“Horcrux?” Asked Sirius.

Hermione seemed especially interested now that there was the prospect of learning something new.

“It turns out the soul fragment that stuck to me was not completely accidental. Voldemort didn’t mean to do it, but the reason it happened is that Voldemort created horcruxes in the first place,” said Harry.

“What are horcruxes, though?” asked Hermione.

“From what I understood from Voldemort’s memories, severely biased as they are, is that they’re containers to store a part of your soul in. So if you have that, then even if your main body dies, the horcrux would make sure that you wouldn’t die permanently.”

All three of them watched him with horrified expressions.

“Hang on. If Voldemort didn’t mean to make you a horcrux, then does that mean creating horcruxes makes your soul unstable?” asked Sirius, “I can’t think of any other reason part of his soul would tear away and stick to you.”

“That might be the case,” nodded Harry, “in which case, Voldemort is even weaker than we assumed at first.”

“So, you’re saying you-know-who created these horcruxes as well?” asked Lily.

She continued when she saw Harry nod. “How many did he make?”

“The memories I got end on the day he attacked my family so I’m not sure if he made more after that night but till then he made 6, including me,” said Harry, “Though one thing I know for sure is that Voldemort wanted a seven-part soul. He believed seven was a magical number, so he wanted six horcruxes. Along with the soul in his body, it would be a seven-part soul.”

“Seven is a magical number,” chimed in Hermione. “Bridget Wenlock, the famous Arithmancer, wrote a theorem establishing the magical properties of the number seven. It’s incredibly fascinating, really.”

“That aside,” Sirius turned to Harry, causing Hermione to pout, “he created 6 including you, but he never intended to make you a horcrux. So, assuming he doesn’t know about you being a horcrux, that would mean he probably created one more after attacking you.”

Harry nodded, “incidentally,” he said as he pulled Slytherin’s locket out of his pocket and placed it in front of himself, “this is one of those horcruxes.”

Hermione and Lily yelped and moved backwards, away from the locket. Sirius pulled his wand out and pointed it at the locket.

“Harry, step away from it!”

“Calm down, it won’t do anything till we don’t interact with it magically. Also, horcruxes are nearly indestructible,” said Harry, “there are very few ways in which we can actually destroy them.”

“Those are?” asked Sirius, still on edge and his wand still pointing at the locket.

“Fiendfyre, basilisk venom, the killing curse and,” paused Harry, “phoenix fire.”

“That means you can destroy it?” gasped Lily.

Harry nodded and conjured up a ball of phoenix fire and lobbed it at the horcrux.

Immediately, a pained wail rose from the locket as it snapped open and a ghostly visage of Voldemort appeared above it.

The shrieking got louder and louder till the four of them had to cover their ears to block out the caterwauling.

As the wail died down, Harry pulled the phoenix fire back to himself and absorbed it. What was left on the floor was Slytherin’s locket, still in its pristine condition.

“That was Voldemort?” asked Lily in shock.

“A part of him, yeah,” replied Harry.

“Molly is going to storm in any minute now,” groaned Sirius.

“Nah, I put a silencing charm on the room before we started our talk,” said Harry. “We should be fine.”

“What are the other horcruxes, Harry?” asked Lily after she finally got over the surreal sight she had just witnessed.

“Let’s see. The locket we just saw, Hufflepuff’s cup, Ravenclaw’s diadem, Riddle’s diary and someone called Marvolo Gaunt’s ring.”

“He’s defiled everything he could get his hands on, hasn’t he?” asked Sirius with a frown.

“Isn’t Riddle’s diary the one you destroyed in our second year?” asked Hermione.

“Yup. Along with the locket, we’ve already destroyed two of the horcruxes,” replied Harry with a nod, “that just leaves the cup, diadem, ring and whatever else Voldemort has made. The diadem and ring are easy to get to. I can get the ring soon, the diadem is in Hogwarts so we’d have to wait for school to start but the cup is troublesome. It’s in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault in Gringotts.”

Sirius grimaced, “cousin dearest causing problems even from Azkaban.”

“We can figure something out for the cup later, that also leaves any other horcruxes you-know-who has created in the last fifteen years,” said Hermione, “we need to figure out what that is and hope that you-know-who doesn’t keep it too close to himself.”

“The horcruxes aside, you-know-who himself is a problem too,” said Lily, “since we know you-know-who’s weakness, how do we take him down for good? Just destroying the horcruxes won’t do us any good if we can’t kill his main body and get rid of his death eaters.”

