There's no escape from a dare

I can't believe I was dragged into this...

For a kid who liked to try and stay out of trouble, Dylan sure wasn't good at it. He'd made himself pretty wel known during his first year with his friends when they formed their band that didn't last long. He sighed as he stared up at the trees at the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. He didn't want to do this, it wasn't his thing. He really didn't like being in the forest much. It wasn't because he was scared - no that was far from it - it was more because he just didn't want to get hurt.

Dylan swallowed hard and sighed. Stupid dares. He shouldn't have even been dared in the first place. He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. "This sucks." He muttered softly as he looked down in his coat pocket to his pet toad. "Sorry Javy. But I'm not going in there alone." He said softly.

The toad didn't know what exactly was going on, but Dylan knew that he was somewhat aware of what was happening. Javy wasn't as stupid as most people thought he was. The ravenclaw could feel his legs shaking from having to go in there. He hated Alex and Jamie for daring him to spend the night in the forest. He hated this.

Niamh was angry, that was for sure. She'd stayed up all night studying, and for what? For her "friends" to say, 'Oh, don't worry about the classes, Nivvy, just come with us, we're going to the forest'? Yes, apparently so. The girl sighed heavily and stood at the edge of the trees, staring up at them, so much taller than she. Of course, nobody else had showed up. They never did. But Niamh was no chicken, so she'd showed- even if it meant being alone, she'd prove that she never backed down.

Walking along the edge, Niamh chewed on her lower lip. She wasn't nervous, per se, but she didn't exactly appreciate the idea of being alone. More than anything that might happen to her in the forest at night, she just didn't want to be alone. It made her feel incomplete, to be alone, and incomplete was a feeling she hated.

But as she walked, she spotted another figure a few yards ahead of her. Who else could be out here at this hour? Should she approach? Niamh bit her lip harder and rolled her eyes skyward, letting out a heavy sigh, before closing the gap between the two and tapping the figure on the shoulder.

The fifteen year old hadn't expected anyone else to be out and about at this hour, so when he felt a tap on his shoulder, he jumped slightly and turned around; expecting to see something horrible behind him. Yes, he had quite the active imagination. But when he realized it was only another student, a girl, he relaxed slightly. Though, the fact that he was with a girl wasn't very comforting for him.

He looked around, searching for any others that could've been there and saw no one. She was out by herself? That was strange. Dylan cleared his throat and moved his bangs out of his eyes, before speaking to her. "Er... W-what are you doing out here so late..?" He asked her, somewhat timidly.

Dylan wasn't exactly outgoing when he first met someone. Especially not when he met them at this time, or when he was supposed to be going into the forest. For all he knew she could be a prefect and he didn't know. She could also just tell a professor that he was out there when he wasn't supposed to. But that would be stupid, she'd be getting herself in trouble too.

Niamh crossed her arms across her chest self-consciously, a habit she'd formed when the others had begun teasing her about her lack of curves, the curves that all the other fifth-year girls were developing. She looked the other fifth-year up and down, trying to mentally "sort" him, figure out what house he was in.

"Mm, well, my 'friends'"- she said it with air quotes, then immediately resumed crossing her arms- "were supposed to be here. As you can see, they're not." She rolled her eyes, exhaling heavily.

"I could ask you the same, though, couldn't I?" Niamh said after a moment's delay, glancing the boy up and down once more.

Dylan tilted his head slightly at how she crossed her arms over her chest and quickly looked away when he realized where exactly on her chest she was covering. He felt his face burn slightly as he was never really the type to look at girl's chests, though it was normal for guys his age, and he let his hair cover his face for a bit while he recompiled himself. He cleared his throat and said simply,

"Ah. Some friends."

His tone was rather bitter, as his 'friends' had pretty much put him in the same position as hers had put her. He sighed and moved his bangs out of his eyes. He tried to keep his eyes from wandering to her arms where she was covering her chest and tried to focus on keeping his gaze on her face. He felt awkward being there with her randomly showing up, and he accidentally blurted out,

"They wanted you to go into the forest?" Again, a tone of bitterness in his voice. "Mine dared me to spend the night in there." Dylan looked at the girl. "By the way, I'm Dylan Davies. And you?" He tried to say without stuttering.

