Mark ran his hand over his smooth jaw, checking the mirror to be sure he had not missed a spot. Even with the shower, shave and clean clothes, he still looked like a homeless person. Probably the eyes, he guessed. His eyes were bruised with exhaustion from the past couple of days. The new clothes and clean skin had served to make him feel a little more comfortable, at least. But it would take a lot more for that desperate, half mad look to leave his eyes. Until he had the book back, he would have no peace.

Alastor entered as Mark ran the towel over his jaw one more time. "The clothes seem to fit," he remarked to Tiberius as he came in. They had brought Mark the stuff earlier that morning.

Crossing his arms and smiling a bit, Alastor said, "Think we've figured out how to solve your problem."

"How's that?" Mark asked, folding the towel and turning towards them. They explained that they had spoken with one of his kidnappers, and found out that if Mark used magic the men would be able to trace him to that point.

"They were planning to trap you the whole time," Tiberius said. "So we were thinking perhaps we ought to return the favor."

How did they get so much out of him, when I completely missed the important parts? Mark wondered, glancing from one to another. But Mark had had so little practice searching someone's mind for specific information, it was likely that he had done it wrong on his captor and missed huge chunks of information. On the other hand, they had been trained in what they did. He thought over what they had told him, and guessed, "You want me to bait them into a trap?"

Alastor's rather smug expression turned annoyed. "Try to sound a little more enthusiastic about it."

"Excuse me," Mark said. He cleared his throat. "You want me to bait them into a trap?"

"Still not the ideal tone, but close enough. Yes."

Mark thought for a moment, weighing the possibilities. "Alright," he said. "I think I'm rested enough to give it a shot."

"Perfect," Tiberius said with a grin.

They took Mark to a graveyard in London, and set up a few spells. Tiberius explained that these spells would act as barriers, making it so the men would be unable to transport themselves away using magic. Mark watched the process with interest, thinking that perhaps once he got home he'd pick up a copy of Harry Potter after all. His uncle had always kept him away from the books, supposedly due to religious objections, but Mark suspected that it had really been to keep thoughts of wizardry out of his young head. Now that Mark knew who and what he was, the book couldn't do him any harm. Besides, he was interested in finding out more about the secret society the two Aurors lived in.

When they were all set, Mark walked further into the city with them. "So, I just do something with magic and they'll find me?" he asked.

Alastor was tugging on his fingerless gloves. "That's the idea. And we'll be waiting there." He pointed back towards the trap.

Mark took a deep, steadying breath. "Okay. See you at the graveyard."

"Well, that dinnae sound morbid at'all," Tiberius muttered.

Shooting him a grin, Mark headed down the street. The trick would be to set off magic, but not too much—he didn't want to exhaust himself before the fight had even started. He also needed to do it in a way that would not attract attention from the regular Londoners. After considering a moment, Mark slipped down an alley. He made sure that he had two outs, and then turned to the garage bags sitting beside the houses. "Àhafennes," he whispered. "Up."

The trash bags lifted. He let them go five feet off the ground, and then said, "Scyte." The bags flew into the back wall of the alley with a resounding crash. "Hopefully that'll be enough," Mark said to himself, stepping into the main street to wait.

It was not long before he sensed them—a prickling of magic on his arms. He glanced at the crowd, but couldn't make them out. But he wasn't going to stick around for them to hex him again. With his blood rushing in his ears—he wasn't sure if it was excitement or fear—he took off towards the graveyard.

Even without looking back, he could feel them following. By the time he got to the edge of the graveyard—where there were not many people—he could hear their feet behind him. A burst of red hit the gate as he jumped over it—a hex that had barely missed him. Mark ran to the middle of the graveyard and turned, panting, to face his hunters.

There were five of them. They came to a stop about fifteen feet away, and one raised his wand to cast a spell.

Alastor and Tiberius stepped out of their hiding places on Mark's right and left. Keeping his eyes on the men, Mark said, "Give me back the book and we can avoid trouble."

"The book's worth more than two Aurors can do," the one with the wand replied. "You won't frighten us into surrender."

"Well, I've never been one to refuse an invitation," Alastor replied, leveling his wand towards them.

Another one of the men—this one with coal black hair—took the book from among his robes. Mark felt his heart twist at the sight of it. "Think twice before you attack," shouted the man, putting his wand against the book. "We could destroy this with a word."

