"Dumbledore needs to know, Sirius. People need to know."

He refused, and refused, and refused. It took Remus a good few hours, while Harry was at the Yule Ball, to convince him of it.

"As much as I love you like a brother, Sirius, for your own good, and for Harry's, I won't do it if you refuse to tell anyone. If we die-"

"We won't."

"You can't be sure of that."

"I can, in fact."

He could be sure, because he knew the deal he had made, he knew what he had done. He knew what he discovered.

It's where we last were.

Where one last was.

Voldemort was Tom Riddle. Where was he last? James and Lily's house. And before that? How far back can one go? As far back as one can. Back to his mother, back to his father. Where was his mother? Where was his father? Even something as wretched as him must have been born. But no wizarding families or trees sounded familiar.

Sirius had run in his vision, far and wide, both as a human, and an Animagus, and he could not find a single lead. He had researched during nights when Harry was asleep, and had sent Magdalena to the London Wizarding and Witchcraft Library to get him tomes upon tomes of Wizarding families genealogies, but there was nothing.

Perhaps that was where Dumbledore could, in fact, come in helpful.

"Tell him only after you've gotten something of Malfoy's. Harry's getting some of Snape's, and with that, we should be good."

"I will."

Sirius nodded, but just for good measure, he stood up, and grabbed Remus's forearm tightly. Remus returned his gesture, gripping his fingers around his arm tightly for a second as they swore on it like they had done many times as young children, as young teenagers, as young men, when there were four of them, not two remaining shadows. He watched Remus leave, followed by Magdalena, and for a long few hours, he was again alone.

Somehow, he was still not sure how, those hours passed, and Sirius found himself welcoming Dumbledore back into in his house. Remus had returned first, and had gotten him hair off Malfoy, in a similar pouch Magdalena had given him yesterday for Karkaroff - whatever happened there must have put Remus in a mood, as he had his head down, and welcomed the offer to have a drink with more aplomb than Sirius had ever seen him accept alcohol.

He was going to ask them how their trip to the Ministry was, and whether Malfoy had given them any grief, but his first word was drowned in his mother's shrieks. He heard a female voice cry out that she's sorry, and before he knew it, he found himself back in the hallway, this time pulling the curtain over his mother with Remus's help. The witch who woke the portrait up continued profusely apologizing, lifting up the umbrella stand that disturbed the curtain.

"It's fine, it's fine- It's not you, it's this thing..." Sirius explained the history of how he could not remove her portrait from the wall, more amused than anything by this point. "Anyone's welcome to try removing her. I am very much excited to hear Walburga Black finally shut the fuck up."

At that, the witch's eyes grew wide. Under the blue fringe and freckles, Sirius could swear some of her features looked oddly familiar.

"That-that's Walburga? Blimey, she's even- uh, louder than how mum described her."

"You knew my mother?"

"Ah, in a way! Described only, really. But I believe you know mine! Andromeda Tonks? Uh… formerly Black?"

That was it. That was where she looked familiar.

"No wonder she was louder than usual." Sirius couldn't help but grin as he spoke, crossing his arms as he tried to remember Andromeda. "A current Black and a former Black, traitors of the highest degree to the name, and Order members to top it all." He hadn't talked much to Andromeda after he ran away, but he remembered certain rumors and whispers after she had married and disowned for being considered a blood-traitor. For a family that loved to burn off people from its tree, they sure loved commenting on their lives after. "My best to Andromeda. I do vaguely remember she had a kid, back before I got sent to Azkaban-... I thought her kid was a Metamorphmagus?"

"Yep, her kid sure is!" With a wide smile, the witch's fringe lengthened itself until it reached the length of the rest of her hair, and her freckles disappeared. "Nymphadora Tonks, but please - Tonks is just fine. For some bloody reason, mum still stuck to the uh, tradition of naming your kid, well, you know, Nymphadora."

"Well, cousin Tonks, I'll be happy to show you what you haven't missed in these years you've never been here."

He soon enough found out how they discovered Nymphadora Tonks, long-lost Black lass that had not even had a chance to be added to the tapestry only to be then burnt off immediately. Lucius Malfoy being around the Ministry meant that all it took was having someone spend enough idle time around until they would spot him. And the most mindless task to have a stranger in the Ministry be there for hours or days even, without question, was, according to Magdalena, filing divorce and marriage certificates.

Therefore, her and Remus pretended that they were there for these exact reasons, going up and down all Ministry floors they were allowed to, claiming to be lost - either on the corridors or from one another, whilst they kept an eye on any shadow that resemble Lucius Malfoy. And soon enough, not only did they find him, but it led to a chance meeting with Nymphadora Tonks, who proved herself quite an asset quickly.

"Should we wait for Harry?" Remus proposed, only for Sirius to shake his head.

"Harry knows what to do. We know what to do. The only thing we don't know is where to find Voldemort." He looked across them all, gathered around the kitchen table, before his eyes rested on Dumbledore. "This is where we got stumped. Our final barrier." Sirius watched his former Headmaster nod sternly, before continuing. "I have looked far and wide, I've dug every single wizarding family since the 15th century in wizarding Britain. Unless he was a Muggleborn, which I refuse to believe, I cannot find a single Riddle."

