Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in uploading this. Fanfiction was giving me some major issues but it seems to be all resolved now. This is another chapter kind of setting up the scene and laying down some important plot points. Please let me know what you think!

"My name is Hermione Granger and I was born in 1979."

Dumbledore blinked. Twice. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Hermione sat still, letting him take it all in, and collect his thoughts.

"I must admit, Miss Granger," He finally said after some while just sitting there looking at Hermione with a thoughtful expression on his face. "I had prepared myself for many possibilities, but this was not one of them."

Hermione couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. The kind of laughter that shakes your whole body and leaves your side sore. This was just too ridiculous. Less than a day ago, Hermione had been prepared to win a war against one of the darkest wizards in history, and now she was back in the bloody castle that started it all, managing to shock the all-knowing Albus Dumbledore with her tale. Her laughter died down after a few moments. Dumbledore had a confused expression of his face.

"I'm sorry, sir", Hermione got out in between the final chuckles from her episode. "I fear that if I don't laugh about the situation I've found myself in, I'll cry. And if I cry, I don't think I'll ever stop." She managed to compose herself fully, sitting up straight in her chair and looking Dumbledore right in the eyes. "I had prepared for every possibility, sir, and while this wasn't one that I chose, I can do a lot of good here."

Hermione would fully admit that she was feeling out of her depths. After all, she did consider time travel to be a possible option, she did steal the Time Turner with the intent of using it if the worst happened and Voldemort won. But, Hermione had not planned what time she would travel to or what her course of action would be. She had just prayed to Merlin that she would never need to use her failsafe. It seemed the universe had other plans or maybe she was just that unlucky that the situation she found herself in was the one, out of hundreds of possibilities, that she had not been ready for. If only Harry and Ron could be here now, they'd both kneel over in shock to hear Hermione say that she didn't do enough research for once.

Well, there was no time like the present.

"Dumbledore, sir, I know how to end this war before it really even begins," Hermione admitted. If Dumbledore was shocked by this statement, he managed to keep it hidden from the bushy haired witch. "But, I need to figure out what is really going on and where I've found myself."

"What do you mean, Miss Granger?"

"The Time Turner that I believe transported me here wasn't like other Time Turners. It didn't have an inscription and had red sand. I don't want to ignore the possibility that I might not have just gone back in time and I need to figure this out before I can do anything, sir. For you see, there are terrible consequences for those who meddle with time. Take Eloise Mintumble for example. Her excursion to the past for just five days provoked such a disturbance in the space time continuum that she managed to erase nearly thirty of her relatives, and altered life as she very well knew it. Not to mention the fact that she aged five centuries when she returned to her present."

Hermione was on a roll now. Her research on time turners coming back to her as if she had the books open right before her eyes. Hermione knew, from her own experience with Time Turners, that most of them only allowed the user to go back a certain number of hours and that they worked as if time was a loop. When she had used one to save Sirius, her and Harry were only able to save Sirius because their past selves had already done so.

But, it made sense that the Ministry would give Time Turners with restrictive capabilities to students. How much could they trust a teenager with the ability to alter events. The Time Room in the Department of Ministries had Turners that functioned differently. From what Hermione could see as she ran for her life and fought Death Eaters, the Unspeakables were working on many different projects and ways to harness time. Hermione believed the Time Turner she had stolen had higher capabilities than the one she had in her third year, which was proven by the fact that it transported her approximately twenty years in the past. If this Time Turner was working as if time were a loop then surely Remus and Sirius and even Dumbledore would have recognized her in the future because to them, Hermione Granger would have shown up, fallen out of the sky in 1979. But they didn't.

Which either meant that time was not acting as if it were a loop or… that she wasn't only in a different time, that she was in a different place entirely. But was that possible?

"Are you suggesting the possibility of a multiverse?" Dumbledore inquired, his blue eyes suddenly lighting up at the thought. Hermione jumped startles, she hadn't realized that she had been speaking her thoughts out loud.

"I'm not sure, sir," She admitted, hating that she had not given this particular subject more research. "If only I had my books and some time," She muttered to herself.

"I'd say time is exactly the problem, not necessarily the solution," The Headmaster responded. Hermione sighed fondly, having forgotten how exasperating the old man could be. How Harry dealt with it with so much patience, Hermione would never understand. "I have a dear friend who might be of assistance, provided he can step away from his work to make the trip to the castle. Let me write to him and see what I can do, Miss Granger."

Hermione made to stand, feeling as if this was a dismissal. She should have known that Dumbledore was not done with her quite yet.

"Miss Granger," Dumbledore said, suddenly incredibly serious. Hermione made eye contact with the wizard and immediately felt his presence trying to invade her mind. She threw her hand out, leaning on the chair to steady herself, as Dumbledore seamlessly took down her Occlumency barriers, the ones she had spent weeks learning to put up. And then he was in, traversing through her memories, not paying them too much attention overall, but seemingly looking for something specific. The process made Hermione dizzy and she could feel her head begin to pound, right behind her temple.

"We will win this together, no matter what."

"Crucio!"

"Filthy Mudblood like you…"

"Horocruxes that have to be destroyed."

"Can't imagine what would convince someone to work for that monster."

Flashes from different memories blurred together, overlapping, overwhelming Hermione. Her world began to blur around the edges, her eyes tearing up under Dumbledore's onslaught.

"Do you vow to put the greater good above your own and to fight against the darkness that is Lord Voldemort?"

"Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Miss Granger."

The last thing Hermione heard before the world around her went dark was Dumbledore saying, "I had to be sure."