Despite having the information about Voldemort's Horcruxes, the Order took some time to gather their thoughts before they proceeded. As well as mapping out the information they had from Dumbledore, they also took some time to do some of their own research. As much as certain impatient people, like Sirius, wanted to just dive right in, he was persuaded to hold off. After all, the light were fairly confident they had the edge over Voldemort with the information Dumbledore had left them. They knew the dark had no idea they had the information, otherwise they would have left someone with the light, and that gave them the edge. Then there was the fact that even Sirius had to admit that going after Voldemort was useless until they were able to destroy his Horcruxes. While they might be able to wipe out some of the dark, Voldemort was indestructible for the moment.

As well as amassing information about the Horcruxes, the majority of the Order also had their normal lives to live. Kingsley and Tonks had still their job as Aurors, although they were now no longer assigned to catching dark wizards, instead they were on a task force aimed to enforce Nott's new muggle laws. McGonagall and the other staff of Hogwarts had to plan for their return to school. The Order now knew that Snape had been appointed Headmaster, and about the couple of other staff changes, and they all agreed that the rest of the staff needed to stay on Snape's good side so they could stay at Hogwarts and protect the students who didn't support the dark.

There were also big changes afoot with the Weasleys. Arthur and Percy were still adjusting to their new jobs at the Ministry. Percy now had a low level administrative job, while Arthur was stuck destroying muggle artifacts that had either been handed into the Ministry or taken from those in breach of the new laws. Bill and Charlie had also both decided to hang around, so they'd both started new jobs. Bill was able to just transfer his work to Britain, and he was still employed by Gringotts as a curse breaker, only his work was slightly less interesting than what he'd been used to in Egypt. As for Charlie, there wasn't a dragon reserve in Britain, but there was a magical creature's sanctuary for injured magical creatures, and Charlie had recently got a job working there.

However, the biggest news in the Weasley family came courtesy of the twins. Much to Ron and Ginny's surprise, the twins had managed to save up enough money to put a deposit down on a shop in Hogsmeade. Gringotts had given them a loan for the rest of the money, and the twins were now the proud owners of the newest joke shop in Hogsmeade. When Zonko's found out, they'd launched a protest against the shop, but the Ministry had intervened and stated there was no law about a potential rival business opening up nearby. After all, there were two pubs in Hogsmeade, and they both manged to turn over a profit.

Finally after several weeks of research, the Order decided to start looking into the information Dumbledore had left for them. Out of everything Dumbledore had given them, the group agreed that the location of the Riddle house was their most solid lead. They were still trying to track down the cave Dumbledore had mentioned, as well as a few other locations. However, they knew where to go to search the Riddle house and the Gaunt cottage. So a date was set, and everyone who was available to help with the search gathered at Grimmauld Place.

Sirius, Remus and Moody had taken charge of the plans for the day, and they had decided to split into two groups. Moody was going to take Kingsley, Bill and Charlie and search the Gaunt cottage, while Sirius and Remus were going with Tonks and Ron to search the Riddle house. Sirius was rather surprised when Molly gave Ron permission to join the search, but he understood that the redheaded boy needed to feel as though he was doing something productive to help the cause. Sirius knew that like him, Ron was feeling exceptionally betrayed by recent events, and also like him, he wanted his revenge.

"Do you know what we're doing, Ron?" Sirius checked with the youngest member of their group as they prepared to leave.

"Yeah." Ron nodded his head as he patted the bag he had slung over his shoulder. "We take a good look around and gather up anything that looks out of the ordinary. We've also got the potential list to look for."

"Don't get to distracted by the list," Sirius warned. "Dumbledore wasn't really sure on the list, they were just options. I think we're best off just looking for something out of place, or something that pulls at your attention."

"Don't worry, I'll be vigilant," Ron vowed.

"I know you will." Sirius gave Ron a quick smile and a pat on the shoulder as he headed across the room to check that Remus and the others were ready to go.

Five minutes later, everyone was ready for action. Sirius took hold of Ron's arm, and after a few last minute words from Moody, the group apparated to their destination. Sirius, Ron, Remus and Tonks landed outside a large, run down house and it's gardens, and just down the street Moody and the others arrived outside of the small Gaunt cottage.

"Wow, this place is larger than I thought," Ron confessed as Tonks checked the property for security wards.

