With Dumbledore's participation in freeing Dobby, Harry felt somewhat less reluctant to approach the old man for help with finding the rest of the Horcruxes. Of course, he didn't do it alone. It was Sirius who did most of it, with Harry and Hermione supporting him.
After the usual pleasantries, with all three refusing the offered lemon drops, Sirius got to the point. "The search for the DADA curse proved to find much more than anticipated. One of the items we found was a Horcrux, probably Voldemort's."
Dumbledore seemed to be surprised. He then glanced at the children and turned back to Sirius. "Are you sure we should talk about this in current company?"
Sirius wouldn't be deterred. "They already know as much as I do, and it was their idea to bring this to you."
Dumbledore sighed and waved his hand in a gesture of 'continue'.
Sirius did just that. "Harry also told me that he suspected the diary to be a Horcrux. I then talked with Bill, who'd been told the story by his sister, and he agreed that it might have been a Horcrux. Were you aware of that?"
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "It could not be destroyed by regular means. We had to use FiendFire for that, and it screamed something horrible when it finally caught fire. That's when I realized it was more than just a cursed diary."
"Have you done anything about that since?" Sirius asked pointedly.
The old man opened his arms as if in apology. "There wasn't much I could actually do while staying at Hogwarts. I started going over all I knew about Voldemort and also watched some memories I collected from others, some even before his rise. I now think I have a fair understanding of what and where they might be."
Sirius nodded, as if expecting some more details, but Dumbledore didn't seem to offer any more. Sirius then asked pointedly, "Which items do you believe he used for Horcruxes and where should we look for them?"
Dumbledore sighed. "Alas, my boy, that's not something I should tell. I assure you that I'll search for them as soon as I can."
Sirius shook his head. The children also made sure to look disappointed. "That's not good enough, headmaster. If Voldemort has created more Horcruxes, then he may come back any day. The longer we postpone finding these objects and destroying the Horcruxes in them, the more chance we give him to return. Actually, I believe that your tendency to keep things to yourself almost cost us the war. Had Harry not defeated Voldemort that night, he might have been ruling us all by now. Well, those whom he wouldn't have killed."
Dumbledore looked like he'd been slapped. He still tried to protect his decisions. "Some information is too dangerous to spread, you know."
"Some, that's true, but only a very small part of the information you get. Not letting others use it for their protection, not letting them form an opinion based on facts and relying only on your personal opinion is much more dangerous. Had you told the twins that they might be going into a trap, they could have still been alive, you know."
"That would have exposed our spy!" Dumbledore looked alarmed.
"What use was that spy if you didn't allow us to act on the information he passed? He was useless, yet keeping him there cost us many lives, that you could have spared had you given the information on time."
Dumbledore's face fell. He glanced at the children, noticing that they didn't look surprised. They had evidently heard about all that before. He sighed again and rubbed his temples before saying, "You may be right, but it seemed the right thing to do at that time."
"Only to you, old man, only to you," Sirius drove it in.
Dumbledore sat silently for another moment. He then sighed again. "It looks like Tom Riddle, the man who later called himself Lord Voldemort, tried to use objects and locations that were important to him. That diary was his first attempt, made after murdering Myrtle Warren. You see, to create a Horcrux, one needs to do a cold-blooded murder of an innocent. That splits his soul, allowing him to put a part of it in the object turned into a Horcrux."
He stopped for a moment, collecting his thoughts and waiting for questions. None came.
"I suspect he then used some items of significant value as his anchors. I believe, based on circumstantial evidence only, that he found at least two relics of the founders for that use: Hufflepuff's cup and Slytherin's locket. I doubt he used any of Gryffindor's relics, since he despised all that Gryffindor stood for: courage, bravery, chivalry and loyalty to friends. Tom had none of these qualities. As for their location, I'm not quite sure. As you said, one was found at Hogwarts, which isn't really a surprise, since he saw Hogwarts as his home while he was a student. The orphanage was never a home to him. There are a few places that he considered important. One or more of them may hide a Horcrux. The only one I feel quite sure about is the Gaunt home. I doubt he used the Riddle Manor for one, since that's a Muggle house."
He stopped for another thought. "Just like he gave one to Malfoy to keep, he might have given one or two to other members of his inner circle. I'm not yet sure what we can do about that."
Dumbledore lifted his head, looking questioningly at Sirius, as if daring him to challenge what he'd just heard. Sirius smiled. "Your assessment is very close to ours, although we didn't have all the information you do. How many Horcruxes did he make? Do you have any idea?"
Dumbledore sighed. "Only a rough idea. He probably made more than three. The next magically significant number would be seven, and I think he liked it. I suspect he made, or intended to make, either six or seven Horcruxes, depending on how he considered them. My bet goes on six, although we don't know how many he actually created. I don't believe he'd gone for more than seven – that would be too dangerous even for him."
Sirius nodded in agreement. "That's what we also thought, but I was lucky to find and destroy two more. One was actually found in my ancestral home. The other I found in the Lestange vault. Both were eliminated, like the one found at Hogwarts."
"Do you mind telling what they were?" Dumbledore asked.
"Three items from the founders: the Ravenclaw diadem was found at Hogwarts, the Slytherin locket was at the Black home and the Hufflepuff cup was in Bella's vault."
Dumbledore sighed heavily. "What a pity to have to destroy such invaluable items!"
