A little more on this modal auxiliary verb DARE,
I consider myself an AmE speaker, and so, that the modal auxiliary past-tense form "
dared" doesn't sound quite right to my ear might be reasonable. But I'll try to work through that.
Note: In all examples, the
auxiliary verbs will be
underlined.
So let me first compare [modal]
auxiliary DARE to the [modal]
auxiliary WILL.
First the
[modal] auxiliary WILL. Some
present-tense examples:
AW1. He will return after all that.
AW2. Will he return after all that?
AW3. How will he return after all that?
Some
past-tense examples using aux WILL:
AW4. He would return after all that.
AW5. Would he return after all that?
AW6. How would he return after all that?
.
Now for
[modal] auxiliary DARE. Some
present-tense examples:
AD1. He dare not return after all that. (aux DARE restricted to non-affirmative contexts)
AD2. Dare he return after all that?
AD3. How dare he return after all that? (similar to OP's original)
Some
past-tense examples, using aux DARE:
AD4. He dared not return after all that. (aux DARE restricted to non-affirmative contexts)
AD5. Dared he return after all that?
AD6. How dared he return after all that? (similar to OP's original)
= = = = = = = = =
Suppose we look at the
lexical DARE. Some
present-tense examples:
LD1. He dares to return after all that.
LD2. Does he dare to return after all that?
LD3. How does he dare to return after all that?
Some
past-tense examples using lexical DARE:
LD4. He dared to return after all that.
LD5. Did he dare to return after all that?
LD6. How did he dare to return after all that?
.
And two more
lexical DARE examples:
LD1b. He does dare to return after all that. (present-tense)
LD4b. He did dare to return after all that. (past-tense)
.
.
Hopefully there aren't any typos in there, and hopefully there aren't any significant errors either.