He needed to get it together. He did not at all feel the urgency of getting it together, but he knew, objectively, that laughing at his sisters outright was not a normal thing for him to be doing, and through his mother's little lecture he managed to approximate some level of appropriate mild boredom. He couldn't be too amused if he was going to get through this.

"Grace," Noble said with a little wave of his hand; he successfully contained the comment he thought of - are you trying to blend into the wallpaper tonight? - because it was inappropriate, so that was another point in his favor. The right side of his mouth twitched up, though.

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set by Bee

Ford rolled his eyes at Mama's comment about marriage, because he had basically decided he'd never be able to marry and he thought everyone else in the room at the time that the comment was made — Mama and Noble — would understand why. He couldn't even really afford to look after Mama, even if he did manage to get each of his sisters married. There was no way he was inviting someone else into all of this. Not, anyway, for anything more substantial than dinner, and when Grace returned and went straight to the table he was again regretting having even done that much.

"He's not even here yet," he called to his sister from the other room. He had risen from his chair and made himself a drink while waiting for her and Verity to reappear, and while listening to his mother casually berate him and Noble, but had remained in the parlor. He'd thought to remind Grace that she ought to be prepared to greet the guest before taking her seat, but thought better of it. Lestrange probably wasn't going to care about standing on decorum, and if they could all be spared Grace trying to manage a — well, gracious — introduction, that might be better. Despite his offhand comments earlier, though, Ford did imagine Grace would have to say something at some point, so it was only delaying the inevitable if he left her sitting at the table.

"I suppose it'd be too much to ask for everyone to just be normal for a few hours?" he said to no one in particular.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Set by Lady!

"Oh, Grace," she sighed as her middle daughter returned in a somehow less suitable dress than before. "Now you know that won't do. Go back upstairs, check in on your sister, and choose a complimenting color. If you dress like a governess, you'll feel like a governess, and then that's all anyone will see you as." Audra always tried to be gentle with Grace, she had always been more delicate than the others, but in her exasperation she'd perhaps been a little more curt with her than she would ordinarily.  "Dress ambitiously, you silly goose!" Using her pet name, she hoped, would soften the edges of her words.

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She fumed her whole way up the stairs, a long strand of unkind words threatening to follow. Cassius Lestrange, while not a first son or particularly noticeable himself, was the bachelor to catch. His connections alone would ensure any party she threw to be a success and, more importantly, she would be able to sign off as Verity Lestrange. A feat she thought lost to her when Claudius married last summer.

Her entire wardrobe was opened and thrown upon her bed. None of her available options were suitable enough, each more plain than the last. She frowned at her newest dress — her Christmas gift — which already felt outdated and bland. Cassius wouldn't notice her in that. Groaning, she turned to address her hair instead.

Forty minutes wasn't enough time to accomplish the intricate updo she desired. No, it was barely time enough to do a neatly designed bun. She muttered to herself as she managed something and tucked her lone two pearl pins into it. It wasn't much, but hopefully it would be enough.

Her dress was another matter entirely. Reaching for the Christmas gift, Verity charmed the mauve fabric to be a beautiful sage instead. The sage would compliment her skin tone nicely and, hopefully, be unlike any colored dress Grace chose.

Which, turned out to be true as she noted with horror that Grace chose grey. Grey?! Glaring at her graceless sister, Verity stood near the doorway as if awaiting approval.

  

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set by mj

In any other situation, Grace might have opted for a soft blue or a deep forest green; she liked color as long as it was not too harsh on the eyes, and the undertone of her skin allowed her to wear plenty of them without looking washed out of too tanned. But this was different—she actively wanted to be avoided as if she was a governess, because if Cassius Lestrange talked to her she would not know what to say and would undoubtedly cause looks of disapproval all around the dinner table. At least, she noted, really looking at the dinner table, Ford would be between them, so he would actively have to try and talk to her.

"But I will not have time," she complained, feigning a look of absolute dismay. She was pleased with her mother's reaction, even if she did not enjoy the less flattering nickname. If Mama thought she looked unworthy of conversation, Mr. Lestrange—presumably a man of good taste, even if Ford was one of his good friends—would feel the same way. She gripped the back of her chair, as if waiting for permission to sit, but then Verity was there, so she took her chance and plopped right down in it.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Verity finally arrived and had been far more prudent in her choice of dress compared to her sister. Hopefully getting ready had restored her inner tranquility. It would be a terrible shame if Cassius Lestrange swore never to set foot in their house again having spent the evening surrounded by the petty bickering of four adult siblings. "Don't you look a treat!" Grace probably shouldn't be left to her own devices again if she was dressing for anything important, from now on she'd have to pick for her or else Verity if she was otherwise occupied. On the bright side Ford could surely see now why it was so important to have new, up to the minute gowns for the girls.