"The Riddles were pretty much Lord and Lady of the manor in these parts," Remus supplied. In the last few weeks he'd been doing his homework on Voldemort, and he knew everything there was to know about both his wizarding and muggle ancestors.

"And their son was the spoilt brat, who thought he was better than anyone else," Sirius added. "Or at least he thought he was better than the Gaunts."

"So how did he end up getting a witch pregnant if he thought he was better than her family?" Ron asked. Even though he'd been included in things far more than he ever thought his mother would allow, there had been times he knew he hadn't been told everything.

"Magic," Remus answered, as he watched Tonks check the property and erect a few warning wards of their own. "Merope Gaunt slipped young Tom Riddle a love potion. The result caused quite a scandal, and they ran off together. The problem was, Merope convinced herself that Tom really loved her so she stopped giving him the potion. The second it wore off, he was disgusted with her and he went running back to his parents, claiming she'd bewitched him."

"And what happened to Merope?" Ron asked.

"She fell into a depression when Tom left her," Remus replied. "By that time she was pregnant with You-Know-Who, but she'd already given up. By the time she was ready to give birth, she was nothing but a bag of skin and bone. She survived long enough to give birth to her son in the muggle world and name him after his father. She then died, leaving You-Know-Who to be raised by muggles."

"Sad story," Ron muttered. To be honest, if the story had been about anyone else, he would have felt sorry for them, but he just didn't have it in him to feel anything but hatred for Voldemort and his entire family.

"Okay, it's safe to enter," Tonks called as she came back over to the trio. "I couldn't find any sign of wards surrounding the place, however there is faint residues of magic in the air."

"Is that good sign, or a bad one?" Sirius asked as she began the walk up the long drive to the front doors.

"I'm not sure," Tonks admitted with a shrug. "If there was something precious here, I would expect to find some sort of protective magic. Although, it could be more localised, and we might find something inside that is protected by magic."

"And what about the faint residues of magic in the air?" Remus asked. "What does that mean?"

"It means someone has used magic in the vicinity in the last few years," Tonks replied. "To know more, I'd need to run more checks and cast more spells of my own. But from previous experience, I would say the magic residue was no more than eighteen months old."

Armed with the knowledge that sometime in the last eighteen months, someone had been using magic nearby, the group ascended the front stairs and made their way into the house. Everything in the house was covered with a thick layer of dust, and the windows let in barely any light they were so dusty.

"Remus, Tonks, you two head down that way," Sirius said, pointing towards the back of the house. "Ron and I will search the front rooms. We'll then meet back up in here and head upstairs. By then the others might have finished at the cottage and might be here to help."

"Call if you need anything," Remus said, before he headed off into the darkness with Tonks at his side.

"Right Ron, let's get going," Sirius said as he walked over to the nearest door and pushed it open, revealing an ancient living room covered in a thick layer of dust. "Remember, be thorough. We don't want to miss something because we didn't search properly."

While Ron started searching through the sideboard that stood beside the door, Sirius marched over to the other side of the room to begin his search there. For a while, he was able to distract himself with the search, but before long his mind began to turn back to the topic that kept him up at night. Just what had happened the night James and Lily died?

As hard as it had been to discover, Sirius completely accepted that Harry wasn't James's son. Initially he wanted to cling to the hope that Harry was just being manipulated, but deep down he knew that wasn't what was happening. He knew Snape well enough to know that he would never claim Harry as his son, if he was indeed James's. So that just left the question, was Harry a result of a one off, ill-advised fling between Lily and Snape, or was there something deeper going on between them that everyone missed? Sirius wanted to believe it was just a fling, and that Lily really did love James, but his gut was telling him that Snape had been telling the truth when he said Lily was planning on running off with him and Harry. After all, there had been a time when Lily was devoted to Snape, so it wasn't too hard to imagine their old connection had been reignited when Snape had wormed his way into the Order.

Sirius was just left puzzling over what had happened the night they were killed. He was sure that Snape had told the truth about everything else, so there was a chance he was telling the truth about James killing Lily. The problem was, Sirius just couldn't see it. If James had discovered the truth, he would have been devastated, but Sirius couldn't imagine him killing Lily in cold blood. However, he could picture him lashing out and Lily accidently getting hurt. Maybe that was what happened, James found out the truth, lashed out and Lily ended up getting hurt. But that didn't explain where Dumbledore came into things, and why he lied about what had happened that evening.

