Snape peered out the window he had created in his living quarters, having used magic to make the view that of above ground, rather than the subterranean view one would actually have seen from the dungeons. The pale, large June full moon had finally risen. He had spent much of the evening impatiently pacing the room and periodically checking out the window for it to be darkness.

He turned from the window. He strode over to the table, where he had placed the potion this afternoon after checking its color. Salazar Slytherin himself, who had first used this potion in the transformation, cautioned that it had to be the silvery coloration of the moon; else something had gone wrong in the brewing. Silver--should expect that from Salazar.

After all, if Godric Gryffindor had done the thing and written the tale, he'd have probably found some way to make it a bright sun-gold in his own vanity. Never mind that the light of the moon was far more magically powerful than that of the sun--Salazar knew that and had chosen the color of moonbeams as one for his house to carry. Godric probably had then chosen gold just to be perverse--the rivalry was intense even back to the two founders of Slytherin and Gryffindor.

It was yet soft, glowing silver, he was relieved to note. Picking up the goblet, he put in the final ingredient--a bit of chameleon skin. The potion bubbled briefly, then settled. Carefully, he sat down cross-legged on the rug on the floor. Safest this way the first time--didn't have to keep his mind on his balance during the process. After all, he needed to clear his mind of everything else but the process itself.

He looked at himself in the full-length mirror he had set up to be able to immediately gauge once he was done the success or failure. Pomfrey had done a good job, he noted again, considering that she had needed to repair most of his face and hands--skin, muscle, nerves, and the surfaces of the underlying bone.

Quite honestly, he had been so busy preparing for this since his accident that he had forgotten to make himself physically repellent. It didn't matter anyhow--his mission of keeping people at arms' length was quite well accomplished by sheer force of personality alone now. His reputation was well established as nasty, cold-hearted, and in general disagreeable. And he wasn't handsome to begin, anyhow, so it wasn't as though anyone would take notice. He shrugged. He was less concerned with this form than the one he would hopefully adopt anyhow.

"Cheers," he muttered dryly, "to all who have gone before." Raising the goblet, he drank down the potion in one swallow, feeling the coldness of it sliding down his throat and settling in his stomach. Almost immediately he began feeling a little light-headed. The potion lent certain malleability to one's very cells, as a "jump-start" (as a Muggle might have it), to the transformation. In this dangerous first attempt, a magical boost of a sort was used to lend ease to the change. After all, one had no idea to where they were headed, and direction and will were needed to overcome the body's determination to stay as was. The potion, or various other magical aids that had been used by others, softened that resolve. Subsequent times, of course, he'd have the form and the memory of the feeling, so it could be accomplished easily.

He settled his hands on his knees, closed his eyes, and cleared his mind of everything, letting go his conscious self. His heart rate slowed, and then stopped. The blood sat still in his veins; his muscles froze. His chest paused in the middle of an exhalation. It was in effect a living death, so that he could be safely reshaped without natural movement counteracting it.

He was aware of nothing but the furor within him as cells rearranged, grafted themselves to new places. You can't direct it; your own spirit guides the form, he had read. About all one could do was concentrate carefully on nudging their very cells towards where instinct told them to. It was hard to keep the concentration as he felt the itching prickle of his body slowly reshaping itself: new structures growing, old ones receding, all at once in a second and an eternity. He felt faintly queasy.

But if his thread of magic broke, if he lost his will, the transformation would be left unfinished. At best, he would be an eternal freak, stuck forever as half-man, half-beast. Considering many thought he was already that, he had decided that he was in no mood to prove them right. At worst, if he lost himself in the middle of shaping something vital, such as the heart, or blood vessels, the fragile thing would be destroyed in a blink of an eye as his functions returned, and he would be killed before he could even think to counter it. The weighty books and tomes he had studied had not been pretty about that; there had been hideous descriptions and pictures of dire failure. This was no skill attempted for teenager's fun and on a lark.

Finally, after what seemed hours, he knew deep within somehow that it was finished. He had done it! He carefully held the elation as all of his life functions resumed again, one by one. When finally his muscles unlocked and it was complete, he took a deep breath, and came out of the trance. He dared to open his eyes, not sure of what he might see. Had there been some mistake, would he be something totally useless? That had been the danger--there was no assurance that his form would be useful after so much work.

He had felt the vague sense of shrinking, he recalled. The piercing black eyes that looked at him out of his reflection were yet his own. The aquiline nose had changed to a hooked beak. Black hair had turned to black feathers, covering his new, sleek winged body.

He gave a small laugh of pleasure, hearing it come out as a faint squeak from a body not adapted for such a noise. Tosca will be pleased, he thought in amusement. He had turned into a black gyrfalcon. And here I was expecting a serpent.

Stepping unsteadily across the rug, tripping clumsily on feet not made for ground travel, he found his pocket watch. It had taken an hour, he realized in shock: an hour of nothing less than total focus. No wonder the failure rate was so high!

He was satisfied; there was no use rushing and overdoing himself in one night. He closed his eyes once more and envisioned his human form, slipping into his trance again, suspending animation. This transition was much easier, because he had a self he knew very well in mind. He felt the feathers recede, his body stretch and grow, and five minutes later, he lay on the rug, panting from the effort, limbs trembling with weakness.

It would take practice, and in time, he would be able to switch from one form to another rapidly. He had seen Minerva go from woman to cat in a blink of an eye. It would also take practice on controlling his emotions initially while in his falcon state. Strong emotion was sometimes enough to cause a reversion to the human form, often at the worst possible time. That risk would be somewhat reduced as he became comfortable with his new body, and it became a part of him. Still, there was much training to do before he would be ready to begin his mission.

For he intended to do nothing less than take up his former occupation. He would be Severus Snape, Animagus and spy. Dumbledore will be pleased when I bring him some information. He intended to reveal this to nobody but Dumbledore, after all. Nobody had known what he was doing--he had gotten an eclectic variety of books from Madame Pince, most totally unrelated so that no one had any idea what he was getting at for his project. He certainly had not gone to Minerva for help; she would have told him he was useful enough as is. A man of usefulness again, he thought with a tired smile as he trudged to bed, completely drained of energy.