Although he wasn't about to admit it, Marcus was thankful that the child had managed to duck out of the way of the spell. His anger had gotten the better of him for the moment, as well as his proclivities towards torture and the such. It wouldn't always do to injure your enemies like he had, and it could end up hurting him in the long run. He had to take a deep breath and reevaluate the situation. That did mean that he was required to utilize the very minimal thought process that he had, and it was awfully difficult for him to come up with a logical idea. Since Carin had ducked the curse, he had to assume that the child was attempting to keep the interaction nonviolent, which meant that he should probably heed that advice.

Not that he would let the child know that he had taken their social cue. He was just more focused on trying to keep the upper hand for the time being. And that meant not reacting angrily when the child insisted that he looked like a troll. "I bet you'll grow up to look more like one than I do," he said defiantly. After a second, he recognized what he had just implied. "But I don't like like a troll, nor am I related to one." There was still venom in his words, and he was certain that the kid was nervous now. Clearly, he wasn't all bark and no bite. He would react if provoked.

"I'm not that old," Marcus said. He carefully dodged answering her questions about Troll blood, mainly because he didn't know. He honestly hadn't paid any attention in his sixth year, when they had learned about magical creatures in Defense Against the Dark Arts. However, he was pretty knowledgeable about old bloodlines. He didn't think he could ever utilize the stuff that his father had made him memorize. Nobody cared about spitting out the traces of Flint blood, nor the fact that he knew a few other family trees. It was a party trick, really. "Besides, a lot of people know about her. She was an interesting witch." He was more relaxed now that neither of them were on the offense, though his words were still a bit harsh as he spoke. He was just on edge.

"You're a grown-up," they retorted, crossing their arms across their chest. "So that makes you old. Besides, you've got a beard and you're tall and you look older than my parents, who are also old. You're old if you're older than seventeen-- that's why you're called older. Don't you know anything?"

It probably really wasn't smart to act like this, but it was true. He was old and he was saying he wasn't. There were different types of old, sometimes, like there was a difference between their second cousin Isla Spencer and Gramma Agatha and them being old, but thee wasn't much of a difference between Cousin Fiona Kingsbury and Mum-and-Dad old. They'd be ready to run if he did anything else. Well, run and kick his leg while screaming. They looked more like a girl to people who thought like that, so maybe it would add a little bit of safety, because a grown-up chasing after a screaming girl was Bad News. Even though they weren't a girl!

They gave a laugh, high and joyful. "You just said you looked like one! But maybe that'll be fun, because then I could be a Beater-- that's what I want to do, I think. It would be fun to throw the Bludgers at people and hit them. Dad says I can't be a Beater 'cause I'm too small and I'm closer to the size of a Bludger than a Beater, but that's not true, because they're even smaller, and I'm almost five feet. See?" They stood up as tall as they could.

"But you said Carin's interesting. What's she like? Was. No one'll tell me."

That... almost made a bit of sense, in some weird childish way. Marcus was actually stunned for a few moments as he struggled to figure out exactly what to do in that situation. There were a few things that he could think of, but he wasn't exactly sure. Nearly hexing Carin had helped for a bit, though it clearly hadn't worked as strongly as he had hoped. The little devil was already back to bothering him. Physical force? No, Marcus wasn't stupid. Instead, he sneered. "I know more than you do. My brother's the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

He tried not to wince at his own lame statement. Clearly Marcus wasn't at the top of his game, and he was mainly frightened of what he could really do to a kid. He was a terrible person, but was he that bad? He had almost cast a Stinging Curse at Carin... Could he actually do it? He didn't want anyone to find out that he didn't actually hit the kid, but he felt like he was mostly safe as soon as the child mentioned Quidditch. There it was- his favorite topic and his way out.

"That was the best statement you've uttered all day," Marcus said rapidly, slightly changing his stance. "I'm a Quidditch coach." He adopted his usual demeanor (strong and silent) for a moment, studying the child. Carin wasn't really built like a Beater, but it was still little. He thought for a moment that he should stop referring to the kid as that, but... Well, he hated children. They were aliens, and therefore they didn't deserve anything more than 'it'. 

"If you're going to be a Beater you're going to need to bulk up, kid. You're too small right now, but that could always be your parents' fault. Blame them. And blame them for not telling you about Carina."

They brightened up. "Oh, really? I got siblings there! One's in Slytherin, one's in Hufflepuff. That's where I wanna be! I also have a kind of step-brother there? Well, his dad and my mum were kinda together-- that's my siblings-- but then they weren't and got with other people so then that's Kamil and me, but I've never met Kamil and my brother says Kamil wouldn't be nice to me, 'cause of my dad, and 'cause of my mum."

