Chapter 2: Finding out

Albus Dumbledore was a very busy man. It wasn't always like that but for the last few years his schedule was ever growing. The dangers were growing bigger and bigger. Dumbledore, had many meetings with the minister and Wizengamot, every effort was put to stop the current crisis. No one knew what to do, there the man who defeated Grindelwald had an advantage. Fourteen years back when he woke to see that a potion he guarded with his life had vanished he knew something was coming. He wasn't sure if it was good or bad but he had looked at every detail of small things, trying to find something unusual.

Very soon, the thread of unusual was visible to his eyes. By the end of February, 1960 a family that went by the name of Riddle had arrived to Britain. Upon further inspection he found out that 11 month after the birth of Tom Marvolo Riddle his father (-Tom Riddle Sr) had another child who he sent away to study abroad when the child had turned thirteen. So when Morfin Gaunt killed the Riddle family in 1943, Anthony Riddle (who was fifteen at the time) decided to finish his studies before settling in France. However, by the time his third child was a month old he and his wife decided to move back to Britain. Abandoning the old Riddle house, they bought a new mansion house in Hampshire where they happily continued raising their three children.

Albus Dumbledore took action soon, the cause being a name (Lucianna Rosalind Hermione Riddle) that appeared in the list that would join Hogwarts in 1971. He soon put up strong wards around their house and made sure that someone kept watch of the family. Although Morfin (who was sentenced to a dementor's kiss) had confessed to committing the crime, Albus always suspected that his previous student was also involved. If Tom Marvolo Riddle had found out that his paternal family was still alive and he had a muggle-born niece nothing would stop him from murder. His protection payed off in eleven years later when a letter from Garrick Olivander told him of the wand that chose the witch.

Like her uncle the witch was sorted into Slytherin and was a charming student (,much like her maniac uncle). She was only sixth in her year, tied with Remus Lupin and Lily Evans and was well skilled in magic. Though, what set her apart from her uncle was that she didn't attract the dark but that didn't stop Dumbledore from keeping a close eye on her, for you never know if a person had a sudden twist of heart. Dumbledore knew of what she had asked the Sorting Hat and knew her true house but he never talked to her personally because he wanted to observe of what she'd up grow to be. He hoped she'd end up on the right side.

Today, he knew that something was coming. Fourteen years have passed since the potion disappeared and today the empty vial had shined before cracking into a hundred shards. There was also a strange feeling, like something of his possession had vanished. After a short period of time he noticed one of his books to be missing. So when a spell warned him that someone had touched Ariana's red box he was already armed with a wand and a spell on the tip of his tongue as he quickly made his way into the Room of Requirement.

He was ready for a terrible fight or a complex talk. He expected an unknown person, foe or perhaps an old friend to be there. He was getting ready for this day for fourteen years but no part of him was ready to see the petite figure of Lucianna Riddle standing, supported by a wall, clutching Ariana's wand in her right hand with a 'Lumos' spell on it. As another shock it came to him that her left hand held the book which went missing from his bookshelf this morning. She looked as if she were in pain and it was distracting her enough to not-notice the Headmaster coming into the room.

…

As soon as she realized that the door was closed the euphoria that she experienced seconds ago slipped from her grasp and she froze. She couldn't see the door and didn't remember which direction she faced, her hand automatically slided into her pocket to find nothing. She retracted it upon realizing that her wand was probably somewhere in the Slytherin dormitory so without having another option she opened the dusty red box. The lid felt like old marble, with some cracks in the middle, to what the wand felt extremely smooth. Feeling the wand in her right hand she reckoned that Ariana may have never used the it before. There were no scratches or dents in it and the wand felt like it was an extra, the type of wand one could easily replace. Then why was it bought?

"Lumos." She whispered and a blue light shot out of the wand. To her dismay she saw no doors on any of the walls. The room was probably set up as a miniature trap to hold the person until Dumbledore comes. Hermione came closer to one of the walls and right before she had a chance to cast a spell the immense headache returned with a new memory.

She felt like it was asthma. Lucianna never did have any problems with breathing and her lessons always went pleasantly, no matter how sweaty she was in the end. When she turned nine she-just like her brothers-wanted to take fencing lessons instead of continuing her ballet. Her mother wasn't happy about it but upon hearing that her father would be proud let her take them for two month. If, the teacher would approve her as a student by the time the two month passed her mother would allow it too.

