Ben's single room at Excalibur was not exactly what his brother might have considered an ideal living situation at the best of times, and things had only gone very steeply downhill in the two days since Ben had decided he needed to extricate himself (as painfully as humanly possible, apparently) from the princess' life. After the scene at the Three Broomsticks he'd decided it was probably better to lie low for a while, in case anyone decided to send him more howlers. Luckily, he had room service included as part of his club membership, so he could just tell the house elves to bring him up more booze and then it would appear, like magic.

That was mostly what he'd been doing for the past two days. Booze.

There were several empty bottles around the room on various tables, and a general feeling of chaos. Ben was on his bed when the knock came at the door, still half-clothed from the day before (the house elves did not insist on much in the way of decorum, but you did have to at least be clothed to go downstairs and have them send you more alcohol). It seemed to him very early (though it probably wasn't), and he barely forced his eyes open as he managed to get a pair of pants on and then answer the door.

He had no preconceived notions of who might come knocking at his room at the club this early, but if he had been expecting anyone, it certainly wouldn't have been Aldous. He was more stunned than anything, so it was easy for his older brother to brush past him into his room. Ben wanted to ask what he was doing there, but his head hurt and Aldous was apparently going to answer the question without it having to be posed. His explanation, though, did not really answer anything at all. Rubbing at one eye, Ben asked hoarsely, "Who's Mrs. Abercrombie?"