Chapter 4

Hermione's mind began whirling with problems and questions. How would they discover the horcruxes' locations? Would she have to try and befriend Voldemort? Would she have to try and become a death eater? Could she slip him some veritaserum, ask him and then obliviate him?

Dumbledore coughed slightly, interrupting her inner train of thought, "Miss Granger, or should I say, Miss Dumbledore, since I met Tom Riddle at the age of eleven, I have always suspected that there was a... potential for something... dark in him. Consequently, I have always kept my eye on him. There are few things that can endear one to him but I believe that we can orchestrate it so that he becomes interested enough in you so that he lets his guard down a little."

"Orchestrate? Do you mean that we try and make me as interesting as possible so as to make him curious?"

He nodded approvingly at her, "Precisely, my dear. I must say, you're very fast. However we won't simply make you interesting, we will need to make you as mysterious as we possibly can. You see, Mr Riddle has always had a thirst for knowledge and if you come across as having some sort of use to him and the cause he is building, we will have an opening to his trust."

Hermione marvelled at Dumbledore's cunning, "Are you sure that you weren't a Slytherin, Sir?"

He laughed softly, "No and I must say, I was shocked to see the amount of prejudice against Slytherin house in your time. There has always been a form of wariness among the other houses of them but never to the extent that I witnessed in your mind."

She nodded, "I always nagged my friends to read Hogwarts: A History so that they could realise that Slytherin's reputation was a more recent manifestation. Just one more thing that we have to thank Voldemort for," she spat out bitterly. Harry would never read anything again. Never again would she be able to nag him about finishing his homework or about playing quidditch less.

Dumbledore stood up and walked around the side of his desk and leaning over a large chest that sat next to it, he whispered an incantation which popped the lid open. After a few moments of searching he let out a noise of approval and straightened up holding a necklace in his hand.

"This is a necklace that has been passed down for hundreds of years. It has always been worn by Dumbledore women. If you wear this around your neck anyone will instantly recognise your position as my daughter and as my heir."

Hermione was incredibly reluctant to take the necklace. She really hadn't' thought through her plan to masquerade as his daughter. In fact, it had simply slipped out in a moment of panic. It wasn't until now that she realised the extent to which she would be disrupting his life. If she remained in this timeline, she would forever be known as his daughter and he would forever be remembered as having an illegitimate daughter who was unknown to the world until she was seventeen.

Dumbledore must have noticed her discomfort because he quickly sought to reassure her, "You have made an incredibly brave decision to leave your world behind and come here to change it. A slight tarnish on my reputation is truly incomparable to your sacrifice. In fact," he chuckled slightly before continuing, "I'm rather looking forward to the reactions that this will cause."

It was impossible not to smile back at him. She grudgingly held out her hand for the necklace.

As it touched the skin of her palm the entire room filled with a pure, golden light and she felt tingles descend from her hand and through the rest of her body.

"What-what was that?" she gasped, still reeling from the sensation.

"Hmm," he commented, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "the necklace recognised you as my daughter."

"Your daughter? How is that possible?"

"Sometimes if a wizarding family has no heir they choose to adopt a suitable one to fill that place not just as their financial beneficiary but as their magical beneficiary too. The traits and talents of that particular blood line are bestowed upon the adoptee. The necklace knew that I have no blood children and it recognised you as a deserving heir."

Hermione was reeling from this news, "So does this mean that I'm actually a Dumbledore now? Wait, kind of traits do you mean?"

"Yes. Your magical name is now Hermione Dumbledore and my dear, from what I witnessed in your mind, I am sure that I could not find a more incredible young woman if I tried. The necklace realised this."

A strange warmth came over Hermione and settled in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't felt this kind of paternal approval or affection since she had wiped her parent's memories and made them forget that they ever even had a daughter. She realised with a pang that they hadn't even been born yet.

She tuned back into Dumbledore's explanation of inherited traits.

"Familial traits can be anything. For example, the Gaunt family passes down parseltongue. A bloodline descended from a veela may pass down not only exceptional beauty but also the ability to charm and manipulate with great ease. Now in my family we have the useful trait of all being natural occlumens."

Natural occlumens. She let the significance of what he had just said wash over her. She had been trying to learn occumancy from an obscure book she had ordered from Flourish and Botts ever since Harry had begun trying to learn it in fifth year. She had done better at it than Harry had but she certainly would never have been able to stop Voldemort if he decided that there was something in her mind worth discovering.

She realised something with a jolt, "You knew that was going to happen didn't you!"

He nodded, "I suspected it, yes. Tom Riddle is already a brilliant legilimens and if your plan to pique his interest is to work he would have found you out instantly. Your ability at occlumency and legilimancy will only serve to fascinate him more."

"That makes sense. I've been mulling things over in the back of my head and I've thought of what we should tell the school about my sudden transferral."

"What would that be?"

"Nothing at all. We have Headmaster Dippet simply announce that Hermione Dumbledore has transferred here for her final year. Then, whenever people try and question me about my life or my past, I should simply drop hints that I've somehow been involved in the war with Grindelwald. It's almost true, too. If Voldemort thinks that I'm powerful enough to be fighter against the current dark lord then he's sure to want me on his side. Not to mention, and no offence meant, I'm sure that he would love nothing more than to swoop in and convert your daughter to his side."

Dumbledore responded slowly, "Yes, you're right. Unfortunately there is simply no way to guess what will happen and so we will have to plan the rest as events unfold. You must remember though, to start thinking of him as Tom Riddle now. Slipping up and calling him Voldemort would be disastrous."

"Tom," she sounded out slowly, "Tom Riddle, I'll be seeing you very soon."

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

A/N I realise that Salazar Slytherin building a secret dungeon that housed a basilisk is a pretty strong argument that Slytherins have always been marginalised as prejudiced. However, I prefer to believe that it's not so black and white. If we look at the context of Hogwarts' founding, it was in a time when witch hunts were rampant. Let's get real, if your friends and family are being burnt on the stake (and they don't happen to have a wand on them to save themselves) then you're going to be pretty against including muggleborns and thus spreading the knowledge among their families that magic really does exist. I do think that people from other houses would have been sympathetic towards this view. Human beings do have a bit of a nasty habit of destroying that which we don't understand...

Thanks for the reviews everyone, it's always very encouraging when I get a review email from :)

Coming up in Chapter 5: September 1st is here and that means that our heroine lays eyes on her target for the first time.