"I found this with the body," Alastor said, concluding his brief to Albus regarding Elphias Doge's death. He laid the silver bracelet on the desk. It had been tucked into the side of the pale and mutilated corpse of the wizard who had been the headmaster's closest friend since they attended Hogwarts together.

"Does he recognize how disturbing this is?" Albus asked quietly, staring at the bracelet without picking it up. It was the first thing he had said since the start of their meeting. The headmaster's face looked as old and careworn as Alastor had ever seen it. Alastor did not need to ask who "he" was. His own portrait had blithely relayed the message that Sirius Black had hidden "Dumbledore's friendship bracelet" on the body of his latest victim.

There was no blood on the silver bracelet, just as there had been no blood on Doge's body. It was possibly the most gruesome bloodless murder Alastor had ever seen in his years of service as an auror, right up there with burn victims. That said, few outside the Order and the centenarians had been aware of Albus' and Doge's friendship. He doubted Sirius had known about it. Nor could he imagine Sirius had been intentionally so macabre. But... "I'm not sure he recognizes anything as particularly disturbing anymore. He has been acting more erratically ever since we told him about the prophesy. He didn't take it the same way as we did, probably because you didn't want to share the whole thing with him. I think he's losing hope."

"He hasn't been the same since he killed Edgar," Alastor's portrait corrected. "That's what started it."

"We need to do more to help him before he is lost to despair entirely," Albus said. As usual, he ignored Alastor's criticism of the decision to give Sirius only the first two lines of the prophesy. Of course, today he might not have even noticed the criticism. Even the great Albus Dumbledore could be shaken by the murder of his best friend of many decades.

"Yes, clearly."

But what to do? Alastor knew perfectly well from their interactions over the Christmas interlude at the Potters', Sirius did not do well with a feeling of powerlessness. It made him moody, and worse it made him reckless, as evidenced by his impulse to return to the Death Eaters on Christmas Day without telling anyone ahead of time. When Sirius became careless, the Order had to scramble to clean up after him. Albus had barely pulled Fleamont Potter and young Peter Pettigrew away from danger in time on Christmas and had to obliviate Peter afterwards. Poor Gideon had only just returned from administrative leave while they went through the internal review for the Greengrass debacle. They were very lucky Sirius' teammates, Mr. Avery and Ms. Bertram, were keeping the muggle-baiting efforts organized and non-lethal for him.

The thing was, Alastor understood and sympathized with Sirius' feelings. They had set the young wizard a truly overwhelming task searching for horcruxes. Unlike Alastor, Sirius had no one to talk to about it except for furtive whispers with a portrait. Now, Alastor's conversations with Albus on the topic had yet to bear fruit, but they still served as an outlet for the uncertainty, one that Sirius had no access to. Plus, Albus had decided to conceal the exact language of the latter lines of the prophesy from Sirius because he did not want to provoke the wild youth to worse than usual imprudence if he decided he was "the greatest Black." It was a precaution Alastor also understood, although it now seemed to be backfiring on them.

He sighed and thought back over what little they had learned about the horcruxes since first hearing the prophesy. None of it had seemed worth passing on to Sirius at the time, but they had to give the lad something so he wouldn't feel so alone. There just wasn't much. Albus had confirmed much of the horcrux theory he had already previously proposed, and found there was no known precedent for making multiple horcruxes. He had produced an Arithmantic matrix for the problem and concluded that if one were insane enough to make multiple horcruxes, the most stable number was probably three (two horcruxes, one living body). Since Voldemort had not stopped there, the next most likely goal was probably seven, and twelve at the outside. He had also examined Alastor's all-too-brief memory of the journal horcrux in the pensieve and after reviewing many of his old memories of Tom Riddle, realized he recognized the journal. He had witnessed Riddle writing in it while he was still at Hogwarts, in his fifth year. Albus was currently expanding his personal memory review, reasoning he might have seen other horcruxes without realizing it, but he had yet to find anything potentially helpful.

"Maybe... outside of the attacks on Order members, Death Eater activities have been dying down while they're on Sirius' Imperius wild diricawl chase-" Alastor ventured.

"A blessing if ever there was one."

"Amen. Anyway, things are calmer at work since I'm keeping more of my aurors bunkered in the office. I have time. I can help you more directly with the horcrux affair."

"I am open to suggestions, Alastor, but you never knew Voldemort when he was still Tom."

