A parchment was enchanted and spellotaped to the refrigerator the morning after Sirius Black's Birthday reading 105 SLEEPS TIL FREDDIE. Each night at 6:00 PM according to the time zone of Lyon, France, the number changed and Sirius, who very punctually made sure to be sitting in the kitchen then, would let out a loud squeal.

"Shame he didn't count down to our wedding with this much zeal," Remus joked after the countdown moved from 103 to 102.

James looked up from a thick biography of a famous Quidditch player that he'd been reading, "Well. Freddie didn't give him a pineapple so you've got him beat there - for now at least."

Remus snorted. "It isn't like Queen is going to give him a ruddy pineapple..."

James shrugged, "I haven't any idea what to expect, honestly, if they're as odd as Sirius Black is, they very well could." He turned back to his book.

Remus laughed, but also tried to be extra loving to Sirius until the thought had worn off a few hours later.

Regulus sat on his bed in the Slytherin dormitories, the door to the sixth year dorms locked, and waved his wand to unshrink the portrait he had stolen from the wall. Although the buzz about the school had finally died down about the portrait having been taken, he figured it was still best not to have any confirmed eyes on him with it - especially any of the Slytherins' eyes. They were apt to report back to Voldemort that he had it, and then there would be questions asked and although he had been working on strengthening his mental barriers all the more, he wasn't sure how vulnerable he might be once he found out the full truth about Alabaster Jackson. He couldn't help but think that his fury toward Voldemort might just send his mind into crumbling Jericho walls if he wasn't careful.

It had been Cadmus's idea for Regulus to relocate the portrait. After all, it had been getting down the corridor unnoticed and without anyone in ear shot that had caused the most troubles so far in their attempts at a rendezvous and Regulus's stream of detentions were getting out of hand. Whatever it was that Cadmus had done to loosen his frame from the wall, Regulus wasn't entirely sure, only that Cadmus had told him to hold onto the bottom of the frame and be ready to keep him from falling, which the boy had done, and then he'd carried the portrait away in the dead of the night, sneaking past Filch and Mrs. Norris to the dungeons.

Now the portrait was sized about half it's actual wall size, but a bit more manageable at least, and he set it on the end of the bed, leaning against the curtains of the four poster so that it almost felt as though he and Cadmus Peverell were sitting down and having a bit of a chat, so that the painting was less imposing.

"Alright," Regulus said, getting up to double-check the security of the door and run a quick charm to be one hundred percent positive that he was alone with the portrait, not to be overheard. "Tell me what you know about horcruxes, then," he said. "I need to know what they are, what they do, and what it's got to do about Alabaster."

Cadmus Peverell was leaning against his frame, sitting up on the bottom edge, like a person might do if they were sitting in a tree. Regulus had never seen a portrait sit that way before and it rather fascinated him. It was difficult not to be rude by asking how Cadmus had pulled it off. It seemed the sort of question that would be offensive to a painting - something which acknowledged their dimensionality seemed sort of like talking about jogging with somebody without legs.

"Horcruxes," murmured Cadmus Peverell as he stared up into the unpainted distance beyond his frame. "As you know, if you've heard the tale told of my brothers and I, there are ways in which a man can cheat death... My brothers and I all took a go at it, in one way or another, and while myself and Antioch were eventually found by death unwilling, my brother Ignotus gave up his life when he was good and ready for death to take it."

Regulus nodded impatiently. "Yes, I recall the story... Wands and cloaks and stones and the lot. What's that to do with horcruxes?"

"As I said," Cadmus said, giving Regulus a Look for interrupting his story, "There are ways to cheat Death... to hide from Death, to keep one self from dying. At least not completely."

"At least not completely?" Regulus pressed, "How do you mean?"

"If a city is attacked and it's tallest building is felled, has the city been destroyed?" Cadmus asked.

"No, only it's tallest building is," Regulus answered.

"Precisely," Cadmus said.

Regulus looked confused.

"Likewise, if a man is in a battle and his life is taken from him, only the life which is directly taken is impacted. If that man were to have multiple souls , then death can only take the one which has been directly struck. The other lives live on."

"Multiple souls?" Regulus said, raising his eyebrow

Cadmus nodded. "Multiple souls."

Regulus considered this, then said, "Well hang on. We only have one soul a piece, of course, so what are you on about?"

