She slings her arm around Ellie's shoulders, pulling her wife in for a kiss on the cheek. "I'm pretty sure you're the cutest one here."

"I won't argue that."

"In the whole world, though I'll admit me and Fay are pretty close."

"Strong contenders for second place."

"Though we'll never reach first."

"The consolation prize is getting to observe me all the time."

"I do rather appreciate being behind you."

"As well you should," she says with a flirty shake of her hips.

Kiss.

(It is getting pretty late, though... And very sadly, bed sharing is against Hogwarts rules...)

Maybe they can pick up tomorrow, then.

Yeah. (Goodnight kiss.)

Until morning.

School's tougher than it had been, but not too much so. The students are broadly nervous - one muggleborn, not someone the Potter-Cantas know well, was murdered after the breakout, her and her whole family. Other students lost family - mostly extended, but the wizarding community is tight knit, and even one death can send out echoes. The students with Death Eater sympathies are being louder - Fay's breaking her record for almost never handing out detentions. She or Scarlet catch a lot of the increasing bullying. 

The Order meetings continue, and Fay's unable to get the girls to quite so many as they had been attending - but they should be able to fairly regularly attend any that happen to fall on a Friday night. 

After the first of those, while Fay is catching up with mostly mundane gossip with friends, Dumbledore approaches Ellie.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Good evening, Miss Potter. I'd wanted to talk to at least you, if not also Miss Canta, Professor Reynolds, Miss Black, and Miss Delacour if they can spare the time, about Voldemort and his past," he says, hands folded behind his back, smiling a little. "I don't think it's useful enough for a full Order meeting, but I'm hoping it'll help find his horcruxes at the very least."

"Oh. That might be good to know, yeah."

He nods. "If you have time tonight, we can discuss it while we're all here."

"I think so."

She lets the others know Dumbledore wants to talk.

Bellatrix, Fay, and Anathema are all available right now.

As is Elodie.

What does the old man have to say for himself?

Privacy spells, first, in a drawing room that's been cleared of portraits and dubious artifacts, and then a summary, in chronological order, of Tom Riddle's life, noting which parts he observed, which parts he's uncertain on...

Tom Riddle was born to a pureblood witch who fell in love with a muggle man - dosing him with a love potion when he rejected her advances. They were married, and she had his child, and stopped dosing him after Tom Riddle Jr. was born - only to be rejected. She killed herself, and the baby Tom was left at an orphanage in muggle London. Tom grew up a cruel and curious child, prone to hurting others to see what they'd do, or in revenge for slights both real and imagined. Dumbledore's been trying to track down locations Tom frequented or might have found significant in the muggle world, though it's slow going - still, he includes those in his narrative, including what he knows about Tom's relationship to them.

The boy came to Hogwarts at the usual time, being Sorted into Slytherin after some debate with the Hat. He was an outsider initially, a muggleborn as far as anyone knew, but he quickly built up a small cult of personality among his fellow students, extending even to the pureblood supremacists. He was arrogant, and most of Dumbledore's clues about him come from this time - he tended to let a lot more slip. Dumbledore thinks he used Myrtle's death to create his diary's horcrux, and he suspects Tom might've tried to use significant or ironic deaths for the others. Dumbledore believes he formed the plan to use the Founders' artifacts as horcruxes during this time, too, since he convinced the Grey Lady to tell him where Ravenclaw's Diadem was hidden while still a student.

Tom Riddle's trail starts petering out within a few years of his graduation - he traveled widely in search of knowledge, before returning in Dumbledore believes the late sixties to build up for the Death Eater war.

Relatedly - and he strengthens the privacy spells - Dumbledore believes Voldemort might have obtained Slytherin's Locket from his mother's family, since they claimed to be descended from Slytherin and used that as proof when questioned. He thinks Voldemort used the murder of his maternal grandfather and uncle to create that particular horcrux. He's not positive where Voldemort hid the locket, but -

A spy of his in Voldemort's ranks has reported that Voldemort has started a man hunt with his most trusted lieutenants, searching for what Dumbledore believes is the Locket. It's likely not where Voldemort left it - possibly making it harder to find, but also likely leaving it under fewer deadly protections.

The locket seems the place to start, then. They can keep an eye on the Death Eater hunt while conducting their own.

So diadem, cup, locket- Has there been any sign of Gryffindor's sword?

A pause, and: "I've located it and removed some of the protections, but it's proving difficult to destroy - Gryffindor seems to have protected his sword rather more thoroughly than any of the other Founders protected their items. There's also a political matter, in that it was goblin made originally, and I might need to consult with them to get past its protections - and they likely won't want the underlying sword damaged."

"Could that turn them against him? If he made their sword into a horcrux."