It was getting slowly clearer, and had been for the past week. Regulus had taken to pushing his jacket sleeve up at odd intervals whenever Sirius wasn't around to ask him why in order to make sure he wasn't in some bizarre and extended dream sequence, tracing the curving line as its edges hardened and the viper's head broke off from the skull.

When at least three people at work had asked him what he was doing and Regulus had clamped his hand over his forearm and scrambled for the French equivalent of "Nothing," he decided it was probably time to tell Sirius what was going on. It wasn't as if those Austrian rumors peeking at the edges of the Daily Prophet weren't already worrying him slightly; perhaps it was better that his fears be certain rather than of the "I think he's up to something" sort. If he was honest with himself, he only hadn't told his brother because he didn't want to answer the inevitable barrage of questions.

Sirius saved him the possibility of losing his nerve by being at the kitchen table when Regulus got home. Apparently he had been able to go through the Parker's rubbish bin without being caught by one of the girls this time, because Regulus caught a flicker of movement on the paper he was reading. "Hullo, Reggie," Sirius greeted him absently without looking around. "What's up?"

Since Sirius had never been one to care whether information was presented subtly or not, Regulus launched right into it. "The Dark Mark's back."

Sirius turned around in surprise. "What are you, a Legilimens?"

Before Regulus could ask him what he was on about now, he realized that the movement on the page was the twinkling of green lights in the sky. A glance at the headline told him someone had cast Morsmordre at the Quidditch World Cup. He hesitated, then decided he still didn't want Sirius's questions. "Don't be an idiot, I can see the photo over your shoulder. Can I see the article?"

Sirius nodded mutely and handed it over for his brother to scan, which Regulus did at some length. "Against them," he muttered finally.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"I'll bet you ten to one that whoever cast Morsmordre— that whoever put the Dark Mark up," Regulus explained when Sirius merely looked blank, "did it to scare the Death Eaters off, not to support them. Whoever wrote this thing doesn't know them very well. Anyone who'd show their face at the World Cup lied and bribed their way out of prison, after all; not the kind of people who would be happy to see him come back to punish them for it. The castor probably didn't want their cause associated with tomfoolery."

"I think levitating Muggles is a bit more than tomfoolery, Reg," Sirius muttered.

"I'm not saying it isn't," Regulus answered. "But apparently I am thinking like a Death Eater again. It's a bad habit."

Sirius shook his head. "So they're moving again. I told you Dumbledore'd hired Moody for a reason."

"I highly doubt this had anything to do with Voldemort, Sirius," Regulus told him tiredly. "I can't call it harmless high spirits, obviously— it did cause a lot of harm— but spirits were definitely involved. Probably of the alcoholic variety. If Voldemort was involved, he'd be doing something a lot more sinister than levitating Muggles."

"What about the Dark Mark?" Sirius asked. "Mor . . . whatever you called it."

"Morsmordre," Regulus repeated. "That's the incantation. I suppose it could be . . . I mean, I would have thought that anyone who's still a serious supporter would have gone to Azkaban or been killed by Aurors by now. But still. That was Britain, and from the sound of the rumors the Dark Lord's in Austria."

"I really wish you wouldn't call him that, Reggie," Sirius muttered under his breath.

"Again, thinking like a Death Eater," Regulus reminded him. Before they could get into an argument on whether or not he should still be thinking like one, he glanced absently out the window, only to see a snowy white owl sitting on the outside sill. "Good God, what's one of those doing here?"

Sirius looked up. "I think it's Harry's," he answered, getting to his feet and unlatching the window.

The bird flew into the room, landed on the table, and fixed Regulus with a look that clearly demanded she be fed. "Well, I guess you did just fly across the channel," he murmured.

While Sirius removed the letter from her leg, Regulus dug through the refrigerator for something that an owl might like. He eventually settled on a few leftover fish sticks, which the bird devoured hungrily as he absently stroked her white feathers and Sirius read. Finally he put the letter down and looked up at Regulus with a half-teasing triumphant grin, but there was no humor in it. "I told you something was wrong."

"Hm?" Regulus asked. He reached absently for the letter, and when Sirius didn't hurriedly pick it back up, he assumed that reading it as all right.

"First Mad-Eye, then the Mark, and now Harry's scar," Sirius pointed out, ticking things off on his fingers. "I was under the impression Mad-Eye was pretty firmly retired, and I don't care what you say, I think the Mark's related to the rumors in Austria. As for the scar . . . well, he wouldn't have written me about it if it happened all the time, and he did say Voldemort was up to something the last time it did anything."

"You're getting as paranoid as Dad and you always were as stubborn as Mum," Regulus murmured, scanning the letter. It had been written prior to the World Cup and most of it was conversationally chatty, but Sirius was right about the scar. "That's never a good combination. Therefore, I'm not even going to try convincing you nothing's wrong."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Come to think of it, you've been a bit jumpy lately, too."

"Your paranoia is getting to me," Regulus informed him. "And it's not as if I don't have enough paranoia of my own. And, seriously, why would I know anything you didn't?"

"I'm not trying to say I don't trust you," Sirius informed him impatiently. "But, well . . . he had to have some kind of communication with Death Eaters, if you can still get anything from that. . . ."

