Ida didn’t need his help getting steady, thank you very much. Although when his hands took her shoulders, and surprise registered on his face,  she felt… no compelling reason to move. Instead a little surprised at his surprise, and lack of his inevitable snide response. Instead he seemed a little… bothered by what she mentioned. She could see as the thought about the murders slowly filtered from the sound in his ears all the way into his brain.

My how things have changed from their very first encounter, when she threatened to shoot his bollocks off.

Though Ida kept her frown as he talked about being scared, her tense shoulders eased a fraction under his grip. His sentiment was utter nonsense? But it was an endearing thought, and almost as passably-charming as the apparent concern he laced it with. The former Ravenclaw had very little evidence to inspire confidence in what he could possibly do, if it ever came to something so serious. Save for, maybe, throwing himself in front of her. But why in Merlin’s name would he do something like that? They were loose-friends, surely, but also still basically acquaintances, and Ida knew very well how protective he was over his kids. The same way Ida was over Tao (though Tao was bright and resourceful enough to go on if it came to it, and at least he had Long…). Tucking away the morbid thoughts, Ida resolved that nothing could happen to them. It was in neither of their natures to go down without a raging hellfight.

But, it would help if Cliff was maybe a little less... Well. Just a little less. He was laughing again, now at the perfectly rational thought of reconnoitering a prospective break-in. It was enough to draw another eye roll from Ida, but a tiny smirk betrayed that she wasn’t much surprised. She supposed that he had a point, and its not like the basic tenets of criminal activity ever really crossed her desk in years of rigorous academic study.

“You forget that you have a pretty, intelligent lady of good social standing by your side,” she pointed out teasingly. “Haven’t you ever heard of the trojan horse story?” Admittedly, when it came to ladylike wiles Ida had a tendency to depend more on her friends to accomplish the job. It was not something that came very naturally to her, but silly Cliff-dog didn’t need to know that. The man seemed to have a different sort of plan anyway, and startled when he drifted off with minimal warning. With a nervous glance around first – the area was rather sparse and those around seemed occupied – Ida hastened behind him. 

Hovering somewhere behind his left shoulder, the former Ravenclaw got a good look at the brillance that was this alleged natural-born criminal. And she did not try to hide her grin over it, though she felt very gracious over not laughing out loud. They were trying to be bloody fucking covert, and all that.

Though they were doing a shit job of it, it seemed. When Cliff leaned back to mutter his request into Ida’s ear, the man at the front finally rounded to notice them.

“Oy, have your tickets?” he called out curiously to them, eyeing Ida first with a pleasant enough smile but Cliff with… uh, not-really-one. “This man bothering you, miss?” he inquired thoughtfully, to which Ida bashfully bowed her head. Ha. What an oddly strange and difficult to answer question.

“Oh! No, he’s– er, I have our tickets right here,” Ida bumbled through her not-explanation for whatever Cliff was, throwing the man what she could only hope was a demure girly smile as she fumbled with her purse to retrieve some… tickets. Honestly, she could have probably bought them like normal people? Though she was rather short on change today, and on a very fixed budget as it was, so the thrill here was… compelling enough.

Discreetly Ida slipped out her wand, and before the man could so much as blink she proffered a careless swish at him. “Confundo,” she intoned quietly, emphasis on the second syllable to make it sound like f-oooo-un. One fix at a time – Cliff’s ridiculous little wand spaz wouldn’t have amounted to so much as a blip if he said it properly, which was surprising because with such strong arms she expected him to have better hand eye coordination–

Shaking the ridiculous thought, Ida spared the ticket man a quick assessment. His eyes were satisfyingly crossed and mouth fell open, tongue lolled out. Ida turned her gaze meaningfully over to Cliff,“Think it worked?” she asked in a faux-lilt of naiveté. Then she took Cliff by the hand herself, dragging him behind her as a makeshift buoy of reassurance for their venture into the mirror maze.

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