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“It sounds like an awful lot of work, Severus, and we already have so much schoolwork.”
Severus frowned at his identical twin brother’s words.
“But, Silvanus, think how wonderful it will be, being animals together,” Severus replied with enthusiasm, “and think of how proud of ourselves we will be when we achieve it.”
Silvanus shrugged, clearly not convinced.
“I have been reading all about the process; the path to accessing one’s Animagus form is absolutely fascinating. Such intense study and practice, harnessing very powerful magic. It will be so rewarding to accomplish,” Severus spoke with excitement.
“But couldn’t something go wrong? Isn’t it dangerous?”
“You love when things are dangerous.”
“Well yes, I suppose I do,” Silvanus admitted with a little smirk, “it does make things exciting… but aren’t we too young to do such difficult magic?”
“Professor McGonagall says starting younger makes it quicker to achieve.”
“Then why isn’t everyone in class having to do it?”
“Well, she says you have to be especially talented with magic to achieve it at our age,” he admitted, “but we are especially talented with magic.”
“No, Severus, you are especially talented with magic. I have different strengths than you, and you know it.”
“I can help you if you have trouble. Come on, it will be so special to do it together.”
“Brother, you know I love doing things together, but…”
Severus gazed at his twin with his most persuasive eyes, the eyes that Silvanus had yet to resist in their eleven years of life, and silently added, using the telepathic bond they shared as wizard twins, “please, brother?”
Silvanus stared at him for a long moment. Severus intensified his sweetly pleading expression.
“Alright, fine,” Silvanus finally gave in, breaking into a grin, “I can’t say no to that face. We’re just too handsome.”
Severus smiled brightly and hugged him.
~
Six months later, after one of their sessions of private study with Professor McGonagall on accessing their Animagus form, the Snape twins lay on the grass and stared up at the evening sky.
“I have been thinking about what animal we will be,” Severus announced.
“You know we don’t get to control it,” Silvanus replied, “I’m not sure we should get attached to any idea ahead of time.”
“But I know, I’ve figured it out, brother.”
“Alright, tell me, then. What animal?”
“We will be two long haired black cats with black eyes.”
“Aw,” Silvanus responded, “that would be sweet. Professor McGonagall would probably be pleased,” he said with a grin.
“No, really,” Severus spoke with stern decisiveness, “that is what we will be. I just know it.”
Silvanus rolled onto his side so that he was facing his brother. Severus turned his head and met Silvanus’ gaze.
“Don’t get attached, Severus,” Silvanus spoke silently into his mind, “Just because you want us to be cats doesn’t mean we’ll get to be cats. It could be any animal. Remember what Professor McGonagall says: be open to all animal forms and trust that the magic will choose what is right for you.”
“But, well, actually, I was thinking, if we focus our united will, perhaps we can control it.” Severus thought back at him.
“Did you ask Professor McGonagall if that would work?”
“Well,” Severus replied reluctantly, “she said it would not work but -”
“Severus, don’t you think Professor McGonagall knows what would and wouldn’t work? Don’t you think some other witch or wizard would have figured it out by now if it was possible to pick your animal?”
“Won’t you just try with me? Maybe if we spend time each day focusing on our cat forms, visualizing them and imagining what they will feel like, maybe we can control it. Maybe it takes the united will of wizard twins to do it and no one ever tried that before. Won’t you try with me, Silvanus? Won’t you just try, brother?”
He gave Silvanus The Look. Silvanus sighed in resignation.
“Alright,” he conceded, “I’ll try, for you, little brother, to will us to be cats. But in exchange you have to try not to get your hopes up.”
Severus looked away from his twin’s face and nodded vaguely at the sky, feeling heartbroken by his brother’s discouragement, feeling keenly the loss of his hope that Silvanus would share his confidence in their success, or his innate feeling that they were meant to be cats.
“Let’s go back inside,” Severus said aloud, and stood up.
~
“I wrote us a spell,” Severus announced four months later, “a spell to make sure we get our cat forms.”
