Ford tried to ignore the traces of worry still edging his brother's features as he started repeating the same process of pointing out ingredients one by one. He was trying to act like he was fine, too, which meant he didn't have time to think about whatever had just happened. He pushed it to the back of his mind, to be revisited later when he didn't have a facade to put up, when he didn't have to project strength he didn't really have.

"... I think that's it," he said when they'd compiled the ingredients in the center of Noble's work table. He tried to replay the afternoon in his mind, locating each ingredient on the table in the order that Darrow had ordered him to find it on the snowy afternoon. He let his hands move over them as he thought through it all, like he was taking an inventory, though he didn’t touch anything. With a hesitant glance to Noble, he asked, "What do you think?"

  

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As they went, his curiosity overtook his concern for his elder brother.

Noble frowned at the assortment of ingredients they had assembled on the table when they were done. "This one is more unusual," he said, running through the options in his mind — none of the options were anything he would have expected Ford to run into pretty much ever. He wanted to ask what it had been used for, but if Ford knew, he wouldn't be asking. "Is there — do you remember anything about the ingredient amounts?"

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"Umm," Ford mumbled, trying to think. He moved one hand to his mouth and lightly chewed the knuckle on his thumb. He had tried to watch everything Darrow had done, but it had been hard to see too much without being conspicuous. And things had been a little hodge-podge in Darrow's makeshift workshop, so he hadn't actually measured out each one specifically. Ford felt like that might be good information to share with Noble, but when he tried to think of what to say his mouth started feeling weird again. By the time he'd thought through enough to have the phrasing in mind his tongue felt heavy again.

He opened his mouth and tried to say when Darrow made this he put this one in his hand, like he was measuring it against his palm, but what he actually said was nothing. Ford swallowed, tried again.

"One sprig of this one," he said, pointing. No trouble there, but he twisted it together with this other thing was stuck in his throat. Was there any rhyme or reason to what he was able to say clearly at the moment?

"I don't know about a lot of them," he said, moving back to retrieve the glass of water. He cleared his throat, took a drink. And it was almost a month ago now, he tried to say. He cleared his throat again. "I guess I don't remember."

  

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That all seemed disjointed and a little unhelpful, and Noble pushed his hand through his hair as he considered the ingredients. The combination was weird, but he thought he was onto something — a sprig of that, and some stuff that Ford didn't remember, about something that happened long enough ago that Ford didn't remember it, but was important enough that he wanted to ask about it.

"Most of these — strengthen other magic," Noble said, "So I think it'd be a potion like that. It's not the sort of thing people brew very often though." To be honest potions like that felt mostly pointless to Noble, who did not play around much with magic that wasn't potion-based. He'd had the NEWT grades to be a healer, but he'd never wanted that — just potions.

"It'd be easier if I could talk to whoever brewed it," Noble pointed out — he wanted to ask, and a few weeks ago he would have, but not things felt weird enough that he felt he couldn't. Still, he pointed it out — because obviously Ford was not brewing these potions if he couldn't figure out what they were.

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Ford let out a huff of what could have been laughter if he didn't feel so frustrated, before he had time to think better of it. "Yeah, I know," he said dryly. And you probably still do, he thought, but he knew better than to even try saying this. Whatever was wrong with him seemed to act up where Darrow was involved, which meant it had to have something to do with either the spell or the potion from that day in the blizzard. And Noble thought the potion had something to do with making things stronger — that was vaguely ominous, but Ford wasn't sure whether or not to believe it. It wasn't that he doubted Noble's experience with these things, but he knew he wasn't giving him much to work with. These might not have even been all the right ingredients, and he couldn't communicate anything else of value to his brother. He still didn't really think Darrow's potion could have been a pain potion, regardless of how sure Noble had seemed about it.

"Let me try again," Ford said, moving back towards the table with the ingredients. "I think I can do this if —" he stopped, this time not due to any sudden magical influence but rather because he didn't want to say too much. If his suspicion about this was right he couldn't tell Noble everything, and telling him only half of it would just make him worry, which Ford was going very far out of his way not to do. "Just let me try again," he concluded, with a slight flush to his cheeks.

  

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Noble frowned a little, because this was weird, and maybe about to get weirder. "Okay," he said, "When you're ready." This was very similar to something he would have said a few weeks ago — he was curious enough about this at the moment that he couldn't be sharp-edged. It was just so weird for Ford to be asking him questions about potions, and weirder still that he was asking about these potions. His brother was definitely into something, and it seemed it was over Ford's head.

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The following 1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post
   Fortitude Greengrass

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set by Bee

"Okay," Ford said, taking another breath. He thought it he said as little as possible, he could get through it. Maybe if they were phrased like instructions, instead of like he was recounting what had happened when Darrow had done it. In any case, he could get through this. If he tried to say something and it didn't work, he'd just change the phrasing and try again, because he needed to give information as much information as possible to figure this out. This potion was the more important of the two, after all. Ford was curious about what Darrow had been brewing for himself, but he wouldn't lose sleep over it. It wasn't Darrow's potion that had spurred that boggart from a few days ago. Ford needed to know what Darrow had done to him, though with everything that had been going on so far tonight he thought he was starting to get an idea.

"This one first," he said, fingertips touching one of the vials of powder. "Like a tablespoon or two, maybe. And then this — a handful of this. Then... this, and this, and — that one," he continued, pointing them out as he went. He hadn't seen the amounts on any of those, but knew he couldn't say it that explicitly, so instead he shook his head. "I'm not sure how much. Then the sprig of this one, but combined with this other thing here. And then a break before the rest of the ingredients. An hour, maybe."

