At the question Ford reflexively muttered, "It's nothing." This was so obviously a lie that he actually felt a little embarrassed about it after he'd said it, even though he'd put no conscious thought into it. It was just the sort of thing people said in response to questions like that, like when someone asked how he was and Ford answered fine when he very much wasn't. Cash knew him better than that, though. People couldn't go through all of the things they'd been through in the past year and not have moved beyond superficial pleasantries. He hadn't asked because he was being polite. He'd asked because he already knew the answer. It was silly for Ford to try and pretend nothing was wrong when Lestrange had already figured that much out.

"A lot of nothings," he admitted with a half-sigh. He set his hand of cards down, giving up on the pretext of the game, and reached for his glass of wine instead.

---