Uncomfortably, Hermione stared into her mug with hot tea. She felt guilty that she was about to lie to Dumbledore, but if she were to even begin to reveal what had happened between them, the questions that followed would be more than unpleasant. Dumbledore was simply not allowed to know about future events, and the less he suspected about Tom's true nature, the more certain it was that time would progress the way it had as Hermione's actual past. Her head boomed.

"I'd really like to talk about time travel again," she started without hesitation, as soon as Dumbledore sat down on his large chair at the desk opposite her.

The old wizard nodded. For Hermione, as a muggleborn witch, it was still hard to believe that Dumbledore during the 1940s was an older man, just like the future Dumbledore she knew. Wizards were a strange group.

"Of course, we can do that. I've made some interesting discoveries, too," Dumbledore agreed with her, but his gaze rested on her with a seriousness that Hermione knew he would ask her questions about Tom anyway, even before he continued. "But first, I can't help but ask you about your relationship with Tom Riddle. You are now his official girlfriend?"

Hermione put the cup down and folded her hands in her lap. If she wanted to lie convincingly, the first thing she had to manage was to look him straight in the eye, not blush, not stutter. Full of pangs of conscience she declared, "Yes. Don't think that anything has changed in my feelings for him, but he showed interest in me and yesterday morning he asked me quite formally. Even though I am not completely sure about his feelings, I still saw a unique chance to get even closer to him. And that's what my mission here is all about, isn't it?"

She waited with bated breath for Dumbledore to respond. His expression did not change, there was still a worried seriousness on his features that Hermione could not help but get nervous.

At last, it was he who averted his gaze. His shoulders sank down when he replied, "You are playing a dangerous game, Miss Granger, but we both know too little to judge whether it is too dangerous. So, I will have to rely on your assessment of the situation. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

By now, it was obvious that Dumbledore knew she was keeping something from him. Even then, there was obviously nothing to hide from this man. But she was adamant she would not reveal details of her relationship with Riddle: "No, sir."

A smile flitted over his lips. "The same answer Tom had given me to this very question. But in a completely different context, of course."

Hermione swallowed. She guessed what Dumbledore was alluding to: Harry had told them that he had seen in Tom Riddle's diary how Professor Dumbledore had asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say about the Myrtle incident. Unlike the other professors, he had obviously - and correctly - suspected Tom of being the one behind the attacks. Apparently, it was a habit of Dumbledore to allow his students to tell the things they were hiding, even if he already knew or at least suspected the truth. She felt bad.

"Don't take my words too much to heart, Miss Granger" Dumbledore smiled at her. "I mean you well, but I also understand if you don't want to tell me everything. I only hope you know I'm always here for you if you change your mind."

Silently, Hermione nodded. What else could she say to that?

Sheepishly, she took another sip of tea while Dumbledore changed the subject. "By the way, I have good news. I think I have an idea what spell may have been cast on the painting you saw."

In an instant her gloomy mood all but vanished. Any progress in this matter was more than welcome to her, because after all, her return to her time and thus her life depended on it. "Tell me!"

Smiling, Dumbledore folded his hands. "I consulted with an old friend, a very powerful colleague. And he told me about a spell that was quite common in the early days of time, but has almost been forgotten today because few wizards are strong enough to cast it at all. Put simply, this spell assumes that each person has a unique signature that can be identified by a spell."

Hermione nodded in agreement. She did not know the extent of Muggle research in the 1940s, but what he was talking about sounded very much like the DNA, which was assembled in a unique way for each person. Obviously, wizard could use it without knowing more about how it worked, just as, for example, brewing potions was based on chemistry without requiring detailed chemical knowledge to brew a potion.

Interested, she listened to Dumbledore's further explanations. "The spell my colleague mentioned makes use of this signature. It ensures that objects remember the signature and react to the touch of the only person who has this signature. What is more, it is possible that a very specific part of the body must transmit this signature. Doesn't that sound exactly like what happened when you touched the painting?"

