Dare ((Open))

[natalia]

Giggles erupted from the Ravenclaw girls as one girl returned, proudly boasting a pair of boxers. Nat kept her gaze firmly on her book, refusing to look at the underwear. If her Italian colouring would have allowed it, she would have been burning with a blush. Instead, her face simply grew hot. She turned the page, although it was getting harder and harder to keep her focus on the words as the girls debated who would do wheat next.

"How about sneaking out?" One offered. "That's far too simple," Nat rolled her eyes, but kept her gaze trained firmly on the book. "Oh really?" The ringleader, whom she thought went by the name Sara, turned her attention to Nat. Nat glanced up. She had never fought with the girls who shared her dorm, but no matter how intelligent they were, they were still giggling girls with very little personality. "Somebody take Nat's book. That's a vicious dare," she grinned. Nat knew it was in good nature, but her face still burned with further humiliation.

That got them all to roar in laughter. Nat sighed, slamming her book shut. She looked up at all of them. "Let's see one of you muster the courage to sneak out," she threw back. She had never sneaked out, per say, but she had challenged curfew multiple times in the library. Sneaking out seemed much more taboo. More dangerous. More frightening.

"You," Sara said. Nat blinked. She should have seen that coming. She took a deep breath. Every eye bore into her. She traced the lettering of the book. The heroine who would have scoffed at that. "Where?" She asked, unsure if she had even spoken. Next thing she knew, she was standing at the stairs looking down into the dark dungeons.

"Lumos," she whispered, the green light glowing, which only furthered the eerie feel setting in on her. She took a deep breath, before walking down the steps, bare toes curling on the cold stone. How could she have been so stupid? This was beyond stupid. She kept herself entertained with the thoughts as she ventured down the stairs, feeling the warmth of the world vanish, the iciness engulfing her. Her heart thundered, although she knew not what was terrifying her. Even in broad daylight with others she felt as if the world swallowed her into a dark pit of cold nothingness as she entered the dungeons. Now she stood in the long, dusty corridor.

This is what she must have feared. Expulsion. There was nothing worse than expulsion. She turned around, having set foot in the corridor. Perhaps she could have lied? She barely had time to kick herself about it before footsteps were coming, taking no liberty in remaining as silent as she was. "Nox," she hissed, ducking into an alcove, pressing her hand to her heart, as if it would still it. She swore for a moment that whoever it was could hear her heart roaring with fear. She waited with baited breath for the sounds to vanish, incapable of sight in the complete murky depths of darkness.

[silas]

Silas paced about the school, looking tired, though otherwise his usual cheerful self. The Slytherin prefects had, unsurprisingly, decided that they were going to delegate their rounds to him, and he had been irritated at first, though he saw little reason to be upset. Although he was tired Silas wasn't quite ready to go to bed, if he were to retire he would likely lie awake for a long while, staring up at the ceiling whilst he thought about the impending NEWT exams. Though he figured he had little reason to worry, Silas did have an ample dose of nerves about them- he needed to perform well in order to be accepted into an internship at St. Mungo's.

He did not exactly have a plan B, it was either pass and do what he had almost always wanted to do, or fail and not have anything to fall back on. Silas supposed he could go out for professional Quidditch, but something about that lifestyle simply did not appeal to him. There was too much training, too many hours, not enough privacy. Of course, Silas did train hard for his spot on the Hufflepuff team, though he figured the professionals spent four times as many hours as he did in their training- and that wasn't something that he wanted for himself. Silas wanted the stability of an average amount of hours, to be able to go home for supper.

Of course, was he going to continue living at home or would he go out on his own straightaway? Silas didn't want to appear as if he were freeloading off his parents, though all the same the idea of living alone didn't appeal to him. Silas was a social creature by nature, he felt that he would simply get too lonely going home to an empty flat day after day, not having anyone to talk to after work. Maybe he might befriend a colleague looking for a roommate or something similar.

