"Okay," Ford said quickly, not wanting Noble to get the idea that he was at all planning to push the issue. To be honest, he was relieved. He'd felt like he had to ask, given the night that he'd just had with Cash, but there was nothing Ford wanted less at the moment than to hear Noble talk about some girl he'd fancied. If he had to stand here drinking coffee and nodding sympathetically while Noble described the way the sunlight reflected off this girl's hair or something, he really might not survive it, which was problematic because he still had a dementor locked in a wardrobe to deal with at some point today. This conversation was supposed to be tying up a loose end so that he could focus on it more completely, but Ford hadn't really expected it to go this route and now nothing was getting tied up at all. Instead, he just seemed to be collecting more frayed strings.

"Sorry it ended up this way," Ford said, cupping his hands around his coffee mug and half-shrugging his shoulders, as if it indicate that he knew this was insufficient. "All of it."

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   Noble Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

Noble shrugged back at Ford, same gesture, not sure what to do otherwise. "Thanks, I guess," he said, "I'm sorry about what happened with the potion." He hadn't meant it. He still needed to figure out which ingredient was poisoned but it had all gotten delayed when he was mailing people samples and trying not to think about Daff, and he had not tested any of them. Maybe he should wait — maybe he shouldn't do it at all — certainly he should wait until after Grace's Coming Out Ball. Not because he thought anything could go wrong, because he didn't, but because it was a lot to balance potioneering experiments with their sisters' romantic futures.

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set by Bee

The potion. Right, they were back to where they'd been a moment ago, back to where Ford had expected this conversation to go. On the one hand he was relieved, because he didn't know what to say about Noble's girl and just thinking about things he could have said made him feel terribly awkward. On the other hand, he didn't want to rush past it too quickly and give Noble the impression that he didn't want to talk about it (although he didn't), or that they couldn't talk about it, if something happened in the future and Noble needed Ford to help with something, or even just listen. This felt like too quick of a transition away from the subject, since Ford was still trying to wrap his mind around it, still reeling internally from the initial revelation, but he didn't know what else to say about it. It's probably for the best came to mind, but if Noble had ended it a year ago he already knew that, and it would do neither of them any good to say it. And it wouldn't make it any easier to see her around town, Ford didn't think. Not that he had any first hand experience with this sort of thing. He’d so far avoided seeing Dorian Fisk at all since their moments together, but Ford knew he'd have to see him sooner or later given the proximity of their workplaces and overlapping social spheres. Whenever he did, he doubted it was going to be terrible, to borrow Noble's word. There was a world of difference between a boy you'd kissed once and a girl you were going to marry (or thought you were going to marry, anyway).

There was maybe some solace for Ford (none for Noble) in his brother's earlier statement: it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. People didn't tend to get married at twenty-two, and there were reasons for that that went beyond just finances, so maybe this wasn't destined to actually happen, anyway. That would be no comfort to Noble, if he still felt miserable about her, but a good deal of comfort to Ford. It was easier to live with the idea that telling Noble about everything after Papa died had only put an end to a childish crush that should have been ending soon anyway than it was to stomach the notion that this had really been the girl Noble was going to marry and it was Ford's fault she was inaccessible now. But — a year ago for Noble and four years ago for Cash were more or less the same moment in life, and Cash had been in love then. He'd been so in love that losing them had opened up a hole in the middle of his chest that nothing else could fill. So it wasn't necessarily a given, that this had been childish and foolish and Noble would eventually recover from it with only the passage of time to help him through.

Which brought them back to doing reckless things with potions.

"You can test things on me," Ford said, his tone stronger than it had been for several minutes now as they'd meandered through girl talk. "It's your work and if you think it makes more sense to test things than to replace them then — alright, fine, okay. But if there's a chance it could make someone pass out then giving it to the one person in this house who knows how to brew an awakening potion is stupid," he pointed out. "I'm not going to try and tell you what to do with your potions again, but... let me help."

  

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This was the second time in the last few weeks that someone Noble cared about offered to test potions for him, and he didn't like it any more the second time.

If the tester was Noble he could control it, take a calculated risk; if it wasn't Noble he couldn't. He adjusted his grip on the mug again. He hadn't wanted to test things on Daff and he didn't want to test things on Ford, either, because — well, if anything happened to Ford he would never forgive himself. But he couldn't say that, because then the question was: why could Noble forgive himself if something happened to him?

And the answer was that it would be his own fault, and he knew the risks, and he was careful. And nothing bad had happened before. But Ford did not quite know the risks.

"I don't think I'm going to test anything anymore," Noble said, although he wasn't sure if that was true, but it was — too early to think about this too hard, and too early to fight about it. "But I'll — keep that in mind. Alright?"

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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set by Bee

Well, that was a relief — if it was true. Ford didn't typically have to factor into his mental calculations that Noble might be lying to him, but after being surprised by all of this in the first place after dinner (at which point it had only come up, apparently, because Noble had passed out), he'd been reconsidering everything lately. By now, he was in the habit of mistrusting anything Noble said or did, although he wished he wasn't. It was like worrying about Grace talking to men — he wished he didn't have to care about that, and have his good relationship with his sister sullied by something that didn't affect him, but now that he was in charge of getting her married it did affect him, and he did have to worry about it. If things had been different, maybe Ford wouldn't have had to wonder whether or not Noble was lying to him. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Now, though, it mattered a good deal, because Ford had no intention of letting him go.

