[HPforGrownups] Time Travel in the Series

[JamiDeise at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19715

In a message dated 5/29/2001 7:11:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
DaveH47 at mindspring.com writes:

<< >If this "one timeline" theory is true, then, no HP character can
 >actually change the events of the past; the only thing the Time
 >Turner lets you do is be in two places at once.
 
 But then you've got a world in which there's no free will, which
 always really bothers me, especially in the Hogwarts universe,
 given Dumbledore's statements about "the choices we make". >>

I don't think free will plays into this "one timeline" at all. It basically 
says you can't go back and change the past, because the effect of someone 
from the past coming back and changing it has already been taken into 
account. 

This could explain why Dumbledore doesn't use a Time-Turner to go back in 
time to save the Potters or Cedric. Since they did die, he knows that no 
future Dumbledore (or anyone else) can go back into the past and undo it. 

It could also tie up some things in the books that seem like loose ends or 
mysteries, but perhaps will be explained in future HP books by people going 
back and doing things. 

This theory of time travel is certainly cleaner than the ones envisioned in 
"Back to the Future," "Frequency," etc., but on the whole, I'd rather have 
the option available in my fiction of going back to change things in the past 
to affect the future.

Jami