Surrogate Best Friend

[Ophelia Dippet]

"Nonsense," Ophelia insisted dismissively, shaking her head. "I told you right where I was going. I thought you were going to follow me straight in," she said--whether this was true or not was rather debatable. She'd certainly said something to her grandfather before coming inside, but now she couldn't remember what. Not that it mattered, since Armando was unlikely to have heard her, and even if he had wouldn't be likely to remember. In any case, she probably ought to have made more of an attempt to tug him along when she went inside, but wasn't it supposed to be his job to chaperone her?

"But Mr. Devine has been excellent company in the meantime," she said, with a sly smile towards the other gentleman. "I was just helping him pick out a kneazle kitten, for his mother's birthday. Since he was so helpful in naming my niffler," she said with a wide smile; hopefully sliding the possessive into the sentence (my niffler) would give Armando the impression that the purchase of the little creature was a foregone conclusion, and he'd give up on fighting her on it.