They paused for a second. "Why does your brother being Headmaster gotta do with you knowing things? My sister knows Ancient Runes but I don't, 'cause that's the way stuff goes. Learning isn't mitosis-- I mean, osmosis. I mean, it kinda is, but it's not 'cause you can't sleep on a textbook and get answers. Just like how your brother being headmaster doesn't mean you can be a principal. Unless you studied. But how can you do that if you're a Quidditch coach? My mum says that takes up all of your time, and you haveta have been a player first, which is even more time. My dad says that you gotta live your life by it which is why he never wanted to do it, 'cause he wanted to spend his time doing other things. Is it true Quidditch has to be your main priority? Do you get people up at three in the morning to practice? What do you do if it's hailing? You still play, right?"

They took a big breath of air. "How do I bulk up? Do I just lift things? My sister says I can't run because I'm too young to go running around and that'll only make me smaller. How do I lift things, then? And they don't tell me about Carina because they say I'm too young, even my siblings. But I'm ten, and I'm going to Hogwarts next year!"

Marcus could only blink at the onslaught of words, wondering how children got so chatty. He was never that talkative as a kid, but that might have been because he didn't have as many words as most others did. Though he did make sure to answer the question, both because he was being nice and because he wanted the kid to finally stop talking. "Who do you think he taught first?" That was really how Marcus knew things. Sebastian spent a great deal of time drilling spells into his head, trying to make everything work. He had always struggled with wand-work, and his brother had spent a great deal of time trying to make sure that he could do everything and more. He still struggled slightly but it was enough for him to get by, and he was skilled with most Dark curses even if he did have problems with simple charms.

After that, Marcus went back through all of the questions in order to try to touch on most of them. "If your sister's in Slytherin she'll do best," he started. "That's where I was, and that's were powerful people go. Are you sure you want to be a damn 'Puff? Well, better that than Gryffindor." Even though he had a pretty low opinion of Hufflepuffs, Marcus could claim that he actually didn't hate their presence most of the time. Some of them were useless, but others were good for target practice or reminders to eat and stop playing Quidditch. "You play Quidditch no matter what. Rain or shine; it's how you get better, you know. My team has practice starting at five in the morning, and I let them go whenever I feel like it."

Now, really, who were this kid's parents? If they were someone that he might know, Marcus was reluctant to let them know any more information than they had. He wasn't about to have Death Eater parents coming after him. But if they were that type of parent, wouldn't Carin have known already? "Try lifting heavy jars of your mum's potions stuff," he said, then, too casually, "Who's your mum, anyhow?"

They gave a shrug, moving up against him to try and compare heights. They had a lot of growing to do, it seemed. Maybe too much. "I dunno. Sometimes siblings teach you stuff, sometimes they don't. My brother, he tried to teach me Potions, but he got it from his dad's side, and my mum only barely got Potions enough to be an Auror, and that was 'cause of the Battle of Hogwarts, because Mum doesn't have the patience for potions."

They definitely weren't going to grow that tall, and moved away almost sadly. "Yeah! Both my parents and my brother are in Hufflepuff! Do you know it's near the Kitchens? And there's plants, too-- everywhere! And it's all warm and sunshiney-golden. And almost every member of my family has been in Hufflepuff! Except for my grandma Agatha. She's Carina's daughter! And she was in Slytherin, but her husband was Ravenclaw, and everyone else in his family was Hufflepuff, like what I wanna be!" A pause. "But Granma Agatha's Carina's daughter, so I guess that's why, 'cause you're Slytherin too."

They gave a wide grin. "Every day! I'll be out at four! And my mum doesn't have potions ingredients, though she has-- erm-- she has a lot of heavy uniforms? She used to be an Auror. My mum's Susan Bones! Well, she normally says that with more swearing, but that's only when she's talking about why she used to live in a cemetery. She says there's a difference between cemetery and graveyard, and she knows because she lived in one long enough. I've never lived in one. Have you? I think it would be fun."

He felt like he knew it before the kid had said anything. When Carin had mentioned the Auror problem, he had held his breath to control his rage. There was only one side that got to do that at the end of the battle, and the right side wasn't it. That was for Potter's friends, Potter's family. They all got to get off free and go to work, and he had just had dumb luck and his brother on his side to make sure that he really had a future at the end of the day. To think that someone managed to become an Auror without really being that strong in one of those fields... He knew he was going to be furious, and he had to remind himself that Carin had nothing to do with it.

But there was a way to get back at everyone. He could always try to turn the prideful little thing away from their family. "Slytherin is far cooler," he insisted, keeping his voice level. "You can always as the house elves for food, Carin. But in Slytherin the older students always look out for the younger ones. And you can see the lake, where the merpeople are. You can go outside if you want to see the sun and the warmth." It was the best that he could do under the circumstances.

