Dangerous seems to blow through life from one moment to another, with little thought to what happens in between. He carries himself with an air of nonchalance, his entire demeanour laid-back and confident. It is not a carefully constructed self-image; rather it just is the way he is. In this regard he is rather simple enough to understand. What you see is what you get. He goes to little or no effort to mask his disposition towards either his peers or his situation and by default, his initial response to people or circumstances he hasn’t yet formed an opinion on is his characteristic lop-sided grin and nonchalant manner. He is not particularly introspective, and for the most part does not lend himself to take things too seriously – with a few exceptions, of course.
He is not restricted by threat of consequence and is subject entirely to his whims. Having never been fond of the routine or the ordinary he is prone to spur of the moment decisions with no regard to their possible consequences, assuming that he’ll just take them in his stride when they rear their ugly heads. His spontaneity and impulsiveness are definitive traits of his personality, as he has never been one much for planning or organisation – the extent of his tendency to plan ahead is scheduling regular Quidditch practices, though even then he is not unknown for dropping impromptu training sessions on the rest of his team when the pitch is free and is known for taking some elements of this to the hallways and classroom (throwing things at his chasers out of the blue, for example – it’s not exactly a strange sight to catch the Ravenclaw beaters with their bats in the halls).
Hand in hand with his impulsive nature is his tendency to reckless behaviour. As unbothered by consequences and prone to spontaneity as he is it should come as no real surprise that a step further in this direction sees him often disregarding safety in favour of excitement, having little concern for the former and always chasing the latter. Life is too short to subscribe to the mundane and routine of daily life, you see. Even as a young child he was prone to putting himself in rather dangerous situations all in the name of good fun – taking more than the occasional tumble, and running afoul of a few magical creatures in his day due to his curiosity and need for excitement. This inclination of his transfers most apparently to the Quidditch pitch where he is known for his dare-devil body-on-the-line style of play, and the countless stunts he has pulled on a broomstick.
His interests have never lain within the classroom environment. Subsequently his intelligence has been overshadowed by his academic prowess, and his wit has never become widely recognised by any regard – but this does not mean that it can be entirely discounted. Throughout his years at Hogwarts Dangerous has maintained a trend of Acceptables across his subjects, with the occasional higher grade cropping up when a subject area has particularly taken his interest, despite his displays of seeming inattention during his classes. In actual fact, he is highly receptive and grasps on to ideas easily – were it not for his sponge-like mind his academic career would reflect an entirely different story, but instead he is able to maintain a decent standing without any excessive exertion of effort.
Matters that he holds a genuine interest in are, however, entirely different stories. His level of intelligence is perhaps most prevalent in the case of Quidditch. Though he does not quite have a natural flare for strategic thinking – his lack of foresight being his main hurdle in this regard – his devotion to pouring over playbooks and strategic texts somewhat makes up for this shortcoming. His strategies are a reflection of his devoted efforts and proof that he is not as entirely thick-headed as some may be quick to believe, though the decided jock-ish nature of his finished works only contributes to the overshadowing of his athletic strengths.
Quidditch is not, as surprising as it may be to those quick to judge him, the only thing that he is devoted to. He has a very strong devotion to his friends, of which aren’t really all that hard to come by. He does not display a haste to dislike his peers without the occurrence of any personal slight, and as a general rule he is either friendly or disinterested. Dangerous does not tend to differentiate between his friends and his acquaintances. Of course, there are those of his friends whose company he enjoys above most others and who he has an unwavering devotion and loyalty towards that is not easily rivalled, but to the vast well of acquaintances he has accumulated he extends a sense of loyalty towards, as well. He is unthinking in his tendency to jump to the defence of others, or take offence on their behalf, and does not take kindly to hearing those he is remotely fond of spoken of in ill regard.
There are exceptions to this, of course – mostly due to his competitive nature and almost childish sense of possessiveness. Having spent most of his life as an only child Dangerous never truly learned the merits of sharing – he never needed to. When his stepfather came along he was not inclined to have to share his mother with someone he didn’t approve of, and this notion often transfers across into his friendships. Competitive by nature he has a strong need to better others in areas that he is duly passionate about and as such is very easily prone to creating rivalries. These rivalries differ in nature, some being notably more friendly than others, but he is not a stranger to taking them to a more extreme level, especially in regards to Quidditch (which he is very insistent is more than just a game and should be treated as such).
In his friendships he exhibits almost a childish sense of possessiveness, finding it somewhat difficult to deal with his better friends having positive relationships with people that he is not particularly fond of. This comes from his competitive nature, and tendency to rivalries. His need to one-up others in this regard and inability to grasp the basic concept of sharing could have manifested in a more serious or sinister manner, but it is not in his nature to take himself particularly seriously and so instead is usually displayed in the form of something of an intense rivalry.