The corner of Niamh's lips turned up in a slight smirk at how uncomfortable the boy seemed to be. The tone of his voice, his body language, even the fact that he not-so-inconspicuously kept glancing at her chest- he was nervous, that much was obvious, and the fact made her feel a bit more empowered.

"I'm Niamh. Monaco. I have nicknames, but none as far as you're concerned, alright?" She flashed him a confident grin (though she was feeling far from confident, if she was being honest with herself), for once not thinking about the gap between her front teeth or the crookedness of her smile.

"My friends are sort of stupid," she continued. "They think it would be the best thing in the world to, y'know. Get in some sort of trouble or something." She rolled her eyes and gave a short laugh. "They think they're some sort of Golden Trio, reborn. Though there're four of them, not including me, so. Your friends dared you, though? Why? What do you get out of it if you 'win', so to speak?"

Dylan wasn't always as shy as he was now around girls, he wasn't even sure why he was acting this way around this girl. She introduced herself as Niamh and he calmed down a bit. Maybe he was just nervous because he had to go into the forest for the night and he didn't know her at all. Knowing her name now made him a little more comfortable, but he still didn't know much about her.

Though the way she spoke made him think she was a Slytherin, and he had definitely seen her around before. He'd seen her in one or two of his classes but he;d always been really nervous as to talk to her, or most others in his classes. This was why he needed the band to get back together, but now without his friend Zandell, who'd recently passed away from being in a coma, they'd need to find a new drummer. He sighed softly, trying to get the thought of Zandell being gone out of his mind.

He let out a small nervous laugh when she explained that her friends thought they were like the Golden Trio reborn, but there were four of them. "Well, they certainly aren't if they didn't show up." he said a little more comfortable. "I have no idea. I think they won't give me anything, maybe just the miracle of surviving... If I even do make it through the night in there." he sighed again.

Niamh shifted from foot to foot as she stood and listened to the boy speak. He still seemed nervous, though she didn't know why. Well, that wasn't the complete truth. She knew he was nervous about having to spend the night in the forest. Who wouldn't be nervous about that? She knew she was, and she never really feared much.

"Well, you won't be alone, at any rate," Niamh replied once Dylan had stopped talking. "I'm not about to flake out. I say I'm going to do something and I do it," she said, straightening up her posture with semi-false bravado.

After a few moments of awkward silence, in which neither of the two spoke, Niamh figured she should ask the obvious question. "What house are you in?" she said, her voice softer than she'd meant it to come out. "I'm Slytherin," she offered, hoping that wouldn't turn him away. Many others were sort of scared of the Slytherin house, she'd noticed since she'd been sorted back in her first year.

Dylan smiled. "I'm a Ravenclaw." he told her softly. He hadn't actually meant to smile, but he was glad he actually had. He knew that most people were afraid of Slytherins because of how some of them acted and their families, but he wasn't. He had plenty of friends in Slytherin, and he was far from scared of any of them.

He cleared his throat and sighed. "We should go in, huh?" he said softly, staring up at the trees like he had done before and he sighed again. He really didn't want to go in. He remembered that Javy was in his pocket and he really regretted bringing his toad along with him. What if something happened that Javy got lost or eaten? Dylan didn't want that, and he just didn't want to go in there at all.

But at least he knew he wouldn't be alone.

"I guess if we stay together, it'll be easier to spend the night in there?" he half asked her. "I just hope no wolves are around... There have been plenty of attacks on students before." he said softly, wincing slightly at the thought.

Niamh nodded a little, shrugging. "We can stay together, sure. But you can't get any ideas." She smirked and walked a bit ahead of him, closer to the edge of the forest. If she were more comfortable in her body, she might have swayed her hips, the way some of her more-endowed friends often did when in the presence of a male. But Niamh was not comfortable enough to do that. She was probably better off that way, anyhow, because- well yes, Dylan was attractive, but he seemed a little too flighty for her taste.

She uncrossed her arms finally, standing with her fists planted against her hips as she looked up at the trees. "You ready to go in?" she murmured, glancing back at Dylan over her shoulder.