Sirius didn't know if it was alright to call Philip his friend, officially. Out loud. He wanted to, because Philip behaved like a friend, especially today, but everyone acted like having a muggle friend was just disgusting. He didn't want to be in trouble, and he didn't want to get Philip in trouble, and both would have happened in London. Here? Uncle Arcturus said that muggle friends were forbidden but then he invited Philip over and told them to go outside together, and what was he supposed to do, play on his own and ignore him? It confused Sirius a lot. He stayed quiet, but gave Philip a little nod.
Then when his arm stopped hurting so much and Mr Hamilton mentioned the poetry, he was eager to show that he wasn't feeling so bad. 'Philip I can...I can recite that one by Amcatel...Amra...by Mr Talbot about…' About flying, that was the one he knew to recite, but he didn't really want to, and he didn't know if he could remember it all anyway, because his head felt fuzzy. Maybe he should just listen to Philip, he thought, and so he lay back again, and he did.
It hadn't occurred to Arcturus not to speak in front of the boys until Alexander led him off to the side, but then he saw the sense in it. His idea was sound, too. Arcturus had been so wrapped up in fixing all this himself that he'd forgotten there were others on the station he might call on. He didn't like the idea, particularly, but letting Sirius suffer needlessly because he was too proud to ask the modern wizards for help wasn't something he could justify to himself.
Arcturus nodded. 'He might have,' he told Hamilton. 'I shall write at once and ask him – and Mr Lupin, too. Or there might be something in the house Mrs Blishwick lived in, before she left.' He hadn't been there since, because it felt wrong to take the possessions of someone who had departed, but he was absolutely sure that had she been present, Sidda Blishwick wouldn't have minded him taking what he needed for Sirius.
'If they haven't, though-' and here Arcturus frowned, and there was that anxiety of his surfacing again, 'and if none of them know how, then I shall have to try to brew it myself, with a potion-book to follow, and I will – I suppose I must only keep Sirius very still in bed until I have it right, and hope it isn't too unbearable for him. But that must be a last resort.' He glanced momentarily over at the two boys again, then back to Hamilton. 'Can you think of anything else?' It was a question that ran the risk of inviting unwanted suggestions about muggle medicine and machines, and he knew it, but it was a question he had to ask, even as he started tapping at the phone he had pulled from his robe pocket. No sense in wasting time.