The walk to the headmaster's tower was a tensely quiet one. When they reached Dumbledore's office it was to find the past headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts staring down at them from their paintings. Doubtless they had some notion of what had happened, the headmaster portraits always seemed to know things it would seem impossible for works of art to know, and it was clear that an attack on one student by another of such severity was unprecedented.

As soon as they were at their destination and alone (save the paintings), Harry tugged Hermione over to stand in front of him and he openly looked her over for signs of wounds.

Hermione gently pried herself from him. "Harry, I'm fine." She frowned in worry and chewed on her bottom lip. "We could be in real trouble."

Harry huffed irately and began to pace the room. "I won't apologize for stopping him from laying a hand on you, Hermione. I won't."

"Oh, Harry, please, stop and think about what you're saying."

"I know what I'm saying," Harry insisted as he paced, still agitated and edgy.

Hermione sat down in one of the large armchairs in Dumbledore's office. She ran her hands over her hair then covered her mouth with her fingers as her mind raced. She was imagining all the horrid ways this meeting could go, and it seemed each was worse than the last. Her stomach felt fit to lurch up through her throat. She watched Harry walk up and down the length of Dumbledore's office, hands restless at his sides. In her mind, she saw him as the jaguar, pacing with tail twitching.

Dumbledore entered his office and Harry strode forward to stand next to Hermione, Harry marginally closer to the headmaster than she. Hermione didn't stand to face Dumbledore for the simple fact she was worried her knees would wobble if she tried.

Dumbledore looked long and hard at his two students, then he sighed deeply and said, "I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that Madam Pomfrey expects there won't be any permanent damage to Mister Malfoy's extremities. She doesn't anticipate any loss of function."

Hermione nodded in relief but Harry crossed his arms defiantly, conspicuously silent as to the good prognosis for Draco Malfoy.

"Now, perhaps one of you might tell me what happened?" Dumbledore paused a beat. "Miss Granger?"

Hermione took a steadying breath. "I was on my way back from the library when Draco took me by surprise. He started heckling me. He was saying these dreadful things, about Harry's cousin and Death Eaters and…" Hermione stopped to glance up at Harry next to her. She wasn't sure how much he'd heard before he came upon them. If he didn't hear some of the awful things Draco said she wasn't sure repeating them to Dumbledore where Harry could hear would help matters any. Harry was mad enough as it was. She decided it was best left unsaid. "I tried to get past Draco to go to the common room and he took my wand and cornered me and that's when…" Hermione trailed, but it was telling in itself. Little doubt anyone in the room was lost for knowing what had happened next.

"He was going to hurt her," Harry stated curtly.

Dumbledore looked embittered a moment then nodded sadly. "Yes, I'm afraid he was."

Harry's eyes flared and his teeth clenched.

"How did you get there when you did?" Hermione asked the headmaster, still able to see him running down the corridor toward them. She'd seen not a soul besides herself, Harry, and Draco, but just the same Dumbledore had shown up when things looked to be taking an irrevocable turn.

"The suit of armor told me something was afoot and I'd best get down there, though I do wish I'd arrived even sooner than I did," Dumbledore answered, as though that answer did not pose questions of its own.

Hermione puzzled over that, but before she could ask any additional questions Dumbledore moved closer to the couple. "There is no excuse for Mister Malfoy's behavior and you can rest assured he would have been severely punished for his actions."

"Would have been?!" Harry snapped in disbelief.

"Harry… you and I both know that what happens in this school between you and Mister Malfoy reaches beyond just the two of you. Draco's father has… key influence in some rather unsavory, powerful circles, and believe me when I say that word of his assault, no matter the instigator, would not end well for you."

"You mean because his dad's a Death Eater Draco gets away with whatever he wants," Harry returned.

Dumbledore's voice hardened instantly. "Far from it, Harry."

"What do you intend to do about Draco, sir?" Hermione asked in a much calmer voice.