Grace did have a point, although Audra thought if she really wanted to she probably could've managed it and if she came down a little late... Well at least she'd be noticeable enough to make some impression. The style of the dress wasn't ideal but it really was the color that was most offensive and there was at least something she could do to fix that now. "I think we'll go through your wardrobe this weekend and see what we can have altered." This she addressed to Grace. As she spoke she was drawing her wand and taking aim at Grace's dress. The gray lightened into a tasteful shade of middling blue that looked quite nice next to Verity's sage green. "That'll have to do for now."

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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With the letter from Lucius hanging over his head - a carefully selected list, and he thought it was serious, and he had always intended on going through with this but with some additional level of agency - Cash was really looking for additional ways to avoid his household, and maybe a dinner with someone else's family wasn't his ideal choice, but it was something. Besides — he liked Ford Greengrass and was sure this would at least puncture his evening with something other than the Lestrange London home.

Cash was not sure he'd ever come to a dinner party as an adult who was invited as himself, and not as some extraneous Lestrange or someone's chaperon, before. He didn't think he was nervous, but he was deliberate about apparating onto the Bartonburg street from his bedroom with exactly a minute to spare, and fixed his cufflinks again before he walked up to the door. Cash double-checked the number, double checked the time on his watch - there it was, exactly right - and rang the doorbell.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

The doorbell rang, and despite everything — Grace determined not to speak and Mama casting unnecessary spells and Verity standing at the edge of the room prim and poised as though she was expecting someone to give her an award just for existing — Ford was a little excited as he headed to answer it. Verity and Mama would probably have preferred if they'd had a servant go answer it, to look posh, but he didn't care.

"Hi," he said in greeting, already smiling as he pulled the door open. "Come on in. Dinner's all ready, I think," he said, glancing back in the direction of the dining room, where he was sure the female members of his family were scrambling to adjust themselves. Ridiculous.

"Want a drink?" he asked, realizing belatedly that he still had one in his hand and that this was, perhaps, not exactly the right look to have when answering the door for a dinner guest.

  

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Set by Lady!

Cash stepped inside the Greengrass home and smiled back at him, with his drink in his hand at the doorway. "Sure, I'll take a drink," he said, "Along with introductions, I suppose." His smile turned wry; Cash had realized rather belatedly today that he'd never met any of the other Greengrasses, for all he'd heard about them - so the first few minutes of this would probably be at least slightly awkward. That would be easy enough to get through, though, and then it would presumably just be a normal dinner. (Whatever that was like.)

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

"Oh, right, introductions," Ford said, as though he had forgotten too. Which he had, at least when he'd issued the invitation — obviously he'd been thinking about nothing else for the past hour than how incredibly awkward all of his siblings were going to be about Lestrange being here. He lead his friend through to the dining room (that wasn't right, was it? They all ought to have been in the parlor to exchange introductions and then gone in to the dining room, but everyone was already there and he wasn't going to make a fuss about it. The last thing they needed was to get one step farther away from actually sitting down to dinner, just to stand on decorum that he didn't think Lestrange would care about anyway).

"My mother, Mrs. Audra Greengrass," he said, with a gesture to where his mother was standing. He wasn't sure if she was going to speak up and take over introductions, but he didn't want her to say anything embarrassing about them all before they'd even sat down to dinner, so he kept going without giving her the chance. "My brother Noble, and my sisters Miss Verity and Miss Grace Greengrass," he said, indicating each in turn. He paused for a moment, pleased that they seemed to have gotten through at least that much without incident.

"Noble, can you open the wine?" he asked his brother, hoping that he'd gotten over whatever his weird mood from earlier had been.

  

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Set by Lady!

At the sound of the doorbell, Noble stood and followed his sisters and mother into the dining room. Instead of sitting right away, he stood at the foot of the table, steadying himself for the rest of the evening — with the ring of the doorbell there was no longer anything he could do to get out of this without it being a whole thing, so if he was going to share his trepidations with anyone, he should have earlier.

