[Dino O'Sullivan]

Location: Quidditch Pitch • Date: Late September 1996
Time of Day: After supper • Weather: Abso-bloody-lutely pouring

Dino liked summer better than any other season. For one, no school. Sure, Derry was, well, Derry, but Derry didn't give him essays and detentions for turning a Professor's hair piece into a Pomeranian. Well, that might have been short-sighted. The nuns doled out plenty of punishment in elementary school. Maybe not for altering wigs, but certainly for other reasons. Dino had never backed down from a dare so far in his life, after all.

Another reason that summer was better was that the evenings were practically infinite. The days grew shorter as September drew to a close, and he and his mates found that their messing around on the Quidditch Pitch had to end earlier and earlier.

'Oi! Ya gonna catch me if I fall, aren't ya?' Dino called out to his mates, from the goalpost he was scaling.

[Cristopher Arundael]

In hindsight, a dare that took place indoors might have made more sense, less defeating of the purpose of imposing the maximum amount of misery unto their admittedly-sporting victim with the minimum amount of inconvenience unto the rest of them.

Still, this was too good of a show to pass up.

"Nah, mate, you're on your own," from next to their friend, who was snapping away with his charmed waterproof camera, Cristopher managed to shout back on behalf of the rest of the group, majority of whom were beyond any semblance of communication in the midst of their roaring laughter. The rain and sleet was probably making it hard for Edward to capture anything decent, but Cris still had high hopes.

"Keep going, and give us a fist pump for the winning shot!"

[Dino O'Sullivan]

Climbing a goalpost wasn't easy in the best of times, with no real surface to grasp, but tonight it was slick with rain, and the water bearing down on his head, and it was only down to the waterproof gloves and the soles of his boots that a friend had enchanted that he had any real grip at all. That, and his motivation to do stupid things, which admittedly was the strongest of the two.

He failed to grip anything solid, and slid a few feet along the pole. Bollocks! Still, that didn't deter him.

'Ya do know that my ghost is goin' to haunt yer hole forever, don't ya? And ya'll have Orla to answer to.' Clearly that was the scarier one out of the two options.

[Cristopher Arundael]

Cristopher did not so much as twitch an eye at the first, toothless threat, but the second, significantly less toothless threat prompted the Gryffindor House Beater to peel his gaze away from fruitlessly trying to look at the camera eyepiece over Edward's shoulder.

"Whoa, now, you signed up for this! All is fair in truth or dares, even your sister can't argue that. He signed up for this, right?" Cristopher glanced between the drenched koala clinging to the goalpost and the rest of their friends with some degree of hopefulness for confirmation.

"Did anyone get some written proof? A signature? A contract?"

There were few in the world who could stop the Gryffindor House Beater dead in his tracks by the mere mention of their name and Dino's admittedly-prettier twin was one of the lucky ones to make the cut. Prettier was the extent of where it stopped, though. Who would have guessed that the one named after the smaller reptile would be the more terrifying out of the pair?

Then again, Cris would sooner climb the damned post himself than admit to being spooked by Iguana.

He also would sooner transfigure himself into an actual goalpost than actually call her by that name to her face. Iguanas weren't meant to be venomous, but this one? Poking at an actual dragon might have been the wiser choice.

Dark brown eyes narrowed with concentration. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

[Reese Killigrew]

Reese was very pleased that the mere fact that she and her friends were now in their final year at Hogwarts, which was supposed to be a very important and very serious year, did not stop them from doing ridiculous crap like this. There was nowhere she'd rather be, than out on her broomstick on the Quidditch pitch in the pouring rain, watching the one and only Dinosaur O'Sullivan scale a goal post.

"Yes mate, you absolutely did sign up for this, I can confirm as a very trustworthy witness," Reese shouted out as response to Cris's question.

[Dino O'Sullivan]

'I'm not ascared!' DIno yelled through the wind. 'I'm just sayin', make sure I don't die!' He let out a brief, enthusiastic laugh that must have come as terrifying to his surrounding, as disincarnate as the howls of the wind.

Finally he found a good grip, and made his way up a few further feet. He was about halfway up now. Down was a long way to go.

[Cristopher Arundael]

Cristopher did not disguise a wide beam that he briefly shot in Reese's direction.

Merlin, could he hug the crap out of that one.

He glanced back toward the less-threatening O'Sullivan that seemed to be making good headway along the pole. At this rate, they might make it to the top just in time for supper.... or a group detention.

"Just keep cool and don't look down!" he hollered in return.

[Reese Killigrew]

"You're almost there," Reese yelled in encouragement, even though he still had some distance to cover.

Either way, it couldn't hurt to be encouraging. She had to admit that she was kind of impressed, as those goal posts were not small.

[Dino O'Sullivan]

Dino was getting tired of telling everyone he wasn't afraid of the climb, or of looking down. He'd climbed trees before! Never this high, but still. Anyway, he was trying to impress someone, even if he knew exactly how ridiculous it was. He really needed to move on, but all these years of being best mates really didn't help a lad gain any distance, did it?

