Ford felt all the energy go out of him, and he might have deflated if he wasn't so tense. The idea that Dodonus might have any clues that would lead to his sister's whereabouts had been a slim one, but he'd been holding onto that hope for the past three hours, so it still hurt to have it wrenched away. He was left feeling, just as he had since he got the news, powerless. He hated it.

Tycho was trying to usher him further inside, and Ford's first reaction was to jerk his arm back before the other man could touch him. He regretted it immediately, and pressed his hands to the sides of his forehead with a miserable frown. It wasn't Dodonus' fault that he didn't have more information, just like it wasn't the aurors fault that they couldn't make Verity appear out of thin air, and expressing his frustration here wouldn't help bring her back. There was, once again, nothing he could do to help his sister.

But if he'd been paying attention last night, he could have. There wasn't anything in that stanza to clue Ford in to the fact that it was his sister Dodonus had seen, but if Ford had been a little more engaged he might have been able to figure it out. He could have asked what she looked like, or where they were, and maybe he would have put the pieces together and been able to do something before it happened.

"It's my sister," he admitted, stomach knotting. "The girl you saw. It's my sister."

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