"No, I've never lived in a cemetery," he hissed, shaking his head. And his brother wanted him to get married and have a child? They were annoying, they asked too many questions. He didn't want anything to do with them. And this one! This one came from the wrong stock. It may like Quidditch, but that still didn't change that its mum was Susan Bones. And this clearly wasn't one of the half-Zabini children. "That sounds stupid."

"Yeah, it's cooller," they said it with a shrug. "I heard it's colder, too. 'Cause it's underground and my sister said it wasn't wet and she would know 'cause she's also a Slytherin, but Slytherins are also really good at lying so she probably was. Not that that's bad, it just is. But there's a giant squid in the Lake too, right? How did it get there? Atha says he doesn't know, and Mum and Dad never said anything either, and Mils didn't but she's also a Prefect so she should know, and she didn't tell me. Why's it there? I heard from a friend that it's Gryffindor or Slytherin. Is that true?"

Carin took another breath, grinning. "Mils said she'd look out for me no matter what House I'm in, and her friend Nick would look out for me if I was in Hufflepuff. Well, Atha's there too, but Nick's the Prefect there. Nick's really smart. I just gotta find someone if I'm in Gryffindor, and everyone says that's a bad House to be in. Well, everyone but Dad's parents, but they didn't go to Hogwarts, so they can't know."

They frowned slightly. "Why? You could talk to all sorts of interesting ghosts. Mum never said she did though. There's dead people there, but they were all quiet which just means there's bodies. But there's bodies everywhere. There's probably bodies a hundred feet below us, 'cause bodies were buried everywhere. Especially when Plague happened. Or the revolutions. How do you know you're not above bodies?"

"That's why you wear socks," he said, rolling his eyes. He wasn't really that mad at Carin, but he did have an image to keep up. He was a surly Quidditch coach, not some happy kid lover. That was most definitely not him. "And Slytherins don't lie unless we have to. And yeah, there's a squid in the lake, and it eats first years if they're too bad." Well, that was a lie, and it wasn't really necessary. He just didn't need the kid wandering into the lake to make friends with an ancient creature that would rather eat you. Sure, it was ticklish, but it was still a squid. Better that than a squib, anyway.

When Carin started talking rapidly about Gryffindor, he scrunched up his nose. Marcus still couldn't stand the lions, and he knew that he would never really like them. They were gross, they were terrible... And they were horrid at Quidditch. If he had a say, he wouldn't send Carin there, especially not if the kid was actually looking into being a player in the future. They deserved to be in a house where they could do some good, and to Marcus, that meant Slytherin. Of course, any of the others weren't as bad. "You don't want to end up in Gryffindor. They don't work for anything. And your sister seems smart, getting people to look after you. Must mean you get into a lot of trouble." He was talking a lot more than he really liked.

Why didn't the kid's grandparents go to Hogwarts? Where they Muggles? He winced, hoping that they were just foreign. "You have some pretty weird fascinations." There was no way that this kid was related to Muggles- he was saying stuff that sounded like they could have come out of a dark wizard's mouth. Why was Carin so fascinated with cemeteries?

"Well, yeah," they responded, a duh audible. "But then the socks get wet, and slippers are just slippery. And Mum's done Sticking Charms, but then they just stick my feet to the ground, and Dad's tried water-repelling spells, but they don't help too much with the cold, and if I put more socks on, my feet get really sweaty."

They kept a straight face, and then burst out laughing. "It eats First years? Why? We're smaller, and we got more bones because they're still fusing. If the squid really does eat kids, it should want the older ones, because then there's more to eat, and kinda less bones." They paused, considering. "And they'd probably stick in your throat less. It would be more difficult to catch people but they would be better, I think. With more muscle. Do you think muscle tastes better than non-muscle?"

A slight frown. "Do you think it's either Slytherin or Gryffindor? I mean, Slytherin might have been meaner, but it would be nice if he really didn't leave the school. And Gryffindor might have been nicer, but I don't really like what I hear about his house. Everyone says they're brash and stubborn and Mils says they're reckless and arrogant. So I really don't wanna go there, because what if they make fun of me 'cause I'm different? Mils says Hufflepuff can protect me, and Ravenclaw won't care, but Slytherin could be a toss-up, 'cause I don't really know how to talk to people, and 'cause I'm not a boy or a girl,and maybe I can do it if they're not nice to me in the dorms, but stick up for me outside, because they sometimes protect the younger ones if they're good enough, but I might not be 'cause of my parents."

Their worry melted from their face! "Yeah! I got a lot of special interests-- that's what Mum calls them, and 'cause of her, I know a lot about cemeteries and graveyards, and then I read a lot about bodies and bones, 'cause of the pun, and I really like dead things."