And there also was Summer... Silas wasn't sure what to think of her, but he did know that he thought about her quite a lot. Probably more than what he should, though all the same... Silas was finding that he didn't even care that she was more than two years older than him, he had developed quite the crush on her. Though he probably wasn't going to say anything- at least not while he was sober. Silas found he was quite inexperienced romantically, he didn't have any idea what the hell he was doing.

Silas snapped out of his thoughts when he saw the familiar glow of a wand down the cold dungeon corridor, and then it went out as suddenly as he had seen it. There was definitely someone else there, someone who did not want to be found. Probably one of the younger students doing it for a laugh, or an older student who was getting into trouble. Either way, Silas now had something he had to do to fulfill his duty as a prefect, hopefully for the last time as he was due to graduate in a few months.

Silas lit his own wand, looking around for a sign of movement. Whoever was there, they were hiding. He quickly performed a spell that would tell him if anyone else was there, just to be sure that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him. There was someone there definitely, he just couldn't see them. "You might as well come out," called Silas into the darkness, "I know you're out there." He held his wand a little higher to spread the light further in his search.

[natalia]

Nat had never felt as afraid in her life, and she had faced the beatings of her brother. Something about failing, in anything, made her want to roll over and give up on life altogether. She braced herself. She should have been bigger than this dare. For that brief moment, she had faltered in her normally oh so strong convictions, thinking she might earn the impress of the other girls. But what she was about to do was for herself. Not for the other girls. She took a deep breath, uncurling from the tiny dark ball she had formed in the shadows, stepping into the light. She offered her best apologetic look, but said nothing in argument. She bit her lip, promising herself that no matter what, she wouldn't cry, although her eyes already stung with the burning tears.

They were tears of shame. Not at being caught, but at failing in what she had taken pride in. Self security. Self security that was diminishing quickly as she grew older. She had even started avoiding mirrors, not wanting to know whether what other girls whispered about her was true or not. Raug had always assured her that it wasn't true, but he was just a boy, he couldn't know. She looked up at the redheaded Hufflepuff. She blinked, biting down on her lip as she awaited the words "you're expelled", unsure she could breathe.

[silas]

Silas was quite surprised when that tactic actually worked, he had expected that it would take a lot more effort on his part. But then again, the girl that stood before him really couldn't have been older than a second year. A good number of the younger students were still honest, and Silas appreciated that. Though all the same he couldn't imagine why she was down here at this hour- unless she was a Slytherin that had gotten locked out of the common room. He ran through his face database in the back of his mind, and in being unable to remember ever catching this girl before, figured he would let her off easy the first time.

"Peculiar place for a nighttime walk, don't you think?" said Silas, wishing he could place her house- but without the helpful colour-coordinated uniform robes, it was an impossible task. Though now that he had gotten a good look at her, he didn't think that she was a Slytherin, though he could be wrong. "What house are you in?" asked Silas, not waiting for a response to his first question- it had been one that he hadn't really been looking for an answer to.

[natalia]

Nat winced. Was he going to torture her by making her wait for the punishment. She was hoping she wasn't trembling outwardly the way she was inwardly as she clamped further down on her bottom lip. Speaking to people, let alone older people, let alone boys, was hard enough when she wasn't in a place that terrified her more than anything. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, unsure if he really expected an answer to the questions, or if they were rhetorical. It had happened many times that rhetorical questions had been posed and she had answered logically. She never understood rhetorical questions. Why ask them if you didn't want an answer?

"Ravenclaw," she hoped her voice wasn't trembling as much as she thought she was. She clamped further down on her lip to keep her entire body from quivering. "Can we go upstairs to talk?" She asked softly. She wasn't sure she could handle both of these deep fears at once. She would much rather face the prefect where the cold dungeons weren't swallowing whole, making her feel as if she was suffocating. The eerie cobwebs and odd shadows form his wand didn't help in the least.

