Work Text:
At night, the Ravenclaw common room was one of Chris Trott’s favourite places to be. With the exception of the occasional papers rustling and quills scratching, it was a calm and quiet place. He could sit in the seat by the window, reading by candle light and getting lost in one of the muggle books that Ross had brought him. He had always thought that the way non-magical folk wrote was more creative; more interesting than that of wizard authors. To them, magic was just a myth; they were free to interpret it however they wanted to. Trott smiled to himself as he ended the chapter, marking his place with a moving photo of his best friends.
Placing the book on the table beside him, Trott gave a quick glance out the wide windows of the tower, watching the stars drift slowly across the sky, the new moon hardly visible against the backdrop of inky black.
Turning away from the window, Trott stepped towards the door to the male dormitories. As his hand brushed against the cold bronze handle, the peace of the Ravenclaw common room was disturbed.
“Look, mate,” came the very agitated voice of a certain Slytherin from the stairwell, “I have no fucking clue what happens once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in a thousand years, just lemme in!”
Several pairs of tired eyes landed on Trott as a small smirk formed on his lips.
“Troooooooott,” the voice persisted, “Trott get out here!”
“Hang on, Smith,” Chris replied, grabbing his wand from under a pile of old parchment.
The door swung open as he approached, revealing one very smug looking Alex Smith standing in the stone chamber.
“What is it, Smith?" Trott asked, "I was on my way to bed.”
Smith laughed.
“Mate, you’ll never believe it.”
He led the way down the spiral stairs, all the while dodging Chris’s questions.
“Where’s Ross?” Trott asked as the pair made their way through the castle.
“Room of Requirement,” Smith answered vaguely.
Chris raised an eyebrow, “If this is something kinky, mate, you could have just said so.”
Laughing, Smith shook his head.
Trott didn’t have to hide his disappointment, because they had arrived at their destination. The door grew as they watched, the room revealing itself with all its intricacies.
Smith opened the door, imitating a trumpet introducing royalty. Chris gave Alex a strange look after stepping inside the room and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
“Huh,” frowned Smith, “he was here just a moment ago.”
The Slytherin ran a hand through his ginger hair as he too stepped in, checking the room again.
“Ross?” Trott called hesitantly, shutting the door and letting it shrink back into the wall, “Ross mate, you here?”
Beside him, Smith’s head snapped to look at a dark corner, from which a low growl was emanating.
“Ross?” Trott tried again, stepping towards the source of the sound. He was regretting leaving his glasses on his nightstand.
“Argh!”
Trott tumbled back as a black blur pounced on him, knocking the Ravenclaw down and landing on his chest. Above him, he could hear Alex bursting into laughter.
This isn’t funny, Trott thought, his mind suddenly whirring with reasons why his best friend - no, Alex was more than that - would have lead him into a death trap. He felt the creature’s drool dripping onto his face as it loomed over him, dark fur obscuring his vision.
Determined not to go down without a fight, Trott raised his arms to pry the creature off of himself, and was confused to find it was quite a lot smaller than he had originally thought it to be. In fact, now that he thought about it, the thing wasn’t very heavy, either.
He sat up, letting the creature fall into his lap. Rubbing the drool away from his face, he looked down into the eyes of a puppy, one no bigger than a lamb.
“What the…” he mumbled, recognising the piercing blue eyes that stared back at him, “Smith! What’d you do?”
Smith was wiping a tear from his eye, having cried from laughing so much.
“Mate, it’s Ross,” he snorted, “it’s the whole werewolf thing, but like, reversed.”
Chris watched the puppy in his lap bark excitedly, tilting his head as if expecting Trott to give him a pat.
“This is Ross?” Trott repeated in disbelief, “ you fucks better not be playing tricks, or I swear I’m breaking up with both of you.”
Smith raised his hands above his head in surrender.
“Promise.”
The puppy - realising Trott wasn’t any fun - had begun chasing its tail, spinning around and occasionally bumping into furniture.
“So, what happened?” Trott inquired, getting up from his place on the floor and using the sleeve of his robe to rid himself of the last splotches of Ross’ puppy saliva.
“Well,” Smith started, “I met him in the kitchens, like most nights, for a snack-”
“Wait, you guys have midnight snacks?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I want in.”
