September 15th, 1891 - Very late - Greengrass Home

Noble still felt a bit like this was happening to someone else — like he had been out of his body ever since Verity had gotten snatched, watching from above. Someone else had piloted him to the Ministry, where he'd given a very frantic explanation of events to aurors — punctuated with no, you have to reach my brother every other sentence — and a detailed description of Verity. They asked Noble questions he didn't know how to answer, like what color dress was she wearing? because suddenly he couldn't remember, and he knew the reason he couldn't remember, the reason it felt like it was happening to someone else, was that he was in shock. Except — he couldn't be in shock, because nothing had really happened to him.

Anything could be happening to Verity, though.

He managed to contain it until he was finally set loose and at home, managed to say the reassuring things to Mama and Grace — managed to keep his face from looking too haunted. But then it was just him and Ford, and the sentence he'd told the aurors what felt like fifteen times was wrenched from his chest: "I couldn't draw my wand quickly enough."

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set by Bee

Ford had been a little drunk when he'd received Noble's letter, but there probably wasn't anything that could have sobered him up faster. Noble had already done everything that could be done by the time he arrived, but Ford couldn't shake the restless feeling that they ought to be doing more. He couldn't blame Mama and Grace for wanting to linger as late as they could downstairs tonight, but he was relieved when they finally did go to bed. When they were all in the same room panicking together the atmosphere had felt thick with it; now at least he could hear himself think.

Not that it mattered when there was nothing they could do.

"She'll be alright," Ford said mechanically, not because he believed it but because it was the thing you were supposed to say.

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Set by Lady!

Would gin make him feel better or worse? It was obvious that Ford was having a moment, too, and Noble didn't know what to do. There was nothing they could do — the moment to act, if there had been one, had been the moment that man tried to snatch Verity at the ball.

Noble stood up and walked to the liquor cart, and poured himself a small glass of gin. He stood there with it. If they asked for a ransom — well. If they asked for a ransom, they would have to find a way to pay it. Noble just didn't know how.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

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set by Bee

Ford blinked when Noble spoke, trying to piece together what he meant. The words themselves were simple enough, but sometimes when people said I'm sorry they meant it generally, as in I'm sorry this is happening. Obviously they were all sorry, because this was probably the worst thing that had happened to any of them since their father had died — arguably even worse than that, because while it had hit them all out of nowhere, at least it hadn't been uncertain. Noble's tone didn't sound like that was what he meant, though.

"Hey," Ford said gently, trying to get Noble to meet his eyes for a minute.

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Set by Lady!

Noble looked from the glass in his hand to his brother, still standing uselessly by the drinks cart. (Almost as useless as he'd been a few hours ago, when — he just hadn't been able to move fast enough.) He met Ford's eyes. "I'm sorry," Noble said again.

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set by Bee

It was like the look in Noble's eyes pulled the words straight out of him, because as soon as Ford saw them he knew what he was going to say. He didn't know if he wanted to say it. He didn't know if he wanted to mean it. He still hadn't processed this series of events, and maybe he would have liked to have held on to resentment for a while. Maybe being angry at Noble would have made it easier to get through this awful period of uncertainty, where there was nothing to do and nothing to think because they just didn't know.

But he was going to say it, and he was going to mean it. He didn't really have much of a choice.

"I know." He let that sit in the air for a second before he continued, carefully. "It's alright. We'll get through it." Not it's not your fault, because he hadn't been there, and he couldn't know that. Noble wouldn't have believed it, anyway. Ford crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the nearest wall, breaking eye contact. "I could've been there tonight. No reason you had to take her at all. I just didn't want to," he admitted. "I was just with a friend."

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Set by Lady!

Noble exhaled. He was hoping that some of the tension would come with it, but it wasn't quite successful. He couldn't hold Ford's skipping the event against him, even though a part of him wished he could. Neither of them had ever wanted the position they were in even before tonight. "I didn't want to be there," Noble said, tone a little wry, "I was hoping she'd let us leave early." He didn't love balls, and of all their sisters Verity was the one he least knew how to manage — and while he knew he wouldn't have been able to move any faster if it had been one of the others, a part of him still felt guilty about it.

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set by Bee

If it wasn't so tragic, Ford could have laughed. What a pair they were, both already mentally checked out of the season. In fairness, it had been an exhausting past few months, but it wasn't as though they could see light at the end of the tunnel. None of the girls had marriage offers yet, or even particularly serious contenders. Of course, if something happened to Verity that would really be the least of their problems. A thought occurred to him unbidden: we can't afford a funeral. He immediately hated that he'd thought it. He hated that his life had turned into this, and that he was now, apparently, capable of having such a mercenary thought mere hours after his oldest sister had gone missing.

"It had to be a mistake, right? We're not important," Ford pointed out a little desperately. "They must have thought she was someone else. They'll probably let her go once they realize."

Or they would kill her, but Ford didn't want to voice that possibility — voicing it might make it more real.

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Set by Lady!

