"Yeah," Ford agreed, with a nod. "Muggles seem to think if you died in a particularly tragic way you're more likely to stick around as a ghost, I think. Like you're too traumatized to move on," he said with a light shrug. "Or maybe they don't really think that, but those make for more interesting stories so those are the kinds they tell. Anyway, there's supposedly a little boy, too, and the parents both died — one was murdered, I think — but they'll probably tell us the whole story over dinner, once we get there. And then we'll see what happens overnight," he said, with a grin. It may or may not prove frightening, but he was sure it would at least be eventful — the people renting this place out for ten sickles a room (Muggle equivalent) would not be able to keep people coming if the people who'd already stayed didn't walk away with some frightening stories.

"I don't think I'd want to be a ghost," he said pensively, in response to the second half of Lestrange's statement. "I guess maybe it'd depend on when I died. It's just — forever is an awfully long time to be hanging around," he pointed out. He could see some of the appeal, of course, because he spent a good deal of time talking with ghosts. Being able to observe the world and interact with it when you chose, but to absent yourself whenever you liked — being able to comment and advise but having no actual responsibilities. That part seemed a little appealing. And if he was going to be Herbert Fudge, or something, where he still had plenty of things to do even though he was dead, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But eventually everyone else he knew was going to die and probably not hang around as ghosts, so it had to be awfully lonely sooner or later.

  

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Set by Lady!

Cash grinned back, sort of excited to see what the muggles would come up with to scare them - while he was not-infrequently a wallflower in places that were more populated by muggles than his magical haunts were, he also did not usually end up interacting with muggles directly. So: this would be different. He tended to like different.

Sometimes I feel like a ghost already, hung on the tip of his tongue, but wasn't the sort of thing Cash wanted to be saying in The Three Broomsticks, wasn't the sort of thing he usually said to people at all, when he could help it. He kept it in. Maybe later.

"Yeah, me neither," Cash said instead, "Although if muggles were right about being able to talk to the dead - I'd be interested in that."

Cash heard from the dead, sometimes, (more rarely, now, than a few years ago.) But he suspected that was a side effect of Belphoebe tampering with his memories and therefor not necessarily something he ought to be voicing to people, even if he wanted to be their friend, unless he wanted to end up in an asylum possibly under a fake name.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

Ford raised an eyebrow at this. It was a strange thing to say, though not, he suspected, a strange thing to think. The only person he had been close to at any point in his life who was dead now was his father, and it wasn't as though he was particularly interested in having his father around as a ghost. If it were as easy as Muggles seemed to think, though, he might have a few questions for the man. The first would probably be alright, what the hell? but probably not all of them would be quite so aggressive.

(It would have been something to get Papa to admit that he'd ruined them, even if it didn't change anything — with how insistent their mother was that everything would just work out if they kept by it, and that Papa must have known what he was doing, known better than Ford... sometimes he wondered. He knew it wasn't his fault they were approaching poverty, and that he'd done the best he could to salvage things, but every once and a while, when his mother insisted, he still wondered: what if this was all his fault? What if she was right, and things would have been fine if Ford hadn't gone meddling in them? In short: would everyone be better off if Noble had been the head of the family instead of him? Or if he had died instead of their father?)

He shouldn't ask about the statement, and he knew that. It was too personal for their current level of friendship, and asking would open the door for Lestrange to ask him, which meant he'd have to lie about it because he couldn't very well get into the whole business about his father without saying far too much about the state of their family. And it would be rude to ask, anyway — but Lestrange had said it, so maybe he was sort of hoping Ford would ask.

He wished they hadn't stayed for a drink, and that they were on the country road that lead to the Derry manor for this conversation — it seemed like the sort of thing that was more likely to get an actual answer with a little privacy. But maybe Ford was reading too much into it, or projecting his own insecurities onto the other man. Maybe there wasn't an interesting answer at all. Well, then, why not ask?

"Anyone in particular you want to talk to?" he asked, forcing his tone to stay light. Maybe Lestrange would say something silly and superficial, like Alexander the Great, and Ford didn't want to drag them in a morbid direction if that wasn't what the other man had been getting at after all. "Or is it just the idea of it you like?"

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   Melody Crouch

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Set by Lady!

And maybe that had been as bad as feeling like a ghost would have, because Ford Greengrass asked about it, and Cash did not know how to answer.

There was the real answer, which he obviously could not give for a multitude of reasons, and then there were several fake answers, which would have been untrue but perhaps believable. His mother, who had been vapid and distance and perhaps-neglectful but who had also been his mother; his Uncle Tybalt, who was perhaps still alive but in Azkaban without his soul, and was famously rather crazy; some other far-flung historical answer which would have been believably Ravenclaw of him.