  

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Noble watched Ford work through the steps. A tablespoon or two of the powder, a handful of the next one, and then the other few — and then a sprig, combined, and then an hour break. He hummed. "I think I've only brewed this once, so — take it with a pinch of salt," Noble said, "But I'm fairly confident that it's a potion people use to enhance recently cast spells, to make sure the magic holds. Like to strengthen a non-unbreakable vow." Although at that point the unbreakable vow would probably be significantly less work.

"Where did you even run into this?" Noble asked; he couldn't help himself, it was just so unusual that he had to ask even under the circumstances.

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Ford turned to watch Noble as he spoke, then let out a long, frustrated sigh. Enhancing recently cast spells — so he was back to square one, then? Ford didn't know what the spell was that Darrow had cast, and all he'd managed to learn through this whole embarrassing interlude tonight was that whatever it was, it was now stronger.

(Well, that hadn't been the only thing he'd learned, but he'd have to investigate the other thing sometime when Noble wasn't around to be worried by it).

It couldn't have been a vow of some sort, could it? Ford hadn't said anything while it was being cast, so it wasn't as though he could have accidentally agreed to anything. Were there vows that could be forced on someone without their consent? He supposed he'd have to go look into it and see. It wasn't the sort of thing he would have expected Noble to have any expertise in. He had accomplished everything he could in his brother's workshop, so it was time to go take his investigation of it elsewhere — except first, he had to figure out how to answer Noble's question.

He should have expected the question, really. Maybe he had expected it, when he'd come down here, but that had been before all of this muddled-words nonsense where he couldn't get anything out of his mouth when it had something to do with the whole interlude in the snow.

Ford bit one of his knuckles lightly and looked at Noble, trying to think what to say. Though maybe thinking about it as the whole interlude in the snow might offer him a bit of an out? He wasn't sure, but there was only one way to find out. The worst that could happen was that he would say nothing and Noble would worry, but Noble was probably already worried.

"You remember when I didn't come home for a few days, earlier this month?" he asked, eyebrows raised. Smooth sailing so far, but he doubted he'd be able to get much farther.

  

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"Of course I do," Noble said, a little gruff — but the whole interlude had stuck with him too much for him to forget any of it. Ford had been gone for a few days and Noble had been — sort of quietly a wreck the whole time, and then he'd almost killed Mrs. Crouch, and then he'd poisoned himself, and then he had very nearly come close to doing something he couldn't undo with Daffy the other day. All of this was to say that March had been a mess and Ford going briefly missing had really just been the start of it.

He looked expectantly at his brother. That couldn't be it, there had to be more to this.

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Ford raised his eyebrows and gave Noble a significant look. If it hadn't already been obvious from context, the look would have conveyed that this was where he'd encountered the potion. Obviously Noble would want more than that, but Ford wasn't sure how much more he could give him.

"I got snowbound in a herbologist's house," he began; he knew this part was safe because he'd told as much to his supervisor at work when he'd finally gotten clear of it. This next he was less sure of, but decided to try anyway: "I ran into —" Billy Darrow, but of course here the words stuck in his throat and his tongue felt heavy again, and he had to change course quickly and hope Noble hadn't noticed the way his voice had caught halfway through the sentence. "— someone I didn't expect," he concluded, crossing his arms and looking back at the table full of ingredients.

Noble was going to ask him who, and Ford wasn't going to be able to answer. What was he going to do? Lie? Gape at Noble like an idiot? Try to mime it out like a game of charades?

"That's all I can say about it," he said, tone suddenly brisk in the hopes of preventing the question entirely.

  

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Noble listened, although it didn't make sense — in a way it made sense, sure, because Ford obviously hadn't brewed this himself, and because Noble had been quietly wondering what happened during the snowstorm for weeks now. This didn't clarify much but it was something, and he rapped his knuckles against the workbench, twice, as if that would shake out more details. That's all I can say about it, and there was a time he would have pressed, but he wasn't sure he got to, anymore.

"Alright," Noble said, although he didn't like it, and maybe it was obvious in the line of his mouth. "If you have any other potions questions, ask me, alright?"

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Ford did have another potions question, which was: could you brew something that would undo this one? He wasn't sure he wanted to ask it yet, though. For one thing, it might open the door to other questions, and Ford had only just dodged the last line of questions he couldn't answer. For another, he didn't know whether he needed it, because he didn't know what the spell had done. It seemed like he might want to figure that out first so that he knew whether or not it was something he could live with for a while or whether he really needed it gone. Maybe it would fade out on its own, with time, even if the potion Darrow had given him had made it stronger. Maybe there was no need to get Noble involved in this at all, to brew an antidote that might or might not work (because Ford could only tell him so much about the original potion, not because he doubted Noble would be able to do it) and potentially use up some ingredient Noble couldn't afford to waste.

If they'd been having this conversation in the days immediately following the snowstorm, maybe Ford would have tried to say more, because Noble might have had a better idea of whether an antidote was worth it or not. After dinner, though, Ford was hyper-conscious of what he told his brother, and of how much of his own personal burden he shared with him. Best not to worry him unless it was necessary, and in the meantime it was hardly as though Ford was dying. He could take his time to figure out what to do next.

"Yeah, alright," he agreed with a nod. "Thanks."

  

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