He also has a strong streak of stubborn bull-headedness. He is not prone to changing his mind about people or things, and very much ‘sticks to his guns’ once he has made his mind up – about anything. As such, for those who tend to challenge his views this can make him a nightmare to get along with. More unfortunately, it is near impossible and decidedly unheard of for him to reconcile his opinions for those who he feels have personally slighted him or has formed a dislike for. He is not prone to swallowing his pride in these areas, and any small concessions made on his behalf should be viewed as great victories given their rarity by nature.
He wasn’t
born “Dangerous Dai”. Rather, he was born the only child of Kendall and Bronwyn Llewellyn, the namesake of his paternal grandfather and father respectively. His parents were humble people; they did not outwardly stick out in a crowd and were quite content with the humdrum of daily life. Kendall Llewellyn was not an exciting man by any measure; he married the girl next door, fathered a son young, worked hard to keep his small family living in comfort, went bowling with the boys on Friday evenings and was always home by dinner. Having always been a sweet girl the young Bronwyn took to her new life as a housewife rather than a daughter with ease, finding the security and warmth that came with her new surname comforting as opposed to stifling and very content with the life her husband was establishing for their young family.
Not surprisingly, as a young boy and even a toddler Dai was something of a terror to behold. Alive with a superabundance of energy and a knack for mischief he was the sort of child who gave the impression of running before he was walking, incapable of slowing down for even a moment, and eager not to let a single second go to waste. For all of his uncanny ability to duck out of sight in the blink of an eye and find himself in places he shouldn’t be, touching things he shouldn’t touch there was, at least, one consolation – come dinner time he would be plum tuckered out and well and truly ready for bedtime, and a solid night’s sleep. He was a handful, yes, but she was incapable of looking at his cheeky smile and piercing blue eyes (Kendall’s eyes – Bronwyn was reminded, every time) without melting. He was a terror, yes – but he was their terror.
Dai was only five years old when tragedy struck at home. Perhaps it had been a particularly harsh winter, or perhaps his health had not been all he had thought it was – whatever the case Kendall Llewellyn fell ill with pneumonia. Stubborn, and incapable of witnessing his family fall on harsh times by his shortcomings, he continued to work for as long as he was physically capable of doing so - much to the distress of his wife. Inevitably, though, he became bedridden. Try as he might, Dai is unable to shake his memories of sitting outside his parents’ bedroom, hugging his knees in tight while he listened carefully for the sounds that marked his father (who really didn’t look much like his father any more – he was far too pale, far too skinny and had a distinctly sickly air to him) as alive. Regardless of the long, drawn out illness that his father had suffered Dai refused to believe that he was gone when he did, eventually, slip away.
For a long time the carefree air of innocence and child-like bliss was lost from a young Dai, who drifted through the months following his father’s death both confused and a little lost. People got sick all the time – and they got better, it was impossible to believe that his father was truly gone despite what all of the adults seemed to think. Of course, he was eventually forced to accept the truth – and became quite alarmed at the slightest sniffle near him, unable to understand the difference between the common cold and his father’s illness, quite convinced that they were one in the same. In the years following his father’s death he slowly returned to his former energetic and jovial state, though he was distinctly more attached to his mother than he had been before.
When George started coming around Dai reacted to him with bull-headed dislike. Quite truly there was nothing wrong with this man who had taken a fancy to his mother – on the contrary, he was exciting in ways that Dai previously had not thought an adult could be – but the problem lay in the fact that it was not his father who was making her happy. For the first time in a long time his mother was smiling and giggling, she hummed while she washed the dishes and spent a great deal more time in front of the mirror than he had ever remembered her having done. Stubborn, and a little selfish, Dai refused to accept that this man might become a permanent fixture in their life.
His line of work took him in and out of the country and Dai found himself hoping that each and every disappearance would be a permanent one. Without fail he returned every time, bearing gifts and stories from abroad that had his girlfriend’s bull-headed young boy torn between amazement and resentment. Not long after Dai’s sixth birthday George began to regale him with stories about a secret world that existed parallel with their own – a world of magic and dragons and flying broomsticks. Determined not to like this man who had wormed his way into his mother’s affections Dai met these stories with reluctance and disbelief, despite the unspoken part of himself that marvelled at them and longed to ask for more. As George became a permanent fixture in the lives of the widowed Mrs. Llewellyn and her young son the stories, though still farfetched, were told in a more realistic sense. A stubborn Dai refused to believe in the truth about magic until he saw it with his very own eyes, and even then continued to deny its existence some more.