Hermione stared at her professor with her mouth open. It was not even that the spell sounded impossible, quite the contrary. It was exactly the same spell that had been on the snitch Dumbledore had left for Harry after his death. The snitch, too, had only opened when Harry finally had the idea to touch it with his lips. Thoughtfully, she said, "Isn't that the same thing that's on every snitch?"

Dumbledore's smile became wider. "I see you know your way around. It's actually very similar to this spell, but with the significant difference that the memory for signatures is not just passive, so it simply remembers a particular signature, but active. When it recognizes the signature, the enchanted object reacts."

Hermione suddenly wondered if Dumbledore had had the idea of using the snitch as a hiding place for the Resurrection Stone only because she was now, as a time traveller, having this conversation with him. Actually, though, that was not possible. After all, she had the conversation after he had already had the idea. But for him it was before changing the spell of the snitch.

Confused, she shook her head. She did not want to think about the time travel and its effects, as sooner or later she always ended up running in circles in an unsolvable labyrinth anyway.

She took a deep breath. "So, this means that once the painting exists, we would enchant it so that it would respond to my touch and then wait for me in the Chamber of Secrets."

Dumbledore nodded, but his gaze became serious as he replied, "I have not raised the subject until now because other things were more urgent, but now that you mention it again, I must ask: You entered the Chamber of Secrets?

Hermione sucked in the air in horror. How could she have spoken of it so lightly? Did Dumbledore know of its existence? Had the attacks of the basilisk already been connected to the Chamber at that time or had they only learned about it afterwards? She desperately tried to remember what Harry had told her about the past.

"Miss Granger," Dumbledore immediately stopped her panic. "Don't worry, I knew of the existence of the Chamber even before you arrived. There is little in this castle that I do not know. And, not to alarm you, the Chamber had recently been opened by someone."

Relieved, Hermione exhaled. So, she had not given away any time-altering information. Against her will, she had to laugh. "It's crazy how I'm constantly afraid that I could change time. One wrong sentence... I've become so paranoid about it."

"I understand you perfectly," nodded Dumbledore as he refilled her mug with tea. "Your mindfulness is more than appropriate. Nevertheless, I would ask you to tell me anything you can give away."

Where should she start? If Dumbledore did not know how to open the Chamber, she could hardly explain how she got in. Gently she asked, "Do you know how to open the Chamber?"

He shook his head. "No, if I knew, I probably would have done it already and got rid of the monster lurking there. Legend has it that only the true Heir of Slytherin would be able to do this."

With her eyebrows raised Hermione stared into her tea as she carefully considered her words. "That's right, but ... you can trick the system. If you have watched the Heir of Slytherin open the chamber and ... remember it perfectly, you can ... mimic it. I am not the Heir of Slytherin, of course, and neither are any of my friends, but... the mimicry worked well."

That in reality one simply had to be a Parselmouth, and that it was enough to imitate the sounds of "open yourself" on Parseltongue, Hermione concealed, but her explanation came close enough to the truth. Dumbledore seemed more than interested in the details, but to her relief, he did not force her to tell any more.

He just nodded absently while he processed the information, "So you can open the Chamber?"

Hermione blushed. "No. I... I was there with a friend. He did the imitation. To hang the painting inside the Chamber, I'd probably have to..."

She broke off abruptly. She would have to somehow get Tom to take her into the Chamber. All strength leaving her body, she collapsed.

"Should you... what?" Dumbledore followed up.

Hermione shook her head. "I can't tell you any more without giving away information you shouldn't have. I know what to do, even if I don't know how to do it, but that's my worry, not yours.

She wished she could tell Dumbledore that Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin and that she would need his help if she wanted to enter the Chamber. Now, more than ever, it made sense for her to get closer to Tom. It was not enough that he considered her a potential partner, she had to make him trust her enough to take her into the Chamber. Would she have to become a Death Eater to gain his trust? And if so, how would she do that?

"It seems you have a problem with the Chamber," Dumbledore said softly.