“What? You created a spell from scratch?” Silvanus replied as he took the parchment Severus handed him, “we can do that?”
“Well, I’ve yet to be able to test it out on a goal as big as ours,” Severus admitted, “but I’ve tested its effect on smaller goals and had success, so it should work, in theory.”
Silvanus gawked at him.
“You, you just made up your own spell?” he stammered, “Severus, you actually invented a spell?”
“Yes, and I’ve thought it all through. You see, brother, what we need is for our will to be amplified to a high enough degree toward our specific goal. If it is amplified enough, we can ensure our success in willing our Animagus form to be what we wish it to be,” Severus replied with glee as he set down a box of supplies, “here’s what we need to do,” he continued, pointing at the parchment Silvanus held. “I’ll explain to you how it works,” Severus went on, and he proceeded to describe in great detail the complex will amplification spell he had created.
“This is really impressive, brother, you are just amazing,” Silvanus said, “but remember this hasn’t been proven to work on something so big as controlling the specifics of an Animagus form, and remember too that you agreed not to get your hopes up.”
Severus was deflated by Silvanus’ reaction.
“Just do the spell with me, brother, please,” he asked in a small voice.
“Of course I will,” Silvanus assured him, and Severus smiled with gratitude, though below the smile he remained crushed by Silvanus’ lack of enthusiasm.
“Once we perform the spell toward our specific intention,” Severus explained, “the incantation will be imbued with the power of will, stronger power of will than any preexisting spell could create. After that, each day when we focus our will on becoming cats, we recite the spell’s incantation and it strengthens our will, cements it. But the incantation must be spoken precisely. You must practice it.”
“Alright, Severus, I will.” Silvanus gave Severus a smile, but Severus could see that he wasn’t really happy at all.
“Why are you being so negative?” he asked Silvanus accusatorially, “You are usually the upbeat one, saying everything will be alright. Why won’t you believe in us?” Severus’ voice broke on the last word, but he swallowed his sob.
Silvanus took Severus’ hands in a comforting gesture.
“I do believe in us, brother, and I do think everything will be alright. But I also think that you can’t control everything, and,” he paused, seeming hesitant to finish the sentence, “sometimes it seems like you don’t understand that.”
Anger rose quickly in Severus, and his face turned cold and mean.
“I understand everything,” he snapped, “you are the one who does not understand. We will be the first wizards to achieve this. I know we will.”
Silvanus sighed, then grabbed Severus and pulled him into a hug.
“I hate fighting with you, brother,” Silvanus murmured, “and I’m really impressed with your spell, really proud of all your hard work, and I really hope you’re right that we can be cats. But I just want you to know that, even if we can’t be cats, even if we end up some other animal, everything will be alright.”
“But we will be cats,” Severus muttered into Silvanus’ neck as he hugged him back.
~
It was another year and a half before the day they were waiting for finally arrived. They had performed everything just as Professor McGonagall had instructed. In the moments before the change set in, Severus felt the intense power of the magic surge through his body, echoing in his heart and in his mind. He set his eyes on the full-length mirror Professor McGonagall was holding before them and focused on his mind’s image of the cat he hoped to become as he recited the will amplification incantation over and again in his head.
“Remember to visualize the cat form, remember to speak the incantation in your mind,” he thought fervently to his twin, the telepathically conveyed words kept secret from Professor McGonagall, “we can control it, brother. It does not matter that Professor McGonagall says it is impossible to control. It does not matter that the books say it is impossible to control. We know better, Silvanus, we can control it, together.”
“Severus, I love you,” Silvanus replied, his unspoken tone tender and sad, and before Severus had a chance to analyze the response, they had morphed away from their humanoid forms.
Severus strained to apply his will even after it was too late, even after he saw himself shift into a large green diamondback rattlesnake. The snake’s eyes were sorrowful, because he was not a cat at all, and it took a long moment before Severus accepted that the snake was him: Severus Snape was a snake, not a cat, and Severus’ will amplification spell had failed. His heart was shattering in slow motion and he turned to his twin for comfort because at least they were snakes together -
A small silvery-grey lizard sat on the grass beside him. A stranger? Severus couldn’t understand, or wouldn’t understand, refused to understand.