"Suppose it depends on who's quicker," Tiberius remarked.

Mark watched the book, chewing his lip as he tried to decide whether he should summon it. But if he was not fast enough, they could destroy the journal in a moment.

The first man spoke again. "Or you could simply let us take the young insane man, and we could avoid a duel."

"Didn't someone just say something about never surrendering?" Alastor asked, glancing aside at Tiberius.

"Believe so," Tiberius answered.

"Let's go with that then."

There may have been more taunts and threats, but Mark ceased to hear them. He exhaled, and felt his defenses fall. Every mind was open to him at once—Alastor, Tiberius, and the men. Instantly he could see their enemies' motives. They wanted Mark to use as a tool for power. The book was useless to them, because his magic worked in a differently than theirs. "They won't destroy it," Mark heard himself say, though the sound was distant to his ears. "They need both the journal and me to get what they want. We're each useless without the other."

"Why didn't you just say so?" Alastor snapped. He shot a hex at the first man, and the robed figures all dove behind grave markers and statues for cover. Mark stood still as Alastor and Tiberius took cover as well. Never before had he been able to feel all this activity at once—seven different sets of thoughts and plans of attack and all the spells they knew and what they were about to shoot off.

Someone grabbed Mark's sleeve, and he stumbled behind a weeping angel with Tiberius. "Watch out!" Tiberius said.

Words. There were hundreds of words in their thoughts. Mark glanced around the stone statue. Are all battles like this? he wondered. Battles of thought and wit and words, not strength or spells.

Tiberius pushed past him to keep up with Alastor as they made an advance. Ducking behind him, Mark followed. Moving felt odd—like he was watching himself in a dream, while everyone's thoughts were much clearer than what he was seeing. Someone pulled him down behind a gravestone.

Mark glanced over the top. One of the men was about to shoot at the grave, to destroy their protection. "Niðerscyfe!" Mark shouted. His spell sent the man to the ground, and Alastor followed up with a binding hex.

They were advancing again, coming to the courtyard of the church with the cloaked men on the opposite side. Alastor dove behind a large gravestone, grabbing Mark's shirt and yanking him down. A stunner someone had shot at him whizzed by. The world came into focus again, and Mark blinked a mist from his eyes. "Would you please go hide behind something?" Alastor snapped, looking over the top of the grave at the others.

Reducto! came the thought of one of the men. Mark jerked Alastor down in time to save him from being hit. "Sorry," he said.

Swearing under his breath, Alastor shot off a quick succession of spells over the grave marker. "Just stay put."

Mark closed his eyes, letting the thoughts of the men wash over him. "They're going to make a charge. The three taller ones. The one with the book and the leader are going to stay back."

"Er…" Alastor glanced at Mark in skepticism, but then seemed to think better of it. "Tiberius! Three coming center!"

"On it!" Tiberius shouted

Alastor knelt quickly to look Mark in the face. "Stay. Put." He flinched as a spell hit the gravestone, and rubble fell around them.

There was a rush of adrenalin from one of them—that would be Tiberius as he rushed out. Alastor was close on his heels. The three cloaked men had moved to meet them. One stretched out his wand—

Mark jumped up and yelled to Tiberius, "Watch out—"

The spell, a stunner, hit Tiberius square in the chest, and he dropped to the ground. "Tiberius!" Alastor shouted, diving towards him. He was distracted. A hex hit him in the shoulder, throwing him off balance.

There was a rush of thoughts. It was a ploy. The three men were a distraction. The leader had been biding his time, waiting for a chance to kill both Aurors at once. The Death Curse. Mark jumped over the ruins of the grave he'd been behind, hearing the man shout, "Avada—!"

Alastor was pushing himself up as Mark ran in front of them. There was no thought in Mark's mind but that in two seconds they would be dead. He had to stop it, now.

His hands went out, and his gut twisted in pain as something ripped out of him. A wave of blue air shot forward, shaking the ground and shattering gravestones. Five minds shut off at once, and Mark found himself standing blindly in a cloud of dust.

Dirt swirled through the air, thick and heavy, and Alastor found himself coughing, eyes squeezed shut as he swung his wand blindly. No one attacked though, and as soon as the broken monument settled the graveyard lapsed into silence, broken by occasional coughs and wheezes. Reaching out, still half-blind, Alastor managed to find what felt like Tiberius' sleeve, taking hold and pulling his friend upright. Tiberius sounded as though he had inhaled a lungful of dust, coughing and hacking violently as Alastor clapped him on the back. The movement made his shoulder ache where the spell had grazed him, but he ignored the pain, sense still on high alert.

