"Oh, on that," because Lucius can read between lines when it suits him to, "I would not compliment anyone."

Perhaps if they were in their own world, inexplicable fluctuations in time and space would enable them to make accurate deductions about the state of one another and their contemporary moments in time. The introduction of other worlds makes it impossible to gauge; Lucius does not need to be told about the Barge, either, when his younger analogue and his lovely wife have already told him stories of their inter-dimensional travels, and the thirty-something Harry Potter's more distorted history of war.

If Baedal and all it implies does give Lucius an air of distrust, it is at least one thing he can't be blamed for. There are other things for that. To the point, he asks, "How did you know to contact me?"