Chapter-2: The explanation.

Lily P.O.V

'Well?" I asked. Remus and Sirius were just staring at the letter. James was pacing around, and Peter was searching the kitchen for something. They weren't even saying anything. Just staring. They had been staring for at least ten minutes.

"He made six horcruxes!" Remus said, still staring at the letter. He finally looked up and looked at Sirius. The expression on both their faces was one of horror.

Sirius nodded. "He should be insane by now. And his magic would be unstable. Worse than that of a magical child." He looked sick as he said that.

"You don't say!" James muttered. "I don't even know what horcruxes are and even I know that what he has done is absolutely terrible. Not just in a 'that is super dark magic way'."

Peter seemed to have found whatever it was and gave it to Remus, Sirius, James and passed one to me as well. They opened the items and started eating it. 'It's chocolate,' I thought as I opened the wrapping as well. "Calm down Padfoot. Nothing will happen here. Have some chocolate. You'll feel better." Peter said, as he ate some of the chocolate himself.

Sirius was pale and looked as if he wanted to run away and hide. Remus didn't look any better, but he rolled off his sofa and sat next to Sirius, putting an arm around him. James was still pacing and running his hand through his hair, messing it up. It was a nervous habit, I supposed. They were doing their best to comfort each other.

"Can you lot tell me what this horcrux thing is and why it is so bad?" I ask them softly. Hopefully they won't freak and would be able to explain. It seemed like they had forgotten I was there, as Sirius practically jumped onto Remus, Peter tripped backwards and fell, and James turned around so fast, I'm surprised he didn't get a whiplash. "Hello. I have no clue what is going on. Would you care to enlighten me?" I say, though perhaps the sarcasm was a bit too much for Remus just raised his eyebrows in amusement before his expression went back to blank.

Sirius and Remus exchanged looks, before Remus nodded and Sirius buried his face into Remus' shoulder.

"Jamie. Sit down. Pete, you too." Remus said. I was surprised when James and Peter did what he said without question. They trusted each other. No wonder they never thought Peter would betray them.

"Where to start?" Remus muttered, anxiously as he carded his hands through Sirius' hair and then sighed. "Alright. A horcrux is extremely dark magic, illegal even. It is a piece of a person's soul, that has been placed into another vessel, in Voldemort's case, each of these items. Making one horcrux would split the soul in half. So, if Voldemort made six horcruxes, then he has a very small part of his soul left."

Remus paused and waited for it to sink in. Peter and James nodded in a few seconds and I did the same after that. James then broached another question hesitantly. "What would happen if he split his soul so many times?" he didn't seem to actually want an answer and I could see Remus was tempted to avoid answering it.

"This would cause his magical core to use his magic to keep him together, making his magic as well very unstable. The fact that most of his soul was split, means that his mind went insane by the amount of dark magic used. There is only one family that can use so much Dark magic without going insane – the Blacks and since, even they don't use it, you should know that something is wrong." A soft voice said, Sirius. He hadn't lifted his head from Remus' shoulder and his words were a bit muffled, but everyone understood, nonetheless. I felt like throwing up and I deeply regretted asking them for this information.

"Basically, what Voldemort has done is to make sure that should he die, only one part of his soul would be destroyed, and he can come back to life because of the different parts of his soul still existing. The only way to completely kill him, for sure would be to destroy the Horcruxes first and then kill him. Making a horcrux is considered Dark, not just because of the person splitting their soul, but because to split your soul, you would have to kill another person." James said, summarizing the entire thing and reading between the lines. If anyone had seen them now, then they would have understood why the Marauders were considered so smart. Turns out they can actually back their words!

"If he has made six, he has killed at least six people and never felt remorse, as remorse is the only thing that will allow the ritual to merge the Horcruxes. Of course, to destroy the Horcruxes the only thing we can do is use Dark magic against it." Remus said, as if he didn't want to say it and confirm that what was written was true. Sirius was still sitting on Remus. I knew that my face was pale, and I was feeling extremely sick. I felt exactly how James and Peter looked right now.

"Are you sure?" Peter asked, after a few minutes.

"Yeah. We looked through this sometime ago. Of course, the books are banned, but still." Remus shrugged. I guess illegal books aren't something that would affect the Marauders. "Sirius and I were discussing which was the darkest form of magic that Voldemort could have used. He did claim at some point that he was immortal. So, we went through the books that Sirius got from his house. That's what we were doing, third year."