So there she was, sweating and feeling like her lungs didn't have enough space. Only a month and a half of her training was done, so if she'd give up now, she would never be allowed to continue the sport. Proving her mother wrong was one of the things Lucianna liked to do. She didn't have the nerve to do it directly since she'd end up crying in her room after her mother's taunts. She wasn't a masochist either. Her mother never used any physical punishments for her children, however, Lucianna remembered a time when her mother had thrown a glass bottle at the wall in her presence. Lucianna was standing a metre away from the place where it shattered. That day was remembered as a warning in her mind.

Whenever her mother said she'd fail to do something. Lucianna tried her best to succeed in the area. Many prizes in mathematics, art and literature were the evidence. Even now, upon feeling that she'd choke she took a few deep breaths and continued the lesson. She had trained in the mask before but it never was more than 15 minutes. She was rapidly losing her strength, the hits and the blocks her sabre did were weakening against her teacher who was following an attack-defence-attack routine.

"Why did you take the third position if you saw me aiming for your left?"

Luciana could only answer after inhaling three deep breaths. "I… sorry."

There was no power left in her and her instructor seemed to notice it too. "Alright, I expect you to do better than these last five minutes after a small break." Luciana felt a hand on her shoulder. "Go get some water."

"Thank you Miss Abbey." She took her mask of and to take a free breath.

Her mind came back to reality as a voice entered her ears. "Miss Riddle could you please explain yourself?" Said a calm voice. Her eyes revealed a man who died a year ago (in Hermione Granger's time) standing before her.

"Professor Dumbledore, I..." She thought about it for a few seconds. "I can't, you told me not to. You said that you'd trust me if I gave you Ariana's wand-" she cast a nonverbal 'Nox' after seeing that her 'Lumos' was still working before stretching out her hand and rotating the wand.

He was slightly impressed with the nonverbal but chose not to say anything. "Miss Riddle, I'd like my book back too." he said before taking the wand.

"I can't give it to you, I'm sorry." she clutched the book a little tighter.

"I see. I assume that you have drank the potion-" seeing her nod slightly he continued "and have come here 14 years ago. But I must admit your awakening is rather late. Could you explain me as much as possible?"

"Sir, I need to ask a question first."

"Ask away dear."

"Does Voldemort-Tom Marvolo Riddle-exist-I mean is he trying to enslave and eliminate all muggles and muggle-borns?"

"Yes."

"Who am I to him?" She looked him in the eyes. "How am I related to Voldemort?"

Dumbledore was slightly shocked, there was no way that Lucianna Riddle would have found out herself. "You're his niece."

She sighed, accepting the truth. That was better than she expected. "Sir, how did the Riddles survive, how am I here?"

"Tom Riddle, eleven month after the birth of Tom Marvolo Riddle had a son-Anthony Riddle-your father. The child was sent to study abroad and he didn't return to England 'till 1960."

That answered most of it, she could already gather the rest but she needed to know the reason for why she wasn't a Gaunt. "What happened to Morfin Gaunt after he attacked the Riddles?"

"He was sentenced to a dementor's kiss."

A part of her paralyzed hearing this but the other part forced her to nod. She deeply bit her lip and closed her eyes. It wasn't 1938 so it would be easier if she were to give him the letter. It didn't contain much information of the future except for Harry being a Horcrux and Dumbledore's death. But she needed for him to find out about the Horcuxes, that would help them win the war-unless the other Riddle changed the timeline. A cold shiver went up to her neck. There was another question.

"Sir when did you defeat Gellert Grindelwald?"

"1945."

She sighed. This seemed satisfactory enough. There were more questions she could ask but she wanted everything to go quicker. She was still emotionally unstable after losing her world and was tempted to give Dumbledore the book. A sudden rush of Severus Snape's memories swirled in her mind-Albus Dumbledore's manipulations being one of them. No, she could not give him the book, for all she knew he might trick her the same way he tricked many others.

"I think, due to the circumstances, this conversation should be held later..." She offered him as a reply.

Dumbledore looked at the girl through his half moon spectacles and saw the concern written over her face. She was deeply troubled about something, and it looked to be paining her. "Yes, I think it'd be better if we had this discussion in my office after you had breakfast." She looked relieved. "Miss Riddle where is your wand?"

"I don't know, Luciana's-um… my memories are partially returning to me with these headaches but I only saw 3. Will it always be happening?" She dodged the question.

