That comment was so unexpected that it almost made him lose his footing; he slipped an inch or so on a tree root and had to shift his weight quickly to keep his balance. It was sort of a sweet thing to say, but where had it come from? How did Lestrange presume to know whether or not he cared?

He wasn't wrong, though; Ford did care, deeply. Sometimes he suspected it would be easier if he didn't. Noble didn't care quite as much, or at least he didn't seem to, and he seemed to have a much healthier relationship with this whole thing. But it also wasn't Noble's responsibility — he had the luxury of only caring as much as he wanted to, didn't he? And he'd done more than enough, and Ford couldn't have asked anything more of him, but at the end of the day, he could have walked away. Ford couldn't, whether he cared or not.

"Well," he said uncertainly; he had regained his physical balance but was still feeling as though he'd lost his social balance, and was ill-equipped to respond to this. "That probably depends on your perspective. But I'm happy to hear you won't be disappointed in me." He'd meant this last as a joke, but he wasn't socially cognizant enough at the moment to know whether or not it came across that way.

  

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Set by Lady!

I don't have the ground to stand on to be disappointed in people, Cash thought, but did not say, because that was probably filed idrectly under 'too intimate for people you want to be friends with.' He smiled at Greengrass' joke, instead - and was a little proud of himself for not accidentally saying anything else that was too dark or too much like a confession. Maybe he'd manage to maintain it through the evening.

Probably not, though.

"Oh," Cash said; still further up the road, but looming, he could see a largeish manor house with a gate. It looked about a hundred years old, although he knew nothing about architecture and would not claim to. Still, it looked like the house Greengrass had described - larger than Cash had expected, (Ireland threw off his expectations), and dark in color, muted. Ivy wound up the stone wall in the dark light and while it looked to an extent like just a manor, Cash could imagine someone feeling like it was haunted. Especially if people died there.

"Is that it?" Cash asked, speeding up just slightly.

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MJ made this!

Ford perked up when Lestrange pointed it out. He was looking forward to getting inside, for a number of reasons. It would be good to take his coat off and get out of the wind and warm up a bit, but it would be even better to have something else to focus his attention on rather than trying to keep this conversation with Lestrange from getting too personal and too disheartening. There would be a tour, he assumed, and dinner, and probably some vague story-telling from the Muggles about what they ought to expect from their night in the manor, and it might be hours before the two of them were alone again. Maybe then they'd start talking about fun things again — it was possible to have nice, normal conversations with Lestrange, he knew, because he'd genuinely enjoyed their conversation the first time around, and it hadn't gotten into any of his weird insecurities about disappointing people.

"Yeah, I think so," he said with a nod. "I haven't been before, but it looks like the right place. I don't see any other haunted manors," he pointed out, with a grin.

  

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Set by Lady!

"A neighborhood of just haunted manors would probably be very interesting," Cash replied, mirroring Greengrass' grin. This would be fun. This would be different, and would probably get him out of his head more than the walk had. At the very least they'd have muggles and ghosts to talk about, rather than - the things they were actually afraid of.

He picked up his pace, just a titch. Someone had evidently been waiting for them to come, because the gate swung open when they were still eight or so feet away, and creaked in a way that was pleasingly unsettling. Cash glanced at Greengrass, a wry smile on his face. "Well," he said, "Off we go?"

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MJ made this!