Regulus bit his lip. Sirius was striking a bit too close to the truth. He'd always been good at puzzles like that, even the real-life ones, and he was willing to bet anything that it had been Sirius who had first figured out that Remus Lupin was a werewolf. "Don't be ridiculous. He's in Austria, and by all accounts on the verge of death. How would he be sending messages? And why, when most of them are in Azkaban?"

He knew he really, really ought to tell Sirius what was going on with the Dark Mark, let him know exactly what was going on. At the same time . . . that was just going to make Sirius stress more, about both Harry and his brother, since there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Sirius had always been so driven to change the world, and Regulus had always been better at sidelining fear he couldn't do anything about. It was still probably something he was better off keeping to himself.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "If you say so. Still, I think I'm going back to England."

"You are not."

"Reggie, everything seems to be happening in England. The Dark Mark, Mad-Eye, Harry's scar . . . they're all on the other side of the Channel. If whatever's going on involves him— and let's face it, with Voldemort's defeat thirteen years ago it probably does— I want to be over there."

"Austria isn't on the other side of the Channel, and the Ministry of Magic is just waiting for you to be stupid enough to go back," Regulus argued. "How are you going to protect him, anyway?"

"I'm going. You don't have to."

In spite of the anxiety starting to tie a knot in the pit of his stomach, Regulus grinned. "And who's going to keep you out of trouble if I don't?"

"I got along just fine without you during the war," Sirius pointed out, clearly looking for an argument that couldn't be quickly resolved. It would take both of their minds off recent events.

"You had Lupin then."

Sirius opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed it and snorted with laughter. "All right, touche. I'm still going back to Britain."

"I'm still going with you."

Sirius shrugged, hunted around the junk drawer until Regulus rolled his eyes and summoned paper and pens from his desk, and started writing Harry a reply. After a moment, Regulus bit his lip, summoned another pen, and started composing a note of his own. "Who's that one to?" Sirius asked.

"Dumbledore. I figure if the most wanted man in Britain is coming back, the only person with a hope in hell of saving your neck if we're caught— and it's a slim hope at that— ought to be told. Maybe he'll have some suggestions or be able to talk some sense into you."

"How are you going to get it to him? You can't just borrow someone's owl, since you won't tell the Parkers you're a wizard."

"I'm just going to Apparate over to the Parisian equivalent of Diagon Alley— don't ask me to pronounce it, everyone winces when I try— fight the Gringott's goblins over the exchange rate, and rent one," Regulus answered with a shrug. "Will it kill you to wait until the weekend to get going? I've got this tonight, and I've got to give some kind of notice at work."

Sirius hesitated, his pen lingering over one of the first lines of the letter.

"It's not absolutely urgent, Sirius."

"That's what they said about Grindlewald and eruption of Pompeii," Sirius muttered, but he scribbled the word "immediately" out, signed the letter, and tied it to the owl's leg. "Ready to go home?" he asked her.

The bird swivelled her head over to look at him, as if wondering if he was worth an answer.

"Or," Regulus asked mildly, "would you like something else to eat before the flight?"

The owl chose to devour the all of the remaining fish sticks in the freezer before fluttering to the window and taking off into the sky from there.

"While I'm here could you do francs to pounds?" Regulus asked the goblin. "I'd rather not fight Muggle customs as well as Gringotts."

The goblin looked at him as if he'd just asked for the entire transaction to be in knuts. Clearly it was possible for him; he just found it incredibly annoying and inconvenient. "Why do you want Muggle money?" he demanded, his long fingers tapping impatiently on the counter.

Regulus considered telling the goblin he was a squib, because that would neatly sum up all the oddities of this conversation, but he settled for vague and honest instead. "I spend most of my time in the Muggle world these days. But recent events've got my brother worried about his godson, and if he goes back to England; I go back to England, because I don't trust him not to do something abysmally stupid."

The goblin nodded, as if this was what was expect of humans— abysmal stupidity.

"So can you?" Regulus repeated.

"How much are you asking me for?" The goblin tapped his long fingers impatiently on the desk, a clear but subtle indication that he wanted Regulus gone so he could get back to terrorizing the more easily intimidated.

"Two hundred pounds?" Regulus asked, knowing it was far more money than he'd probably actually need. They would likely spend all of their time in the woods by Hogsmeade, after all.

The goblin raised an eyebrow. "I had expected you to ask me for more."

Regulus shrugged. "I just need the cash to get home. Will you or won't you make the transaction."

The goblin grumbled, but he made the transaction, while Regulus asked him a few more innocent questions— such as what the exchange rate actually was— that seemed to irritate him more. Finally, however, the goblin was able to wave him off and mutter, "Next victim."

Regulus rolled his eyes as he headed out, glancing around the street for the post office and hoping fervently that Dumbledore had some fairly good ideas for them. After all, he didn't believe his own rationalizations about Austria; it was no wonder Sirius hadn't bought them. Back to England was back into the thick of things.

--
Author's Note: Wow. I wasn't expecting the number of reviews I got for the first chapter, so thank you everyone for very pleasantly surprising me. Mersang: Thanks for the correction about the right arm/left arm thing. Jackline: Well, if it makes you feel any better, the wall will have to come down in '94 or 1995 will fall flat. Mizz Moony Luver and Gabwr: And I thought Reg and I were the only ones in the "Tuesdays suck" camp, with everyone else with Garfield in "Monday sucks". (grins) Again, thank you everyone for the comments on last chapter and in advance for the ones you will (hopefully) leave this chapter. Cheers! — Loki