The next few weeks passed in relative peace. Ron forwarded them Percy's reply to their inquiry about Crouch around Easter, which amused the both of them for a few minutes. "Kid needs to take some of the stuffing out of his shirt," Regulus muttered, tossing his brother the letter.

Sirius laughed, looked the missive over, and shook his head. "True, but I still don't like it. I've never heard of Crouch taking that much time off."

"Maybe his age is getting to him," Regulus suggested. "It happens to the best of us eventually, and from the sound of it Crouch certainly doesn't qualify as the best of us."

Sirius shook his head. "Nah, but he's stubborn enough to keep going to work when he's dying."

Wary of another argument— they'd gotten more frequent since their afternoon with the kids, particularly over things that may or may not have anything to do with the Triwizard Tournament— Regulus dropped the subject with the announcement that he was going hunting.

Regulus was returning from another such hunting trip about a week later— both to keep the peace and because they really did need to be out almost constantly anymore to catch something, even with the kids sending food. Something was going on, and the animals knew it.

He'd actually been successful, dragging a rabbit in that, considering the size of a smallish gray fox, was nearly two-thirds his size, and walked in to find Sirius ranting about something. Since he really couldn't sigh with his mouth full, Regulus exhaled irritably and dropped the rabbit out of Buckbeak's reach. Then he transformed himself. "Sirius, what's going on?"

"I don't know, and that's what scares me," Sirius answered, looking down at the letter in his hands. That was the final piece of the puzzle for Regulus— something had happened to Harry.

"Can I read that?" he asked, pointing to the parchment. It looked lengthy. "Maybe I can make more sense of it than you can."

"Well, it can't hurt," Sirius mumbled, handing it over.

Regulus scanned it. The details themselves seemed clear enough to him; it was what they meant that puzzled Harry, Sirius, and frankly Regulus himself. The Third Task of the Tournament was a maze, after which Viktor Krum had asked to talk with Harry. Everything was all right, there— he'd just wanted to ask about Hermione, the girl he'd taken with him to the Yule Ball and was clearly attracted to. Crouch had come out of the woods during the conversation, clearly off his rocker, and demanded to see Dumbledore. Harry had left him with Krum and went to get the headmaster, but when he came back Krum was stunned and Crouch was nowhere to be found. Karkaroff had been understandably furious and Moody had been unable to find Crouch after a night's search. "This is . . . bizarre," Regulus said finally.

"I don't know what Harry thought he was doing, going off alone with Krum," Sirius growled. "I mean, we've warned him about Karkaroff and the Durmstrang champion, and I wouldn't put it passed Karkaroff to use his students to hurt someone. . . ."

"Calm down, Sirius. That might be justified if he'd gone off with Karkaroff or a stranger, but Krum had been dating Hermione. I'd've trusted him for the length of a conversation without any proof of manipulation, too, and you know how likely I am to trust anything."

"You're. . . ." Sirius caught himself, aware that the last thing he needed was to start another fight about the past. "I still don't think it was a bright idea— with anyone near the Forbidden Forest at night."

"You're one to talk."

"If anything had attacked us we'd've let Moony have 'em," Sirius answered, waving a hand dismissively. "Harry didn't have that kind of insurance, did he?"

"Well . . . no. but he didn't get hurt, so can we please, just leave it alone?" Regulus scanned the letter again. "Well, I'll admit you were right about Crouch— some sort of funny business was going on there. Still wish I knew what, although from the look of it we might never know."

"I told you it was out of character," Sirius muttered.

Regulus nodded absently and continued rescanning the letter. "That doesn't fit," he said finally.

"What?" Sirius demanded, stopping mid-pace to change directions and come up to read over his brother's shoulder. "What doesn't fit?"

Regulus pointed to one line about Crouch's rambling— "he kept saying Voldemort was getting stronger— well, actually he said the Dark Lord was (Hermione's hanging over my shoulder telling me to be accurate)." "Why in the hell would Crouch be calling Voldemort the Dark Lord? It doesn't fit."

Sirius lifted one eyebrow. "Explain."

"There's a reason every conversation we've had about Voldemort lately has involved the sentence 'Reggie, would you please not call him that?' It's the Death Eaters and the elitist purebloods that refer to him as the Dark Lord— not the vehemently anti-Death Eater judge whose family has been sitting on the fence about the pureblood question for centuries, like Crouch's. You know that. It should have been a much clumsier euphemism like most people use."

"Crouch is about as much of a Death Eater as McGonagall," Sirius pointed out.

"I know that. It's just . . . odd. Like I said, it doesn't fit. Maybe he was under the Imperius by a former Death Eater or something. He could have put Harry's name in the goblet, since he would have been there when Dumbledore unveiled it, and it's the sort of slip up that someone controlling him might let happen— especially since most of the time it would go unnoticed."

"Why would someone Imperius Crouch when there are so many weaker minds around?" Sirius asked him.

Regulus took a minute or so to come up with an answer to that one. "Because he has more and better contacts in the Ministry— more sources of good information— than Bagman and they were the only two Ministry employees, perhaps?" he suggested.

"And then they had him stop coming to work?" Sirius asked pointedly.

"You win. Really, I've dismantled enough of your theories in the past I suppose its about time you dismantled one of mine," Regulus admitted. "I just hope this isn't going back to Severus Snape."

"It's not. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt so long as Dumbledore's hanging over his shoulder," Sirius informed his brother tartly. "And I still think Karkaroff put Harry's name in the goblet."

"So. . . ." Regulus ran his finger absently over the crease on the back of the letter where it had been folded. "Then Karkaroff attacked his own student?"

