"I don't… I don't know how to do what you're asking," the old man said in a tremulous voice. A voice that had once been so unwavering was made almost unrecognizable by its new quiver. "I… I can't do what you want."

The man was cowering on the floor, stripped of all but his undergarments. His state of undress displayed the long lines of bleeding wounds that striped his back and sides, weeping red even as the man wept salty tears.

"Do you take me for a fool, wandsmith?" a dark, sinister voice hissed venomously. A horribly familiar voice. That voice. His voice. The air chilled to carry his voice, to ferry his words, to give him breath.

"I… please… you don't understand… the core… they're brother-wands, yours and his… phoenix feather… priori incantatum. I can't change that!" the wandsmith wailed in terrified protest.

Voldemort flicked his wand, slashed it through the air, and the wandsmith screamed as a fresh cut sliced open his side, precise and swift as a razor. It was a second before the blood welled and trailed down his heaving ribcage, like water escaping an over-full boiling kettle. Ollivander staggered on his hands and knees under the onslaught. He nearly went down, but at the last moment managed to stay supported by his trembling elbows. His blood dripped to the floor beneath him.

"I can't change it! Please! Stop this!"

"I will stop when you have given me what I want."

Ollivander shook his head weakly. "It can't… it can't be done… you're mad!"

Another twitch of his wand and Ollivander cried out. The wandsmith collapsed on the ground in a heap, fell into his own pooled blood, when his right hand flew to his chest and clutched into a fist. Ollivander seized and grimaced. After a moment he went lax, ashen and trembling.

"Must I tear your heart apart, old man?" Voldemort demanded.

"I… can't… can't… please," he lay panting, head and eyes rolling.

"You had best. I will not be played the fool thrice by this pathetic boy. You will do as I bid you, wandsmith. Your reputation for wandsmithing precedes you, and I expect satisfaction from your work. When next I cast the killing curse it will destroy him, you will see to that."

Ollivander muttered feebly, half mad from the pain, "Priori incantatum… priori… priori incantatum…"

Voldemort turned in a rustle of black robes and seethed in disgust. "Why do you all persist in protecting this worthless child with your lives?!" The dark wizard sucked in a breath and turned back to the cowering wandsmith. A sudden, disquieting calm had settled about him. "No matter… I see you are determined to die a slow, agonizing death, and I am more than willing to oblige. But perhaps you'd care to know that if you refuse to do as I command, I will find another wandsmith who will. Perhaps the talent runs in your family?"

Ollivander opened his eyes in mounting horror. "What?" he croaked.

Voldemort turned to a shadow in the outskirts of the room and barked, "Lucius, bring her."

Ollivander tried to stir. "You're asking for the impossible… it can't be done!"

"Perhaps you merely lack vision, or motivation, but I think I may be able to persuade you to find some of both."

"What… what have you done?"

The Death Eater returned, pushing before him a young woman. She trembled and shrieked as she was manhandled into the room with the dark lord. Her eyes turned in horror to the bloody and broken man on the floor, then they widened when she looked beyond the wounds and battered flesh to the man's face. Her own face lost all color. "Grandfather!" She tried to rush to him.

Voldemort caught her by her long brown hair and jerked her back. The girl was knocked to her knees and knelt, shaking and crying at the dark lord's feet.

"Giselda! No!" Ollivander tried to crawl toward the weeping young woman.

Voldemort flicked his wand and Ollivander was thrown back. He slid across the floor and slammed into the wall with a cry of pain.

"Grandfather…" the woman sobbed.

"We'll have it from you or from her, wandsmith," Voldemort said casually.

Ollivander struggled to rise to his knees. "No… please… she… she doesn't know the trade! She's a seamstress, for Merlin's sake!"

"Oh… well, that is unfortunate then. Had she been of use to me I may have been able to spare her life. But, if she cannot serve my purpose, then…" the wizard leveled his wand tip against the girl's throat.

"Stop!" Ollivander surged to his feet, fell, and hiccupped. "Don't hurt her… I'll… I'll do as you ask. Just don't… don't hurt her."

"Do not fail me, wandsmith, or she will suffer far worse than you."