[silas]

Silas softened his expression a little, noting how scared the girl looked. Somehow she didn't strike him as the type that would get into trouble, he couldn't help but wonder what she was doing down here so late. Though it wasn't really Silas' job to be a psychologist, he was only a prefect, and right now it was his duty to escort her back to her common room. Some of his less merciful peers might have filed a report to her head-of-house, though Silas never did that the first time he caught someone. The first time they would get a warning, though after that he wouldn't let them off the hook so easily.

Silas nodded when the girl stated that she was a Ravenclaw, they would have a bit of a walk through the expansive castle, though he wouldn't mind, he knew a secret passage or two that would make going down faster. "We can talk on the way back to your commons," said Silas, there wasn't any purpose in hanging around here, "come on, then." He began leading the way down the dark, damp corridor toward the stairs that would lead to the ground floor.

[natalia]

Nat needed little leading out of the dungeon which was awful enough in the day, with other living people. She allowed herself to slow when they hit the dungeon, although she knew she wasn't out of the woods. Not close. How much trouble would she be in? Was he pitying her because she was going to be expelled at the young age of twelve. She tried to steady her breathing, and it became evident to her now why she had not been sorted into Gryffindor. She was sure her teeth would be chattering if she would let up on chewing her bottom lip so viciously.

She knew she couldn't make up excuses, so she figured she ought to tell it as it was. "I was being stupid," she blurted. She wasn't going to wait to see if he would stay nice or turn nasty. She wanted it all off of her chest now. She had never been capable of lying. "They dared me, and they said I wouldn't be brave enough to, because she knew I was afraid of the dungeons, and I'm sorry, and..." She wasn't going to say she didn't mean to. She had meant to. She tasted a bit of blood as she continued to bite on her lip, waiting for the berating.

[silas]

Oh dear, Silas wasn't quite sure what to make of this. He had never wanted to be the intimidating prefect, and figured that he had assumed a fairly nonthreatening sort of posture. The poor thing, she was probably under the impression that she was going to be in trouble. Though her babbled explanation did make sense to him, somehow Silas hadn't seen her as being the type liable to sneak out at night. Just a silly dare, the antics that the younger years got up to. She would see later that those things usually went away, unless you were talking about the more immature types.

"Hey, calm down," Silas said slowly, soothingly, "I'm just going to walk you back up to your commons, no punishment or anything, not the first time." He shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching over slightly as he often did. Silas attributed that to the fact that he had gotten very tall in a very short amount of time. For a while he hadn't known what to do with himself, and he still retained that awkward teenage clumsiness. Thankfully, however, it seemed Silas had mastered the art of walking on a flat surface without tripping.

[natalia]

Nat wasn't sure if it was just the situation, or that she was still growing, but the boy seemed a lot taller than many others, and she felt a lot smaller than she was normally. She was sure she was dreaming when he said no punishment. She blinked, unsure she could muster words as she tried to make herself feel taller, but it wasn't doing much. She appreciated the calm tone in his voice, realizing the hiccups that had come from almost crying were subsiding quickly.

But there was that feeling of shame. Shame she had to be spoken to like a kid. You are a kid, she reminded herself pointedly. She didn't like to feel like one. She was almost thirteen- the age of a woman in many cultures. She sighed heavily, feeling the knots slowly begin to uncoil and relax, although she still found it considerably harder to breathe. "Thank-you," she said, hoping it was audible. It was a wonder at all she had a voice in this situation, and hadn't been crying before she had been caught. She tried to convince herself this was a sign of her getting over her fears, but there were still miles to go. Many, many miles.

[silas]

Silas further burrowed his hands into his pockets, wondering if it was just his imagination or was it that the younger students got smaller every year. Maybe it was just him, he was fairly tall, even for the standards of people his age- he had hit six feet tall when he was only fifteen, and had grown two inches beyond that in the past two years. Thankfully, the girl seemed to be calming down now, she had definitely seemed concerned that he was going to punish her. Silas rarely did that, even with repeat offenders. He had issued a couple detentions, though now that he was thinking on it he had never reported anyone to their head of house.

