Matthew didn’t seem particularly phased – in fact, he still seemed to be a little bit delighted that Remus had mentioned him.

“Well,” he said, grinning bashfully at Sirius, “They are very good tours.”

He winked at Sirius knowingly, and Sirius just frowned, bewildered.

“I don’t know to respond to that,” he said simply, because he didn’t. Was Matthew trying to share some kind of ‘wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more’ with Sirius… About Remus?

Immediately he realized his mistake, and held up his hands. “Oh, sorry mate,” said Matthew, “The way he talks about you I thought there might have been a thing there once..?”

This time it was not inner Sirius who flailed, but outer. He widened his eyes and flapped his hands about inanely for a second. “No chance!” he said, “No – Jesus – are you mental? No. No. It’d be like snogging…”

Sirius paused for a second, wondering who exactly it would be like snogging. He couldn’t come up with an appropriate response – his mind went mysteriously blank at the thought of snogging Remus, so he just went for his default answer to signify disgust.

“…James,” he decided, and there at least was a thought which would definitely make him shudder.

Matthew laughed, nervously. “Oh, right,” he said, breathlessly, “Well… Okay then.”

“Sorry,” Sirius said, scratching the back of his neck on awkward impulse. “Sorry – I mean, I’m sure he’d be a lovely snog – I mean, you know, not for me personally, I’m straight as an arrow – well except for that one time in year 9 where we played spin the bottle and I had to kiss Arthur Weasley and it was pretty gross but, you know, worse things have happened at sea and that so, well, whatever floats your boat -”

He stopped himself – for which Matthew looked very grateful – and sighed.