Double Dog Dare! -- Episode 18
Catherine, 3 March 2002

In his unusually-long life, Albus Dumbledore had crossed swords with pirates on the Barbary Coast, slapped leather with cowboys in the American Southwest, and played quarters with Stephen Hawking at his Cambridge laboratory.

But, he was reasonably certain as he reinforced the Securing Charms that kept him and the lads from falling out of their contraption, he had never, up to this point, done anything so unremittingly adventurous -- if not outright foolhardy.

"What was that," he shouted over the noise of Nine-Inch Nails, as a piece of corrugated sheet metal flew off of the plane's side and fluttered down to earth.

"Oh, that?" said Fred cheerily, putting some Black Flag into the plane's spare CD carousel. "Nothing important, don't worry about it."

The headmaster abruptly stopped casting Securing Charms and began casting Structural Integrity Charms instead. Oh, Severus, I hope that you and Viviane and Fidelis can wait a little while longer, he thought to himself.

**

The Widow Tewksberry was in a fix now.

She'd managed to subdue Snape and the sword broad easily enough -- they were tied up together on the love seat she had Apparated over from that cute little furniture shop on Rodeo Drive -- but everything else had managed to go wrong.

First, Black had escaped her somehow, while she was distracted, and for some reason the Imperius-Cursed fruit she'd fed him hadn't kicked in yet. And now, that damned Fidelis, that little bit of fur-fluff, was literally running circles around her and showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

"Stop it this instant, you &%^$%^%^& piece of fur-fluff!", she shouted as Fidelis scooted behind her and lifted his leg on hers, marking her calf with a thin stream of urine.

She stamped backwards on where she thought he was, only to slip and fall as her Manolo Blahnik pumps lost their purchase in Fidelis' piddle-puddle. Her head hit the flagstones, knocking her out.

"Good boy, Fidelis!", Snape said as his dog came up to him and worried at his bonds.

"For once, I agree with you, Severus," smiled Viviane, albeit a touch tartly, as Fidelis' sharp teeth and claws made surprisingly short work of the boutique leather straps Tewksberry had used to restrain them.