A mother’s attempt to explain that she still loved her son’s late father fell on deaf ears – but convinced that her boy needed a father, as well as desperately longing for that old warmth of security and support, Bronwyn Llewellyn became Bronwyn Catchlove the summer of 1932. Bull-headed as ever, a seven-year-old Dai refused to accept his mother’s new husband. Unable to come to terms with the idea that he was not there to replace his father’s memory he refused to acknowledge that he was, indeed, a permanent fixture in their lives. From the day his mother said her new vowels his childhood changed remarkably. Their home in Wales began to undertook a world of change, transformed from a humble muggle home to a home with moving pictures and bubbling pots that stirred themselves.
As an expert on the complex and rudimentary construction and placement of curses, as well as the methods to their removal, George’s employ by the Department of International Magical Cooperation necessitated lengthy trips abroad on something of a regular basis. With Dai enrolled in the local elementary school it was hardly appropriate for George to uproot his new family each and every time and Dai found himself anticipating each trip with more fervour than the last. When his stepfather was out of the country their life regained some sense of normality again. In the breaks between terms George (as Dai insisted on calling him – never Dad or anything endearing) began to bring his new family along with him. Despite his refusal to admit that his stepfather was not as horrible of a person as he wanted him to be, Dai could not help but be impressed and excited by their travels. Returning each school term with new and exciting tales to brag about from abroad he began to display his obsession with the exciting, the enthralling, and the spotlight young.
At this point there was no reason to believe that Dai might display any traces of magic. Being a wizard was just one of the many things that he begrudged his stepfather for – one of the many traits that he proved to be more exciting than his late father, a notion that made him feel altogether guilty and ashamed. George was, by far, more aware of the undeniable signs of magic his stepson had shown since he first met him than mother or son. Curiosity drew him to reckless behaviour, even as a young boy, and it was almost miraculous that he managed to come out the other end of his adventurous stunts more or less unscathed – the stories that his mother shared seemed, initially, over-embellished and rather inconceivable. At this early age his first signs of magic had manifested in his uncanny ability to walk away from nasty falls and daring situations with little more than a nasty bruise or a few stitches.
His stepfather’s suggestion that he was a wizard (just like George, he grimaced inwardly) was met with intrigue from his mother and mixed sentiments on his behalf. It was exciting – but it also didn’t make sense. George was the wizard, not his father. It was a betrayal to the memory of his father, he was convinced, that he was more like this other man who had usurped his mother’s affections than he was the man who had fathered him. Despite all of the excitement and brilliance that George bought to the table as his stepfather he still found it impossible to reason that it was okay to like him, without betraying the memory of his father. Of course, Dai could no more deny that we was a wizard than he could keep himself out of mischief – his Hogwarts letter arrived, just like George had said it would, and he found himself swept up by the wizarding world even more so than he had seen since his mother’s marriage.
Throughout elementary school he had puzzled his teachers and mother alike – seemingly investing as little time as possible towards subject areas as dry and dull as mathematics and science, far more preoccupied with the more exciting ventures (illicit exploration of areas not exactly on school grounds, springs to mind), it always came as a wonder that he absorbed the amount of information that he did. His wit and intelligence was overshadowed by his lack of foresight and impulsive actions. With the Sorting Hat atop his head, slipping over his eyes and muttering nonsense in his ears, he didn’t have a clue which direction his sorting would take – though he was distinctly opposed to being placed in Hufflepuff, like George had been. His placement in Ravenclaw would be an endless source of amusement for many, himself included.
As a first year he was neither prone to shyness or nerves. Perhaps the magical castle was overwhelming to some of his fellow muggleborns, but it simply served to entice his curiosities and sense of adventure. He was not bound to any small group of friends, rather the contrary. An eleven-year-old Dai took to forcing his company on all manner of people – from his own peers to second year students that looked as though they were enjoying themselves much more than the nervous first years. He had never known restraint, and had no problem inviting himself into other students’ conversations and making his face known. He bragged of his latest travels, and asked an endless amount of questions that he had refused to ask George on principle. His endless source of energy and inability to abide by boredom saw him develop a habit of jumping between people – making a new ‘best friend’ every other week. Scattered and enthusiastic, it became obvious very quickly that he was not capable of sitting still for more than a moment at a time.
