When Lestrange said let me think, Ford assumed he meant let me think up a suitable lie. He wouldn't have blamed him. The question was too personal, and they didn't really know each other that well. It was the sort of thing people were supposed to lie about; people didn't actually go around talking about the things they were afraid of, deep down. When Lestrange answered, though, it didn't sound like a lie at all. If he was going to lie, he would have picked something else, Ford was sure. This sounded sad, too, but in a much more tangible way than the written line about wanting to be scared did. The implication, of course, was that Lestrange's head wasn't a very pleasant place to be. It was a desperate sort of comment, but Lestrange looked so calm when he said it, as if that was just as typical as saying he was afraid of spiders. As if it was normal to not want to exist in your own body, and that — the lack of trembling in his voice when he spoke, the evenness of his tone, the fact that he'd said it at all when they didn't know each other that well and he could have easily lied instead — was even more sad than the sentiment was on its own.

Ford didn't know what to do with this. His instinct was the comfort him somehow, but he didn't know how he would even begin out in the middle of nowhere where it was just the two of them and the setting sun and the too-large moon above their heads. What was the conversational equivalent of a warm blanket and a mug of hot buttered rum and a roaring fireplace nearby? That was what he wanted to give the other man — a cozy feeling, comfort, security. But he didn't know how, and the other major barrier was that Lestrange hadn't asked to be comforted. He had offered this response as if he expected Ford not even to react to it, and now any reaction he did have seemed wrong, like he was making too much of a fuss — turning nothing into something.

"Well," he said after a long, awkward moment. Only because he felt he had to say something, not because he'd figured out what to say. After a pause, he continued lamely, "I don't think you need to worry about that at this manor."