Owen was distracted by the whispering. Because there was quite a lot of it going on. Not to mention the giggles and muffled exclamations. He raised his head, dragged a hand across his face in exasperation.

“Oi! You lot! What’s so funny you can’t keep it to yourselves?” Gwen, Tosh, and to his surprise, Ianto, turned around from where they’d been huddled around Tosh’s desk.

“We were just discussing houses, Owen,” Toshiko said innocently, which of course made the little group collapse into giggles. Bloody gossip girls. Ianto included, Owen thought.

Annoyed, Owen got up and walked over. There was clearly something he was missing. “Houses? Ianto’s getting a house?” he looked pointedly at the man. “It’s not like you spend any time at your flat these days-“

Ianto’s cheeks tinged pink, and Gwen shoved Owen. “Come off it Owen. No, we were just talking about which houses we’d be in if we went to Hogwarts.”

“Hogwarts? Isn’t that the name of a pub-“

The three of them groaned, rolling their eyes at his ignorance. “From Harry Potter,” Ianto explained matter-of-factly, his earlier blush all but disappeared.

Owen stared at them disbelievingly. “You’re kidding, right?”

Gwen apparently took this an invitation to clarify. “Yeah, see, I’d be Gryffindor, ‘cause I’m brave and adventurous-“

”And don’t follow the rules,” Ianto and Tosh chimed in. Gwen waved her hand dismissively. “Hmph. Now, Toshiko would Ravenclaw, ‘cause she’s brilliant-“

“Hey, Tosh doesn’t have the monopoly on brilliance in the room,” Owen objected.

Tosh nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t accounted for Ianto yet.” Owen sent her a dirty look.

“-anyway,” Gwen continued forcefully, “because she likes learning and books and knowledge and just generally being smart. And cute,” she added with a grin, tweaking Tosh’s nose.

Tosh giggled, and Owen rolled his eyes for the thirty-seventh time since the start of this conversation. He really ought to get back to work. If only Gwen would stop bloody talking. No such luck

“Ianto, well, he’s tricky, ‘cause at first we would have all thought Hufflepuff.” Gwen started.

“Yeah, but Ianto can be sneaky if he wants to,” Tosh added, gently though, as no one needed a reminder of The Basement Incident.

“So we decided that he’s a Slytherin.” Gwen finished.

Owen stared at them. They stared back. “What?” Tosh finally asked.

“This is what you do with your time?” he asked rudely. “Don’t you have people to save and aliens to catch and… stuff to decode and coffee to make??” The three started giggling again, and Owen walked away in disgust. “Get back to work already!” he called irritably over his shoulder.

“Maybe he’s our Hufflepuff,” Ianto whispered in the ensuing silence, eliciting another round of laughter from the girls.

Two hands clapped mightily on Ianto’s shoulders, and Ianto jumped about a foot in the air, while Gwen let out a little scream and Tosh continued to giggle. Hot breath tickled his ear as Jack leaned down to whisper, “And what house would I be in?”

“Gryffindor?” Gwen suggested, and Ianto shook his head frantically, stifling a moan.

“Definitely Slytherin,” Ianto gasped out as Jack’s teeth tugged on his earlobe.

Jack chuckled. “Right in one, Ianto,” he said with a wink. He looked at them all, and sighed, a happy smile passing over his face. “That Albus Dumbledore sure knew how to dance,” Jack mumbled as he swept upstairs to his office.

Tosh, Gwen, and a slightly breathless Ianto exchanged glances.

“No. He was just kidding. Right?” Gwen asked aloud. Ianto shrugged. With Jack, you never could tell.