"No, I believe only the memories that are significant in some way will come back." Dumbledore cast a cleaning charm over her. "You need to hurry, breakfast will end in 30 minutes."

All the dust collected by her hands and cloak made their way back to the floor and she looked as clean as before. "Thank you professor."

Dumbledore nodded before disappearing through the door. She stood there for a few seconds, processing the things that just happened before moving out of the door and heading down to breakfast.

…

Her sight immediately went up to the Gryffindor table when she stepped into the great hall, on instinct it started searching for a ginger and a black mess, instead it found four heads, one of which had her best friend's hair. She blinked twice before gaping at them, never once in her life did she expect to watch the marauders grow up. Her legs wanted to carry her there, it was fascinating and she would have come there if not for-

"Lucianna there you are!" Somebody yanked her back by taking her forearm. "Amos will leave soon, you promised to introduce me to him." She heard the squeaky voice of Mafalda say.

Hermione had a blank expression to what Mafalda raised a brow. She already suspected that something was wrong with her. Hermione slightly furrowed her brows and decided to cover up the doubt. "Oh, yes. I will, I just-"

"Then do it. Now." squeaked the grey-blond.

Lucianna-Hermione did not like being commanded took a breath to flush down her anger and let herself be dragged somewhere by Mafalda. Soon enough, near the Hufflepuff table she saw who Mafalda was referring to. She froze again. Amos looked like a very real look-alike of Cedric, his hair was a bit longer and darker and his face slightly less handsome but other than this was Cedric. Hermione gulped when she saw the joy in his eyes, she remembered his cries when his son had become no more than a body.

"Riddle, hello." His voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Hello Amos." She said quietly.

"What happened to the usual 'Diggory. Hey.' Should I now switch to a 'Hey Lucianna.'?" he looked at her with a smug expression.

She was growing paler by the second and her heartbeat was sprinting. She panicked. "I wanted to introduce you to Mafalda Hopkirk." She blurted before her face gave out too much. "Mafalda, this is Amos." she gestured to Amos. "Amos, this is Mafalda." She did the same toward Mafalda who gave her an urgent look as if to say 'make him talk to me'.

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to suppress her anger and put a smile on her face. "Amos could you please help Mafalda with… History of magic?" She asked in a pleasant voice.

He looked at her strangely. "Why don't you do it yourself, I heard you were top ten in your year?"

Before she had a chance to answer Mafalda cut across. "Lucianna is helping Anya and Claire. And whenever she did try to explain it to me she failed. She's good in studying but is a terrible teacher so I think someone should try." Mafalda said in her-Hermione didn't doubt-trained pureblood voice.

Hermione's smile fell and her eyes narrowed but she put it back on before Mafalda had a chance to notice. Amos Diggory seemed to catch this and looked at Lucianna with a question in his head. Hermione looked at him with the same smile and turned her head to Mafalda, then back to Amos. "I'll make it up to you." She mouthed and he seemed to understand.

He nodded. "I'll check my schedule Hopkirk." He smiled at her and turned his gaze to Hermione. "See you 'round Riddle. Oh, and by the way, happy birthday." Hermione smiled back.

After the encounter with the Hufflepuff Lucianna was dragged back to the Slytherin table with Mafalda chatering about the smile he gave her and how it meant something. She patiently listened and managed to swallow some french toast before the owls flew in. Hermione had received three owls from home. One was a box from her parents, another two smaller ones were from her brothers and another one from a friend of her parent's. If any letters were sent Hermione guessed that they were inside the boxes. She silently picked the four of them up and started walking away.

"Lucianna, where are you going? We are celebrating your birthday in the dormitory." The squeaky voice was invading Hermione again.

"I need to go to Madam Pomfrey, it's about my headache." the lie escaped her lips easily. "I'll meet you in the dormitory later. You need to think about what to wear to study with Amos." she suggested quickly before fleeing to the statue of the gargoyle.

Staying in 1974 for less than 24 hours she was sure of one thing. If she disliked Mafalda Hopkirk for siding with Umbridge in the 1990's, she hated her from the day Lucianna met her in 1971. She knew perfectly well that Lucianna would agree, after all Lucianna and Hermione were the same person in different circumstances.

…

Author's Note: So… Hermione is settling into her new life/Lucianna life and some things will start to make sense for her soon. Please, tell me what you think about this chapter and thank you for reading the story.

-Alli