“It’s hard to do anything when we don’t know most of what Voldemort is doing,” said Sirius, “even with Snape on the inside, Voldemort hides most things from him. So, there’s only so much information we can get. Ugh, there’s nothing I can do to help while I’m stuck in this house!”

Harry placed a hand on his shoulder and consoled him, “we could find Peter Pettigrew and capture him. That way, we could turn him in to the Ministry and get your name cleared.”

“Fudge would cover that news up the first chance he gets,” replied Sirius, “though if we can get the information to Amelia Bones instead, she would do something about it. She might not be in the order, but she’s one of the rare righteous witches in the Ministry.”

“So we need to figure out how we can take down Voldemort and his death eaters,” said Sirius, “we have the order, but it’s just a motley group of witches and wizards, who I doubt could take on the entirety of Voldemort’s forces.”

“What if we get more races on our side to help? Many of them can do things wizards could never do, so they should actually be incredibly helpful,” suggested Lily.

“That won’t work,” said Sirius with a sigh, “there’s been too much discrimination against most of the races so, they wouldn’t want to ally with us. They’d either stay neutral or go to Voldemort since he would promise them freedom. Many are even worried the goblins might go to his side, especially since wizards deny them wands.”

“What about that prophecy?” asked Harry. “might be best to destroy it. We could go through the Ministry and I could destroy it, since you said I could touch it. Keeping that from Voldemort’s hands should help delay him a little at least.”

“With how much Fudge hates Dumbledore and you, he would never let us do that,” replied Sirius.

“Fudge again,” said Lily with disgust, “we should get rid of him and make someone from our side minister.”

“That’s it!” yelled both Harry and Hermione.

“That’s nonsense,” dismissed Sirius. “There’s no way we can depose Fudge without causing major issues for the order. Now go to bed, it’s late and Molly will kill me if she finds out I kept you three up.”

“We can figure something out, Sirius!” insisted Hermione.

“No, it won’t work, and it’s too dangerous. Now head to bed,” he shot back and started shoving the three out of the room.

With a sigh, all three of them went to bed.

Hermione walked into her room after a hushed ‘good night’ and just as Harry was about to enter his own room, Lily grabbed his hand and dragged him into her room.

As soon as they entered the room, she shut the door behind her and slammed her lips onto Harry’s.

“Even though it was only one night, I missed you last night,” she said breathlessly.

“Me too,” said Harry, and dove into another kiss.

The two slowly moved to the bed. They didn’t separate for a single moment as they lay down in each other’s arms.

“You can stay the night here, right?” asked Lily as she parted from the kiss and stared deep into Harry’s eyes.

“I would even if you didn’t ask,” said Harry. He pulled her close to himself and wrapped his arms around her. As they kissed, his hands tentatively approached her breasts.

Harry hesitated for a few moments, unsure of whether he should continue. Sensing his worries, Lily grabbed his hands without breaking their kiss and placed it on her sizable chest.

Harry smiled at the unspoken consent and hungrily groped at her breast. Lily moaned into his mouth, her breath became labored and her hand snaked down to his pants.

Harry pulled her top up, and luckily, she was not wearing a bra. He pinched her nipple, eliciting a louder moan from Lily.

Lily put her hand into Harry’s pants and pulled his dick out. In the throes of passion, she started stroking his cock almost instinctively.

Harry increased the intensity of his groping with one hand and with the other, he slid his hand into her pants and directly plunged it into her underwear. No sooner had his hand entered her panties, it came in contact with a sopping wet pussy.

Exhilarated and hornier than he can remember ever being, he slid a finger over her pussy, causing Lily to shudder and increase the speed of her stroking.

The two never broke their kiss and continued to stroke and finger each other. Harry plunged a finger into her pussy while using his thumb to knead her clit. Lily moaned loudly, causing Harry to increase the speed of his fingering. Lily matched his momentum and increased her speed as well, jerking him off the best she could.

Moments later, both Harry and Lily shuddered and came at the same time. Harry spewed it all over Lily’s naked belly while Lily soaked Harry’s hand, her panties and pants.

They kissed for a minute longer before finally parting. They breathed heavily for several moments before Harry helped Lily fix her clothes and his own and took her into his arms and hugged her shivering body tightly.

Lily smiled sweetly and snuggled into his arms. Both of them drifted off to sleep, blissfully unaware that a certain someone was in the room right next to theirs, with her ear to the wall and a hand in her pants. A staggered gasp escaped her lips as she reached her own orgasm.