Time-Turner (WAS Spying game/ Vodemort's resurrectio...

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39837

I'm going to tackle this one more time, because it really does intrigue me:

> 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? 
> 

The other students always see Hermione in Arithmancy.  She actually is in two 
places at once, so if Trelawney sent Harry with a note for Professor Vector, 
Harry would see Hermione both in Divination and in Arithmancy.  And the 
professors somehow didn't notice this all year. 
> 
> 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.
> 
But from everyone else's perspective, there's only one outcome of the last 
hour, and that's that Hermione attended all three classes simultaneously.  
Because the present unfolding of events takes into account an event that will 
happen in the future, i.e., that at the end of the hour Hermione *will* use 
the TT and repeat the hour.  Under the time-turner concept, time itself is 
omniscient.
> 
> (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). 

My LOON analysis says Sirius is already free.

> Back to the mechanics [snip]
> 
> 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.

       [snip]

> 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.

I haven't decided whether Hermione means that they were acting illegally 
because the Ministry had not authorized her to use the Time-Turner for 
purposes other than studies (i.e., being in 2 places at once) or because 
there was something inherently wrong about what they attempted to do.  I 
think the latter, because they're in a position of having to use their 3 
hours as HH2 to fulfill a particular destiny, which is extraordinarily risky 
and complicated because they don't really know what they're supposed to be 
doing.  But they are forbidden to change anything they know has happened, 
because of the consequences.  I don't think it's impossible for Harry to pick 
up the Invisibility Cloak (that would perhaps fall into the same category as 
killing one's own other self, which Hermione clearly states has happened), 
but it would erase part of the future, throwing everyone into the 
double-history paradox.

> 
> 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. 

But Harry's not authorized to use the TT, so he hasn't been instructed on 
what happens when someone tries to change an event.  His natural instinct is 
to try to improve history, which he may not do because he'll fall into the 
paradox of creating multiple histories.

> Debbie:
> 
> >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......?

Well, no, there's only one history, it involved HH1 and HH2 acting 
simultaneously.  HH1 see Harry2 and HH2 see HH1, so we know there's only one 
sequence of events.  And neither one of them is dead.  And in the same 
manner, each class period was only held once, but Hermione1 attended 
Divination, Hermione2 attended Arithmancy, etc.
> 
> 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.

There was a danger.  They had a destiny to fulfill as HH2, and part of that 
destiny was making sure they were in the right place when their Time-Turned 
time was up.  Harry's problem was that he wanted to stray from that destiny, 
as when he wanted to pick up the cloak.
> 
> I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative in all this, I'm just 
> genuinely intrigued by the whole idea.
> 
> 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!
> 
It's a five time zone difference, if I'm not mistaken.  And I wasn't really 
tired, because I took the day off. :-)

Debbie



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