The truth: of course he wanted to talk to Eli.
The other truth: it was good it wasn't an option, because Cash was also afraid of talking to Eli.

"The idea of it, I think," Cash said, although he did not like and was not particularly good at casual lying when it didn't involve his family. He drummed his fingers against the tabletop and wished they were out of here; with the question and the lying and the thinking about Eli, he was feeling a little claustrophobic, and open skies tended to cure that for it. "I know that's a little odd."

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   Melody Crouch

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MJ made this!

"It's not," Ford insisted easily, though of course it was. It was in the same vein as that line in his letter, about wanting to be scared even though Ford had told him already that mostly these things were just silly, with Muggles mucking about trying to make what they believed were ghostly sights and sounds without even a touch of magic to help them. He didn't know what to make of it, really. Some Muggles were fascinated by death and spirits and things on principle, so he supposed the same might be true of Lestrange, but it was strange for a wizard who could just walk down the street and find an actual ghost to talk to to still find it so interesting in the abstract. Then again, Ford privately thought Muggles knowing nothing much about death was why they were so terribly invested in religion, and there were wizards who were just as fanatic about that, so what did he know? He'd rather spend an evening with someone who was a little over-interested in death than someone who wanted to talk to him about Jesus; Ford was quite content to go on Christmas and Easter and mostly avoid thinking about it the rest of the year.

He rubbed his thumb against the stem of his wine glass and considered what else to say. There were things he could talk about here, things that he knew a little bit about from work but mostly from his casual interest in the Muggle occult, that Lestrange might find interesting if he was really that intrigued by death. Ouija boards, knocking on walls to get questions answered in yeses or nos, phantom sounds on gramophones. What he really wanted, though, was to be out of the Three Broomsticks and talking out of earshot of everyone in Hogsmeade (though he had no particular reason he could have pointed to as to why; just a vague feeling that it would be better). So, instead of bringing up any of those things, he asked, "Are you almost ready? If we hurry we can get to the manor before sundown."

He took a drink of his wine, nearly draining it, and added with a playful smile, "It might be spookier to wander around in the moonlight, but I think we ought to find the place first, then go wandering."

  

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Set by Lady!

"Yes, just a second," Cash said. Thoughts of Ford Greengrass perhaps being iffy on teenage drinking aside, he raised his glass and drained the remainder. The waitress had brought the bottle to the table; Cash dropped the coins for it on the receipt she'd left, and checked the cork on the bottle before putting it, carefully, into a side-pocket of his bag. "I agree - better to find it first lest we get lost in a bog or - something," he said. Did Ireland have bogs? That sounded like the sort of thing Ireland would have. "Let's go?"

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"Yeah, let's," Ford agreed. He stood and finished off his glass and felt another small bit of relief that Lestrange had picked up the tab for the bottle without even asking if they ought to split it (Ford would, of course, have split it if Lestrange had even vaguely indicated they ought to, because appearances were, if his mother was to be believed, more important than reality when it came to financial matters — but it was a relief all the same).

They went through the floo at the back, Ford giving Lestrange the address and then letting him go through first so he could be sure they ended up in the same spot — if Lestrange ended up in some other random Irish city there was no salvaging the outing. A few minutes later they were in Londonderry, in a back room of a pub with mixed clientele, and then a few minutes later they were out on the road. The sun was still peering over the tops of the buildings, but it would be disappearing soon; February didn't leave much daylight after working hours ended. Not that he was actually worried about getting lost in a bog; the moon was almost full, which would give them plenty of light to see by, and once they got away from the main town they could get their wands out if they really needed.

"This way," he said, indicating as they reached the street. The wind whipped through the buildings with more force than it had in Hogsmeade, and Ford pulled his coat tighter around him. "Are you going to be warm enough? It's about a mile."

  

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Set by Lady!

Soon enough they were stepping out of an Irish pub and into the thin gray light of an Irish twilight. The landscape looked a bit like a flatter Scotland; bright green grass on rolling hills, a little bit rocky, with occasional trees dotting the landscapes as well as the stone buildings he'd expected of Ireland. It was windier, though; maybe it was their proximity to the river cutting through town, or maybe it was just the way Ireland was. The further they got from the pub - Cash supposed it had probably been on the main street, things seemed to be thinning of stores and street-traffic with more distance between them and the pub - the more he felt the wind as it cut between the narrow buildings and through the gaps in his coat.

