It took everything Ford had in him not to visibly flinch when she directed the conversation back towards animagi, or more specifically his potential interactions with them. The best he could hope for now was that the potential connection had been too interesting for her to move past, not that she had seen through his hasty attempt to change the subject and was now suspicious of what he didn't want to talk about. He hadn't gotten the impression so far that she was the sort to be overly suspicious or to pry, but that didn't mean anything. First impressions could be deceiving, especially at society events when no one was inclined to be too honest about themselves. Here he was as a case in point this evening.

"Well, perhaps we'll have to put it down to my poor academics, then," he joked weakly, about the professor. He really had no opinions on Transfiguration teachers whatsoever; he'd only been seeking a distraction, and it apparently hadn't landed.

"No, not really," he said in response to her question. He bounced on the balls of his feet once, wondering what to say about Tycho. "Just one. A — friend. I wouldn't want to do anything to him. It was just a joke." This was not a subject Ford wanted to linger on, but it took half a second to work out how he could change the topic once again. Then he struck on it: "I'm not bad at convincing hard-to-control beings to cooperate, though. I work in Spirit Division. That's more or less our most essential job skill."

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