You jump at the howl, and when you see the curtains moving, you switch to a defensive posture, ready to fight off the animal that is coming towards you. Moments later a rather small built boy, around seventeen emerges, smiling broadly.
"Fucking shit!" you exclaim. "You really scared me there, guy!"
The boy laughs, sticking out his hand, "Hi, I'm Tom Baskerville, nice to meet you. I guess we're going to be roommates, huh?"
"Yeah," you reply, wishing your heart would stop hammering so hard in your chest. "So...are you one of THE Baskervilles?"
The boy nods, "Yep, My grandfather's actually the one who donated all the money to get this room named after us, but we've a gone here for around 10 generations."
"Wow, that's quite a lineage," you say, a tad uncomfortable with the way he's looking at you. This is your first year at Stonewood, and you're rather uncomfortable with the idea of not seeing a girl anytime during the year. You'd done a little research after your parents enrolled you, and found that a lot of the boys who went to Stonewood had homosexual tendencies. You're not exactly homophobic; if anything you're a bit curious about it. At the same time, however, you're still quite attracted to females. But the way Tom is looking at you makes you believe he's appraising you, and you're not sure how to deal with it.
"You don't know the half of it," he replies, giggling a bit.
"So..umm..I can't help but notice that there's only one bed," you say, trying to breach the subject of sleeping arrangements.
"No, there's two," Tom replies, gesturing to the dog bed quite matter of factly.
You laugh, until you realize he's not joking in the slightest. "No, seriously," you say, "What's the deal on sleeping arrangements?"
"Oh," Tom says in return, "You can have the four poster, it's no problem."
"Where are you going to sleep, then?" You ask, still quite confused. Tom simply gestures over to the dog bed. "You sleep in a dog bed???"
Tom sighs a bit, "I may as well tell you now, because you're bound to find out sooner or later, most likely sooner. The Baskerville family was cursed by gypsies many centuries ago. The eldest child turns into a dire wolf every few nights or so. Lucky me, I'm the eldest son of my father. Once the child has bred, he passes the curse onto his firstborn."
"You're telling me that you're a werewolf?" You laugh, amused by Tom's bizzare sense of humor, and the fact he's willing to go to such great lengths to mess with a new student.
"Not as such, no,"Tom explains. "You see, a werewolf changes in moonlight. In our family, we change roughly once per week, and are quite ravenous. But thankfully, my grandfather found a way to curtail a certain amount of the danger to others. As the time between changes increases, I become increasingly feral and aggresive. When the change comes, I'm rather hungry for fresh meat. But, if I induce the change on a nightly basis, it reduces the level of aggression and animal instict I have in my human form. I only change for a few hours, and I'm quite harmless. In fact, I've been told I'm rather cuddly, and nice to curl up to in wintertime."
"So you're going to shapeshift nightly?" you ask, dumbfounded. You don't really want to call bullshit, as this school is known for its occult studies program in particular. You also begin to wonder why your parents decided you should attend.
"It's really for the best," Tom replies.
"Can I watch you change, or is that more of a private thing, where you'll want me to leave the room?" You ask, doing your best not to offend the slavering werewolf-to-be.
"It's really up to you," Tom replies. "I've had roommates who wanted nothing to do with me, and I've had others that thought it was cool. I've even had others who helped me induce the change because they liked watching it."
"I'd like to see it at least one time," you say, feeling an odd sensation, fluttery butterflies in your stomach. You realize you REALLY want to see this happen.
"That's fine with me; I'll show you after dinner, when it's dark. That reminds me-we're late for dinner in the Great Hall. Come with me, I'll show you the way."
You follow Tom out of the room, heading for the Great Hall, realizing that you're quite hungry.