"Don't thank me," said Silas after a pause, "it seems like the right thing to do, you know? Giving people a second chance." There was his inner Hufflepuff again, always believing that everyone had some bit of good in them, no matter how small that bit may be. He was of the stock that believed people were inherently good, and would do the right thing under the proper circumstances. Silas did recognize this might lead to people walking all over him, though he didn't have the heart to put people in their place unless they had really pissed him off.

[natalia]

Nat nodded, still unsure she could keep talking. She felt her eyes widen as he said not to thank her. Then went on to talk about second chances. She stared at him, unsure what to say. Were all Hufflepuffs so nice? She blinked again. "Uh..." She was without words. She shifted her weight awkwardly, feeling obligated to say something. She had nothing. These sorts of things were bad enough without the pressure of a prefect there. "Uh..." She bit her lip, trying not to blush, feeling rather stupid with no subject. Nothing to speak of. She didn't enjoy feeling stupid. "I'm Nat," she said awkwardly. Might as well start there.

[silas]

Silas raised his eyebrows a bit, the poor girl seemed to be so awkward that she didn't know what to do with herself. Sure, he was clumsy and had terrible posture, though socially he usually knew what to say. Unless it was involving romance or even casual flirting, Silas always felt like he was making a fool out of himself then. He probably did, he was a nice guy, just not of the smooth, charming variety. Finally after a couple of "uh"s she finally introduced herself as Nat. No last name, nothing beyond Nat. "Silas," said he in response, shooting her a friendly smile, hoping that at the very least it might allow her to relax.

[natalia]

Nat nodded, a bit relieved he had offered his name. It gave him a touch of humanity, rather than being the scary and anonymous prefect, out for blood. Of course, that must have been an exaggeration. She did that a lot. She looked up at him, and at his red hair. "Weasley," she said automatically. A little bit of a blush crept on her face as she figured it must be rude. "I mean, you look like a Weasley...a lot of people talk about the Weasleys..." She gave up on conversation, shutting her mouth. Of course ever since she had met Elliot she had been fascinated by the "golden trio" who had saved the school. She'd been reading books, asking professors, but it was still hard to think students could be so amazing. So brave. She wouldn't ever feel to brave with the basic charms they teach in second year charms.

[silas]

Silas chuckled a bit, there really was never any escaping his family name. At least not in the magical world. He supposed that it had to be his tall, gangly nature and his flaming red hair- they seemed to be trademarks of the Weasley family. Granted, he wasn't sure how he or his twin sister were redheads, it was supposed to be a recessive trait and his mother did have brown hair... Maybe when it came to Weasleys it was a magical trait. Yes, Silas was fascinated by genetics, and really anything at all to do with healing. Hence why he was more than excited to begin his internship in just a few months. Of course, he still had to wait on his NEWT scores, but he felt confident enough in them. "Well you're not wrong there," said Silas. He wasn't ashamed of his family, but rather proud of them, though at the same time intimidated- cast in their great shadow. Everyone expected great things from him.

[natalia]

Fina was relieved when he chuckled, rather than lashing out at the random burst. It was all she could really tell from him. She could read books no problem, but reading people was an impossible task. She rubbed one arm as they walked through the castle, seemingly hollow and lifeless at night. The air was cooler, leaving an even more eerie feeling in the air. "Good," she sighed in relief as he said she wasn't wrong. "You're nicer than other seventh years," she didn't want there to be silence. There was an uneasy feeling about being in the dark castle. She wasn't okay with silence to go with it. The few seventh years she'd come in contact with had merely said "mudblood" and continued on their way. A few just cracked jokes about how small she was, but it mostly was what every other year felt the need to say about her. As if she didn't know who her parents were. They just felt that need to remind her.