Ollivander, on hands and knees like a dog, broke down and wept uncontrollably. Black closed around Voldemort, Mister Ollivander, and Giselda.

In the blackness a beast awoke. Coat black as midnight, ice-blue eyes cold and piercing. Claws slashed and tore at the darkness. Fangs bared to the evil. Tear it apart, kill it, rip it to pieces. Wild fury, untempered rage. The agitated panther let loose a ferocious, blood-curdling roar.

Harry snapped awake screaming. It ripped from his throat, pulled out of his chest as though he would tear in two if he didn't get it out. His heart was hammering, the night was pulsing around him, the heartbeat of the night… too close, too strong, crying to the animal inside him.

Harry registered that he was in the dorm of Gryffindor tower, in his bed at Hogwarts. His scream had wakened his roommates. They were turning on lights, forming a ring around his bed. They were talking, surely, asking if he was all right.

Harry couldn't hear them. He couldn't hear past the spitting, roaring black cat inside him. His skin prickled, his hair stood on end, his body tensed and shook.

The jaguar was fighting to break through. He was barely holding human form. His body screamed to change, burned to give over to the feral fury, to become a thing that could tear and rip and rend so effortlessly. He desperately wanted to be that, a creature his enemies would fear to face. His heart ached to be powerful. Deadly.

Harry gasped. He beat back the jaguar with all he had. The cat was not content to be placated. It snarled and hissed, it twisted and struck out with brandished claws when he tried to force it back. Harry felt another cry, different, more a cry of agonized effort, tear from his throat.

He would lose. He couldn't hold his form. The jaguar would win. In front of everyone… they were all watching him. He must not change. He didn't know if he could stop it.

The jaguar lunged at the restraints keeping it at bay. Harry jerked, he rolled, and he rose to hands and knees on his mattress, hands and legs braced apart. He fought against the cat with all his might, but it was not going to back down without a fight. How could a boy hope to win out against a jaguar, even the one inside him? He couldn't keep this up, he wasn't stronger than the panther… he'd turn, and Merlin, what would he do then? The blind rage inside him was wild, thick… it screamed for blood, for prey, for a foe to take down with fang and claw.

Someone touched him, a hand on his shoulder. Harry almost turned on instinct to bite. He almost turned his form. Instead he braced, every muscle seemed to lock, and he gave a cry of warning, of protest, of plea… he wasn't sure, but if they touched him he'd take his attention away from the jaguar, and if he got distracted he'd become the cat.

The hand jerked back and Harry breathed raggedly, his tensed muscles shook, and he clenched his eyes shut as he battled the furious cat.

At the outer edge of his hearing, beyond the jaguar's roaring and hissing, he heard a voice, a pinpoint of hope. "What is it? Ron said you needed me, what… oh! What's happened?"

"Dunno, he woke screaming and he's having some kind of fit. He won't let us near him."

He couldn't keep it up. He'd let loose the panther any moment. Hermione, help!

"Draw his curtains, give us some privacy, I'll calm him down." There was rustling, it seemed miles outside his awareness, then he heard "silencio."

And then her voice was close, directly in front of him. "Harry… open your eyes."

He obeyed and saw Hermione lying on his bed underneath him, on her back and between his supporting arms. She must have crawled underneath his body and shuffled up between his arms. She was in her pajamas and sleep-mussed, but her eyes were crystal clear. She was looking up at him in fervent worry.

Harry was quaking, he was breaking, his breath came in uneven rasps.

Understanding flashed in Hermione's eyes. "It's all right, Harry… let it go."

He did. Maybe he could not have held it back another moment anyway. He let loose the jaguar and it leapt into his skin, formed it to fit the shape of the cat. Harry's clutching hands became black paws with curved claws. Claws which ripped into the mattress and sheets. Harry screamed, an ear-splitting roar. He jerked his arms, raked his claws down the mattress and tore the bedding to shreds on either side of Hermione's body. He shook his head from side to side, canines bared, given over to the madness of the cornered wild animal.

For a second he was out of control. But as quickly as it had erupted it began to ebb. The flashpoint passed and the aftermath was not nearly so frightening. His claws dug into the torn mattress but didn't rip open new gouges. A growl rumbled in his throat but he didn't let loose another roar. The cat had its fit but it seemed once it saw there were no enemies to attack it grudgingly backed off. Harry stood over Hermione, straddling her, untouched and unharmed beneath his black body.

