mattheo was an antithesis within himself. a paradox, really. over the more formative years he spent at the school of witchcraft and wizardry, he had taken the arduous path of becoming an animagus, driven by the desire to be of greater use to his father. he hadn’t exactly envisioned a particular creature when he underwent the complex ritual, only that it should be worthy of a lord’s son.

naturally, he had expected something imposing, lethal even. a lion, perhaps, or a sleek serpent—something that would reflect the grandeur and menace his bloodline demanded. a wolf, at the very least.

but alas, whatever power was at work in the universe seemed to have put him on a father christmas-esque naughty list— his animagus form was a dog.

not even a majestic one, but a scruffy, unremarkable brown mutt that barely seemed fit for the title of stray. merely recalling it gave him a persistent headache.

one perk of his ungainly other form happened to be you. you liked dogs, so when you’d caught him meandering around the grounds one afternoon, you’d snatched him up as your new companion right away.

see, it was complicated. mattheo, in human form, bloody despised every fiber of your being, down to each moral value you held (the scowls he shot you during class periods were indicative of that), yet he loved being doted over by you when he was in his animagus form. the aggressive petting, the lounging on your bed in your dormitory as you did homework. it was confusing bullshit, really.

“piss off.”

that was what he had said to you earlier in the day, when he’d surfaced from a hallway scuffle with a bloody nose and an air of pungent discontent. blunt. straightforward. you'd considered being amiable, but that had backfired.

yet here he was, returning to you, in the form of that ragged brown dog, his tail pathetically tucked between his legs as he padded into your dormitory. he was slightly pathetic, frankly.