22nd March, 1894 — Noble’s Workshop, Bartonburg

“I’m sorry!” Jemima exclaimed, as she ducked in through the workshop door at the bottom of the garden – because she hadn’t meant to spring her presence on Ford’s brother in the middle of the day whilst he was working, not at all. (She had never meant to spring her presence on any of his family to begin with, but – that was hard to avoid entirely, being left in a house with them every day of the week.) Jemima lowered her voice a little, uncertain. “There’s just a ghost in the garden, and I –” she trailed off anxiously.

She hadn’t wanted him to see her in the garden in case it meant she ended up roped into an awkward conversation with him, was the truth. This one had been at the wedding, so he must know Ford. But she was not even altogether at ease with Ford’s family yet, let alone his... ghost friends. So. Hiding was not very mature, but it seemed like the slightly less painful option. In an honest plea, she added: “Do you mind if I stay here for a minute?”

Jemima hadn’t seen the interior of the workshop where Ford’s brother – Noble – worked for more than a brief look in, anyway. So he didn’t even have to talk to her, really; she could just loiter quietly in the corner and look around and cross her fingers that the ghost drifted away out of the Greengrass garden again. She wouldn’t be a nuisance.

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Noble Greengrass/Cassius Lestrange

  

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Noble was brewing an illegal abortion potion; he startled at the intrusion of Ford's wife, and blinked at her. He had an instinct to kick her out. But that would only be weirder, and might beg more questions, and despite his territorial instinct — he could emphasize with staying away from one of Ford's pet ghosts.

"Barnaby Wye?" Noble asked, with a sympathetic grimace. He dropped a sprig into the potion and gave it two counter-clockwise stirs. "You're welcome to stay in here, he's — the way that he is." If he was going to let Jemima Farley be in here, he ought to keep up a conversation going with her — he could distract her until Wye was gone so that she wouldn't notice anything odd about the potion he was finishing.

  

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set by MJ

Jemima nodded furiously, though in truth she wasn’t sure – she had not considered Ford’s ghost friends a particular priority in the uphill battle of getting-to-know-her-husband, and she was now possibly deciding this a mistake. Still, getting to know his brother had to be a more comfortable task, so – she smiled gratefully, and glanced around the workshop, moving to hover somewhere she thought most out of his way without seeming like she was lurking in a corner.

“Thank you,” she added, squinting at some of his ingredient stores and then over at his cauldron. She had only taken Potions until OWLs, so she didn’t have much of a head for actual potion-making, but genuine curiosity was easy enough to muster. “What are you working on today?”

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"It's a beauty potion for a debutante client of mine," Noble said, with a crooked smile. The lie came easily — no one in his family knew potions, and he expected Jemima Farley to be largely similar. (Maybe he should ask, though? She'd asked him a question. They should get to know each other.) "Do you have interest in potions?"

  

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set by MJ

The answer surprised Jemima enough to forget that she was intruding, getting underfoot like a child in the midst of people doing more important things – but a beauty potion! For a debutante! The question on the tip of her tongue was to ask whom it was for, because that would be doubly interesting, but – potioneers were probably entirely confidential about things like that, and she would seem like a petty gossip.

(Her reputation was low enough already without her new in-laws thinking even less of her.)

“What kind of beauty potion – what does it do?” she asked instead, feigning a more academic curiosity (although maybe she could guess who was buying it that way). “I don’t have any talent at making them,” Jemima admitted, with a sorry smile; she would not trust herself to get it right, “but I’m interested, still.”

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Noble's first instinct was to make an arch joke — it encourages thinness or some such nonsense. But he didn't want word that he was selling those potions going around, especially because they usually resulted in serious illness if people used them longterm.

"It encourages eyelash thickness and growth," Noble said, with a light laugh. "She's been taking small doses for two seasons now." (This was the second abortion potion he'd made for this woman in two years — Noble was starting to consider suggesting that her husband finish somewhere else.)

  

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set by MJ

Eyelash thickness! She had imagined him making terribly dull and generally unsexy potions, like cures for boils or anti-rash salves, the sort of thing one got at the apothecary or at the hospital. But this was rather more interesting to her. She tried to guess the identity of the debutante – perhaps one of the Malfoy girls, with their pale hair and complexions, needed the help? Or it was someone who had particularly luscious eyelashes now. Jemima wracked her brain, trying to think whom she might have envied before. Perhaps Anandhita Pomfrey, or Willa Kensington. They both had excellent eyelashes, potion or not.

“Oh! I shouldn’t mind trying that myself,” she said, with a smile that was only half joking, “if you ever accidentally make an excess. What else do people ask you to brew?”

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She seemed to have bought it. Maybe when he did brew that potion, Noble would make her some. "Things to clean up their complexions," he said, "Salves for any lines or wrinkles or scars — enhanced powders and roges for the girls who dabble." None of them were supposed to be heavily made up, but Noble had started suspecting years ago that all girls had something on their faces.

"Lip dyes," he said, "And — mild love potions." Not amortentia, that could get one in trouble — and Noble liked love potions less than he liked abortion potions, but he still brewed them.

  

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set by MJ