Hermione was watching him carefully. When he met her eyes, his breath quick and shallow, she ventured up a hand and touched his cheek.

Harry closed his eyes and commanded the jaguar to abide by Hermione, recognize that she was calm and take an example from that. The jaguar balked a moment, faltered, then let itself be soothed by Hermione's touch.

It went willingly when Harry cast it back to that place inside him.

Harry opened his eyes again and his fingers were splayed over the ruin of his mattress as he looked down at Hermione from human eyes. With a bone-weary sigh, he lowered his body on top of hers and gathered her up in his arms, his one pocket of sanity and safety in a tempest. He held her tightly as the nightmare washed over him, reformed in his mind in such horrifying clarity, in the wake of the jaguar's emergence.

She ran her fingers through his damp hair with one hand and circled his back with the other arm. "What happened?" she asked in a whisper. She let her fingers stop at his brow and she gasped, "Harry! You're freezing."

He was shivering, that was true enough, but he'd rather stay in her arms than do anything about it. Hermione had other ideas. She wriggled free to sit up and gather his blanket where it had balled up at the foot of his bed. Harry sat up beside her, sick from the vision, and Hermione wrapped the blanket around him. Harry glanced down at his bed. It looked a fright. Sheets damp with sweat, the mattress torn open, claw marks and stuffing and down feathers everywhere. It was disturbing to look at. Hermione had been lying in the middle of his tantrum. He trembled to think what might have happened to her. What if she'd been in the way of his claws?

Hermione had fetched her wand, gave it a flick, and said, "Reparo."

The torn mattress and sheets repaired themselves, erasing the evidence of his brief transformation into a savage beast. It didn't improve the tussled, tossed condition of his sheets, though. Nor did it remove the memory of what had woken him in such a state.

Hermione shuffled on the bed to his side, wrapped her arms around his blanket-cocooned body, and pulled him into her. Harry went willingly, leaned into her with his head on her shoulder, and Hermione squeezed him tight as though she could give him all of her body heat by willing it. "What happened?" she repeated.

Harry took a breath. "Voldemort… I saw him with Ollivander… he's using the wandsmith to… to remove the priori incantatum on his wand against mine."

Hermione sucked in a breath.

"He has… Ollivander's granddaughter. He's using her…," Harry continued breathlessly then broke off to shake. The blanket wasn't helping, he was still so cold. He drew back and opened his arms, the covers cascading from his arms like a winged creature. He pulled Hermione into the blanket with him and held her close. She was drawn practically into his lap by his insistent hold, but she went without a moment's pause. She slipped her warm, comforting arms around his back inside their little haven. She was so very warm, and soft, and he could be shaken here and know he was safe, so very safe… it helped to beat the horror of the nightmare back, away from his waking world and back to the landscape of his dreams. It was still terrifying there, but not mind-numbingly so.

"We have to tell Dumbledore what you saw," Hermione said with conviction.

Harry just wanted to burrow deeper into Hermione's warm, warm arms and hide from the world for a bit. "Must we go now?"

"I really don't think we should wait on this, Harry."

He knew she was right. "All right. Let me get dressed and put myself together a bit."

Hermione cupped her hand around the back of his neck and gave a gentle squeeze. "I'll just hurry over to the girls' dorm and throw on some clothes. I'll meet you down in the common room, okay?"

Harry nodded mutely.

Hermione gave him a parting hug, slipped from their shared blanket, then disappeared beyond the curtains of his bed.

Harry still procrastinated a moment before he pushed aside the curtains and climbed out of bed. His roommates were all looking at him with wide, worried eyes. It made him want to turn right back around and curl up in bed behind drawn curtains. But Hermione was waiting for him.

Ron came up to him at once. "Harry… you all right, mate?"

Harry was all too aware of Dean, Seamus, and Neville in the room with them. "Uh… just feeling ill… I'm going to see Madam Pomfrey now."

"Need me to go with you?" Ron asked.

