Try to be proud PV Kaegen Deathmote Closed

Kaegen Deathmote, half demon, entirely monstrous. Hellion of Hogwarts' Halls. He had, ironically, once worn the mantle of prefect, albeit for a very short time. It had been a power grab, and nothing more. He had no more use for the position now than he did for a thorn to be wedged behind his ear, and although he didn't want anything to do with the higher-ups of the cursed school he stalked, it still stung.

It was the smell of blood that lured him into the trophy room. The smell of blood that made his eyes burn. The ravenclaw's eyes were a dull lifeless grey, except for a bright red ring that circled the pupil and seemed to glow with a hungry light. The first sign that he had changed course came when the lights in the trophy room seemed to flicker, then dim. The temperature began to drop, and the long shadows on the walls started to move, to flicker and writhe as if fearing some ethereal force.

That ethereal force soon proved to be nothing other than a boy of about average size, skinny, practically emaciated, with skin that was beyond pale. The shade resembled a terminally ill wonton wrapper, something peeled from the body of someone long dead. Heavy dark shadows could be seen underneath the only part of the young boy that didn't look faded, his shining eyes. Robes were frayed and lacked that lustrous black shine, what little of his fingers could be sighted peeking out from too-long sleeves sported long, filthy nails that ended in dull tips.

It didn't take long for him to discover the source of the smell. Someone had cut their palm, a girl, probably a bit younger than he was. Kaegen seldom came across other students in his wanderings. Usually, he stalked the castle alone, his presence presumably sending enough of a shiver down most prefect's spines to make them think twice about actually pursuing him. Who wanted to interact with the monster of Hogwarts? The boy who almost killed 4 students, who injured so many others? Rumors and hushed whispers circulated like wildfire, clippings of his deeds could be found in the newspaper more than once. And yet, here he was. Staring across a trophy room at a little girl, with a bleeding hand.

His voice was not pleasant. It was quiet, hoarse and raspy, it sounded sick and strained, like grating leaves.

"You should be in your dormitory."

Opeila was no person to listen to wispers. People wispered about her once and she had hated it. She had learned to turn away and always expect exaggerations. So even if she had known who the boy was, who was suddenly standing in the room, she wouldn't have thought about it. If there hadn't been this feeling. The cold shiver running down her spine.

The girl had still turned her back to the door, when she suddenly felt watched. She didn't turn around. She just froze, like a deer, before it got hit by a car. Goosebumps spread over her body, her eyes were slightly widened. Was it a prefect that had just entered? If it was, it was to late for her to hide now. Opeila held her breath. She had just been thinking about dhampirs being able to smell blood a second ago. What if they could really smell her blood? What if she was in danger? Her own thoughts frightened her more than she thought they would.

When she heard a voice, a boy's voice, she winced, and turned around quickly, looking at the boy startledly. "Jesus! Don't sneak up on me like that, would you?", she hissed. He was not a prefect, if she remembered correctly, but definitely a year or two older than her. His voice did not help her to calm down at all. Her hands held on to the window sill, that she now leaned against, tightly. He said, she was supposed to be in her dormitory.
"You're one to talk.", she said. Her voice sounded breathless and a little shaky. Great. With one hand she brushed a strand of her hair out of her face. "I believe you're not supposed to be here either."

@Kaegen Deathmote

"I don't walk in your world. I can be wherever I please, but you?"

His voice, still decidedly sounding like someone who had recently come down with a debilitating sore throat, had made a bad attempt at sounding intimidating. Realistically, there wasn't a lot about the ravenclaw that was scary in and of itself. He was skinny, with a weak voice and a tired face, skin that looked beyond sick and faded clothing. But his shadow moved just a little out of step, the cold air rushed in with him, from seemingly nowhere, defying the coals that stoked the fires of the great castle.

There was nothing directly terrifying about the ex-prefect, and yet, he oozed fear, caused shivers to roll down the backs of students, and even made the light dim itself, causing eerily moving shadows to grow longer. He began to move along the wall, clearly intent on moving through the trophy room while staying as far away from the slytherin girl as he possibly could.

"The castle I walk is empty. You can't be in an empty castle."

Kaegen paused, taking a deep breath, as if to confirm what he already knew in a way that would make it obvious how he knew

"You smell of blood, fear, and fire. Your kind finds nothing but pain after dark."

He took another step towards the door on the opposite wall, not yet having even crossed the midway point of the expansive hallmark to Hogwarts' pride. His eyes stared across, trying to catch her own gaze, trying to peer as deep as he could, only to find nothing. He didn't know what to look for, after all. Didn't know how to tell what a person was by their eyes. He only knew that he should be able to, that there should be something more there, hidden behind the twin shield-esque pupils.

"Not a very good snake, are you.