"Where've they gone?" Alastor asked, steadying Tiberius with one hand and swinging his wand in a wide arc.

The dust cleared and revealed Mark, a shadow at first and then real again, swaying on his feet and looking disoriented. "I... um... They ought to—still be here."

Tiberius bent over coughing, clutching at his stomach, and Alastor banished the cloud of dust that lingered over them. His eyes stung, heartbeat pounding in his ears, and any moment now one of the black-robed men would jump out and attack. Any moment. But the dirt cleared, and nothing moved, the graves all utterly still. Alastor stepped past Mark, glancing around just to make sure.

"Well, they're not," he growled.

"What?" Mark rubbed his head, still fairly dazed as he looked around.

"They're. Not. Here." Alastor gritted his teeth, emphasizing every word. "Gone. Vanished."

"Couldnae have Apparated," Tiberius said at last.

"I'm aware of that," Alastor replied, glaring at Mark as he waited for an explanation.

Mark seemed to come to his senses, pushing past Alastor and scanning the ground, somewhere near desperate.

"They can't be gone!"

Whether Mark wanted to believe it or not, the men almost certainly were gone, and probably due to his own actions. Alastor let the searching go on a moment longer before speaking up again.

"Then perhaps you and your boundless knowledge can explain how they've suddenly become INVISIBLE?"

His volume had admittedly been increasing as he spoke, but he shouted the last word, shattering the stillness. Alastor knew that had the men actually still been around, he probably would have just alerted them to the fact that he and Tiberius and Mark were still around as well, but at present he could not seem to care. He had had just about enough of know-it-all Mark.

"Maybe your spell failed!" Mark shouted back, rounding on Alastor now. "They hardly had time to run off!"

"My spell—" Alastor stepped closer and scowled, feeling his face go red, "—did not fail. It's still fully functional."

To prove this, more to himself than Mark because Merlin knew now would not be a good time to be wrong, Alastor raised his wand and checked that the Anti-Apparition Wards were still in place. Fortunately, all of them seemed to be, and even the Detection Charms he sent out returned without results. Tiberius, meanwhile, had wandered a few steps away, bending to inspect what appeared to be a tattered black robe. Alastor suspected that moments ago, the robe had been worn by one of the attackers, but now it looked to be definitely empty.

"Think they're quite gone, lads," Tiberius said.

Mark had been searching through the rubble, but he turned to look at Tiberius. "What do you mean?"

Tiberius straightened up, wincing as he moved. He held the black robe between two long fingers, fluttering like a shadow in the breeze.

"Not exactly runnin' about starkers, are they? They're not here."

"But..." Mark ran both hands through his hair, beginning to look slightly frantic. "I killed them?"

"Vanished, more like," Tiberius corrected.

"Well, they didn't ruddy Apparate. The wards are still up," Alastor declared, just in case anyone had been doubting that fact. "So yes, you Vanished them. Well done."

Really this was not quite so bad as Mark seemed to think. The fight had been resolved, one way or another, and no one was trying to hex them anymore, which was always a plus. Alastor could not quite understand why Mark insisted on being so worked up.

"Is there... any sign of the book?" Mark asked, glancing around at the ground again.

Oh. The book. That was the whole reason they had staged this mission to begin with. Suddenly finding the book seemed like a rather important thing indeed, because he would not be especially pleased to have been hexed for nothing.

"Accio book!" Alastor said, flourishing his wand and waiting. Seconds ticked by, but nothing happened.

Tiberius tried a Summoning Charm of his own, but his failed to produce the book as well.

"Guess not. It must have... well..."

Mark shook his head, still searching, apparently refusing to accept the fact that the book was simply not there.

"Probably your spell that did it," Alastor muttered under his breath. He had been talking mostly to himself, but apparently both Tiberius and Mark heard him, gazes both abruptly locking on him.

"Alastor." Tiberius shook his head. "Donnae."

Alastor shrugged, perfectly content to stand by his words. They were probably true, after all, and there was no way to prove otherwise.

"Maybe next time I'll just let you both fry instead of diverting them," Mark spat.

