From the Ground Up for secondsilk
It had been the most inopportune time, really, for him to want to play and jump away from Neville’s grasp, the toad decided. His boy sighed and started for Trevor again, then glanced up to see the two who liked to cause pain round the corner and start toward them, their intent clear even to a toad. Trevor hopped toward them, determined to distract them while the boy got away. He noticed the conflicted glance Neville shot at him as he took off in the opposite direction.
The two siblings barely glanced at him as Neville sprinted away, but Trevor managed to trip up the one known as Alecto, and the light from his stick just missed the boy. He grimaced, as much as a toad can grimace, from the impact of Alecto’s shoe, but he started worrying as the three ran out of sight and he forgot about the pain. Determinedly, he started hopping in the direction they had disappeared.
By the time he found the siblings, they were stubbornly attacking the wall of a corridor and his boy was nowhere to be found. He crept behind a cloth hanging on the wall, that depicted what appeared to be trolls in tutus. He shook his head at the image and settled in to wait for the two to leave.
Some time later -- he wasn’t sure how long, as he might have dozed off - he awoke to the sound of a door opening and the Irish boy talking to Neville. He hopped out of his hiding place, and Neville quickly pocketed the golden disc he had been holding and picked him up. “Trevor! I thought it would be a long time before I’d be able to look for you again!” Neville planted a kiss on the top of his head, and Trevor wrinkled his nose. He was fond of the boy, but he could do without the feel of human lips on his skin - so wet and slimy!
Neville set him down when they walked back through the door, and he began exploring. He frowned to himself as he hopped around the large, cavernous room. Not as nice as the room where the boy could usually be found - there were lots of good hiding places in there, and a window he could sit near to nab tasty treats as they flew into the room. There were no windows here, and no nooks or crannies for him to settle into. He sighed in a very toad-like way. Simply unacceptable.
Days passed and his boy stayed in the room, but more and more students slowly gathered. As they did, the room changed - and eventually there were plenty of places for him to hide, and a large bathroom where the students left delightful puddles of water for him to jump in. He worried about his boy - and the other students - as they would leave the room for brief periods of time when they should be sleeping, and when they returned, they would have new bruises and injuries. But they would be smiling, and he could smell the adrenaline and excitement in the pheromones they gave off.
One day, after dodging lights and sounds coming from the sticks of the students in the room who insisted on what they called “practice” every day, he glanced over at Neville talking to the Irish boy, who really seemed to be paying attention to what his boy had to say. He had noticed for some time - he couldn’t be sure how long, as toads don’t usually pay attention to time the way humans do - that the other students seemed to be paying more attention to his boy now. He remembered when the others seemed to barely notice Neville, unless it was to yell at him in the smelly classroom down the stairs. Neville used to hunch over, as if trying to disappear among the other students - toads noticed these things - and didn’t talk very much. But now - now he stood straight and tall, and he talked a lot more. And the other students listened - not in the way where their bodies showed they were trying to get away as soon as possible, but in a way that suggested his boy was the leader of the knot of students.
Trevor smiled to himself - he was proud of his boy. But then, he always had been. And he sighed contentedly as he hopped over to Neville to try and get him to play again.