"That sounds a lot like a strangely worded version of 'I don't give a damn about the rules'.", the Slytherin answered and bit her lip. Something told her to better not provoke this boy, who actually didn't look that scary. But the flickering lights and the cold air that came in with him made her feel uncomfortable.
He said that the castle he walked was empty and she couldn't be there. "You think, the castle is empty?" Was it? Surely there were ghosts and house-elves wandering around at night as well, not to mention professors and prefects... "And I guess I am in the castle you walk." She swallowed heavily and used the hand that wasn't bleeding to pull her long, black fleece-jacket tighter around her. Why was it so cold? And why for god's sake didn't she put warmer clothes on before leaving the common room?

The boy took a deep breath, telling her that she smelled of blood, fear and fire. That her kind found nothing but pain after dark. The Slytherin tried not to show her discomfort. "I prefer the dark over the day, actually." At least most of the time. This situation was different. Opeila was not used to meeting creepy people in the dark and him telling her what she smelled like just kind of freaked her out.
He slowly walked towards the door on the opposite wall, staying away from her as far as possible. That calmed her, at least a little. How did she just get into a situation like that? Bleeding in the dark trophy room, alone with the seemingly creepiest student she had met so far, who also obviously was a dhampir.

The boy stared at her in a way that made it impossible for her to look away. It was like he was searching for something in her eyes, but Opeila didn't know, what that was. She didn't know if she wanted to know. Instead she found something in his, that she hadn't noticed before. A bright red ring around the pupil, that seemed to glow a little. His look sent another shiver down her spine.

He said that she wasn't a good snake. All Opeila answered, was "So you're one of those quickly judging ones." She didn't disagree.
She knew exactly, where her wand was.
In the pocket of one her robes, downstairs in her dormitory.
And there she was, bleeding, alone with a dhampir.
Opeila took her cut hand of the window sill, that she had quickly clasped when the boy had entered. There was now dirt in the wound and blood on the window sill.
Fantastic.

@Kaegen Deathmote

"No, the castle is a shell. Your castle is full of life, I'm sure. Mine is empty."

He hated blood, despised it down to the core of his being. He hated how weak it made him feel, he hated how it inflamed part of him with such fury. He hated how someone could just cut themselves and send his head into a hazy realm of hunger. But he had blood, now and then. He wasn't completely starved, at least not anymore. He had enough control to sneer, almost. He had control. He was monster, sure, but he was beyond the other dhampirs who scurried about. Kaegen saw himself as something separate, a false belief bolstered by the false rumors of his part-demon heritage.

"I care about the rules that apply to me."

He cocked his head slightly to one side, smelling the air again. She reminded him almost too much of fire. Maybe not just the smell, but the way she felt, even from across the room, like a layer of ash hiding blazing embers. There was something else in her, there had to be. She was afraid, and cold. He could feel that, too. Smell the fear, almost. It was difficult to not be afraid, afraid of the little ravenclaw, although it was hard to tell why.

"Stop leaking all over the castle."

The slight glow ringing his pupils started to intensify as his eyes narrowed, in annoyance, or disgust, it was difficult to discern. It annoyed him, annoyed him how easy it was to affect his mood, annoyed him that it was affecting him right then.

"As opposed to those without the sense to trust themselves? You clearly prefer happiness to results, I mean, look at you, smell yourself. Soap, wood, the dust that collects in corners? People don't just randomly smell like old dust, or at least, not if they stay towards the middle of rooms, not if they remain in their clustered knots. If you're spending time alone, there's nothing but this dust, this same dust, everywhere. Good snakes tangle together, or aim for the stars alone. You are neither."

His voice was clearly growing more painful towards the end, and he swallowed hard by the time he was finished. The blood was making him less cold, it was making him feel warm, feel reckless. It loosened a tongue that was usually only used for spells, and food.

"Those who take their time to judge people are weak, and slow. They have no place here, in this world. And neither do you. Go back to your own, and watch as it passes you by."

One of his hands began clenching, trying to clear his head by scratching himself with his dull claws, keeping lucid as best as he could. He wasn't sure if he was annoyed, or angry, or hungry or some combination. He wanted to break something, try to scream, rip something apart. But that would mean death if someone was waiting for him to slip up. He had to remain in control, remain focused. Persevere, and then move to the next challenge. This was nothing. He was Kaegen Deathmote, Fens-Born Shade-Beacon. He was the ruler of the silent castle, he was the monster of hogwarts halls, and some little girl's blood was not going to wrench that away.

"You're castle simply has another colour that gives you the illusion of walking an empty castle."
Opeila looked at the dhampire very carefully. Quickly her eyes measured the distance of the door. She would take about seven or eight seconds to reach it, if the boy wasn't faster than her.
Alright, she had to calm down. This was his natural reaction when he saw blood, he couldn't help the red in his eyes. And he hadn't tried to attack her or anything like that. She definitely needed to calm down.

He said that he cared about the rules that applied to him.
"I've seen dhampirs following the same rules as the human students. Why should yours be different?" She controlled her voice, making sure that there was no provoking tone in it, like it normally would. Good. She managed to almost hide that tone.
Opeila knew that fear made her aggressive. She felt, how it already angered her a little, when he asked her not to leak all over the castle. "Oh sorry, I'll try not to.", she said. Sarcasm. She had to calm herself.