Sirius had decided that Dumbledore had lied about the evening in question, because his version of events just didn't stack up now the truth about Harry's father had been revealed. Dumbledore had always claimed that he arrived too late to save James and Lily, but he arrived just in time to stop Voldemort killing Harry. But what if he'd arrived just in time to stop Voldemort from taking Harry to his father? And why did Dumbledore claim Voldemort had thrown the killing curse at Harry, when there was no way he would have thrown the killing curse at his grandson?

"Or would he?" Sirius whispered to himself as he froze mid search.

Due to their research, the Order all knew how much Voldemort detested his father, and from the notes Dumbledore made, his hatred of his father was one of the things that fuelled his hatred of muggles and muggleborns. So with Voldemort's hatred for all things muggle, how would he truly felt about having a grandson with a muggleborn for a mother? From what Sirius had seen at Hogwarts, Voldemort seemed to care about Harry, but that was now, and this was over ten years ago. Would Voldemort have risked trying to get rid of Harry when he was a baby, and was that was Dumbledore had witnessed and misinterpreted? Or had Dumbledore just found Voldemort with Harry and assumed the worst? Either way, now Dumbledore dead, Sirius doubted he would get the answers that he desired. He would just have to forget the past, and focus on the present.

"Sirius!" Remus's loud cry, suddenly jolted him back to the present.

"Come on Ron," Sirius cried as he dropped the small figurine he was holding into his bag and hurried over to the door. "They might have found something."

Sirius and Ron bolted back into the passageway, where they were greeted by a silver wolf patronus. Following the wolf, they arrived in small bare room, where they found Tonks and Remus standing over a pile of rubbish. It was only when they got closer, which Sirius saw there were bones mingled in the midst of what looked like clothing scraps. A few of the bones looked gnawed on, and even at a glance, Sirius could tell the entire skeleton wasn't present. By his estimate he would say nearly half the bones were missing.

"Is this a body?" Ron asked. As he spoke he nudged a pile of scraps with his foot and almost jumped out of his skin when a skull rolled towards him. "Holy shit," He cried. "That's a skull."

"Any idea who?" Sirius asked.

"Barty Crouch Junior," Tonks replied. "I cast a spell to identify the remains."

"I'm guessing this is payback for entering Harry into the Triwizard Tournament," Sirius remarked. "You know since we've found out the truth, I've always wondered about that. At the time we all thought it was You-Know-Who trying to kill Harry, but it looks like it was Crouch acting alone."

"But how did he get here?" Ron asked with a frown.

"We all suspected Lucius had a hand in his disappearance," Remus said. "I'm guessing instead of helping him escape, he delivered him to The Dark Lord and this was his punishment."

"What to be eaten by rats?" Ron frowned as he spotted a rat poke its head out of a hole in the far corner, before retreating when it saw it wasn't alone.

"I'm betting he was dead long before the rats got to him," Tonks said.

"So what now?" Sirius asked. "Do we call in the Ministry?"

"We'll wait and see what Alastor says when he gets here, but I don't really see the point," Tonks admitted. "We all know Nott won't do anything, so why make a fuss. It's not like he's got any family waiting for news of him. And if we call the Ministry, we tip the dark off that we were snooping around this place. How long do you then think it will be before You-Know-Who puts two and two together and starts worrying about his Horcruxes? We need to stay under the radar, and for that, I think we need to leave things well alone."

"Fine," Sirius replied with a nod. "But let's move on to check some other rooms. I don't think we're going to find anything here."

Nodding in agreement, the others followed Sirius back out of the room and their search continued. By the time they were ready to head upstairs, the second group from the cottage arrived. When they were told about the bones, they agreed with Tonks, that it was better to say nothing and leave things as they were. With that sorted, the top floors of the house were thoroughly searched and the group arrived back at Grimmauld Place with heaving bags of stuff. Now all they had to do was search through them and see if they'd found a potential Horcrux. With any luck their trip wouldn't have been in vain, and somewhere in among their haul would be an object that held one piece of Voldemort's soul. And one piece of soul in their possession, was one more step in their mission to destroy The Dark Lord forever.