"Naturally, yes, we only have one. The way we're meant to be we only have one. One God given soul. But if one were to find a way to create additional souls, he would be rather hard for Death to collect." Cadmus's voice was solemn.

Regulus felt something stir uneasily in the very pit of his stomach. "A bit like... like a duplication, then?" he asked, "A sort of... of a back up."

Cadmus nodded, "That's the idea of it, yes. This way, if or when the body is killed, the soul simply moves consciousness, tied down by that which the fragment has been stored in."

Regulus shivered. "But if the body is dead... how...?"

"Do you know about DNA, my boy?"

Regulus had heard a small bit of it, of course, in Transfiguration, but he hadn't paid attention as well as he ought to have been, so he shook his head no, muttering, "It's something about how things are made, isn't it? Like a recipe card or something?"

Cadmus nodded, "It is the exact instructions of how YOU are made, of what YOU are, what YOUR substance is. If you were to take it all out like a long ticker tape it would wrap 'round the moon and back, and it's all folded up inside every cell of your body, a precise, exact recipe, as you say, to YOU."

Regulus pictured something that looked a bit like a string all balled up in a coil but on a microscopic level.

"That DNA is stored with the fragment, just a single cell of the body is all that is needed, and from that cell the entire body can be recreated by magic and a bit of bone and blood and dust... The way you mix something up in your potions class everyday. D'you see? With strong enough power, the fragment of soul is strong enough to feed on another being, to possess them, to overtake them... different than any imperius curse as the mind itself is over taken and the body of the soul can be restored. It takes but one faithful servant to bring the body back. No, the hard thing to recover is not the body at all, but the soul, and once there's been a horcrux created, well then the soul lives on forever."

Regulus could barely breathe. His mouth was very, very dry. "Alright. So you're saying that you think Voldemort might have a horcrux, then?"

"Know," Cadmus said darkly.

Regulus asked, "So he - he can't die?"

Regulus felt rather like overwhelmed with about a hundred questions, worries, and fears. What did this mean for Voldemort's opponents, what did it mean for the Order? Was everything doomed, then, if the Dark Lord could simply regenerate himself every time he was killed off? Was there nothing to be done, no way to end him?

"Not all at once."

"So... in two halves then?" Regulus ventured.

Cadmus replied, "Yes."

Regulus thought for a moment, processing the information. He wondered if it meant that Voldemort would be killed and simply reappear, or would it take time to regenerate? There were so many details he still didn't know. But one thing was aching in him more than the rest. "What does this to do with Alabaster Jackson?"

Cadmus Peverell's painted eyes turned sad and dark and he closed them a moment as though in pain. "Because Voldemort has made one."

"Made one of the horcruxes, you mean? Yes but what's it to do with Al?" Regulus felt daft, like he was simply not able to tie the pieces together.

"In order to make a horcrux, one must commit a murder," Cadmus said.

"Voldenort's committed loads of murders," Regulus said, "Does that mean he has a horcrux for every murder? Because if he has --"

"A murder in cold blood," Cadmus elaborated.

"As opposed to what? A murder out of love?" Regulus snapped, frustrated with himself for not understanding.

Cadmus said, "It has to be a murder without any remorse, without any sympathy, with no hesitation, with no reason, with no element of defensive action. It cannot be during a battle or during an attack. It must be cruel for the very enjoyment of the cruelty."

Regulus's face twisted in disgust. "Enjoyment?" he repeated.

"Yes, enjoyment." Cadmus was quiet for a moment, then he whispered, "It must be done before witnesses and without shame. And..." he hesitated.

"And?"

Cadmus's mouth turned in a frown. "Well. The process is... quite disgusting." Cadmus paused. "You know," he murmured. "You were there... You saw what Voldemort did."

Regulus closed his eyes, remembering the scene that he wanted so much to wholly forget. Tears threatened to come. "How did you find out about it?" his voice sounded strangled, he could barely speak. He was reminded forcibly of the snake, coiling around Alabaster's neck, and the creepy, horrid way his eyes had gone dark and the way that even Bellatrix Lestrange had looked away from what happened next.

"My portrait hangs in the room," Cadmus said quietly. "Because he's... collected it, trying to find the --"

But Cadmus was cut off. The door of the dormitory was blown open and Regulus let out a cry of surprise. The portrait flew from the end of the bed, across the room and into the waiting hands of a positively livid Albus Dumbledore, whose form in the door way was as dark and ominous as any nightmare.