"At the moment he's in the hospital wing having his injuries treated. I placed him in a catatonic state, and when he's fit to be released I plan to work a memory charm on him to erase any recollection he might have pertaining to that ugliness in the hallway just now." Dumbledore looked seriously toward Harry. "Harry, right now Hogwarts is the safest place for you to be, with Voldemort on the loose and trying to get to you. If Lucius Malfoy heard from his son that you had quite viciously assaulted him, he'd stop at nothing to see you expelled. You'd be put out on the streets, in a loose sense, since you are no longer welcome in your aunt and uncle's home, and a homeless fifteen-year-old boy would be far easier for Voldemort and his followers to capture."

Hermione gasped. That had not even occurred to her, but it made a sick, twisted sense. It made Death Eater sense. "Was that what Draco was trying to do? Why else would he go so far trying to pick a fight?"

Harry turned to look toward Hermione, his expression nearly just as sickened as it was infuriated. "Then why the hell didn't he just come to me and start a row? Why did he have to bring you into it?"

Hermione gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know, maybe hurting me was an added bonus. Maybe he thought it would make his father proud for Draco to strike out against a muggle-born and get you to put yourself in a position to get expelled." Hermione stopped to think a moment. "He may have even been trying to provoke you without outright confronting you; that way he'd be able to say truthfully that you threw the first punch."

"I do not know his intentions," Dumbledore interrupted, "but I feel confident in saying that if it was intentionally undertaken he did not anticipate the response." Dumbledore looked pointedly at Harry then.

"So Draco walks. After what he did, what he almostdid…" Harry seethed.

Hermione reached out and touched Harry's elbow. "Harry… we have no choice. Lucius Malfoy can't find out about the fight; his name has enough clout behind it in the ministry for it to end very badly for you."

"It's lamentable and I detest it as much as you, but that is the way of it, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said. "Though I would think there are even more reasons that you would not want Draco to remember that little incident in the corridor other than Harry's potential expulsion."

Harry's rigid stance faltered and Hermione swallowed as their minds turned to the same thought. "No, sir," she whispered then cleared her throat, "we… we don't want Draco to remember a thing."

"Yes, and since I will have to perform a memory charm to insure that he doesn't, it also means I cannot punish him if he does not remember doing wrong." Dumbledore took out his wand, transfigured a table into a couch so he could sit opposite Hermione as though the office were a formal sitting room, and he regarded the two teens closely. "Now, I rather think it's time I'm brought into the loop of this animagus business."

Harry and Hermione looked at one another, fraught with worry at the repercussions but both aware there would be no possibility of avoiding them. Not unless they thought to try their hands at a memory charm on Dumbledore, which would have been the very definition of foolhardy and stupid in one convenient bundle.

Harry sat down on the arm of the chair Hermione occupied while Hermione curled her hands in her lap like a nervous little girl being called to the mat by her father.

"What do you want to know?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Hmm… well, the most common question answered itself in your case, Harry; I saw for myself that your animagus form is a panther." Dumbledore turned his eyes to Hermione. "And what would yours be, Miss Granger?"

Hermione wouldn't even ask how Dumbledore knew so confidently that she was an animagus too, and that it wasn't just Harry. "I'm… I'm a lioness, sir."

Dumbledore looked surprised, and for a man like Dumbledore that was something. "Really?"

"Is that… unexpected?" Harry asked, curious about Dumbledore's reaction.

Dumbledore pondered that a moment. "You might say it's more a case of… statistical improbability. The likelihood that you would both be creatures of such similar nature… it is a bit… unforeseen. I would not have anticipated such a close match in animagus forms." Dumbledore paused to look at them both before his eyes rested at greater length on Hermione. "I can see you've noticed the same unlikelihood in that as I have, Miss Granger."

Hermione nodded while she saw Harry glance at her from the corner of her eye. "I knew it was… a rare occurrence that Harry and I would both undertake becoming animagi and then for us to both turn into big cats. I think… I'm not certain, but I've thought it might have something to do with the tokening process."

"Oh? How so?"

"We tokened off each other."

