A/N: Hope you enjoy this one! Please let me know what you think. Huge thank you to lanamarymack and Angela 007 for alpha/beta reading this chapter!

July 1947

The time traveller had asked for him by name.

Not that he'd known she was a time traveller at the time. All he'd known about the mystery witch was that she was found on the Hogwarts grounds, unusually thin and uncommonly bruised, as though she had been through some great trial or duel.

When none of the staff could identify her, she was collected and deposited in the Infirmary of the Wizarding school, to await a time when she could be moved to St. Mungo's. The matron then proceeded to run all sorts of diagnostics and spells, the results of which found that there was nothing necessarily wrong with the girl, just that she was exhausted. Her body needed time and she would wake up when she woke up.

That was not nearly enough mystery to keep Albus Dumbledore interested and so he largely forgot about her as he went about the remaining weeks of term before school would be let out for the summer.

Two years had passed since he had defeated his greatest foe and former lover, Grindelwald. Despite himself, Dumbledore had found it increasingly difficult to return to his more mundane life, teaching Transfiguration to students who would largely never appreciate what he could really show them. He had tried to make himself content with his life now that some order had been restored, but he could not deny the slight itch he felt to do something more.

So when he heard that the broken witch in the Infirmary had finally woken up and asked for him by name - Headmaster Dumbledore - with a promise of information that he needed to hear, he had practically skipped down the stairs from his seventh floor office, eager to see what she would say.

The girl - for she was little older than the students he taught at Hogwarts - was sitting up in the starched, white sheets, with a food tray in front of her. Her brown hair seemed frizzy and wild, though he supposed it was usually curly when she made herself presentable. When she looked up at him, he found that her face was rather plain, with the suggestion of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Some might find her pretty when she had not just woken up from a magical sleep, he supposed.

"Hello," he said, summoning a chair to the side of her bed so that he could sit. "I understand that you asked for me. I am Albus Dumbledore," he introduced himself.

"It's good to see you again, Headmaster," she answered cryptically, in between bites of lime flavored jello.

He was momentarily distracted by the fading yellow of a bruise on the side of her neck. How had she gotten that, he wondered? "Are you sure that you wanted me?" he asked, uncertain. "I understand that you asked for Headmaster Dumbledore, but I am only Professor Dumbledore. Perhaps you meant to ask for Headmaster Dippet."

That made the girl pause and look at him with wide eyes. "Apologies, I must have got the date wrong," she said, queerly. "But it is you that I wanted. You are the only person that I can trust with this information."

That made Dumbledore sit up a bit straighter, his mind whirring with the intrigue of what she was about to share with him. "Well, then," he said after a moment. "I'm listening."

The girl chewed at her lower lip in nervousness. "I'm not entirely sure where to start," she said.

"I've found that the end is usually a good place to start," he said, hoping to skip over all of the inane details that she was sure to add. He just wanted to get to the point, to the excitement.

Her face took on a rather pinched look, as though she wasn't sure if he was joking. But then, she blurted out six words that intrigued him more than he could have imagined. "We need to kill Tom Riddle." She held her spoon and cup of jello in suspended animation, as if she'd forgotten everything else other than her proposed mission.

Dumbledore's eyes widened, wondering how exactly she'd come to that conclusion. Truthfully, he hadn't thought about the dangerous wizard in the two years since he had graduated, despite being rather preoccupied with him while he'd been a student. Though he couldn't prove it, Albus was still positive that Riddle was responsible for the death of Myrtle Warren. He'd kept a watchful eye on Riddle after that, quite suspicious about what he was up to. He'd even argued with Dippet about hiring him on as a Professor after graduating, convincing the Headmaster that he didn't possess enough experience for the role.

But after he'd left Hogwarts, Albus was somewhat embarrassed to admit that he had nearly forgotten about his former student. Last he'd heard, Riddle was working at Borgin and Burke's, a nasty little curio shop in Knockturn Alley. His ambitions presumably snuffed out, and in his opinion, Riddle posed no threat while he was there.

Only, maybe he had been too quick to dismiss the other wizard. Perhaps Tom had never left his old tricks behind him.

Albus looked at the witch again, cataloguing the lingering injuries that he could see. Was it possible that Tom had done this to her?

"Maybe in your case we should start at the beginning," he suggested, now interested in hearing about every little detail that she could provide him. Drawing his wand, Dumbledore went through the motions of putting up notice-me-not and anti-eavesdropping charms. Discussion of murder should certainly not be overheard by his colleagues, lest they think he was actually entertaining it. "Or your name?"

The witch flushed. "Oh, of course, how silly of me," she said, extending an arm out to him. "My name is Hermione Granger."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Granger," he said, with a frown. "I'm afraid that I am not familiar with any Grangers, aside from Hector. And I know that you weren't a student."

