At the sound of that familiar voice ringing in his ears for the first time since… Basil didn’t even know when, the same shimmering feeling from before tweaked his gut. Agrimony bloody Macnair. Of all the loops fate could have tossed in his direction at this point in time, here was one Basil couldn’t have anticipated even with a divination globe. (Not that he was very good at it to begin with, nonsense magic.) He extended his hand to Macnair who accepted it, even as a dumb look crossed Basil’s face. A flash of something seemed to skitter down the Transfiguration professor’s arm at the contact and Basil pulled back his hand quickly as if burnt. He knew better now after such a dreadfully enlightening last year what… all of this insinuated. He couldn’t tell if Macnair had any such lingering impressions, but the whole prospect of it it flustered him. Whatever they might have once had remained… unresolved and festering, deep in his gut. One sided surely, to make matters worse. He knew it was dangerous to be obvious about it but… Basil wasn’t sure he’d ever quite gotten over Macnair. Even now, desperately trying not to be so in love with Lissington, he wasn’t sure he ever would be. Confusing, terrible sentiments, the lot of them.
Basil brushed these thoughts aside in favor of focusing on the real, tangible man and moment before him. (One he was determined not to seem ridiculous in front of.) Tossing back a half-crooked grin at the other’s quip, he laughed. “That last detention from Thompson really stuck,” he teased. “I’ve spent hours cleaning chalkboards and tidying classrooms. What year is it again?”