To everyone's surprise - especially Tonks, as she murmured towards the others 'what riddle is he talking about?'-, Dumbledore let out a long, weary, sigh, before raising himself from his chair and putting his hands behind his back, slowly turning his head from them all before speaking.

"Tom Riddle - as that is his name, Voldemort's, that is… Tom Riddle is not a pureblood wizard, Sirius. He is neither a Muggleborn, but rather, a halfblood. Across the years, Tom has tried very hard, as you all can surely understand, to conceal this, and I doubt many wizards, safe for myself, know this, not even the most staunch of his followers. Perhaps the original Death Eaters, the elder Malfoy, the elder Avery, the elder Mulciber, those who knew him from when he was a first year, but apart from those, he has done well in hiding his origins. That is why you cannot find him on any of our records, as Riddle is not a wizarding name. It is a Muggle one, on account of it being from his father's side."

A deep silence befell across the table as Dumbledore spoke, a silence interrupted just by the shuffling of robes as the wizards and witches looked at each other, one more surprised than the other. Well, all of them surprised save for Sirius Black, who did not care as much for the bombshell that was Voldemort's Muggle roots as much as the fact that this gave him the in that he had been looking for.

"Where was he born?"

"Pardon?"

"He was a Hogwarts student, wasn't he?" Sirius continued as Dumbledore turned to face him. "There's records of it, and I'm sure you must have gone through them. Where was he born?"

"Tom Riddle was born in a Muggle orphanage. His mother died during childbirth, and his father… well, I doubt he had ever met his father, or that he wanted to, considering the circumstances. They were killed, many, many years ago, by a relative of his mother's who is still serving in Azkaban for his crime."

"Bloody hell." Sirius rubbed at the back of his head.

A click at the door announced the return of Harry, and as he made his presence known to the wizards in the kitchen, quizzically looking at how his Headmaster and a stranger with what was now a turquoise pixie were looking back at him, the witch waving excitedly and greeting him with a 'Wotcher, Harry! Had a nice ball?' at him, Sirius realised something.

He looked at Harry, how much he looked like James. The way in which he acted, how he slung his backpack with his fancy dressing robe and his books around his shoulder, dressed in Muggle clothing as he had just returned from King's Cross. Back in the visions, seeing them side-by-side, James only a few inches taller than Harry and his hair only slightly more combed through.

Sirius turned towards Dumbledore, sure of himself. More than he had ever been.

"Was Tom Riddle's father killed in his ancestral home?" A nod made his stomach knot, as he realised that was it. That must have been it. "Where is that?"

"The Riddle house is in a small Muggle village called Little Hangleton."

And so it was.

He had travelled there with Remus, both of them under the Invisibility Cloak as they undertook the reconnaissance mission only hours after the lead was discovered. They had nothing to lose, after all, if it was simply a mistake, and everything to gain if this was what Sirius thought it was.

Where one last is - Where one last was. Where the Riddle family name died, even if not by Voldemort's hand. People always go back to where they come from.

Harry, in his visions, went back to his parent's home, to the home where they died, in the forgotten rubble that Sirius found him in, crying his little beating heart out, all those years ago.

He himself returned to Grimmauld Place, in spite of the madness he felt each morning he woke up in that black magic and Doxie-infested house.

Hedda Ablai's trunk eventually returned to her own house, even if only temporarily.

And Voldemort - for that had to be Voldemort, in whatever cursed form he was now in after excising himself from Quirrell's body three years ago - was in his father's decrepit house, catered to by… well, wouldn't luck just have it, and they would be able to kill two birds with one stone, none other than Peter Pettigrew.

Sirius braced himself under the Cloak, and he felt Remus's hand gripping his shoulder with such ferocity that his nails dug under his robes and almost imprinted themselves in his collarbone. The moment he saw Peter himself, Sirius bit his tongue and his cheeks until he drew blood, not from Remus's grasp, but from the wave of anger he felt coursing through his veins. The red-hot fury crashed against his common sense for a good few seconds, and he was sure he must have at least bent his wand with how hard he gripped it, ready to pounce on Pettigrew and if not curse him, at least as a dog stick his teeth into his throat, as that was what he deserved.

But he stopped himself, he stopped himself, and slowly, the two stepped out of the House, under several Silencing and Disillusionment Charms, as well as under Harry's Invisibility Cloak, and when they were at a safe enough distance, they Disapparated, ready to relay all the information needed.

They would do it tonight, he decided.

They had everything.

Malfoy, Snape, Karkaroff, they had been tested. Their Dark Marks were indeed, clearer than ever.

With Tonks and Dumbledore, as much as he did not want to admit it - to Remus, Lena, and to himself as well, they were enough. More than enough

Harry was ready - he had been ready ever since he had done the ritual.

And himself? He was ready - consequences and all, he was salivating for the ability to finally finish this fuckery, and for the first time, to live life as it was meant to be lived.