“Brother,” Severus wept silently, “where are you? Where are you?”
The lizard turned toward him.
“I’m here, brother, right here.”
With his snake eyes, which felt utterly foreign to him though he could feel them move when he told them to, Severus peered into the lizard’s eyes and saw that his brother was, in fact, there. He wanted to be comforted by Silvanus’ presence, but all he felt was loss, and an excruciating distance between them.
“How can we be different animals?” Severus cried into his twin’s mind.
“Fascinating,” Professor McGonagall declared with interest, “I’ve never known identical twins to have non-identical Animagus forms.” Severus could sense her kneeling to examine them, but he didn’t give her a glance, even when he felt her perform the expected magical scan to make sure nothing had gone wrong. Severus stared only at his brother, his twin, who had never before not been identical to him. Sure, they wore their hair different ways, and they hadn’t worn matching clothes since before they came to Hogwarts. But, really, they were identical, and Severus was in shock that somehow this hadn’t carried over to their Animagus forms. Severus had spent so much energy trying to ensure they would be cats; it had not even occurred to him to worry that they wouldn’t be the same animal. He didn’t want to accept it. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe this was a test of some kind, a test from Professor McGonagall, or a test from the magic itself.
“I don’t know, Severus,” the lizard replied, and Severus could feel his brother’s sadness reflected in his own, “but we are both very handsome.”
“How, how could this be, no,” Severus whispered into Silvanus’ mind. He slithered nearer, “what if we try to use the incantation again, maybe we can change this. Maybe we can both be snakes, or both be lizards, either way, I do not care.” For so long it had mattered so much to Severus that they be cats, but now all that truly mattered was being the same as his twin brother. Even if they were his most disliked animal, if they were that animal together, everything would be alright.
“Severus, no, these are the forms the magic chose for us, like Professor McGonagall said. But it’s alright, brother, everything is alright.” He crawled nearer and nuzzled his tiny cheek against the side of Severus’ head. “I am right here.”
“Well done, boys,” Professor McGonagall said, her tone unusually gentle and explicitly proud, “you did it. I knew you would.” Severus turned his gaze and looked at her, surprised by her praise, because he was feeling more like a failure than he ever had. “And you two being different animals is simply astounding,” she continued, “I would like you both to work with me on a paper about this unique occurrence, to submit for publication.” She paused and looked back and forth between them. “But perhaps, right now, you’d like some time to adjust to the surprise of it. I’ll return later,” she added, then headed inside.
“It’s alright, brother,” Silvanus thought soothingly to him, “I know it’s not what we planned, but we still get to be animals together. We still achieved this together.”
“You feel so far away,” Severus whispered silently. He slithered a little closer to his brother, but it didn’t help.
Silvanus closed the small gap that remained between their animal bodies. He climbed up onto Severus’ smooth back and settled there, and it felt to Severus just like his big brother was giving him a hug. It felt just like being in the comfort of Silvanus’ arms, just like being in his embrace. Their connection felt just as it always had, and Severus realized in his heart that it would always feel that way, even when things didn’t go as planned.
“See?” Silvanus thought to him, “I am right here, and everything is alright. We are different, but we are together. Always together.”
“Always together,” Severus murmured silently.
Now that he was calming down, now that Silvanus had shown him this was not a tragedy, Severus began to notice the experience of his new body. As a snake, everything was vivid and straightforward. The world was clear and simple, but profoundly beautiful. He slithered through the grass, feeling the sensation of the cool blades beneath his body as he explored their surroundings, the familiar patch of earth suddenly seeming new as Severus appreciated it through his snake eyes. Silvanus rode on Severus’ back, and they traveled through the terrain together, noting to one another countless instances of nature’s loveliness and discussing them in words only the two of them could hear.