"You checked this out in third year?" I asked. I was feeling even more sick and if the expression on Remus' face was anything to go by, he was hoping that what they had researched wouldn't be true.

"Er… yeah. We figured out by the end of the year that he had made a Horcrux. We didn't know that he had made six. If he did make six…"

"Then he might have actually been sane at some point. He probably wouldn't be going on about Muggles like this and killing anyone who stood in his way. I hate purebloods like this." James spat with disgust. As soon as he did though, Sirius lifted his head and turned to us, his expression was one of pity and amusement. He barked out a mirthless laugh. I wonder what he would find funny in this mess. Remus looked amused as well, but it wasn't in a good way.

"See, that's where you are wrong, Jamie boy. Voldemort is not a pureblood. All dark pureblood families know how dangerous Horcruxes are. So, once we figured out that Voldemort had probably made Horcruxes, we realized that he couldn't be from a dark pureblood family or any pureblood family, actually." Sirius explained.

"So, last year, you went through the family genealogy books." Peter breathed out. "This is what you were researching!" Remus nodded at him and continued.

"Turns out he is descended from the Gaunts, who are the last living descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself. His mother was Merope Gaunt, a squib. She fell in love with a Muggle, Tom Riddle and fed him love potions. After she realized that she was pregnant, she stopped giving him love potions hoping that he would stay because of the child. He left her immediately. She gave birth to her son in a Muggle orphanage called Wool's Orphanage and died after she named him." Remus paused as James laughed.

"He's hardly even a half-blood, then. A Squib mother and Muggle father. The only way he could have gotten magic or developed his magic is if he didn't have an ideal home environment. That Orphanage must b a terrible place and kids there would probably turn out abused or with mental problems." Peter mused as he sat down on the sofa that Remus had vacated earlier.

"Really? That's odd though, because Muggle borns have good home environments, at least some of them do." I said, frowning. What he said didn't make sense and they seemed to understand that I didn't know what they were talking about because James said, "I'll explain it to you later, remind me." I nodded, looking forward to this lesson.

"His original name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, named after his father and grandfather." Sirius continued. "He grew up in the orphanage and came to Hogwarts when he was 11 and was sorted into Slytherin. He let loose the Basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets in his sixth year."

"The Chamber of Secrets is real?" I asked, incredulously. Sirius nodded.

"A Muggle-born girl, Myrtle was killed. She haunts the girl's bathroom on the second floor, you know. You could ask her about a lot of secrets of Hogwarts and she would tell you." Remus added, laughing at my expression. He obviously knew that I was surprised they had visited a girl's bathroom.

"Anyway," Sirius said loudly, "once he finished school, he joined Grindelwald in the 1940's and then went underground when Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. From then he changed his name to an anagram – 'I am Lord Voldemort' and started gathering masses of purebloods that he had studied with, to go against muggle-born and erase them from the magical world." Sirius finished. James and Peter just nodded. I was just astounded at how much research they had done.

"A bit of this is guess work, by the way." Remus added. "Most of this is facts, well, a summarized and shortened version of it."

"So, what do we do now?" I asked, thinking we were done with the explanations. James just looked at me in amusement.

"I'm guessing you lot have already researched this possibility as well?" James said, looking at the two taller boys, who nodded.

"Siri searched through his parent's room and found journals about Tom Riddle. From those we guessed and wrote down a timeline about his life. Based on the information you just gave and the one from the journals, we are assuming that he made his first Horcrux at age sixteen, after he killed his father and grandparents. We are assuming that he framed his uncle, Morfin Gaunt for their murders. The guy died in Azkaban or so we think." Remus said.

"Or maybe, the first one was made when he killed Myrtle. What we do know, is that by age sixteen, he had killed four people and perhaps made two Horcruxes. He also blamed his Muggle father for leaving his mother and that was taken out against every Muggle and Muggle-born person." Sirius added. By now, I was just staring at the two of them. James and Peter didn't seem surprised by the amount of research that the two of them had put in. They were actually quite smart and put together something so complicated together, all of it by mere speculation.

"How did you know all of that?" I blurted out, completely astounded.

"We just researched, Lils. There is a war going on and Remus, James, Peter and I are most probably going to get invited by the dark side." Sirius said.

"Why would you be invited by the Dark?" I exclaimed. None of them answered. It was as if they had selective hearing!

However, Peter asked, "So, what are we going to do about this?"

Note: I'll explain about the squibs, muggleborns and other magical theory in upcoming chapters. Also, remember this is an Alternate Universe, so some events and timelines will differ from canon. See you soon!