Guilt has nothing to do with it.
Who: Sid & Barty.
When: October 26 1978, 1 pm
Where: Dwersteg's coffee shop in Diagon
What: Well, whatever it is, it's not a date.

Sid Demedici looked uncharacteristically nervous as she entered Dwersteg's in a set of well-tailored, chic, but appropriately low-key dress robes, brushing her bangs to the side as she glanced around to see if Barty was there yet.

Of course, she had nothing to be nervous about. Some people might have been a little antsy about being around Barty Crouch -- he was a difficult pill to swallow at times, and certainly the thought that crossing him might result in some sort of backlash from his rather powerful family connections had to occur to many people -- but Sid found him mostly amusing, interesting. Not particularly threatening at all.

(Maybe a little bit mad, but not particularly threatening.)

What was making Sid nervous today was the fact that she had been looking forward to this coffee, er, non-date a lot more than she would have liked to admit. It had been on her mind rather more than certain other things as of late. Her one year anniversary with Jack was coming disconcertingly close. She imagined her sudden attachment to someone she'd only really starting speaking to in the last couple of weeks was probably just a random thing, not to be worried about.

But really, talking with Barty was putting a lot of things about her relationship with Jack into perspective. Not even things she disliked about him; more like things she disliked about herself that she was grudgingly being forced to admit to.

But that was all getting ahead of herself. It must have been hormones, or something. Because really, she hardly knew Barty. And even if he was interesting and probably a little crazy and had wretchedly tempting hair and incredible cheekbones, they probably wouldn't even get along that well anyway. And even if they did, they hardly knew each other, so it really wasn't anything at all.

Really.