"Hermione's going with me," Harry answered, whether that was an answer to Ron's question or not he didn't know. He was too frazzled to think about it. He rustled up some clothes for the trek to the headmaster's office, ran a comb twice through his hair for what good it would do, then laced up his trainers and headed down the stairs. It was a relief just to be free of the stares of his roommates. Ron didn't trail along after him. Apparently 'Hermione's going with me' meant Ron didn't need to come along as well. Maybe he thought Hermione would do a better job of taking care of him on her own, a girlfriend thing. Harry almost wished Ron had come with him… he didn't fancy explaining his nightmare three times. But he was too beleaguered to turn back and fetch Ron. He just wanted the telling to be over. He was so sick and tired of Voldemort in his life, even when they were vast distances from each other.

Hermione was waiting for him in the common room and she hurried to his side the moment he came down. He was grateful at least that she was there with him… it might make telling Dumbledore the grisly details easier to have her at his side.

The halls were hauntingly lifeless as they made their way through the castle. The only being they met on their way through the corridors was Nearly-Headless Nick, who asked why they were up and about so late. When they told him they needed to see Dumbledore the ghost disappeared through a wall. Presumably he had gone and roused the headmaster, because Dumbledore was expecting them when they reached his office, still decked in a dressing robe.

At first sight of Harry he grew even more concerned than being awakened at such an hour disposed him to be to begin with. "Harry, you look dreadful. What's wrong?"

'What isn't wrong' his tired body seemed to bemoan. "It's Voldemort."

Dumbledore's expression became grim. He conjured a couch and waved them toward it. Hermione practically guided Harry to the couch and sat down with him on the plump cushions. She pressed close to his side, just shy of crawling up into his lap in consideration of their headmaster only a few feet away. Harry gripped Hermione's hand tightly. He didn't want to do it; the vision of Ollivander torn and bleeding was still so horribly vivid in his mind's eye.

She knew what he wanted. She took up the tale. "Ron woke me, said that Harry was having a terrible nightmare and they couldn't snap him out of it. It was one of his dream visions about Voldemort. Voldemort has Mister Ollivander, and Mister Ollivander's granddaughter. He's using her as a hostage to get Mister Ollivander to alter Voldemort's wand so it no longer invokes the priori incantatum when he uses it against Harry's wand."

Dumbledore mulled over that for a moment. "I see… well, that clears up a bit of a mystery. It was puzzling to us at first why the dark wizard would kidnap a wandsmith when there are so many others who would seem more likely targets. We have feared Voldemort took Mister Ollivander for reasons very much like you describe."

Not surprisingly, that didn't make Harry feel at all better.

"Is it even possible, sir?" Hermione asked. "I thought wandsmithing magic like that was fairly resistant to tampering."

"It is. And as far as we know the priori incantatumcannot be nullified. But then, neither have we ever had much reason to experiment with the possibility. After Mister Ollivander's disappearance, when we began to speculate as to Voldemort's designs with the wandsmith, the ministry began testing on brother-wands, rare enough in their own right, to see what exactly they can and cannot do to each other in greater detail. There have even been wandsmiths in to try and remove the priori incantatum, but they have not met with any success thus far. But I believe that if anyone could break the priori incantatum it would be Mister Ollivander. And with his granddaughter's life in the balance… this is very disturbing." Dumbledore stopped again. "Harry? Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?"

"No… I'll be all right in a minute," he answered. Sadly, he had enough experience with these kinds of nightmare visions to know. He looked up at the headmaster, met his eyes for the first time since arriving in his office, and noted the genuine concern in the older wizard's face.

Dumbledore nodded, though he still looked as though he might like to summon the mediwitch anyway. Instead, he asked, "Was there anything else in your dream?"

Harry frowned. "Lucius Malfoy was there. Mister Ollivander was hurt… bleeding everywhere… that's all I saw before I… woke up."

The headmaster sat back thoughtfully.

"What now?" Hermione asked in the following silence.

"I will need to take this information to some of my trusted allies as soon as possible, in fact as soon as you're on your way back to Gryffindor tower I'll begin making house-calls. I don't know yet how we might be able to use this information to any sort of advantage, but at least it paints a clearer picture of Voldemort's current activities.

"I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention immediately.