It was during this first year that he met Beardsley Whisp, a second year and a Hufflepuff who he decided was a near endless source of amusement. It was Beardsley who first took the time to explain to the fidgety first year the rules of Quidditch (he had never paid enough attention to George’s explanations, though it had surely come up at some point before his departure for Hogwarts). It was somewhat fortuitous that his first insight into Quidditch came the day before his first flying lesson – something that he had been anticipating since he stepped off of the scarlet train for the first time. To say that his first experience with a broomstick could have gone smoother would be a monumental understatement. Hovering a foot or so above the ground whilst he waited on some of his classmates, struggling to call their brooms to their hands, was something of a letdown. Without any consideration of the consequences he began edging higher and higher, all with the Professor’s back to him, preoccupied with another student. His height drew the eyes of those closest to him, and in turn of the Professor. Demanding he dismount this instant it was thrill of the height (which was still only a few feet, but hey that was something) and the intrigued faces of his classmates that ultimately made his choice for him. A characteristically lopsided grin he began flying circles around his classmates, picking up speed as he went and opting to ignore the cries of the Professor. Dizzy and disoriented he ultimately fell from his broom, earning a trip to the Hospital Wing, a month’s worth of detentions and a new nickname all at once.
And that was when “Dangerous Dai” was born. His first year involved a lot of things that he couldn’t have possibly comprehended before stepping foot onto the Hogwarts grounds. Some things, of course, will never change though. His class work was forever a second priority – done at the last possible moment with the least amount of effort required. He began to develop an unrivalled passion for Quidditch, front and centre at every match and soaking in every possible moment - checking out books on complex strategy that he couldn’t possibly hope to understand, and somewhat hero-worshipping the Ravenclaw captain from afar. An inability to consider the school rules (particularly those involving where students could and could not be) as anything more than loose suggestions saw him line-up regular detentions and become quite well acquainted with Pringle for a first year. With all the stories he returned home with his mother was forced to wonder where on earth he found the time to sleep.
He had always had a rather odd manner of striking up friendships. Spotting a small, bespectacled boy in the corridors twelve-year-old Dai had casually fallen into stride with him, informing him that he looked like Beardsley – only smaller and with glasses. This was all he needed to decide that the younger boy was worth befriending, and he took to Kennilworthy in the blink of an eye. To be fair, he had a habit of doing this with near anyone – and though his tendency to call him Beardsley Jr. and general extension of friendship might not have been fantastically tactful he did mean well. Popping up at random intervals it didn’t take him long to decide that Kennilworthy was top-knotch, finding the other boys mannerisms endlessly amusing and subsequently imposing his friendship on the younger boy. Not aware that, perhaps, it was not the most ordinary manner of striking up a friendship.
His early years at Hogwarts followed a familiar pattern. In his second year he became a reserve for the house team – getting his first shot on the pitch when one of the chasers was knocked off their broom midway through the Ravenclaw vs Slytherin match, subsequently breaking their arm. By his third year he was a rostered member of the team, having become rapidly obsessed with the game and putting everything else on the backburner for it. He took to hiring out thick volumes on strategy again, this time much more capable of understanding the terminology within them, and fell into the irritating habit of hassling the team captain at any given opportunity with ideas and waves of brilliance.
It was the summer following his third year that he was finally forced to, grudgingly, accept that George wasn’t going anywhere. The realisation was a long time coming, but it was his homecoming from Hogwarts that year that he first met the tiny bundle of pink introduced to him as his sister. Immediately his protective streak set-in, falling in love with everything from the bow fastened on her head to her small, pudgy fingers. Meredith was a million times cuter than any other baby – in his opinion, anyway. The summer was the first in a long time spent in its entirety at their Welsh home. After a great deal of pacing up and down the nursery several weeks into the summer a pubescent Dai sat his stepfather down at the kitchen table, setting him with a stern look and explaining in no unclear terms exactly how he expected his mother and baby sister to be treated, and the sorts of consequences that would come if he fell short in any way. His own self-confidence making him completely unaware that a gangly thirteen-year-old boy, complete with a cracking voice, was not the most intimidating of figures to a fully grown man.
In his fifth year he was named Ravenclaw Quidditch captain – something that was not at all surprising following the prior captain’s graduation. Taking the sport more serious than a lot of his teammates, very insistent that Quidditch is not just a game, he immediately assumed the role of the devoted captain. Since, he has been known for spending the greater majority of his spare time pouring over strategies and has been known for extending training outside of their designated pitch time. In an attempt to counteract sloppiness he has taken to throwing things at his teammates at random in the corridors, and even at times during class time, and has been known to make his beaters carry around heavy objects. Unlike many of his fellow captains he has adopted a lot of muggle training methods – using push-ups and sit-ups for discipline and often assigning laps of the Quidditch pitch. Needless to say, he has been something of a difficult captain over the years.
TAYLOR: 345
CORA: 265 
ALI: 250
llewellyn, dai
