appeared to do much.  While she was able to get her wisp to do simple movement and flash brightly on command, the other student's wisps seemed to behave pretty much at random.

Harry finally got his chance and loudly said, "First I'll have the wisp do two loops."  He very quietly repeated what he said, while imagining the same snake as before.  Hagrid and the Gryffindors besides Hermione burst into applause as the brownish-green ball did two circles.

Harry grinned and winked at Hermione, who apparently knew his wisp was a snake ghost.  "How about flashing three times?" Harry asked for the class, and then again repeated his instructions in Parseltongue.  While the class cheered, Hermione fought to keep from laughing.

"So what?  That's pretty simple," Malfoy exclaimed, holding his Slytherin-colored wisp.  "Why don't you do something difficult, Potter?"

Harry couldn't help smiling as he asked, "Like what?"

Malfoy smirked, "How about fly around you four times and then land on your head?"

Hary desperately tried not to laugh in glee as he quietly whispered in parseltongue.  Hermione appeared to have the same problem holding her mirth, and both Ron and Lavender were shooting her odd looks.

Malfoy's jaw fell as the wisp rotated around Harry four times and then came to a rest above him.  For once, the blond haired Slytherin couldn't think of something to say, and only managed to gulp.

"Malfoy," Hagrid called, "you're left.  Did you talk with the wisp?"

Draco looked down at his wisp and muttered, "Well, I don't know."

"You don't know?" Hagrid asked, and Harry could swear he seemed to be trying to hide a smile.

"Er," Malfoy ventured, "Mine didn't do anything.  It didn't move or even flash.  It just twitched a few times, and did nothing the rest of the hour."

"Well, try harder next time," Hagrid replied, definitely grinning now.

Harry looked over at Hermione, who was clutching her mouth with one hand and her side with her other, desperately trying not to burst out laughing.  "Ok," Harry demanded, "What is going on?"

"Green and silver wisps," Hermione wheezed, "are dead flobberworms."

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I'd like to take this opportunity to say that this story WILL NOT have a mary-sue.  Throw those thoughts out now!  Allison and Clive are not going to be anywhere close to the center of this story, and I doubt they will be a large part of the final two years, either.  Think of them as a Dennis Creevey character – they'll only be in a few scenes.

Penda: No!  Allison… no!  Not Mary-Sue!  Allison is probably only going to be in two scenes.  In fact, you can probably guess which two they'll be.  If you were a female Veela in the same school as the famous Harry Potter, and there was a Christmas dance…  The main question is whether Harry can resist.  Harry's only going to wildly succeed at one class in my story, but not because of any special ability – it's kind of hard to explain.  You'll just have to wait until we get there.  And don't worry, Harry won't do well in one class at least.  *cough* Divination *cough*

Tufm Dfuft: Thanks!

Sherman:  Thanks for the sorting hat verdict – I always spend a decent amount of time coming up with a new song.  It takes forever sometimes, but I think they're worth it.  Nope.  First years are not going to be a main part of the story.  Nope, no first year will ever play quidditch on my watch.  That's Harry's domain.  Allison probably won't ever play, and Clive certainly won't play until his third year, if at all.

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