And when he said that she smelled of old dust she couldn't help but feeling a little offended. "We're in a dusty room, if you haven't noticed. I guess, that the smell could have been expected there. What do you even know about me? Nothing." Her words might have been angry, her voice stayed calm. Controlled.
Who was he to judge her? To tell her that she had no place in this world?

She could hear his voice changing but she was too annoyed to react to it.
"Oh, but you do, I assume?" There it was again, the sarcasm. The only signs of her fear were her hands, that were now clenched into tight fists and her eyes, which still looked at the door every other minute.

@Kaegen Deathmote

"Illusions are as real as any wall."

She was challenging him? The red rings of his eyes began flaring more, unpredictably flickering like unstable eclipses around pupils that were staring to become less solid, becoming liquid, amorphous ink around their edges. Ironically, the glowing had little to do with the ravenclaw's vampiric blood, although the girl didn't know that, and Kaegen certainly didn't either. Rather, the tell in his eyes had yet to become truly apparent. The eventual spreading of blackness marked his minor transformation far better than the glowing of his building hate.

"What do I care of the affairs of dhampirs? They avoid me just the same as everyone else, I am not one of them, and they hardly qualify as being one of me.

Kaegen read fear by the thumping of a heart, by the smell of quickened blood. He could sense the adrenaline that accompanied both fear and anger, and although his senses were sharp enough to pick up on the fight or flight response that was turning in the girl's mind, he entirely missed the sarcasm, choosing instead to interpret it as a possible lie. A statement of fact that was probably untrue.

"It's my world, isn't it? Of course I belong here. You, however, do not. You belong with your own kind, away from the shadows. Away from the monsters. I know enough about your kind to know that you have no place on these paths."

Hatred, hate was good. Hate kept the hunger at bay, it kept the scent of her blood to the back of his mind. Hate was closely tied to anger, but it was cold, a kind of cold that didn't like to tolerate the hunger, not like wrath did. Hate was a honed edge that he could use to his advantage, assuming he didn't slip. As soon as he lost control, it would be over and done with, he would succumb to wrath, to the hunger, and then the girl would end up dead, and he would be expelled.

His chances had run out. He had lost control too many times, brought too many students to the brink of death, and walked away unscathed. He had caused innumerable nightmares, and the poor nurses more work than any other student his age. There had to be balance, he had to have control over the logic that he could actively feel slipping from his grasp.

"...I don't know why I'm trying to explain something to a moth that can't find her flame. At least keep a periculum handy, something to call for help, if you end up needing it. Bleeding in a corner with your wand hidden in your clothing isn't going to do you any favors."

He took a few more steps towards the door. Disengage, clear your mind, breathe, relax, temper the hate, calm the anger. There was no need to attack, no need to kill, no need to do anything that he would later regret. He could leave, and let her die alone.

"Are they? I tried to work with illusions. It doesn't work. Illusions belong less into people's lifes than I do into your world."
Where did she take the courage? How could she change from being careful to almost provoking so fast? It was stupid. She was stupid.
He didn't care of the affairs of dhampirs and Opeila noticed, that she slowly started to actually dislike him a little. That was bad. Dislike didn't help her self-control as all.
"Right. If I told you now, that I don't count myself human, that wouldn't change your reaction on me, would it. It's not like I can escape what I am anymore than you do." It was a rethorical question. "And since I've never seen you in the castly before, something tells me, that it is you, who avoids everyone."

Why would she. Why on earth would she say that? She needed to stop, or this was going to end badly. The Slytherin had seen the change in Kaegen's eyes and it scared her, but apparently not enough to shut her mouth. Bad snake, indeed she was tonight.

He said that she at least should always keep a Periculum handy. And he thought that her wand was hidden in her clothing. Good.
Maybe that would help.

@Kaegen Deathmote

"Excuse me for not basing anything off of what you say doesn't work."

The Ravenclaw's eyes widened slightly as he stared back at the girl. Was she really implying what he thought she was? Did she really think that he was some pathetic half-vampire? That he was just claiming to be something else?

"Can you even smell me? Hear the beat of my heart? Do you know why the shadows shift around me? Think hard, little moth. Think to the dhampirs you've seen scuttling around the edges of this school. I look like them only by virtue of my pale skin. "

The slightly widened eyes returned to normal, the glow fading slightly, the shadows retreating, just a little bit.

"I cause them to avoid me, so, you're close. Seems to be a common theme, you missing the mark."

Had she even registered that he had warned her? No, clearly not. Good sign, she couldn't see him, not really. She was still in the other world, she wasn't really there. She was close, she was by the border, but she couldn't quite see the little path, that little path that would lead to shadows and forests, dark places and the monsters which constantly hounded the little Ravenclaw.

He had almost died in his first year, he had managed to survive falling out of Ravenclaw tower, he had fought with dozens of students, and always managed to at least escape. He was crafty enough to have made it to his third year in a world that fostered nothing but pain and fear, and this girl had never seen any of it. He was almost envious of a life full of pointless drama.

"Neither of us..."

He stopped halfway, choosing instead to continue making his slow progress towards the opposite door.