"In fact, I can't see how to solve the problem right now, but... the picture was there, so the other me found a way in that time. I'll manage, I'm sure of it."

Her confident words in no way reflected how she was feeling right now, but she wanted to get Dumbledore to drop the subject. And anyway, it did not do her any good to have him rack her brain.

"I won't press you then," Dumbledore muttered.

Hermione saw how hard it was for him to stop asking, but she credited him all the more for leaving her alone. Instead, he returned to the spell. "So now we know what spell was on the painting. I cannot tell you whether I am able to perform the spell, but if in doubt I will ask my colleague for help. The next step will be to examine the time turner more closely. Time turners are not designed to allow such long journeys, so there must have been some sort of buff on it. And then we have to figure out how exactly the time turner's reaction can be bound to the image."

Hermione nodded slowly. One rotation of the small hourglass was equivalent to one hour. To travel fifty years into the past, one would have to turn the clock quite often. Silence spread as they both pondered the problem. Any normal time turner would be destroyed in the process of turning the clock without even performing the time travel. There had to be a way to bridge the years without having to turn the little hourglass thousands of times.

"But of course," Hermione gasped, the image of a flaming goblet suddenly before her inner eyes, and set her tea mug down hard on the large desk. "We always learn that the simplest spells are usually the best! The Confundus Charm."

Taken aback, Dumbledore blinked, "Confundus?"

"Yes, I am certain," explained Hermione eagerly, anxious to remain understandable in her excitement. "The time turner calculates one hour for each turn. But what if you could get him to think one turn is a year? Then it would take 42 and three-quarters of a turn for me to land in September 1944, coming from May 1997!"

She remembered very clearly how during the Triwizard Tournament it had finally come out that the Goblet of Fire, another powerful magical artifact, had been changed by a powerful Confundus Charm to make it think it had to choose four candidates instead of three. If the Goblet of Fire could be enchanted, it was certainly possible to do the same with a time turner.

Slowly, Dumbledore ran his fingers through his beard, his eyes fixed on the distance. Finally, however, he nodded. "You are right. The simpler, the more likely it is to work. Any magical object can be tricked if you're just strong enough. Nevertheless, we would have to cast an additional spell on the time turner so that it would at least survive the time travel and only break down after its arrival. No telling what would happen if you got stuck halfway through."

Hermione shivered. Pictures of wizards who had splintered while apparating appeared before her eyes. The thought that something could go wrong when teleporting through time, that perhaps half of her was staying in the present and the other half was travelling into the past, made her nauseous. With a dry mouth she said, "But surely a buffing spell is even easier to cast than a Confundus, don't you think?"

"Certainly," Dumbledore agreed with her. "But remember: If the Confundus fails, you simply travel back in time only hours or months, instead of years as planned. If the buff fails, who knows what will happen. And as I'm sure you're aware, we have no way of testing that."

Uneasily, Hermione rolled her head from one shoulder to the other. She suddenly had the feeling that a huge elephant was sitting on her neck, preventing her from moving freely. Frightened, she whispered. "But it has worked before, hasn't it? I am safe and sound here. We've done exactly this before."

"No," contradicted Dumbledore, "we've never done this before. Your other self has done it with another self of mine, but for me and for you it will be the first time. It can still fail."

Hermione clung even tighter to her cup, trying to chase away the cold that suddenly spread inside her. "We cannot let the danger of failure stop us. We must try anyway."

"No wonder you were at Gryffindor in your time," Dumbledore said with a smile, "you truly have the courage of a lioness."

Hermione shrugged helplessly. It was not so much a question of courage. She just felt she had no choice. Her stay here had a purpose she did not know about, but she had to fulfil it. And that she had to make preparations for the time travel to take place at all she knew for a fact, too. It was all determined, predetermined. At least, if she was to succeed. And defeat was simply not an option. She could not let Voldemort win. Tom Riddle sometimes appeared almost human, and his good looks tempted one to see him as something other than what he really was. But for her, there was simply no alternative.

She would do anything to ensure that the monster, who now called himself Tom Riddle, would die.