Dumbledore's casual posture slowly gave way to much greater acuity of focus as he sat up a little straighter in his seat. Hermione felt a thrill of investigative fervor, despite the dressing down this might be, to see she had caused Dumbledore to sit up and take interest. It reignited her own curiosity about the issue of their strikingly similar animagus forms. She continued, "Harry took a lock of my hair and I took a lock of his. It's the only thing that I can think of that may have influenced our animal forms to so closely resemble one another."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and his eyes lost focus as he mulled that over. "Possibly… that is a fascinating speculation in any case. I must confess that I've never heard of that happening before in animagus magic."

"Never?" Harry parroted, clearly finding it strange that something that had happened so naturally for him and Hermione would be so unheard of in the wizarding world. Hermione thought, in passing, that Harry should have been accustomed to defying conventional magic by now.

"The animagus process is a very personal event for a witch or wizard, Harry," Dumbledore said. "It may be embarked upon in pairs or groups, but ultimately it is a solitary process. It's an inward-focused journey, so to have that imbedded magic within a witch or wizard reach out to another during that process… well, as I said, I've never heard of it if happening before."

Harry looked at Hermione, his expression bewildered. He'd never stopped to find it at all strange that he and Hermione would have similar forms. It was as natural as the jaguar to him, unquestioned and right.

"I will take a guess here and say that you two have only been able to become panther and lioness since the early part of this term," Dumbledore said.

"Yes, sir." A pause. "How did you know?"

"The marked change in your personalities since the start of this term was a very significant clue," the headmaster said with a wry smile and twinkle in his eye.

Harry blinked. "You noticed our personalities change?"

Dumbledore nodded. "I was not the only one among your elders to note the difference. Many of your professors have come to me remarking on your and Miss Granger's greater confidence." Dumbledore stopped and smirked. "Well, Professor Snape called it 'heightened arrogance', but it spoke to the same observation of a change in personality."

Hermione shook her head in wonder. "We're still trying to grip the idea that we behave differently because of the cats."

"Well, I should think Harry, before the panther, would not have asked why I would not let him kill Mister Malfoy."

Harry looked contrite. "Uh, er… well, no, probably wouldn't have."

"I'll admit that for a time I thought the shift in your dispositions was a result of your budding romantic relationship. That is a transfiguring event in and of itself. When a number of your professors began to note the change and brought it up with me over tea I had to consider it was more than the magic of love at work."

Hermione felt her cheeks color and she glanced fleetingly at Harry. He was studying Dumbledore speculatively, silent but receptive, which was leagues better than his mood only an hour ago when she would have sooner expected him to attack Dumbledore than pay attention to what he said.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry and I… we… we were the cats before we were together as a couple. We didn't begin dating until halfway through the first term."

"Is that so? Hmm… it would seem my gut for these matters must be colicking… I was convinced you and young Harry had advanced beyond the boundaries of mere friendship to embark upon a relationship with one another over the summer."

Harry smirked. "You and everyone else, sir."

"We were a bit… thick in that regard," Hermione confessed into her lap, trying not to smile at the memory.

"I see." Dumbledore looked between Harry and Hermione sitting together on the same chair, side by side. "Well, seems it's been all sorted now, or near enough as makes no matter to our topic of the hour.

"I would like to know how long you two were working on becoming animagi." Dumbledore cocked his head fractionally. "Had I to speculate, I would suspect that the whole matter with Sirius Black two years ago would have awakened a certain interest in the animagus process. Interest in his godfather for Harry, and feasibly the love of the challenge for you, Miss Granger, but that does leave the problem that the Triwizard Tournament last year would have provided little time for you two to work toward your first transformation. Is it possible that this little endeavor of yours went back as far as your second or first year? Tremendously ambitious for students so young."

"Actually, Headmaster," Hermione said, "we didn't begin to work on becoming animagi until this past summer."

Dumbledore's mild manner fled his face by degrees until he was looking at Hermione with all the sharpness of his great wisdom and power. He seemed to be gauging her honesty with a mere look, piercing and direct as if to cut through to the heart of the matter with a glance. Hermione didn't waver under his seeking look, but she was perplexed by the sudden acuity in Dumbledore's gaze.

