"Yeah," he agreed, understanding entirely what Noble meant with the hand wave. Of course, having a ball before the Hogwarts year had ended did mean that Clementine probably wouldn't be able to attend. Not that she would want to, since she was showing so very little enthusiasm towards her whole future in general and particularly as it related to marriage prospects — too busy buying expensive books behind his back to worry about balls, at least for now.

Maybe if Verity convinced someone to propose to her in the next month, they could just pull Clem out of Hogwarts and make it her Coming Out, too. She'd certainly hate that, but — it would help significantly if he didn't have to budget for two balls, or another year of Hogwarts tuition. It would buy the two of them another whole season, probably, if they played their cards right... not that it was actually on the table. Verity didn't have any serious prospects, he didn't think — or if she did, she hadn't disclosed any of them to him.

"Clem's mad at me, by the way," he said with a flippant shrug as he turned his attention to his tea.