“Okay, let me finish,” Smith rolled his eyes, “So we were in the kitchens and Ross keeps saying he’s forgetting something.” he begins, taking a seat of the floor and letting Ross snuggle into his lap. One hand absent mindedly scratched behind the canine's ear as he spoke, “So, I told him it probably wasn’t important, right? But he keeps going on about it, and frankly, it was getting on my nerves. I was like, shut your fucking mouth Ross-”
“Yeah I get it, get to the point.” Chris rolled his eyes.
“Right, sorry,” Smith apologised, running a hand through his hair while the other pet the dog in his lap, “Anyway, we were on our way back towards the Hufflepuff room and he just started transforming, like BOOM, puppy.”
Smith shrugged. "So I took him here and went straight to you.”
Trott watched said puppy get up and pad around, and decided he much preferred this transformation to the one that occurred on a full moon.
“It’s the new moon.” Trott realised, smirking.
“Huh?” said Smith, looking up from where he had been dangling Ross’ yellow and black scarf just out of the puppy’s reach.
“The new moon, you know,” he said, exhaling loudly when Smith gave him a blank stare.
“Bloody hell, mate. It’s the opposite of a full moon.”
“That’s stupid, if there’s no moon, they should call it a no moon. New moon, those pricks.” Alex grunted in his usual derogatory fashion.
Smith pulled a few couch cushions to the floor, before proceeding to lie on top of them.
“You’re not sleeping here are you?” Trott asked, his eyebrow raised.
Smith looked up, “Yeah, aren’t you?”
Trott sighed, but he couldn’t resist Smith’s big blue eyes. Pulling a blanket from a convenient shelf, he rested his head on Alex’s chest. Ross trotted over and joined them, finding a warm gap between the two.
---
In the morning, Trott woke up to the sound of giggling.
“Huh?” he muttered, groggy from sleep.
“Oh, don’t let us disturb you.” came the familiar voice of one of Trott’s roommates.
Trott sat upright, feeling Smith, still fast asleep, shift beneath him, “Duncan?”
The tall blond boy snickered, but it was his friend who answered.
“Oh ho ho,” she smirked, “isn't this just so cute.”
Kim held up a camera, taking a photo with a quick “smile!”
Ross, naked but thankfully covered with blankets, began to stir. Duncan tilted his head, eyebrows raising when he spotted him.
“So I guess I owe you twenty sickles.” Duncan told Kim, reaching into his robe pocket and beginning to count the coins.
Kim accepted her winnings with a smirk, “What did you boys get up to last night?” she asked, before frowning.
“Actually, I don’t think I want to know.”
Trott opened his mouth to explain, but figured ‘my boyfriend turned into a puppy’ wasn’t going to be a good enough excuse.
Saving Trott the trouble of coming up with a lie, Smith spoke up instead.
“Jealous, quim?”
Kim turned red. “What? Of course not!” she stammered, while Duncan chortled beside her, “you boys are gross, c’mon, Duncan.”
Grabbing the taller boy’s arm, she hurried out of the Room of Requirement, her robes flapping behind her as she walked.
As the door shut, Smith and Trott began to giggle. It was a small sound, quickly evolving into loud, heartfelt laughter, waking Ross.
“Wha-?” he stammered, looking around and noticing a distinct lack of clothes, “oh. Shit.”
“Ross, mate,” Trott started, “you never told us you made such an adorable puppy.”
“Yeah,” Smith added, grinning from ear to ear, “even your snores we cute.”
“Eat shit.” Ross groaned, grabbing the nearest thing he could find (a pillow) and whacking both his boyfriends in their faces.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Trott asked, fixing his hair, “I mean, you told us you went psycho-wolf on a full moon, but forgot to mention the other side of lycanthropy?”
“Bit of a weird choice, mate. I’d have started with the cute one.” Alex chipped in.
Ross grumbled, “it must’ve slipped my mind. Now can we go get breakfast or something? I’m starving.”
“Hungry like the wolf, eh Ross?” suggested Smith with an impish grin.
“Oh ha ha, very funny,” Ross rolled his eyes, locating a set of Hufflepuff robes and dressing quickly.
The trio left the Room of Requirement together, laughing and making dog puns all the way to the great hall for breakfast.