"I'm not saying that," Sirius snapped. "I doubt even he'd do something as senseless as that. I don't know who stunned Krum and made off with Crouch in the woods, and the possibility of two people out to kill someone at Hogwarts right now worries me. A lot." He sighed and started pacing once again. "Harry doesn't need to go sticking his nose in this again, not when he's gotten past the first two tasks almost too easily. Not when it's going to happen in the third task."

Regulus watched him pace for a moment or two before his gaze drifted back down to the letter in his hands. He read it one more time and came up with the same explanation as before— within itself, the event made sense. It was what happened before, and while Harry was gone, that made it bizarre, particularly against the backdrop of the Death Eater's increased activity.

He shook his head. "Well, I guess we can't entirely rule out Karkaroff stunning Krum. Let's assume Hermione has decent taste in men, since she otherwise seems a decent enough girl. Then Krum's probably not in league with Karkaroff, but to go out of the country with him there had to be a modicum of trust between himself and his teacher, right? But if he knew Karkaroff was up to something— and Karkaroff kidnapped Crouch, he's definitely up to something— then there'd be a possibility of Krum turning his headmaster in. Right?"

"I s'pose," Sirius mumbled. At least he'd stopped pacing, which in Regulus's experience meant he'd stopped toying with his own theories long enough to give someone else's a bit of serious thought.

"And whoever attacked Krum didn't hurt him, just stunned him, as if he just didn't need complications. I guess we can't rule Karkaroff out."

Sirius nodded and ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. "That doesn't make me feel much better, Reggie. If he'd be willing to stun his own students . . . even if there is only one of him in this case."

"I'm probably wrong," Regulus admitted, shrugging. "Although I did know Karkaroff well enough to know he might. He definitely wouldn't risk hurting Krum or getting himself turned in by having a conversation and then trying to obliviate his memory if he couldn't persuade him. He's too much of a coward to risk damaging him with an improper memory charm."

Sirius nodded and tugged the parchment gently out of his brother's hand. "We're not sharing any of this with Harry," he announced. "Kid's got enough of James's in him to try to investigate. And its not as if Dumbledore hasn't got Moody on Crouch in whatever time the poor man can spare."

"Remind him of that, then," Regulus suggested.

"Like he'll listen to me after everything I did at his age," Sirius mumbled, uncapping a pen and starting to scribble the note.

"He's more likely to listen to you than he is to me," Regulus pointed out. "Kid's got my measure by now— I'd try to hold everyone back, because I'm afraid they'll get themselves killed."

Sirius looked over at Regulus and raised an eyebrow. "Really, Reggie, you're not that bad," he answered. "And you've always got a reason, whether or not I want to admit it."

Regulus smiled ruefully. "He's less likely to want to admit it than even you," he pointed out.

Another week later Harry sent them a letter about adventures in twenty-year-old Wizengamot trials through Dumbledore's pensive. For some reason, this spurred another fifteen-minute conversation about whether or not Crouch was bloody-minded enough to break the Imperius curse. Buckbeak got tired of the fighting and demanded their attention before they reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Afraid that Harry was going to try to sort Crouch out, Sirius's letter-writing got more and more frequent until he was writing almost daily and Regulus wiped every uninteresting Daily Prophet article before the previous month clean so he'd have the parchment. All the letters looked basically the same to Regulus— filled with similar warnings and reassurances, until sending the owl out became almost ritual.

Between stress over Harry and anticipation of the Triwizard Tournament's end, Regulus's own worries about Voldemort got pushed to the back burner once again, except in his dreams, which occasionally called the past back to him. Almost as if something bad was looming in his subconscious, these got more frequent as the task approached.

"Reggie!"

"Hm?" Regulus jerked out of a circle of hooded figures and back into the cave, staring up at the fuzzy picture of his brother. He pulled his glasses out of his jacket pocket and sat up. "I was dreaming again?" he asked.

Sirius nodded. "Sure you don't need to talk about it?" he asked, as he had since the end of February.

"Yes." He sighed. "Honestly, Sirius, whenever you dream, you dream about the same thing, something you couldn't have known about to prevent. You cannot tell me that's not as pathetic as my multiple nightmares."

"I don't think either of them are pathetic," Sirius answered. He squeezed his brother's shoulder. "What was this one about, anyway? I've been up to hear you moaning and muttering about Bella, but I don't think I've ever heard you yelp in your sleep before."

"The night I got the Mark," Regulus admitted.

"I didn't think tattoos were that painful," Sirius mumbled. His eyes drifted down to Regulus's left forearm. "Well, maybe they would be if Voldemort were the tattoo artist."

"For the last time, Sirius, it's not a tattoo, it's a brand. Maybe you should try pressing red-hot metal against your skin and see how you like it," Regulus drawled.

Sirius chuckled, more because he was startled by his brother's blatant sarcasm than because he actually found it funny. Then he sobered up quickly. "He's not back yet, is he?" he asked quietly. "You said it burned when he called, and I guess that might make you dream about it."

With exaggerated movements, Regulus looked under his sleeve. "It's still red. Honestly, though, Sirius— I'd have definitely woken up had it burned because damn it, it hurts when that happens." He gently shoved his brother off of his arm and started to lay back down. "And while I know the last task's tomorrow so you're beyond nervous, will you please try to get some sleep? You need it."

When he took off his glasses, he could see the fuzzy outline of his brother looking out the cave at a horizon still hours from turning pink. "I can try, I guess," Sirius mumbled.

Author's Note: Happy Turkey Day to any other Americans out there, since I'm posting this on Thursday again. I swear the college application is going to eat my brain. That said, I have a long weekend and 2-3 chapters of this fic left, depending on how well it goes (Knowing me, probably three), so I'll see what I can get done. Thanks to everyone for the reviews; xtotallyatpeacex, I'll go back and see if I can't vlear that up now. Cheers! -- Loki