Cash followed Greengrass down the cobblestone streets, really not wanting to get lost in Ireland because he didn't think he could handle the apparition distance back to England if he needed to. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat to keep them warm; Cash was used to being cold (it was usually colder on a broomstick, and Quidditch was an all-weather sport) but it felt different on the ground, especially when he wasn't focusing on controlling a broomstick, and when the temperature was only dropping as the sun fell further.

"I think so," Cash said. He was more at ease the longer they weren't at The Three Broomsticks and the further they got from Hogsmeade; Greengrass was really the only person in this whole town, maybe the whole county, that Cash would ever see again. "What about you?"

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Ford said, though he could already tell he was going to be cold by the time they arrived at the manor. Not his hands, tucked deep inside his pockets, but his cheeks and his ears and his wrists where his sleeves rode up a bit when he walked. Hopefully the dinner they'd prepared for them was a warm one. If not, there was always the bottle of wine in Lestrange's bag to add a little color to his cheeks.

"The moon's so big tonight," he observed, as they continued walking. "I think we missed the full moon by a couple of days. So if you hear any ghostly wolves howling in the woods tonight, you'll know it's just the Muggles trying to spook us," he added with a grin. Ghostly werewolves were probably more frightening than regular werewolves, from a Muggle point of view, but Ford knew quite well that ghosts could actually touch people, which made them quite harmless. The worst damage a ghost had ever caused was startling someone to death (which did happen - particularly with Muggles), but in theory if you were brave you had nothing at all to worry about. Not that Ford was particularly brave. He didn't think of himself as a brave person, anyway. He wondered if Lestrange did.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Set by Lady!

"Going to a muggle manor and finding a werewolf would really be something," Cash said lightly; this was the sort of place he imagined werewolves would like, though; the further they got from the center of town the more he could see wide open fields, low-hanging stone fences, and a seeming abundance of empty space.

The wind seemed to be cutting through the collar of his coat, and Cash tugged at it to try to close the gap. "The wind sort of howls already," he added, "They wouldn't have to try very hard if that's something they're going for." The sky was darkening further - still gray, though, as if the sun hung in memory - but Greengrass was right, the moon was big and almost-full and felt spooky, like something out of one of Cash's detective novels.

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MJ made this!

Ford nodded. A lot of these things were situational, or at least they were to start with, he suspected. A combination of an empty manor in mild disrepair and a cold, dark countryside with howling wind and someone who was ready to be scared, expecting it. He glanced at Lestrange out of the corner of his eye as his mind drifted back to that line from the letter. His mind kept sticking on it, because it had been so unexpected. Lestrange didn't seem like the sort of person who would want to be frightened — but then, Ford wasn't really sure he knew exactly what sort of person that was.

It was sort of a sad thing to say, was the thing. I would love to be scared. He couldn't really explain why he thought it was sad, but it struck him that way all the same. And he hadn't thought Lestrange would have anything to be sad about, necessarily. He was from a family so well established he was basically famous for his last name alone, and he played Quidditch, and he got to spend his free time doing whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted and he had no sisters to have to fret about. Sure, he was allowed to be sad if he wanted to be — Ford wasn't trying to police how people were allowed to feel about their lives — but it was perplexing, all the same.

"What sorts of things are you scared of?" he asked suddenly. Under normal circumstances it was far too personal a question, but if there was any time or place to ask something like that, it would have been here. They were on their way to a 'haunted' house, wandering alone on an abandoned country road, and talking about how the wind howled like a werewolf might. And Lestrange had started it, even if it had been days ago that he had written that line and even if Ford was reading far more into it than the other man had ever intended.

  

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Set by Lady!

It was a question that made sense, but it cut Cash short - literally, he paused walking for half a second and then took an extra few steps. What was he scared of? For so long, he'd been so afraid that his father would find out about his romantic proclivities that any fears after that happened felt like shadows of real fear. Besides that - for so long after Eli's death he felt like he was walking in a dream. It had been so rare that things punctured into that cloud to cause actual feeling that now that he was clawing his way back, clinging to things that felt interesting or different or like feeling, that he wanted to be afraid.

"Let me think," Cash said after a beat - he glanced up at the moon and then at Greengrass, and thumbed over the back of his pocketwatch. What was he afraid of now? He was afraid of Lucius, firmly and clearly - but he couldn't say that to Greengrass, or to anyone. He was not afraid of death, but of disappointing the dead. The answer came to him after another beat, and Cash swallowed before giving it.

The thought that he could lie had not actually occurred to him.

"I'm afraid of being trapped inside my own head," Cash said finally, "I don't know if that makes sense, but it's - real."

