Does Curfew Really Apply to Vampires?

Marguerite wished that she could say the cold night caused her skin to prickle and goosebumps to erupt upon her flesh, however she was dead and could no longer feel such discomforts. The girl raised her head to the sky, the pale skin on her neck seeming to gleam in the darkness. She sighed as she stared wistfully up at the stars, the only light she has been able to bathe under for centuries. The nervous whinny of a horse brought her head back down as Marguerite returned to conscious thought, and realize where her wandering feet had lead her.

Marguerite found herself outside the Care of Magical Creatures paddock, where she knew the professor of the subject to be keeping a small menagerie of farm animals. Though she knew the place to be off-limits outside of class, Marguerite continued to slowly approach the compound, stopping only when all the animals had awoken and were in obvious agitation. Marguerite gazed forlornly at a handsome palomino stallion, who was stamping his hoof solidly into the ground to announce his displeasure at being visited by an other-wordly being.

Marguerite was used to the fact that she represented fear to most herbivores, and made fellow carnivores wary. What else could she expect when the smell of her unnatural death emanated from her skin. They seemed to have an innate knowledge of her nature as well, fearful that they could become her next meal.

"Fear not, you beasts of burden," Marguerite announced to the creatures in a ringing voice, "Tonight shall not be your last, for I enjoy much better tasting things to eat."

At the sound of her voice, many of the animals shifted uncomfortably, though not quite in a panic. Perhaps they thought that to panic and run would only ignite a predatory reaction within Marguerite, which of course, it very well could. She had been feeling a mighty thirst throughout the entire day after all.

((The setting is very late at night. I would say around midnight. Selwyn doesn't seem to mind breaking rules, so I thought there could be a good chance that they'd meet.))

What was it with third years, that made them compulsively leave the common room after lights out? Miss Marguerite might think she was above such trivialities, being a millionty years older than every single person in the castle, but Selwyn knew better. She might be old, but she was still naive. It tended to work that way with vampires; they got caught at whatever age they'd been bitten in and unfortunately for de Lancret, she'd been bitten young.

He stalked her out to the grounds, and then down to the magical creatures pasture. She seemed to like the animals, but they weren't so impressed with her. Too bad for some. Selwyn wasn't a big fan of that subject; in fact, the name of the subject was what turned him off. Care was exactly what he didn't want to do with magical creatures. He was quite happy to have them around so long as he didn't have to care about them or look after them or especially clean up after them.

It was just as Selwyn was sidling down the bank toward her that Miss Maggie made her startling speech. Oh dear god. The girl thought she was the heroine of a gothic novel. Though, that kinda explained the way she dressed.

"You clearly have no idea about the culinary arts," Selwyn broke the stillness that had settled after her odd outburst. "Camel is a delicacy, you know."

Marguerite froze momentarily, her mind working as what the best way would be to frighten the young man who dare interrupt her evening...especially having overheard her speaking to animals. Had she any pigment in that pale skin of hers, she may have flushed from embarrassment.

Marguerite slowly turned, tilting her head to catch the dim moonlight, so that her eyes would sheen like a cat's. She thought that she had recognized the voice. Though she wasn't quite sure how much he knew of her, she a bit about him merely because he was in his final year as part of Slytherin House. From what she had seen, the boy seemed to have a gift for causing trouble.

"Speaking of tastier things to eat..." she said with a smile.

Selwyn also tilted his head as a crease adorned his forehead.

"I'm confused," he stated. "Are you trying to intimidate or seduce me?"

Lacking an English syllabus meant that most students at Hogwarts didn't understand even the most obvious innuendo, which was not usually a problem when Selwyn was the person making it. In fact, it meant he didn't get into nearly as much trouble as he would have if people knew what he actually meant.

Still, having someone else around who knew how to make a joke might be fun. Which really depended on what Miss Maggie thought she'd said.