"Didn't ask you to jump in, did I?" Alastor countered. "Matter of fact, I think I said to stay bloody put."

"You didn't know what was about to happen!" Mark insisted.

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten. You know everything that's going to happen," Alastor muttered, rolling his eyes. Had he been irritated before, he was working his way up to a fine temper now, and struggling hard to keep things under control. "Obviously you seem to have missed the glaring issue of destroying your own ruddy book!"

That probably had not been the best thing to say, because to Alastor's great surprise Mark answered by punching him squarely in the jaw. Alastor stumbled back a step or two, startled for just a moment. Then the last hold of his self-control vanished, and his temper was roaring, blood pounding in his ears. Alastor reached out, grabbing hold of Mark by the front of his shirt and smashing his elbow into Mark's stomach.

"Oi!" Tiberius shouted, sounding very far away. Alastor ignored him, and Mark did as well, gasping for breath as he pulled at Alastor's wrist, trying to free himself.

"That was my only way home!" Mark managed, still spluttering for air.

Alastor had not loosened his hold, and in fact began pushing Mark backward, his heels digging into the dirt every few steps in an effort to stop the progress. Eventually, Mark managed to hook his ankle around Alastor's, tripping him up. Momentum sent Alastor forward though, and he caught himself with one hand against the ground. The other hand he quickly wrapped around Mark's knee, pulling the other boy down as hard as he could.

"Pity you didn't see that coming then. Can you see this, you reckon?"

Before Mark could answer, Alastor struck out, connecting his fist with the side of Mark's face. Dazed now, Mark tried to roll away, but Alastor had hold of his shirt again and he was going nowhere fast. Alastor managed to pin him quickly, administering a swift knee to Mark's ribs for good measure.

"Guess that's a no."

Alastor knew, somewhere, in the far back of his mind, that he really ought to stop. But this was all Mark's ruddy fault anyway, all this stupid business, and especially his fault that the attacker had escaped. Not to mention, Alastor had not forgotten Mark's words in the alley three days before. No one spoke about his father like that. No one.

"Can't get any blinder than you, at least." Mark gasped.

"Suggest you consider your position—" Alastor paused to jab his elbow into Mark's stomach again, "—and apologize." Mark swung a wild fist, and Alastor ducked away easily. Merlin, he had not exactly been expecting a prize-fight match, but this was almost disappointing. He started to rise, dragging Mark to his feet as he did. "Perhaps you didn't hear me. Apologize, now."

"I'm sorry I saved your bloody life, thereby trapping myself here and killing my family!" Mark roared.

"What part of 'I didn't ask you' don't you understand?" Alastor shouted back equally as loud. "And besides that—you're completely mental!"

"Well then next time I'll ask your permission before I let you get killed!"

Tiberius made another effort to intervene, a more direct one this time. His hands closed around Alastor's shoulders, trying to pry him away from Mark, but Alastor would not budge. Mark, too, had resorted to shoving by this point.

"Let me go."

Alastor merely scowled, tightening his hold if anything.

"Let me go, Alastor," Mark repeated.

Making quick use of a convenient grave, Alastor backed Mark up against a monument and lifted him off his feet.

"Can't say I much feel like it, Mark. I'm a bit irritated. If you haven't noticed. And somehow I'm fairly sure this is all your fault."

"It couldn't have gone quite so brilliantly without your help," Mark replied.

"You're welcome," Alastor said, choosing to take that as a compliment and simply not consider the alternative meanings.

Mark turned his hand palm-out toward Alastor, speaking under his breath in that odd language. Before Alastor could draw his wand, he was thrown backward, colliding with another gravestone a few feet away. The impact sent a jolt of pain through him, and he lay still for a moment, all the air knocked out of him. Slumped against the gravestone, palms pressed to the dirt, Alastor swore under his breath and forced himself to at least rise to his knees. He drew his wand as he did, firing a quick jinx.

"Stupefy!"

Mark ducked behind the monument, and the spell flew harmlessly away.

"Coward!" Alastor roared.

Tiberius reached out again, trying to help Alastor up and at the same time trying to keep him away from Mark.

"Let him alone. They're gone, beating him up wonnae fix it."

Alastor shrugged out of Tiberius hold, all but ignoring him. "No, but it certainly makes me feel better."