"Well, not yet that is," she said with a sly grin. "I will be your student in the future. I'd just come from 1998 where I've spent the last seven years learning at Hogwarts, where you are Headmaster. And you wouldn't have heard of the Grangers - I'm a muggleborn."

Albus hadn't thought that anything could surprise him more than her declaration of murder, but learning that she was a time traveller from quite so far in the future was enough to silence him for a moment. The laws of time magic were not well understood, mostly because people who went back into the past had a tendency not to return. It was not clear if it was because they chose to remain or they couldn't leave. It was theorized that most did not survive the journey. "But, how is that possible?" he asked, not sure if he actually expected an answer.

"Well, Professor McGonagall gave me a time turner-"

He cut her off. "Professor McGonagall? Minerva McGonagall?" he asked.

"-Yes, Professor McGonagall, she gave me the time turner and then during the battle, Dolohov tried to tear it from my neck, but the chain wouldn't give and-"

"The battle?" he asked, dumbly. Her words were coming out in a rush and he found them hard to fathom. Who wore a time turner around their neck, let alone during a duel. This foolish witch, it seemed.

"-it seems that he was a bit rough in handling it, though, because I heard the glass break and then I suppose I ended up here. I mean, this is where I woke up," she said, finishing her barrage of information. She looked at him nervously, but with hope in her brown eyes. Hope that he would believe her.

"I..." Albus trailed off, uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "I suppose that seems plausible. But what I'm failing to see is what this all has to do with Tom Riddle."

"In the future, he no longer uses the name Tom Riddle. Instead, he calls himself Lord Voldemort and he has made it his mission to rid the world of muggleborns like me. He's been trying to kill my friend Harry Potter for years, but he hasn't managed to yet," she said, her thoughts obviously disorganized. "Actually, the battle that I was in would have likely ended one of them once and for all. Unfortunately, I don't know who the victor will be."

"That sounds very dangerous indeed," Dumbledore said. "I always feared that Tom was a little too seduced by dark magic and Slytherin's ideologies."

"He's worse than anything Slytherin could have imagined," she said, nervously. "He will stop at nothing to get what he wants - absolute power."

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, contemplating her words. "But, you aren't sure if Riddle has succeeded. For all you know, your friend could have won," he suggested.

"Yes, but..." she looked down in her lap. "It's only that he's caused so much destruction. I've ended up in this time and with all this knowledge. I have an opportunity to save so many lives by intervening. It almost feels as though it was meant to be."

"Still, what you are suggesting is taking the law into our own hands," he said, unconvinced. "Perhaps there is another way - a way that does not involve sacrificing your soul."

A flash of frustration appeared on her face. "I can't leave anything to chance, sir! I might never be able to get him arrested. He's very cunning. But I know that death would stop him." Hermione bit her lower lip. "I know that it seems drastic, sir, and I know that murder is wrong, but..." she paused. "It's for the greater good."

Hearing those words made the blood ring in his ears and he recoiled from her. How could he not have seen it before? How could he not plainly see that this was all a trap, some elaborate ploy from Gellert? Albus wasn't stupid - he knew that Grindelwald still had his supporters. And, despite being locked up, he still managed to communicate with the outside world, despite the best efforts to keep him isolated. Clearly, Gellert had managed to send this witch to trick him into committing an act so heinous that it would mean the complete destruction of his reputation.

Oh, she was good, Albus mused. He wasn't sure how she would have discovered his mistrust of the charismatic Tom Riddle, but she had certainly picked the only wizard that could have hooked him. Luckily for him, she'd slipped and uttered that signature phrase of Gellert's - the greater good - and it tipped him off to her nefarious purpose before he could agree to something really damning.

He looked up at her and smirked. "Oh, that was really well done, Miss Granger," he said. "You almost had me fooled."

"I-what?" Hermione asked, utterly bewildered.

"It's okay, you can drop the act," he said. "I know that Gellert sent you."

"Gellert?" she asked. "You mean Grindelwald?"

"The same," he agreed. "But you won't have to worry about that anymore. I will take care of the fantastic little tale you weaved, so it won't trouble you anymore. I'm afraid you'd be too dangerous to leave as you are."

He knew that it was wrong to obliviate a wizard without authorization from the Ministry, but he didn't want her future knowledge to cause any issues. Hell, he had no idea if any of it was even true, or if it was all just a cruel world concocted by Grindelwald. Maybe Hermione hadn't even been aware that her memory was tampered with. He would remove her of the false future only meant to entice him into committing a blunder.

Albus tightened his grip on his wand and the sudden movement must have alerted her to what he was doing. She grasped for her own wand on the bedside table, but she was too late.

"Obliviate."