"Alright," he agreed. "But tell me if something's wrong, alright? I know it's — your work, and your life, and everything, and I'm sorry I tried to — parent you," he concluded rather sheepishly. "But I want to help. I can help," he said with slightly more strength behind the tone. "— if you tell me what's going on."

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   Noble Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

"Alright," Noble said, smiling sheepishly. There wasn't really anything else to tell, he thought — unless he wanted to get truthful about the thing with Daffy, and he really, really didn't want to do that. And there was the suspiciously empty vial of witches' ganglion, but Noble didn't want to talk about that, either — not at early in the morning, and not when they'd had a weird conversation about potions so recently, too.

Which — reminded him. "You know you can tell me things too, right?" Noble said.

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Ford turned his attention to his coffee to avoid looking at his brother for a moment. Ford had told Noble things — he had been in the habit of telling him everything — and that had led them to the dinner party, with Noble collapsing on the table. So, sure, he could tell Noble things, except that he couldn't, because he didn't know how Noble was going to process them or how Noble was going to handle them, and it wasn't really fair to Noble to push this stuff off on him anyway. It was Ford's shit. His inheritance.

"Yeah," he said, taking a sip of coffee. "Of course."

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Hm. Noble shifted his positioning again, wishing that he was a little more awake for this — he always felt like he looked like a child when he first woke up. "Not even," he said, "About that potion?"

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set by Bee

Ford's eyebrows raised in surprise at the mention of the potion. He probably ought to have expected a question about it sooner or later, because he knew that whole interaction in the workshop had been weird, but he hadn't been expecting it right now, particularly. Ford had gotten in the habit of pushing it as far from his mind as possible most of the time, until the boggart had gone and stirred it up and reminded him of how unresolved it was. But he didn't have time to sort it out, right now. He particularly didn't have time to sort it out when he was still trying to figure out what to deal with Cash Lestrange's dementor.

"Oh. I can't," he explained, then realized how that sounded coming directly off from the conversation they'd just been having. "I'm not trying to be cagey, either. I can't." He cast around mentally for a way to explain this, since he knew Noble was unlikely to accept just that as an answer (or unlikely to accept it in good faith, anyway). After a second he gestured at his coffee cup, then took an exaggerated gulp. He raised his eyebrows in Noble's direction in a meaningful way, wondering if he understood.

"...so I can't," he concluded, expecting any number of questions to follow this.

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Set by Lady!

Noble's eyes narrowed, and then widened.

Ford couldn't tell him. Ford had run into someone he hadn't expected, and he had encountered some potions he had no right encountering, and now he couldn't tell Noble.

"Did someone use magic on you?" he asked, feeling more awake than he had for this conversation so far — and more than a little defensive of his elder brother.

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set by Bee

Noble seemed to understand what he was getting at, despite the impromptu mime job, and he didn't seem upset that Ford hadn't told him earlier. His brother neither being angry with him nor thinking him an idiot was such a relief that Ford momentarily forgot to concern himself with trying not to worry Noble with too much. He nodded enthusiastically to the question (his enthusiasm directed at Noble understanding, not having had magic cast on him against his will, though that might not have been entirely clear).

"But it's —" he started, then hesitated. He shrugged his shoulders emphatically and raised one palm, to indicate he hadn't recognized the spell.

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Set by Lady!

Noble squinted, confused at the gesture. He knew that Ford liked puzzles, but this felt like — not a great time for puzzles. It took him a beat, but he thought he got it. "Weird magic?" he tried, because that was his best guess — for the shrug, and the gesture with Ford's hand.

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set by Bee

"Right," Ford agreed with a nod. That wasn't exactly what he'd been trying to convey, but it was close enough. He didn't recognize the spell, which meant it was probably weird, right? Then again, it wasn't as though Ford knew very many spells intended to be performed on other people, so he didn't have much to compare it to. He didn't do that in work, and it had been seven years since he'd last been in a charms classroom, so even if it was covered in the Hogwarts curriculum he might not have put it all together.

"So I can't talk about it," he concluded, with a vague shrug. "Last time I tried my mouth went all —" rather than finding an appropriate word for a descriptor he made another gesture, waving his hand dismissively near his mouth and sticking his tongue out briefly: blegh. Having done this, he took another sip of coffee. "And that's all I know about it. If it's doing anything else, I mean, I haven't figured it out yet."

He probably should have sounded more concerned about this than he did, having unknown spells and unknown potions impacting his day-to-day life, but it was hard to muster the appropriate sense of dread to infuse into his tone. Particularly since this really hadn't been an issue for him, for the most part, and he'd just come off of a whole evening spent thinking about Cash Lestrange and his dementor-generating abilities. This seemed fairly trivial by comparison.

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   Noble Greengrass

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Set by Lady!