Closing the distance toward the monument, Alastor tried for another jinx, and while this one missed as well it was not quite so badly as the first.

"Get back out here and fight fair!"

"No. It's pointless," came the reply.

Alastor could not see Mark, but his mind provided an image of the fellow sitting with his back to the gravestone, arms crossed and frowning like a pouting child. For some reason, the idea irritated him further. Lowering his wand, Alastor reached overtop of the gravestone and seized hold of the back of Mark's shirt, hauling him upright.

"What? You being stubborn, you still trying to be a mental bloody know it all, or both? Or is there something I've missed?"

"You beating me up isn't going to help me get back. It looks like nothing is. So why should I fight?" Mark asked, turning to face him.

"Because it at least makes it marginally more interesting for me," Alastor growled. "And this is mostly your fault anyway. Certainly not my fault you vanished your own book."

Alastor had really been doing nothing more than poking Mark in the chest with two fingers as he spoke, which he felt was a rather civil way to have that conversation. Mark, for his part, reached up and tried to knock Alastor's hand away.

"Go on. I don't need your help, and you don't want to file the paper work about how you beat up the weird kid. I want to be alone."

"Well that's grand," Alastor snorted. "I want a new broom, personally."

"What?" Mark blinked, confused by the sudden turn.

"I'm sorry, here I thought we were talking about things that probably weren't going to happen," Alastor replied. "You're not going to be left alone, and I doubt I'll be the owner of a new broom anytime soon."

"Probably could be arranged, if you both would stop fighting for a moment," said a new voice.

The voice caught Mark entirely off-guard, and he jumped as he turned from Alastor to look into the eyes of his great-grandfather. The man smiled a little, looking pleased.

Tiberius had raised his wand. "You again?"

Unwillingly, Alastor let go of Mark's shirt. The man, Jon, stepped over the rubble, taking a small book from his pocket. "Here you are, Mark."

Mark reached out to take it, his mind numb with surprise. His mother's journal—still in one piece. A moment ago, he had been devastated by its loss, and he found he had a difficult time believing it was in his hands again.

"There. Problem solved," said Alastor from behind.

Flipping through the book to be sure it was not damaged, Mark stuttered, "How—?"

Jon was trying not to smile, but Mark could see that he was quite proud of himself. "Summoned it just before you blew those fellows away. Pretty powerful stuff. But you'll note that you didn't use a language to do it."

"What?" asked Mark, feeling increasingly confused.

"Old English doesn't affect your magic at all," Jon explained. "It's just—well, training wheels, essentially. You learn to control the flow of magic with words, but eventually the flow comes naturally and you don't need language any more. At least, that's how my brother explained it." He smiled, taking a pipe out of his pocket and dusting it off. "I'm not an expert. Never have been that good at it. But I think if you want to, you can travel yourself back to 2010 without having to say anything at all."

"I could have gone back this whole time?" Mark asked.

Jon shrugged, filling the pipe with tobacco shavings. "Yes, I suppose so."

Mark pushed himself up, clenching the book in his hand. "Why didn't you tell me the first time we met? Do you know how much trouble we've been through?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't have learned a thing." He lit his pipe and stuck it into the side of his mouth. "Besides, at that point you might not have been strong enough to do it without language. I didn't want you to end up like Sir Isaac Newton."

"Oh, you're having me on," Alastor groaned. "Back to this again?"

Tiberius shushed him. "Tis a family affair, I told you. Let them deal with it."

With some grumbling, Alastor fell silent. Mark rubbed his head, feeling the tension of the last week slowly easing out of his shoulders. "Of course," he said, smiling a little. "It always seems to come back to Sir Isaac Newton."

Jon fixed Mark with a serious look. "Don't time travel again, once you get back. Messing with the past is dangerous business."

Alastor sputtered something and moved away.

Mark ignored him. Holding out his hand to shake with Jon, he said, "Right. Thank you, for all you've done."

"Always glad to have a bit of adventure," Jon remarked, giving Mark's hand a hard squeeze. "Makes the life of a shop owner a bit more interesting."

Smiling, Mark glanced down at his book. He thought for a moment, turning the pages slowly, and then turned to Tiberius. "Can I speak with Donald one more time?"

Tiberius looked quite baffled. "Ah...sure. Why do you need ta?"

Mark snapped the book shut. "He's got something of mine and I'm not leaving without it."