"Sure, but I'm an auror. I have security access even you don't. Trust me, since most of us aren't iconoclastic Hogwarts professors old enough to remember every single suspect and potential witness from their school days, we've developed other means of finding the information we're looking for." Alastor said wryly. Albus straightened slightly in his chair, a bit of spark returning to his tired eyes. Alastor grinned. "I'll pull the old auror files for anything connected to Tom Riddle. You say he was poor, raised in a muggle orphanage. If you're also right that he would have wanted valuable objects for his horcruxes, there's a good chance they're stolen. He might have at least acquired the objects when he was younger and not so good at covering his tracks."

"Oh, he was always good at covering his tracks, even when he was still at Hogwarts," Albus said darkly. He did not elaborate, which was not uncommon for him. Albus did not like to share his bitter memories, nor his theories until he was convinced they were more than likely facts.

"Don't underestimate the value of fresh eyes looking at old paper," Alastor told him. "I know how to search muggle police records too. It's a place to start at least."

Albus' lips quirked. "Perhaps you will find something at that," he said. He prodded the morbid bracelet a few times with his wand before finally picking it up. He studied the runic engravings a moment before carefully clasping it to his wrist. Alastor swallowed. Constant vigilance and preparation for the worst was all very well, but still, he hadn't expected the incorruptible leader of the Order to actually keep the means for Sirius' Black execution on his person at all times. "If you will excuse me, Alastor, I must pay my respects to Elphias' sister, and his partner."

"Of course."

Alastor took up his new horcrux angle when he got to the office the next morning. It was the work of a moment and two wand flicks to confirm there had been no mention of Tom Riddle in the auror records for the last five years, all of which were kept in the filing cabinets in the busy open office space of the Auror Headquarters. Alastor was not surprised. All of Voldemort's recent activities had been catalogued under the name of Voldemort, since no one in the department had realized who the man was for years. Most people still didn't know his real name, because Voldemort had very publicly and gruesomely murdered the first few people who had tried to disseminate his identity to the public. Filing crimes under one name or the other was not worth risking lives. All the older records were archived.

Since Alastor did not want to draw attention to his project, he did not take the lift to the Ministry Archives level until his lunch break. The witch minding the archives entrance scanned his wand and waved him through. He walked far enough into the dimly lit forest of shelves to escape her hearing range before he said distinctly, "Query: auror records, subject Tom Riddle." There was a rustle of parchment, and four folders floated out of the darkness towards him. Alastor grinned nastily. "Got you." He collected the files and proceeded to a reading table tucked into the corner where he could not be easily seen but could watch for anyone approaching with his magical eye. Merlin, he was in love with this eyeball. Damned useful, it was. If he had known such devices were possible, he would have sacrificed his natural vision years ago. He sat down and scanned the dates, then paused. Albus remembered seeing Tom Riddle with his journal while he was at Hogwarts around 1943, when Riddle was sixteen. Why then was the oldest file dated 1925?

Curious, he opened the 1925 file first and began reading the arrest reports of Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt. He recognized the writing style instantly as belonging to Bob Ogden, who had run the misdemeanor magical law enforcement squads for decades, retiring about two years after Alastor started in the department. Both Gaunt men were sentenced to Azkaban for several months after hexing a local muggle in Little Hangleton, Tom Riddle (!), and then attacking multiple Ministry officials including Ogden when confronted about the violent breach of the Statute of Secrecy. Interesting. It could be unrelated, but it was a hell of a coincidence for Lord Voldemort to share a birth name with a random muggle who made it into an auror report the year before he was born. Did Albus know about this? He might not, since he had been aware of Lord Voldemort's identity from the beginning and so had no need for tangential investigation until now.