"He looked like he knew her," Noble said quietly. This was what he'd been thinking ever since the man had taken Verity: he looked like he knew her. "But — maybe he was just mad." Was Verity in the hands of a madman better than Verity in the hands of a man who knew her? Noble didn't know. All he knew was that the Greengrasses didn't have any money, and if the man wanted a ransom, Verity would die, because there was no way he and Ford would be able to come up with one.

So — he guessed they had to hope that Verity's kidnapper was crazy.

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set by Bee

"But you didn't recognize him," Ford countered. This wasn't a question, because they'd already been over all of this a dozen times already with first the aurors and then with Mama and Grace. If Noble had recognized the man who took Verity he would hardly have held on to that critical piece of information. If Noble didn't recognize him, though, it stood to reason that Verity couldn't possibly know him. She wasn't going out on her own and meeting strange men, she was a debutante. Everywhere she went, she was accompanied by Ford, Noble, or Mama. Theoretically she might have run into this person at some event that Noble hadn't been at, but even if that was the case, it didn't make much sense that she could form an attachment so strongly with someone that they would be inclined to kidnap her without anyone in the family catching on. They would have at least had a suspect or two in mind if it was that sort of situation. As it was, they had nothing to go on at all — some stranger at a party with no ties to Verity whatsoever, at least that they knew of.

"Verity couldn't have known him. Unless it was from Hogwarts," he said, shaking his head. "But if that's the case it's a long time to hold a weird grudge." He couldn't believe that was the case, either. Verity wasn't always the easiest to get along with, so he could assume she had some people from her school days who were less than fond of her, but he didn't think she was capable of irritating someone so badly they would be willing to commit a crime to get her back for it, especially years after the fact.

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   Noble Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

Noble nodded, but the motion felt jittery. "I didn't know him," he confirmed. He took a sip of his gin without really tasting it; he was going through the motions. It was like, Noble thought, they were both play-acting at being people who knew what to do in this situation. They had already been pretending to be people who could do this — save their family from ruin, be chaperones, get their sisters happily married off — but they clearly couldn't. Tonight had made that abundantly clear.

Noble had traced over the man's look what had to have been a hundred times since the moment he'd taken Verity, and each time he hadn't looked any more familiar to Noble. "And if he was Society —" Noble paused. The man had to have been Society enough to have been at the party, but there had been more people in attendance than Noble had expected — as if people had snuck in, or as if the hosts hadn't been as strict to inviting reputable people as Noble generally preferred. This was likely how the man had showed in the first place. Noble couldn't imagine likely kidnappers would usually be invited to parties, surely they had a vibe, like something was wrong with them, and so —

He cleared his throat as if that would help clear his head.

"Well, if he was Society, he wasn't someone we've ever thought about for one of them."

That was something, Noble thought — they hadn't considered a kidnapper a match for one of their sisters. It would have been funny, had he not been so convinced that Verity would never forgive him.

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set by Bee

Ford nearly choked on the air at that remark. Not someone they'd ever considered for a potential brother-in-law, indeed. They may have let their sister get kidnapped, but at least they hadn't previously tried to marry her off to a kidnapper. Merlin, what was their life turning into?

"If he was society someone would have recognized him," Ford pointed out. "You asked the other people at the party and they didn't know who you were talking about, right? He must have snuck in. He couldn't have been invited." If he was a criminal, it only made sense that he'd come to a party without an invitation. Ford had never considered committing a violent crime, but if he was the type to do so he imagined it would only be common sense not to commit one at a party where everyone knew you and could tell the aurors your name after the fact. That was assuming that he had intended to kidnap Verity, but Ford didn't know what the alternative was. If this was just random... why them?

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Set by Lady!

Noble nodded. "I don't think anyone recognized him," he affirmed, "From what the aurors said, too." The aurors would find the man, would find Verity. Noble was confident of this. Debutantes didn't just get kidnapped; they were the most sheltered members of society for a reason, and to Noble that meant that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had to be well-equipped for retrieving them when something terrible did happen.

If it was a random person, and if he had just grabbed Verity, that really meant this was all Noble's fault.

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set by Bee

Ford nodded at the mention of the aurors once again. This was bringing the conversation back around to one of those things you were supposed to say in times like this (if there were any conventions for times like this), so it felt a little more natural to slip back into his response: "The aurors will find her. They're trained for this. It's their job."

And if they didn't — well, a few scenarios had already occurred to Ford, but he wouldn't voice them yet. He didn't want to even be thinking about them, and he hated that they'd even occurred to him at all. He wouldn't put them into anyone else's head, if he could help it. The last thing Noble needed at the moment was to be thinking about the logistics of burial arrangements if they didn't have a body to bury.

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Set by Lady!

Noble nodded. Even if it was just one of the things that people said at these times, even if they were just going through the motions, he still felt a little reassured by having Ford back him up. At least they had not started audibly planning for the worst, yet.

"There's nothing to do but wait," he said. And maybe that was the worst part. Wherever Verity was, they could do nothing to help her now. The last time Noble could have helped her was when he had been with her at the party, and instead he'd watched the strange man snatch her, helpless. Noble took another absent sip of gin.

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set by Bee