So instead of thinking about that, he refocused his energy on the climb. One more metre down, three more to go... Little by little, Dino inched forward, until finally his hands met the cold metal hoops of the Quidditch goal. Pushing and swinging himself upwards, he clambered into it and sat down, straddling the goal.

'I did it! Look at me, ya naff eejits! I told ya I could do it!' Dino was super proud of himself. It was a wonder anyone had taken all seven years of his schooling to suggest this dare to him. 'And now someone owes me a Galleon!'

[Cristopher Arundael]

Cris had gotten tired of telling Dino not to look down and to keep going. There had been dumber, wilder dares that were challenged, accepted (as if refusal was even an option for a Gryffindor), and successfully fulfilled (not necessarily on the first attempt, but always by the final attempt).

Having surreptitiously drifted closer—above—to a distracted Reese whilst silently signalling Edward to prepare his camera, their House Beater had swivelled himself into dangling upside down from his broomstick with his head hovering mere inches by her ear.

Not her wand side. He wasn't an utter idiot.

"Boo," the mostly-idiot voiced, just loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of rainfall which muffled the clicking noises of Edward's camera going off so Reese's reaction could be permanently recorded for history's future learners to come. Cristopher, meanwhile, hastily moved to right himself back on his broomstick before any possible retaliation.

[Reese Killigrew]

Reese was cheering and hollering and making a lot of noise, as she did have a loud voice that she found easy to project. And out on the Quidditch Pitch she could use it, unlike in lessons, where Professors tended not to appreciate how loud she could be.

She was too distracted by Dino making it to the top of the goal post that she didn't notice Cris shouting in her ear.

She immediately spun around so that she was facing him.

"You WANKER!" Reese shouted at him, and she reached out to attempt to slap him. Though this was done in a mildly joking way, and she was likely to forget about it within the next sixty seconds or so.

[Cristopher Arundael]

Reese would only barely manage to graze a tail-end of his flapping rain cloak. Laughing with glee himself, he veered around a safe distance away from Reese to briefly glance at the miniature figure sitting atop one of the three goal posts.

"Ayyy!!" Cris pointed both his index fingers at his friend, "Ace, mate! What a stand up lad!"

Distracted, he barely heard Dino's demand for a Galleon, having mostly forgotten about it. Cris steered his broom close to Edward, eagerly asking, "You got the picture? Let me see, I want to see her face."

[Dino O'Sullivan]

Dino beamed at his friend's words. Somehow those eight words had managed to make him feel all warm inside, and managed to cancel the dull aching in his belly whenever he was with Cris. The other Gryffindor boy cheering him on made him happy. He would do anything to hear those words again, or just hear more praise, anything.

And then, of course, Cris had to stop focusing on him. Of course he did. They were guys. There was never an excess of compliments flowing from Cris to Dino, though Dino did always have a good word to say for his friend.

Now the dull ache was back, this feeling that he knew was longing, this beast that he had kept subdued for many years now. Dino wanted to stop liking Cris like that, had wanted to since he'd realised how massive his crush was, but it apparently didn't work like that. And with no one else to take his mind off things, it wasn't easy.

He'd do anything to hear Cris tell him he was awesome again. Cris wouldn't ever say exactly the words he wanted to hear, but whatever he did say, Dino would hold onto.

Anything.

'Hey! Lads! Look here! Catch me before I reach the ground!' With no further ado, the Gryffindor flung himself off the goalpost, none too gracefully. Orla had caught him the last time, no doubt that these three combined would manage it.

[Reese Killigrew]

Reese was grinning, even though she missed slapping Cris, like she had wanted to do. However, Dino climbing up to the top of the goal post was still very impressive.

Though because that wasn't enough, the mad bloke then flung himself off of the goal post as well, with very little warning. Luckily, Reese had fairly quick reactions.

"Come on!" She shouted to the others, and sped off on her broom to catch her friend.

[Cristopher Arundael]

That announcement, alongside the rise and fall of horrified shouts of Dino's name, did catch Cristopher's attentio, and just about triggered a cardiac arrest. Quick on Reese's tail, both males who had their heads bent over Edward's camera abandoned the task to charge toward the figure plummeting toward ground.

"He's falling too fast!" Edward yelled, his voice rife with panic.

Cris squinted through the rain and sleet. His heart hammered deafeningly in his ears as he desperately trying to gauge the distance as his mind raced. Ed was not wrong. Dino was too heavy for one person and one broomstick to support even if one of them made it on time. He'd drag them down, and Merlin forbade they might by then already be too close to ground. Stopping him midair was no less dangerous, with how much speed and force was involved, and yet—

Abruptly making his decision, Cris reached into his soaking wet uniform for his wand.

Possible whiplash was better than certain death.

He aimed his wand and bellowed the incantation to the hover charm with all his strength.