"What!? What does that mean?" demanded Harry, in a tone mixing surprise and offense.

"There is no record of any valid user either named 'Hermione Granger' or using the alias 'Hermione Granger'."

"What records are you using?"

"The user identity database"

"Use your other sources information; do you have a record of Hermione Granger at this year's Hogwarts sorting ceremony?"

A brief pause. "Yes."

"Good. Find genome and consciousness for Hermione Granger."

"Identity not found."

"Create a user identity for Hermione Granger. Collect all data available relating to her and associate it with that identity."

"Operation complete."

"Can you find a consciousness or genome now?"

"Neither consciousness nor DNA found for Hermione Granger."

"Show me what you did find."


An image of Dumbledore appeared with his transfiguration workroom around him. He placed a steel sphere on the floor, touched the tip of his wand to it and closed his eyes, visibly straining with concentration. Then his breathing and movements sped up to impossible rates, which Harry quickly realized indicated that the image was fast-forwarding through the application of the transfiguration, though he couldn't tell how long the spell was taking.

When finished, a copy of Hermione was laying on the floor, unconscious. Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "Dumbledore made a copy of her..." He continued excitedly, "He must have faked her death, and then transferred her to a different school. If she's using a different name, that's almost safe. And that explains why her consciousness isn't in this thing's afterlife program."

He had to be sure, "Show me the Hogwarts infirmary storeroom on the night of April 16th, fast forward at 360x normal speed. Slow to 10x normal speed when anything moves." The system complied. Harry watched for less than a minute before the body un-transfigured into about half of a steel sphere, which rolled over and settled onto a flat spot. Less than a minute later, Harry watched Dumbledore speed-walk through the room and recover the object. Harry was as excited and as relieved as he could ever remember being. "Okay, go back to the previous scene and continue."

Back in the transfiguration workroom, Dumbledore applied a series of memory charms to transfigured Hermione. He then woke her up with an Innervate, and asked her a few questions to verify that her memory and personality were about right. Finally, Fawkes appeared and the three of them transported away.

The scene switched to the Ravenclaw dorm. It was dark and everyone was asleep. Dumbledore entered while Disillusioned, and put his wand against Hermione's head for a moment. "He's sustaining the transfiguration" Harry realized, "the transfigured Hermione was around for at least a day, so Dumbledore had plenty of time to get real Hermione somewhere safe while everyone was watching the replacement. I wonder which Hermione I was talking to during our last conversation in the library." He paused then asked "Where is the real Hermione now?"

"Invalid request."

"Dumbledore must have found a way to change her identity on this system" Harry thought. "I wouldn't have expected that to be possible, but then I managed to trick it, so maybe he did too."

"Program 'AI to Brain' complete," the system announced.

The scene had switched to the the charms classroom on the first day. Harry watched her help him with the cooling charm. He asked "Can you separate your records according to whether they deal with real Hermione or transfigured Hermione?"

"Invalid request."

"Of course it couldn't be that easy." Harry thought. "How can I speed this up?"

Now Harry was watching an empty train platform. Dumbledore transported in with Hermione and a trunk, said a quick goodbye with something about seeing her in a few hours, the transported away. She sat, removed a book from the trunk and began reading. Harry began hoping that this scene would show him where Dumbledore had sent Hermione, but was quickly disappointed when other students began arriving. This was the train to Hogwarts. "Why couldn't her parents take her to the train station like mine? Why did Dumbledore leave her here, rather than take her directly to the school?" Harry asked quietly.

"Display these scenes in reverse chronological order starting on April 15th." Harry requested aloud, intending to quickly determine when transfigured Hermione made an entrance, so he could then try to follow the other Hermione until her identity changed. Then he could ask the system to find her using her new identity.