"Yes," he's saying earnestly to old Ms. Blewett (there never was a Flourish), as she puts together a parcel of increasingly elderly newspapers for him, in just an echo of the over-precise delicacy of someone who grew up on one soft-crisp syllable a word and learned English from old tapes of Winston Churchill, "and when he was made to do this, he told me, these Isles are turning black with rot--you know that sour way of his speaking--go East, he said, where they understand old magics of the herbs and--" And then old, old instincts kick in as Sirius walks in, and before his mind or even eyes have caught up with the prickling back of the neck he's fighting the urge to dive behind the nearest stack of dusty books.