Marguerite cocked her had at him in a puzzled manner. She was not sure where he would have obtained the idea that she was seducing him. Perhaps it was the eat? ....or perhaps that she said he would be tasty? Marguerite had been on the earth for far too long to be able to keep up with the speaking styles of the young...and the old for that matter. Often times, when she made a desperate attempt at being cool, she'd use lingo that had been popular among teens in the 60s and early 70s; however, she still had a hard time wrapping her head around how the word 'dude' had evolved from an insult to the general term for a surfer male. She had yet to learn that it did not only apply to surfers or a rancher from the west anymore.

Marguerite shook her head to clear her brain of these sorts of thoughts. Sometimes she dwelled too much on how to keep up with the spinning world. It was hard to be witty when you are used to taking all the time you need to plan something out. She decided to play it out.

"Well," she said in a sickly sweet voice as she slowly approached him, "The words were meant to intimidate, but if it is seduction you are after...."

Marguerite was paying attention to how many steps she was taking. As soon as she was close enough to Selwyn, she'd be within range to use her speed and reach him before he could blink. Give him a good scare. He seemed like the type who did not scare easy, and she was always up for a challenge.

"Not really," Selwyn replied airily. "I wanted clarification."

He watched her do the glamorous vampire thing and fail miserably. Well, perhaps not miserably; probably some other boy would have been taken in. Considering her objectively, Selwyn was forced to concede that when she was alive Marguerite was probably fairly pretty, for a human.

Selwyn briefly wondered if spending so much time around his cousins had warped his sense of beauty, but then the sudden transformation of his fingernails into claws alerted him of how close the vampire girl was getting. Always with the instincts.

"What are you doing?" he asked, backing up a bit. "I really think it would be a good idea if you stayed right there."

Marguerite stopped walking towards the boy, peering at him suspiciously. There had been something different, but she did not quite pick up on what the change had been. It wasn't enough to cause her any sort of fear, but it was enough to make her cautious. She could tell he was not a vampire; however, that small flicker of change gave her cause to believe that he may not be entirely human.

"Do not worry, little boy," she taunted, "I enjoy the taste of the sweet and innocent. I would haphazard a guess that you are neither. I mean, shouldn't good little children be snuggled up in bed at this time of night?"

She stopped. Huh. He hadn't expected that. People so rarely did what they were told. Or what Selwyn told them to, at any rate. It'd give him time to suppress his annoying reflexes now, and without drawing too much attention to them.

"Me?" he asked. "I was following you. Rules apply to vampires too, you know."

As he'd been speaking, Selwyn's talons had moulded back into their proper form, leaving him feeling slightly nauseated.

But that was pushed down in favour of another discovery. It wasn't only that she called him little boy; Selwyn had met plenty of obnoxious people in his life or even merely people who thought he was obnoxious and deserved some of his own medicine. There was something missing here.

It could not be that she was dead; Selwyn had met plenty of dead people and never felt so empty of emotion around them. There had to be something else to it. But whatever it was, the thing that stopped him taking advantage of most people; that little bit of conscience, if you like... it had turned completely off in the vicinity of Marguerite.

"And what reason would you have to follow me, boy?" Marguerite asked, holding her head arrogantly high, "What was it about my night-time wandering that compelled you so to trace my steps. You are neither professor nor prefect nor Head boy, so it must not be discipline you were after. Was mere curiosity? Fascination? Is what I do with my own time so utterly important to you?"

Marguerite continued to hold her place where she had stopped. She regarded him a bit disdainfully. She often found herself detesting the nosiness many of these mortal children seemed to posses.

"Yes, Marguerite, I am fascinated by you."

Selwyn rolled his eyes.

"Actually, I was following you precisely so you don't get caught by a prefect or a professor," he said. "If one came along, I was going to distract them so they could punish me instead of you. You realise you have absolutely no redeeming qualities, and you come off as if you're queen of the freaking world? That's not a good thing if you're going to break rules."

He paused to give her a chance to process this news, assuming it was news to her.

Also, to brace himself. There was a chance she was about to punch him.