Finally, the headmaster found what he'd sought in her eyes, because he broke to look toward Harry. When he was met with similar unflinching openness in the young wizard, Dumbledore stood and paced before his couch a few steps. "You mean to say that you and Harry mastered becoming animagi within a single year? Technically, less than that?"

"Yes, sir."

Dumbledore didn't speak and paced a few more steps.

"What's wrong with that?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore turned to Harry and regarded him seriously. "Harry, surely you must have some appreciation for what an astounding feat that is."

Harry turned modest and a bit bashful. "Well, I know it's supposed to be hard, but I assumed how hard depended on the wizard or witch doing it, too."

"It does, to be sure, but still, to succeed in less than a year…" Dumbledore shook his head in private awe. "That is quite extraordinary." The portraits on the wall were bobbing their heads in agreement. Dumbledore was still watching Harry, some new level of respect for the innate power within Harry evident in his eyes, then the headmaster looked to Hermione. There was no less admiration for her similar success in such a taxing and notoriously difficult endeavor, but when he glanced at Hermione there was a manner of question in his eyes as well. He seemed to silently ask how she could not have impressed upon Harry just how fantastic their accomplishment was.

Hermione tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I can't really explain how I managed in such a short time frame, I was sure it would take me years if I ever managed at all, but with Harry… everything in the animagus process just came to him. He just took to it from the start."

Harry frowned faintly. "Not all that more than you took to it."

Hermione looked up impatiently at her fiancé. "Honestly, Harry, you were a natural at it from the first token. Even now you can do things with your animagus form that I can never hope to do."

Harry scowled silently as Dumbledore turned to considering them both. "What sort of things do you mean, Miss Granger?"

"Touching the jaguar, sir." Hermione paused and her face screwed as she tried to think of how to word it best. "Harry can… tap into the gifts and abilities of the jaguar without turning into the jaguar. He can hear like the jaguar and see like the jaguar without being the jaguar."

The headmaster did something Hermione never thought to see the brilliant, world-wise wizard do… his jaw dropped. Not gapingly wide, not like a classmate might have, but his lips parted without a word issuing forth. Hermione's every nerve ending began to tingle. She had never read of someone borrowing from their animal from the way Harry did in all her research on animagi, but she had assumed it was an oversight in the literature, as the books on the subject were hardly exhaustive. But the look on Dumbledore's face… maybe the lack of any mention of such an ability wasn't an oversight in by the writers of all those books she'd read.

Harry saw Dumbledore's expression, too, and he gave a half-wince, half-smile as he offered a bit wryly, "Guess not many people can do that?"

Dumbledore closed his mouth and turned his eyes slowly to Harry. "Harry… no one can do that."

"No one?" Harry repeated, dubious but at the same time almost forced to believe it from the way Dumbledore was reacting to the revelation.

The headmaster shook his head.

"Well… surely I can't be the only one," Harry protested weakly, but Hermione touched his arm and favored him with a supportive smile, because she could easily believe that it was an ability unique to Harry Potter. She knew all too well that Harry tended to underestimate his power as a wizard.

Dumbledore sat down again on the couch across from the two young adults, this time near the edge and he leaned toward Harry. "Tell me how you 'touch the jaguar' I believe you called it?" The gleam in Dumbledore was eager and immensely curious. Hermione could almost imagine Dumbledore as a student listening eagerly to a professor deemed a master in their subject.

Harry nodded, then his face twisted as he searched for a way to describe it adequately. "I don't know how I do it, I just do. I'll want to see better in the dark or hear better and I just… reach inside me for the jaguar. I… brush against it." Harry scowled in the effort to put his amorphous talent to words. "Almost like the jaguar's sleeping inside me, but it's not really asleep, but I can touch it and it knows when I want its eyes or its ears and it loans them to me without taking over me."

"You're conscious of your animagus form within you when you are in human form?"