sing me a lullaby of the blood rushing through your veins

Honestly, Slughorn's little party is the most dreadful and annoying event Sanguini has had to attend in the last few years.

It's not only the fact that everyone, from the other guests to the students, stares at him like he's some kind of leashed creature, only there for their entertainment – which he supposes is in a way true – but also all the restrictions that have been placed on him to allow him to walk in the castle unharmed, though he is in no way fooled in believing that they're all for his safety.

Even now, he can feel the weight of the spellwork pressing on his shoulders, wrapping the core of darkness that makes him what he is in too tight and too cold hands, reminding him of what would happen were he to wish harm upon anyone residing inside Hogwarts' halls.

As if he would – he had enough feeding options that he didn't have to lower himself to attacking children, but try telling that to the entitled wizards residing here.

The only reason he is there is because he owes Worple a debt, and if there's anything his long years of living have taught him anything, it's to always respect and honor your debts.

That doesn't make this party any less boring though, or make him any less desperate to be anywhere but here.

In the end, he just grabs a plate of pastries, and moves as far away from everyone as he can, hoping to find a secluded spot where he can quietly wait out this travesty while watching people. The melodrama of teenagers is only barely more interesting than watching grass grow, but it's better than no entertainment at all.

He heads for the perfect spot, but a girl is already there. He nearly stops and goes somewhere else, but… There's something about her that makes him pause.

She's a tiny wisp of a thing, this girl, with blonde hair so light it could almost come off as white in the proper lighting, and radishes dangling from her ears. There's a spark in her eyes, and she seems perfectly at ease ignoring everyone and having everyone ignore her.

But all of this he notices only vaguely, because the most interesting thing about her is the smell of her blood and the sound it makes rushing through her veins.

(he can hear the heartbeats of every single person in this room, like a discordant concerto played only to torture him, and through this almost cacophony he would swear on everything he owns that hers rise above like the voice of a soloist does in a choir)

(he's only known her for a handful of seconds, but he believes he could recognize that heartbeat anywhere now)

She has the most peculiar scent too, like a garden in the spring, sprinkled with something he can only call sunshine.

She calls him out with the oddest greeting too.

"Hi, I'm Luna. Do you want to eat me?"

"Yes," he answers before he can stop himself, before he can think of something more proper, but it's the truth.

"That's nice," she laughs. "I've always wondered how I'd taste."

She stares at him unblinkingly, and before Sanguini knows it, or even how it happened, they're engrossed in conversation. It's almost like she's interviewing him too, making him answer questions no one has asked him in decades.

"What is it like to be a vampire?" Is the most surprising one, but something in him pushes him to answer.

"Different from being a witch, I'd imagine," he tells her with a grin, flashing his pointed teeth.

"Weren't you a wizard before though?" She frowns.

"Honestly, I don't know. Probably." And he has no idea why he tells her this, but he does. "Besides, you forget things after a while. I think we'd go quite mad otherwise."

He does. Even the few vague memories he has of being human and then newly turned haunt him like no others. He can't imagine how worse it'd be if there were more of those.

"Well, nobody wants that," she remarks pointedly. "Though it's probably because you're more susceptible to the Nargles than anyone else I've ever seen."

He blinks. "The Nargles?"

"Yes. They're little invisible creatures that likes to mess around in people's minds and make their thoughts all fuzzy-like," she explains patiently, with the ease of someone who's done so hundreds of times.

Now, Sanguini might not be the most well-versed individual in the matter of magical creatures, but he's pretty sure those aren't real.

"Right…" He drawls, trying to hide an amused smirk.

Luna is perhaps the most interesting person he's met this century – she's definitely the most refreshing – and it's a shame she's so young.

(in a few years, maybe, his mind whispers treacherously, and he spares a second to imagine this future before he shuts it down viciously)

She doesn't ask after his age, which is surprising, since it's usually the first thing wizards want to know when confronted with a vampire, and it's made even more so by the fact that he basically gave her the perfect opening.

Instead, she asks if he misses the sun.

His mouth goes dry, and the room grows quiet in his mind, his entire being focusing on the pulse point on the neck of this child who cannot understand what she just asked him.

(Does he miss the sun? What a joke. Does a bird with broken wings miss the sky? Does a fish stranded on the beach miss the sea?

Yes, he misses it. He misses it like he misses the air he no longer has to breathe, like he misses the family he no longer remembers, and it's a longing no person on this Earth has ever found words for.)

He forces himself to blink, and the moment passes.

"Not as much as I used to," he admits, trying to make himself relax.

And it's true. Gone are the days where vampires had to hide during the day for fear of burning up like dry wood at a campfire, gone are the days where the moon was the closest thing to light he could stand.

And it's all because a witch was too weak at wand magic to manage a sunscreen spell – one of the spells that rebel against a vampire's nature by refusing to hold on them, sliding off their skin like oil – and instead tried to make a potion out of it.

She succeeded, eventually, but one of her numerous failed attempts led to a lotion that blocked all kind of radiations when applied to vampires, even if it did gave their skin the eery dark sheen most now associated with their kind.

"Not as much as I used to," he repeats, and tries to smile.

The party ends not long after that, and he watches her saunter off with something like longing clenching his unbeating heart.

.x.

For years afterward, he's unable to look at the moon without thinking of this girl who smelled like summer and smiled like the sun.