London.
The thunderclouds that had once hung outside the Prime Minister's window were now drifting above a filthy river.
The river wound along in a crooked line, its banks choked with weeds and heaps of rubbish. A massive smokestack—relic of an abandoned mill—rose high into the air, gloomy and ominous.
All around, only the pitch-black water moved, sobbing along with the downpour. There was no sign of life anywhere.
Then, at the very end of Spinner's End, two silhouettes appeared in front of the last house—as if they had simply stepped out of thin air.
The rain seemed to curl around them instead of hitting them. Strangest of all, the boy in black robes held a wooden stick that shone with light.
If anyone from the street had seen this, it would have ended up in the news. Fortunately, as mentioned, there wasn't a soul around.
"Move—"
Professor Snape led Sean forward. Together, they easily found the marked patch of ground where the potion was buried.
Raindrops drummed wildly around them. Snape's face was expressionless as he waited with Sean for the next bolt of lightning to split the sky.
Soon enough, a silver-white flash tore across the clouds. In that instant, Sean felt his heartbeat thud even harder.
He flicked his wand; the soil parted on its own. A vial buried in the earth had turned a deep blood-red.
Halfway there.
Heart pounding, Sean picked up the potion, pointed his wand tip at his chest, and recited:
"Amato, Animo, Animato, Animagus!"
Then he tipped the vial back and swallowed.
His heart hammered like a drum. Sean felt a brutal pain as two fierce heartbeats wrestled inside his chest.
It was as if a second heartbeat had awakened and was now fighting the first for ownership of his body.
The process was long and agonizing—some core piece of him was being dragged out, taking on another shape to match that second heartbeat.
He clenched his teeth. McGonagall's voice echoed through his mind:
"You must show no fear! At this point, it's already too late to escape the change that's promised!"
Wind howled and rain lashed. Snape's billowing robes snapped in the storm, and his expression shifted again and again. When he saw Sean's face turning ashen, his body trembling with instinctive panic, his form starting to twist in ways no human body should—
he frowned, uneasy, and some inner voice snapped at him: Do something.
"I'm here—"
He stepped closer, speaking in a low, rough voice, saying a few lines of reassurance he would once have scoffed at as sentimental nonsense.
Sean couldn't hear him. All his mind was filled with now were animals—vague shapes flickering at the edge of his perception. One stood out more clearly than the rest: a black cat.
"Cat" was one word for it, but it was bigger than a normal black cat, its outline lithe and sharp with a peculiar quickness.
The first transformation began, and Sean felt awful. Clothes and shoes didn't fall away; they melted into skin, turning into fur and claws.
Animal instinct surged up, desperate to seize control and drive him to do something stupid—like bolt around at random or sprint headlong into a wall.
The urge was so overpowering that even Sean couldn't fight it. Between "run in circles" and "smash into something," he made his choice in about a second.
The black cat had barely stretched out a paw before two large hands grabbed it by the scruff and hoisted it into the air.
"Such pathetic control over your transformation… how did Minerva McGonagall ever dare let you attempt this?"
Snape barked, voice edged with fury, as if venting his own unease.
With his paws off the ground, the black cat let its head droop and, little by little, his human reason clawed its way back.
Something was definitely off. Not only could he barely manage his new body, but even changing back felt far more difficult than it should.
The cat stared at the water pooling outside; the reflection in it flashed with a faint emerald glow.
Then he looked at Snape—who clearly had no idea what to do next—and suddenly caught the smell of something old and metallic, thick with rust… which then shifted into the fresh scent of dew and grass.
Sean knew, then: his Animagus was not just a cat. There was at least a trace of kneazle in there too.
Why?
Maybe he'd eaten too many kneazle biscuits; maybe his kneazle-form consciousness had lasted too long and grown too strong. Or maybe all that alchemical kneazle ritual work had quietly pushed his transformation path onto new ground…
He wrote all of this in his mind under "soul transformation" to ask Professor Tayla about later.
Either way, it was clearly better than an ordinary black cat.
He didn't yet seem to have any of the auto-tracking instincts, though—probably just not used to it yet. For now, he could not find his way automatically.
Maybe worried he'd bolt again, Snape never took his eyes off him. Not while they walked into the house; not even after they stepped inside.
The two-story house at the end of Spinner's End held a small, dim sitting room with shabby, worn furniture.
A candle lamp dangled from the ceiling, casting a weak light, and the walls on three sides were lined with books. One hidden door in the book-wall concealed a narrow stair up to the second floor; another led to a tiny back room.
There didn't seem to be an obvious front door from inside. When Sean first entered, the place had the feel of a padded cell. Empty for years, the corners were thick with cobwebs.
Snape lit the fire. The black cat leapt, clearing a distance no ordinary cat could manage, and landed on the hearth, shaking itself; droplets of rain flew from its fur.
Severus Snape got showered. He gave the cat a cold look, snorted heavily, and said nothing.
Outside, the street lamps flickered weakly, their paint flaking, the night illumination dull. The storm sluiced the pavement, flushing trash into the river until the water grew even filthier.
But in the cramped sitting room, the fireplace made a pool of warm light.
Severus Snape sat reading, his peripheral vision tracking the black cat as it scampered up and down the bookshelves.
It clearly wasn't used to its body yet and had to practice everything.
If it didn't look at its tail, the tail wouldn't move. When it tried to use its whiskers to test the fireplace heat, it nearly scorched them off…
There were countless little mishaps.
Snape took a sip of steaming coffee. Outside, two shadows appeared at the edge of the street.
In barely half an hour, a frantic Professor McGonagall and a beaming Albus Dumbledore had both arrived.
The doorbell rang.
Dumbledore smiled benignly at Snape as he opened the door.
"Severus, what do you think of the black cat? My taste isn't too awful, is it…?"
The old wizard hadn't finished speaking when the door slammed with a loud bang.
"Oh, it's always hard to admit someone else was right, isn't it, Minerva?"
he said, unruffled, amusement in his eyes.
Not long after, Spinner's End—for once—became the scene of a small, unlikely bustle. The sitting room now held several more figures.
Low conversation hummed steadily, muffling the storm's rage outside.
By the hearth, the black cat sat on a cushion McGonagall had conjured the moment she stepped in.
Perched there in the firelight, the cat stared into the flames, as if lost in thought.
~~~
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