Sirius corrected his assumptions. "There was no need to destroy them. The Goblins have a method of transferring the dark magic from one item to another. They moved the Horcrux to some paper cup or a similar item and destroyed it, leaving the valuable items intact. I believe they should stay out of the public eye until we destroy all the Horcruxes and get rid of Tommy boy."
Harry decided to add another bit of information. "Thinking back, I suspect that my scar was also a Horcrux, until the Goblins healed it. Actually, they said it harboured a very dark entity. Couldn't that be another piece of Tom's soul?"
Dumbledore turned pale. Harry watched him attentively. It was clear that the old man knew, or at least suspected, what that scar meant. The fact that he'd done nothing to deal with it was also evident. Harry wondered if Dumbledore felt remorse or was just envious of the Goblins being able to do something that he couldn't. Actually, Harry thought he could use some passive Legilimency on the old man and he wouldn't even notice, but rejected that idea. He didn't feel it was worth breaching the man's privacy for that.
"Whatever that was, I'm glad it's no longer bothering you," Dumbledore said. He sounded sincere.
He then looked at all of them. "If Harry had a Horcrux in his scar, I don't think it was intentional. Maybe Tom thought to use this murder for his last Horcrux. Since he failed, that piece of soul latched to whatever it could. He may have brought with him another item to turn into a Horcrux, but nobody really thought of searching for one, and with Peter gone, we can no longer ask him about that."
"So, the only Horcrux we're somewhat certain about is at the Gaunt's home, you say. Any idea what it might be?" Sirius returned to the main topic.
Dumbledore brushed his beard between his fingers while thinking. "During Tom's seventh year, I saw him wearing a ring that he proclaimed to have belonged to his mother's family. It wasn't found on his remains, after that Halloween night. It might be hidden there."
Sirius didn't hesitate. "I'll have a team of curse breakers scan that place and turn every stone, if necessary. We shouldn't give Tom any chance to return."
Dumbledore seemed a bit offended. "I thought I'll go there during the summer vacation." He then relented, his stance turning mellower. "Well, if this can be done sooner, so be it. Not having ever owned the kind of money you've always taken for granted, I tend to do things by myself rather than hire others to do things for me. It would be really good to get rid of that as early as possible."
They talked a bit longer, but there wasn't much to add. They all agreed that this would probably be the last Horcrux to destroy, although they couldn't count on it and would continue to search for any additional Horcrux, if any existed.
\/\/\/
As it turned out, the Gaunt home was just a small shack, almost falling apart. The team that came to investigate there was still extremely cautious. That probably helped save more than one life. The almost run-down shack had magical fortification to put a castle to shame. It took them more than a week to analyse the wards and about the same time to dismantle them with no damage or injury.
Going into the shack proved to be just as challenging, but these were Gringotts curse breakers, ones who could easily break into ancient tombs. That shack couldn't hold them back for long. They found the Horcrux and destroyed it immediately, leaving the Gaunt ring clear of any curse. It was then brought to the Black vault, to join the other cleansed items, formerly housing a Horcrux.
\/\/\/
In Albania, Voldemort had finally managed to find some homeless to possess. He didn't like his host very much, but it was better than possessing birds, squirrels or snakes. This one, so he hoped, would be able to hold him for most of a year, as did that idiot Quirrell. Boy, was he lucky when the Aurors came to fetch him. They only stunned his body, and he fled it as soon as they left Hogwarts. Quirrell's body probably died soon after that, but this was of no concern to him. Quirrell has served his purpose and was quickly becoming a liability. He would have died soon anyway.
Yet his new possessed body wasn't in good shape. It had probably starved for quite a while and drank mainly alcoholic beverages of the worst quality. It didn't matter much. With this body, he could use some magic to hunt and feed it well enough until he could find a more suitable body. Until then, he had to plan carefully. His last plans had proven to be unsatisfactory. He needed to do better than that. He needed to make the name Voldemort feared once more. But first he needed to feed this body.
The feeble body proved less than satisfactory even when hunting. He could barely see, even in broad daylight. After spending a few hours in futile attempts to find something edible that wouldn't run away before stunned wandlessly, he was too tired to try any more. He just let his body fall under a tree and get some rest.
Then something awakened him. It wasn't anything nearby. It was a feeling of a great catastrophe falling on him. He could feel his soul starting to unwillingly peel away from its host. That couldn't be! It could only mean one thing – somehow, his Horcruxes, all five of them, were compromised. Worse – were being destroyed. That only meant one thing, one he'd tried to flee from since before he changed his name – Death!
He tried to quickly search his memory and find a way to keep staying on this plane, even as a wraith, and not go to the next. There were several rituals he had studied, but they all needed months of preparations and multiple participants. None of them could help him now. Then he thought of the dark mark. Wasn't it connecting his soul to those of his minions? What good were minions if their master died?
He wasn't sure how long this body could hold his magic. He still had to try. Concentrating on his bond with his minions, he started sucking some of their life force.
For a moment, it seemed to work. He felt his soul refilling and repossessing the body he'd found. Not for long, though. It looked like his soul was decomposing faster. He needed to take more from his minions.
Nobody could tell how long this battle lasted, but it wasn't very long. It was still broad daylight when the last piece of Voldemort's soul left this plane of existence for good. It took along the soul of the poor man whom he possessed along with the souls of all his minions.