Alastor reached for the next file. This one was about the sinister Chamber of Secrets affair at Hogwarts, in spring of 1943 so around the same time Albus had seen the journal. The Ministry had not been much involved, since this was the height of Grindelwald's War. With scant resources to spare, the magical mystery was left to the Hogwarts staff to sort out, until a student, Myrtle Warren, actually died. Auror Chang was dispatched at that point, only for the case to be solved while he was still crossing the Hogwarts grounds. It seems prefect Tom Riddle called attention to third year Rubeus Hagrid's illegal pet acromantula (Really, Hagrid?) mere hours after the girl's body was found. According to Riddle's statement, he had been peripherally aware of young Hagrid's love for questionable magical creatures for several months but as they were not in the same house thought nothing of it, even after the strange petrification attacks started. When he heard of Warren's death, he suddenly, so he said, remembered he did know of at least one "monster" in the school and became "distraught." He tracked Hagrid down and found the third year in the act of smuggling an acromantula the size of a dog out of the castle. Riddle reported the enormous spider tried to attack him, but he repelled it. The creature ultimately got away, unfortunately, so Chang was unable to obtain a venom sample that might have positively confirmed it had killed Warren. Hagrid's statement did not fundamentally contradict Riddle's, although Hagrid of course attempted to defend his ridiculous pet's "gentle nature," to Chang's utter disbelief. There was a note that Hagrid was to be expelled, and that the case of the missing acromantula was to be referred to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. There was no mention of the fact that acromantula venom was not known to cause petrification. It was shoddy work, but then, so were a lot of the reports filed nowadays, with the department so overworked with the war effort. If Riddle had managed to somehow convince multiple Hogwarts professors who should have been experts in their fields with this story, Chang probably would have looked no further and seen no reason to document more than he had in an open-and-shut accidental death case. Alastor wondered what the real monster was and what had happened to it, or whether Riddle had just been using the Petrification curse that Sirius so loved on his fellow students and used the Chamber of Secrets as a cover story. The latter was definitely the simpler explanation. Which meant Warren most likely got the Avada.

Alastor opened the next file and stared. It was the muggle Tom Riddle again, murdered by Morfin Gaunt in August 1943 at age 38, along with his parents the local Squire and his wife. All slain with the killing curse, confirmed with Priori Incantatem. Gaunt freely confessed to and even bragged about the murders to the aurors who came to arrest him. He was sent back to Azkaban and was probably still there. Probably without cause, if he guessed correctly. Well, Gaunt surely made a more convincing scapegoat than Hagrid's acromantula. Too bad Alastor wouldn't be able to file an appeal for his case any time soon.

The last file was from 1961, another accidental death report. The witch in question was Ms. Hepzibah Smith. Cause of death: accidentally poisoned by her old and demented house elf Hokey. Really? Well, there was Hokey's "confession" of putting something that she thought was sugar in her mistress' evening cocoa. And there was the forensics report demonstrating the white, crystalline powder Hokey had indicated was actually strychnine rat poison. That was pretty clear-cut. So why was Riddle in the file at all? He searched the stack and finally found Riddle's statement. He was not a suspect, but he was the last human to see her alive according to Hokey, when he had called on her for business two days prior. When questioned at his workplace, he apologetically could not comment on the house elf's memory but expressed his sadness for the lady's death, as he had enjoyed their occasional appointments even if he did not know her well. Perhaps the Ministry might ask her family for an opinion about the house elf? Alastor raised an eyebrow. If he assumed this wasn't an accident but actually another murder, then why? It must have something to do with the business meeting. His eyes sought the header on Riddle's statement:

Witness Name: Riddle, Tom

Sex: Male

Age: 35

Wand Type: Yew with phoenix feather

Relation to Victim: Business associate

Place of Work: Borgin and Burkes

...Ah. The motive was either blackmail or theft. It seemed he would have to look more into Ms. Smith. And it might be worth a trip to snoop around Little Hangleton, after he'd let Albus know what he found. He closed up the files and sent them drifting back to their dusty shelves of origin. He should have done this weeks ago, should have known even Albus Dumbledore's great intellect did not an efficient detective make.

Author's note: yay, police reports. Funny thing, I'm unconvinced that canon Dumbledore ever did something so straightforward as searching the old auror reports for anything and everything related to Tom Riddle. If he had, it should not have taken "years" to track down all the pensieve memories he showed Harry, because the necessity of tracking down Ogden, Morfin, and Hokey/someone associated with Hepzibah Smith should have been obvious from the auror reports, unless they were so incompetent as to not note down the name of the muggle target Tom Riddle Sr or the fact that Tom Riddle Jr visited Smith days before her death (even if Hokey was obliviated regarding that particular meeting not just him showing up the day of the murder, it would have to have come up when her relative complained about the theft of the cup and locket. Maybe it would have been in a different burglary-specific file rather than the accidental death file, but the paper trail shouldn't have been hard to follow if, like Moody, Dumbledore was operating under the assumption that every suspicious death happening around Voldemort was murder.) Really, the only limitations on getting those three memories should have been the paperwork to visit Morfin in Azkaban and tracking down Hokey if she was sent to a different household. No, I suspect he did things very backwards from a criminology perspective, using his own memories and inferences as his primary guide, exactly as he did for Harry in the books. One of those cases where the excess of information, in this case personal memories, gets in the way of figuring out which bits are actually relevant.

Thanks as always for the reviews, and I'll continue to aim for weekly Saturday updates.