He was afraid of losing his mind, of losing the grasp he managed to maintain on it.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

When Lestrange said let me think, Ford assumed he meant let me think up a suitable lie. He wouldn't have blamed him. The question was too personal, and they didn't really know each other that well. It was the sort of thing people were supposed to lie about; people didn't actually go around talking about the things they were afraid of, deep down. When Lestrange answered, though, it didn't sound like a lie at all. If he was going to lie, he would have picked something else, Ford was sure. This sounded sad, too, but in a much more tangible way than the written line about wanting to be scared did. The implication, of course, was that Lestrange's head wasn't a very pleasant place to be. It was a desperate sort of comment, but Lestrange looked so calm when he said it, as if that was just as typical as saying he was afraid of spiders. As if it was normal to not want to exist in your own body, and that — the lack of trembling in his voice when he spoke, the evenness of his tone, the fact that he'd said it at all when they didn't know each other that well and he could have easily lied instead — was even more sad than the sentiment was on its own.

Ford didn't know what to do with this. His instinct was the comfort him somehow, but he didn't know how he would even begin out in the middle of nowhere where it was just the two of them and the setting sun and the too-large moon above their heads. What was the conversational equivalent of a warm blanket and a mug of hot buttered rum and a roaring fireplace nearby? That was what he wanted to give the other man — a cozy feeling, comfort, security. But he didn't know how, and the other major barrier was that Lestrange hadn't asked to be comforted. He had offered this response as if he expected Ford not even to react to it, and now any reaction he did have seemed wrong, like he was making too much of a fuss — turning nothing into something.

"Well," he said after a long, awkward moment. Only because he felt he had to say something, not because he'd figured out what to say. After a pause, he continued lamely, "I don't think you need to worry about that at this manor."

  

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Set by Lady!

The honesty of it made Cash feel itchy, especially because here on this empty street in a town where no one else knew him there wasn't any way to deflect. It was possible, he realized, that Greengrass would think he was utterly mad now - that wasn't a normal fear to have. He should have just said he was afraid of death; that gave people a normal thing to react to.

I'm not crazy, he wanted to say, but that might have been a lie, he wasn't sure.

"Oh, well," Cash said, adding some levity back into his tone, "I'm also very startled by the sound of doors slamming, which seems a lot more likely."

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

They were just going to move on, apparently. While it might have been nice to believe that this was due to Ford's ability to steer conversations away from awkwardness and in to safer waters, he knew better; they were only talking about something else now because Lestrange didn't want to talk about the first thing he'd said anymore. That added another layer, which made this whole conversation even more complicated than it already had been. Something he wanted to bring up, but didn't want to make out to be a big deal; something he would answer questions about honestly, but wouldn't elaborate on without prompting. Perfectly happy to just move on in the conversation, once again as though it was normal to say those sorts of things.

Surely he would have known if there was something actually wrong with Lestrange, wouldn't he have? He ought to have heard something about it — the other man was hardly an enigma, lurking on the edges of society. He was a Lestrange. He played Quidditch. He hung around at Black's. People who were off did not play Quidditch and hold memberships at gentleman's clubs, did they? On the other hand — accidentally arranging to spend a night alone in the middle of nowhere with a lunatic did sound like the sort of thing that would happen to Ford. He could almost imagine telling the story to Noble, after the fact.

"Yeah," he said, with a smile that was at least half forced. "Yeah, I imagine so."

He waited a beat, wondering if Lestrange would say something else. He was probably overestimating how long it was quiet, due to his sudden anxiety about the conversation, but he waited as long as he felt he reasonably could in silence, then blurted, "I'm afraid of disappointing everyone." His cheeks flushed, though he could probably blame it on the wind if he needed to. Almost sheepishly, he continued, "That's probably not going to feature in the haunted house either."

He didn't really know why he'd said it. The conversation felt unbalanced, maybe, between all these strangely intimate things that Lestrange kept saying, and he felt like he ought to offer something in return. And besides, if Lestrange did turn out to be a little unhinged, it wasn't like he was going to tell anybody.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Set by Lady!

"Oh," Cash said, because it was a fear he could empathize with - he was well past that, and had been for a while, but he could remember being afraid of disappointing his family. Being past that and being where he was, with Lucius hating him, was perhaps more peaceful. This was not something he could verbalize to Greengrass, probably - he'd already verbalized too much, and he appreciated in a weird way that Greengrass had shared something similarly intimate.

"For what it's worth, I think you'd have to care a lot less to be a disappointment," Cash said; that, too, was something far too earnest to be saying to someone he'd only met once before. He was really going to have to tone it down once they got to the manor, wasn't he? He usually didn't spend this much time with people, was the problem; it was harder for him to sustain normalcy over a spread-out period of time, especially when he wanted to be friends with someone.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!