It was unusual that Ford had anything taking him out of the office this early in the morning. He had literally arrived at work mere moments ago, and was already flooing to someone's house. Normally he always sent an owl to warn them he was coming, because that was professional, and waited for either a response or a half-hour before he headed out. That, and he liked to schedule these things around the afternoon, so that he could work his lunch in either directly before or directly after. It was a nice change, to eat somewhere other than a Ministry break room — and it didn't involve the possibility of doors disappearing and being stuck in a room with Dorian Fisk, which was a bonus. This was a particularly important client, apparently — Ford had no idea what that meant, but probably that one of his superiors was either related to him or owed him money, and that got him priority treatment in dealing with his new spiritual resident. Even if that resident was... well, probably not even a real thing, in Ford's opinion. At least, he'd never encountered a ghost ashwinder before, and he was really hoping that he wouldn't today, either. Magical ghostly flames consuming the house every night could have been a bit of illusion work or a charm gone wrong — not his department, and probably much easier to fix than it would be to capture and relocate a phantom ashwinder.

The man who lived here had already said he would be out for the day, but that Ford had permission to search high and low in pursuit of the spirit, so when he arrived he set about doing that. He noticed with interest that it was snowing outside — the weather hadn't reached Hogsmeade, and it was novel for this time of year. He hadn't dressed for it today, but maybe it if lasted until tomorrow he could entice Grace or Verity to come down to London for some late-season ice skating.

The flames were most frequently sighted in the master bedroom, so that was Ford's first stop, but he found nothing of particular interest. The room directly below was attached to the large conservatory and used to store various plant-things — herbology had never been his specialty, but he thought as he wandered in that Noble might appreciate this room far more than he did. It was certainly a lot of stuff.

A noise startled him, and he wondered with some panic if there might be a real ashwinder down here somewhere, that was capable of knocking things over. Then he saw a fellow near one of the cabinets, and realized the noise must have come from him. "Oh, hello," Ford said cheerfully. He hadn't expected any company today, but he supposed in a house this big there must have been more than just one old man living in it all alone. "Do you live here? Oh —" he said, realizing that he recognized the person he'd walked in on, which answered his own question. "No, you don't. What are you doing here?"