“FUCK!”

Your hand flies open and the pin drops to the ground. You stare at your hand confused. There was nothing there but you could have sworn you felt something painful. You must have held it wrong and jabbed yourself with it, it was a pin after all.

You look at the pin on the ground. Not sure what to make of it. It was unmistakably canine in appearance, though the eyes seemed a slightly different colour each time you looked at them. It did not however have three heads. You pick it up and squeeze it again. Thinking you must have stopped it before it could finish transforming into a Cerberus.

You open your hand see those weird eyes staring back and still stubbornly trapped in its single headed form. You look around and see that everyone near you is staring at you.

You close your hand feeling deeply embarrassed, this is not a good start to your new life. All the students around you move into their new houses and you sheepishly follow the other Cerberus’s.

“Are all the Cerberus’s hear.” The call came from a boy who looked only a little older than yourself. “Great. I’m the head boy Alister Thorne” He grinned and you were momentarily blinded by how white his teeth were. “Follow me and we’ll get you settled into your new dorms.

He turns and walks off being followed by the pack of second years with you trailing at the back no where near confident enough make more of scene by trying to move closer to the others. You’re led through more halls, decorated in paintings, portraits, the occasional clock and a lot of stone carved grotesques getting more and more three headed the further you move. You figure whoever made them wanted to use them as sort of map markers, follow the carvings that look more and more like you house animal until you reach home.

It was a cool idea but had this unnerving feeling all those stone eyes were looking at you, no doubt judging you for your malformed pin.

“Ok everyone,” The boy leading you call out stopping everyone, “This is the door to our dorm. Just like every house dorm door it only opens if you put your pin in the handle.” He holds up his pin then points at the handle. It looked like one of those wrought iron knockers that were all the rage a few hundred years ago, A ring of metal being held in place by three heads. At the bottom of the ring was a slot.

It didn’t take much to figure out that your pin would never fit into that. “Just put it in like so.” He slotted his pin in and the door opened. It was deep wooden sound, unsurprising it sounded kinda like a dogs growl.

“Follow me to your rooms. You’re all second years you’ll be bunking with someone else.” There scattered grins among the second years and you couldn’t help a joining in a little. “Yeah, yeah, trust me don’t bang your room mate you’re not getting a new one. I’ll give you half an hour to settle in and get to know your new bunk mate after than I’ll collect you for your welcome ceremony.” He walked inside and everyone followed with you behind.

Once you reached the door you really thought you heard those three wrought iron heads growl at you. It wasn’t a threatening growl so much as a welcome home growl. It made you feel better about your pin, clearly it was just a mistake and you just need to ask for a new one.

Now feeling much better about yourself you walk closer to the front. You don’t want to interrupt Alister so you wait for him to assign your room. The crowd of second years thins out with worrying speed until it’s just you and a few girls. You noted that even though Alister said not to sleep with your roommate he did tend to pair up the opposite sexes more than same sexes.

“Aye.” You turn and see a girl staring up at you. Her most striking feature is the amber eyes. You almost jumped seeing those eyes. You remind yourself new normal, this is probably going to be one of the least strange things you going to see.

“Hey.” You answer offering your hand.

She takes it and… sniffs it. “Ya smell nice.” Her eyes dilate and she grins.

“Aimil Ciar and Elisabeth Aconite.” The amber eyed girl looked away from you and at the other girl whose name was just said. You take the chance to check her out. She had red hair and a scattering of freckles, she wasn’t as tall as and had a modest chest, which was heaving rather more deeply than it had been a moment ago.

You looked up and see her staring at you. She smiles at you before walking into the room with the other girl.

You’re left there unsure what just happened. “Her mom’s something something of some werewolf clan. Be careful wolves tend to mate for life.” There is huge grin on Alister’s face as he says that staring at you. “Come on, only a few of you left.”

“Wait werewolf?” You rush out trying to get well any information about that. He just grins back at you and goes back to assigning rooms

You keep walking as he sends off more people, as the number of second year’s thin further you do a quick count of those left. There was an odd number, meaning someone might get a room to themselves.

Alister kept sending people off until he too seemed to do the maths. “Huh.” He shrugged and kept going until you were alone. “Weird. There is usually an even number of Cerberus. It’s a cool part of magical metatheory…” You can feel this about to go way over your head. “You’ll learn about it eventually, it basically means that a Cerberus’s natural loyalty interacts with the magical… I really can’t explain it without metatheory. Magical stuff happens and boom new friend for life it’s how I picked who bunks with who.” He walks waves at an empty room. “Well, you can bunk here, when your counterpart shows up I’ll send them to you.”

He waits for you to walk inside before waving goodbye and walking off. As he goes the whole werewolf thing leaps back into your mind. He’s far enough away that you can’t just ask him without shouting or chasing him down, both thing you really shouldn’t do this early on.

Ok so what now? Should you try and find someone to help with the whole malformed pin thing? Or just chill until you get picked up for the welcome ceremony check out the common room since you’re free? Maybe you could find amber eyes, Alister was probably just messing with you about the whole mate for life thing.