When Ford and Lestrange came in, his first impression of the Quidditch player was just the word short, and he smiled as Ford introduced them all. Lestrange didn't look like magical royalty. Noble didn't think anyone looked like magical royalty, because they didn't use titles, and titles seemed like an important part of it. Should he ask Verity about that? Probably not during dinner, but —

"Oh, of course," Noble said, because he couldn't think of a less enthusiastic way to do so at the moment. Without any theatrical flair, he used the corkscrew to open the bottle, and moved to pour it into everyone's glasses, starting with his mother's.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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set by Bee

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lestrange." Audra was all smiles and cordiality as if she hadn't been chastising her children to varying degrees over the last hour. "Isn't it, girls?" She said this mainly to encourage Grace for Verity would surely be forthcoming anyway.

She recognized him by sight but had never been introduced before. Her overall impression was that he did not cut an imposing figure at all but he did seem pleasant thus far and if her instinct was correct then she'd happy for any of her daughters to marry him. Of course from his perspective that probably wouldn't be surprising, even if he was a tyrant most middle class mothers would still have offered their daughters up on platters. Audra had some ambition for her girls but not at the cost of their wellbeing, if she didn't care she would've done better to marry a muggle farmer and raise pigs for slaughter instead.
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   Fortitude Greengrass

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If she would have admitted out loud that she did not immediately recognize the man as Mr. Lestrange she would have earned bewildered expression from both mother and Verity, but the truth was she did not. She'd expected someone different, someone taller, perhaps—not that it was of any consequence, and most men looked short next to Ford, but he possessed less of the devilish handsomeness that she'd expected of "magical royalty" and was altogether - normal.

She peeked from behind her mother and offered him a smile, but it was shy and hesitant and she even had to resist the desire to simply wave, because that would be weird and would have earned her a look from everyone at the table.

"Yes, it's a pleasure," she said quietly, her gaze dropping from Mr. Lestrange to the floor in front of his feet, her little smile still on her face.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Ford's eye caught on Noble as he went to open the wine. He couldn't decide if Noble was being weird about this or not. Surely he wasn't mad about being surprised with a dinner guest? He'd been laughing an hour ago, so it didn't seem like he was too invested in this — not the way Verity was, anyway, as she'd decided immediately that her entire future hung on the balance of tonight's entree course. Noble had smiled, and had just said yes, of course, so ostensibly everything was fine, but Ford still felt something was a little... strange. Not that he could say anything about it now, when Lestrange was here. If he'd wanted to ask he should have done so while the girls were upstairs changing, but he'd been too busy getting berated by Mama.

Ford took half a step towards the dinner table, but hesitated. They couldn't sit down until the girls sat down, but everyone seemed to be frozen in place, still going through the motions of introductions and greetings even though those had been accomplished. He caught Grace's eye and tilted his head towards the table slightly, willing her: go, sit down!

  

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Set by Lady!

Cash could be bad with names, but it was easier when he was meeting everyone for what was presumably the first time. There was Greengrass' brother, who looked a little like him, but more cocky; his mother, who stood at Cash's height and had expressive eyes; Miss Verity Greengrass with the pearls in her hair; Miss Grace Greengrass who seemed a little shy, but had smiled at him from behind her mother.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all as well," Cash said, with a half-smile. There, introductions complete — Cash was actually a little confident that they had made it through introductions intact. As long as he didn't get one of his weird brain things - which was unlikely, it was a dinner party - he figured they would be fine, because surely the manufactured small talk of introductions would be the weirdest part. The trouble was, now he was not sure what to say. Was it silly to reflect upon the weather? It felt silly, or maybe boring, and Cash didn't want Greengrass' family to think he was boring. (A weird realization: he wanted these people to be at least neutral about him.) What had he talked about with Greengrass when they talked in the club in January?

Oh, right, their siblings — particularly unhelpful when they were all here.

This could probably be resolved once they were all sitting, but Cash realized with a little jolt of nerves that there was probably some sort of seating arrangement involved here, and he definitely wasn't sure where he was supposed to go.

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   Fortitude Greengrass, Ursula Black

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MJ made this!

Grace stated at Mr. Lestrange a few seconds longer than she should have, her mind not on him but rather that sudden realization that this—dinner parties—would be a regular occurrence once she debuted.

And she wasn’t ready. She’d read all sorts of etiquette books and could recite the rules for dinner parties, but - this was different. She actually had to do it, and none of it came naturally.

She snapped out of her daze and looked to Ford, who was giving her a look. Her own eyes widened and she sat down so hastily that the leg of her chair made a loud screeching noise against the floorboards.

She closed her eyes, as if by ignoring it everyone else is would too.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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