Ford raised an eyebrow at the first question. He assumed from the tone that the man had to be making fun of him, but he really didn't understand what about. What did books have to do with anything? Ford had an impulse to look around and see if there was a stack of books somewhere in the room that he was missing, but stopped himself. He'd spent too many years in Hogwarts being bullied to walk so easily into a situation where someone could laugh at him for not being in on the joke.

The phrase drag me to the clank at least made sense, although it was no less ridiculous. Ford knew he didn't look like he was capable of dragging anyone anywhere, much less to jail. The worst that would happen might be that he'd get a fine levied against him by the Ministry, but even that was unlikely if he agreed to just stop parading his ghost friend around in front of Muggles (speaking of which — Ford really ought to be talking to the ghost friend in question, but hopefully he wouldn't mind, since it had been his idea in the first place for Ford to direct his inquiries to Dodonus).

"Only if you resist," he teased back, with a chuckle. "But seriously, you'll need to stop. Why not just send a living person out to listen in?" he asked, with genuine curiosity. Dodonus clearly had at least one other person involved in this, controlling all the noises during the performance. There was no reason why the same person couldn't go listen in on the beginning of the show.

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