[HPforGrownups] Re: Time-Turner (WAS Spying game/ Vodemort's resurrectio...

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39823

Debbie:
> I think a lot of the confusion about the Time-Turner arises because of 
> Hermione's reference to changing time.  It's hard to decipher exactly what 
> she means, but it could simply refer to the fact that every time Hermione 
> uses the Time-Turner, she changes what time it is for herself.  However, 
> there's nothing about the Time-Turner's actual use that suggests it can be 
> 

Eloise:
So....Hermione attends Divination. Whilst she is there, the Arithmancy class 
takes place, *without* Hermione. As far as the other students are concerned 
she isn't there - or is she? Not until/unless she does actually use the TT. 
So if she uses it, is she changing something or not? And if Harry was sent 
from Divination to the Arithmancy classroom, would he see her there or not? I 
suppose he would, as long as she *did* use the TT. But it's perhaps changing 
the possibilities of history. 
At the end of that Potions lesson, there are two possible courses for the 
last hour to have taken, one in which Hermione was witnessed in two other 
classes and one in which she attends only one.


> The bigger Time-Turner issue, IMO, is the one raised by Hermione's comment 
> that the greatest problem with the Time-Turner is people killing their 
> former 
> or future selves.  What happens then?  Do both Time-Turner users die? 
> 
> 
Eloise:
That's a real conundrum. I mean, if you kill your past self, then you can't 
get to the point in history where you turned back time in order to be the 
past self you've just killed. Or something like that.
> 
> > Incidentally, the whole Time-Turner incident does show that Dumbldore is 
> > already, in POA, prepared to act (or encourage acts) outside the law if 
> he 
> > sees fit.
> 
> Absolutely.  But Dumbledore very purposefully does not tell Harry and 
> Hermione what to do.  He merely reminds them of the tools at their disposal 
> ("What we need . . . is more time") and only after Hermione makes clear 
> ("OH!") that she understands what she needs to do, Dumbledore gives them 
> specific information (Sirius' location, the possibility of saving two 
> innocent lives, a reminder of the prohibition on being seen and how much 
> time 
> they need) to carry out what he knows they will try to do.  This is his 
> modus 
> operandi -- to lay out information that allows others to make their own 
> choices and trusting them.  I just can't see him devising the kind of 
> 

Eloise:
Yeesss..... but that is rather casuistical, isn't it? Yes, it was Harry and 
Hermione's choice (or was it, in that apparently, Harry already having saved 
their lives, there was no other course open. They'd already done it, in other 
words)

(I'm going to break off  for a minute. That's where my problem is, right 
there. Harry has already seen himself. Therefore he's already turned back 
time. Therefore, Sirius is already free (or nearly, as I'm not LOON enough to 
work out the precise timing). We're trapped in this circle. Perhaps I'm just 
proving Debbie and Naama's point.)

To go back......Dumbledore may not have *said* use the TT, free Buckbeak and 
rescue Sirius, but it was his intention and they knew that and so to all 
intents and purposes, morally speaking, he as good as told them to.

Back to the mechanics

> Amy Z:
> > Harry and Hermione are doing exactly what they are not supposed to 
> do, and 
> > so they need to make the change as narrow as possible.  No fooling 
> around 
> > with Pettigrew or the Invisibility Cloak or anything else Harry's 
> tempted to 
> > do, because this is already a risky business.
> 

The Random Monkey:

> f Harry had taken the Cloak, it would have created another paradox: 
> Snape might not have found them, so they wouldn't need to go back in 
> time, so noone would pick up the Cloak, so Snape would find them, so 
> they would go back in time...
> 
> In other words, they can only do things that happened. They are 
> "fulfilling prophecy", so to speak. They have to cause the effects 
> 

Eloise:
You mean they *cannot* do anything they haven't already done? Except the 
thing that they have to...err...... change. (Except that apparently it isn't 
really a change, because...oh dear, here we go again. ;-) )
So Harry wasn't free to choose to pick up the invisibility cloak? It makes 
sense, although I baulk at it.

But I still come back to the thought that it is very strange that one of the 
most important wizarding laws is that you mustn't change time if, in fact, it 
is impossible to do so.

Debbie:
>Maybe the problem is that the phrase "Time-Turner" is a misnomer.  Maybe a 
>better way of describing the Time-Turner is that it creates a double of the 
>person using the Time-Turner for that period of time.  At 9 p.m. Harry and 
>Hermione each split into two persons somewhere around the Entrance Hall, and 
>at midnight they merge back into one in the Hospital Wing.  There aren't 
>different atoms in the Entrance Hall.  Nine o'clock only happens once, and 
>there are two sets of Hermione atoms and two sets of Harry atoms in the 
>Entrance Hall.  Indeed, Harry asks Hermione if "we're here in his cupboard 
>and we're out there too?"

Eloise:
This makes some sense and partially, but not completely, answers the question 
of how they end up in the Entrance Hall, which I have never really 
understood. (What's new?)

Debbie:
>Maybe it would help to go back to the language Eloise quoted:
>
>'We're breaking one of the most important wizarding laws! Nobody's supposed 
>to change time, nobody! You heard Dumbledore, if we're seen - ' (POA, UK 
>paperback, 291-2)
>
>Hermione refers here to changing time, not to changing events. 

Eloise:
But I wonder what 'changing time' means? Is it saying the TT itself is 
illegal? Hermione seems clearly to be indicating that whatever they are 
aboutto do *is* illegal, yet the TT apparently has legitimate use, to which 
McGonnagall confirmed it was going to be confined.

Debbie:
> The problem with using a Time-Turner, as Harry and Hermione do, is that you 
>*can't* use it to change events.  That's why Harry can't pick up the 
Invisibility Cloak 
>-- because Harry1 has lived through the events and Harry2 knows it wasn't 
>picked up. 

Eloise:
But Harry2 doesn't know it *can't* be, because that's what he wants to do. 

Debbie:
 He *can* cast a Patronus charm, however, because Harry has lived 
>through the events as Harry1 and saw that occur.  The Time-Turner is 
>dangerous, and its use is generally prohibited, because it it too tempting 
-- 
>as it is to Harry -- to try to use it to change events, the consequences of 
>which are not revealed to us.  The only legitimate purpose of a Time-Turner 
>is to be able to do two things at once, which is why Hermione was made to 
>promise that she would never use it for anything but her studies. 

Eloise:
Which goes back to Sirius and Buckbeak being both dead and alive.....doesn't 
it......?

Debbie:
 > What Harry and Hermione were doing was in fact really dangerous, using it 
to 
>influence events that (to their minds only) had already happened as HH2 were 
>experiencing them.

Eloise:
Why was it dangerous if there was so much inevitibility about the situation? 
For instance, there was no danger of not getting back to the Hospital Wing in 
time, as it had already happened.

I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative in all this, I'm just 
genuinely intrigued by the whole idea.

>Debbie, who could really use a Time-Turner sometimes

Eloise, who also hankered after one, until she realised that it wouldn't 
extend one's life and would make one age so much quicker (in 'real' time)

And is also dying to ask whether the MAGIC DISHWASHER is an infringement of 
the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Act ;-)

And needs to go and think about Snape and Quidemort again. And get some 
sleep, as she had about as much as Debbie last night (if her understanding of 
time zones is correct) and hopes Debbie hasn't felt as rough as she has all 
day!



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