Time-Turner

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 52531

Crunchy Chocolate Frog wrote:

>What would have happened if it was possible to take a Time Turner and
>go back in time to save the Potters from getting murdered?

<snip choice of alternative consequences>

I must have expressed myself badly. It's not that the alternative timeline 
(in which the Potters survived) is inherently "better" or worse". It is the 
*existence* of the alternative timeline which must not be allowed to 
happen. As I've been saying, It's not clear whether or not an alternative 
timeline could be created, although my view is that it would not.

JKR presents the whole time-travel element (and the implied possibility of 
temporal paradoxes) by focusing on the effect, bi-location, rather than the 
method, time travel.  Note that Dumbledore's and Hermione's exhortations 
are to not be *seen*, rather than to not change the past. Only once does 
Hermione make reference to changing history (p. 292 UK PoA): "Nobody's 
supposed to change time, nobody!", but even so, she immediately follows 
with: "You heard Dumbledore, if we're seen -". That's one of *six* times in 
the space of 11 pages she reminds him of the importance of not being seen 
(on top of Dumbledore's twice).

Of course, what their bi-located selves achieve is not a change to the 
past, but to make it happen. In other words, if a Time-Turner was used on 
the day of the Potters' murder, all it could have achieved was to cause 
what happened (or, more likely, some details of it) rather prevent it. 
Again, a Time-Turner does not change history, it only offers the 
possibility to change circumstances or causal relationships.

At the climax of PoA, some readers get the *impression* that bi-located 
Harry changed the past, but that is only because our first run-through of 
the events was subjective and incomplete. An objective (not from Harry's 
PoV) run-through of events would have told us, for instance, about one 
Harry saving the other with the Patronus. Harry's second PoV, of course, 
covers this.

Harry's realisation on the second run-through that the reason his second 
self was able to cast a powerful Patronus was that his first self had seen 
him do it, is a classic time-travel paradox - there are two causes and two 
effects, each relying on the other (Harry must be saved in order for Harry 
to save himself).  However, if we think of it not as a time-travelled 
Harry, but two bi-located Harrys, of whom one knows everything the other 
does, there is no paradox. ;-)

I think JKR has done this absolutely brilliantly - every other time travel 
(or "cheating fate") story I've ever encountered either has to introduce 
either pre-destination or multiple timelines as an element, or leave an 
internal contradiction.

Like most things in the Potterverse, we don't know how stuff works; we know 
that it does, and it does consistently. JKR doesn't bother herself (or us) 
with details not necessary to the plot. Wondering how magic works is 
tantamount to the famous Star Trek anecdote. One of the technical staff was 
asked how the Heisenberg Compensator works (it is part of the technical 
explanation of warp speed, further discussion of which is *WAY* OT for this 
list!). His reply was "very well, thank you". :-)

>Now, who says that no one tried to prevent the deaths of all three
>Potters? Who knows what happened in the missing 24 hours? Maybe
>Dumbledore *did* send someone to try and prevent this, but they
>failed. Or maybe Dumbledore was calculating what course of action
>would cause the least harm. The lives of two people vs. the defeat of
>Voldemort, and the lives of countless. "The needs of the many
>outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" (Star Trek :)).

Sure, someone may have tried. But the Potters are dead and nothing will 
change that. Of course, Dumbledore did *something* during those 24 hours 
and we have yet to find out what it is. But considering his attitude in 
PoA, I sincerely doubt it had anything to do with using the Time-Turner to 
save Lily and James once it was known they were dead. Otherwise, the sum of 
his actions would have been to have *caused* their deaths.

>Something that I don't understand about the way that the Time Turner
>works is how it changes the person's *location*. Maybe when you set
>it to take you to the time you wish to be, it automatically gets set
>to the *place* you need to be?

It seems from the way Hermione appears to have used it during the year that 
this is exactly what the Time-Turner does. In order to maintain the 
plausibility of someone being somewhere they're not, it puts the bi-located 
"copy" as close as possible to (but out of sight of) the "original".

>And while we're talking about Time Turners here, who knew about
>Hermione having a Time Turner?
>
>Prof. McGonagall
>Dumbledore

That much is obvious.

>The people from the ministry, to whom Prof. McGonagall had to write
>the letters (Department of Control of Dangerous Magical Artefacts?).

Well, the way it's phrased in the text is ambiguous, it could easily be 
construed that there was only *one* person at the Ministry. UK PoA p.289: 
"She had to write all sorts of letters to the Ministry of Magic so I could 
have one. She had to tell them that I was a model student...". That 
phrasing could imply that the several letters were written to several 
people or just to one person. JKR consistently uses "they"/"them" 
throughout the books as a non-gender, non-number specific pronoun, so it 
could mean one man, one woman, or more than one of either or both.

In any event, though, at least one person at the MoM knows that a 
Time-Turner was authorised to a Hogwarts pupil named Hermione Granger. That 
might mean something, but then again it might not. It's implied that the 
use of Time-Turners is rare and unusual, so presumably anyone issuing the 
authorisation would remember having done so, but will they (there goes that 
non-gender non-number specific pronoun!) :-) remember to whom it was issued 
and make any connection with The Famous Harry Potter? Maybe not.

>Fudge probably knew, because I don't think that such a thing as a
>Time Turner could be given without some approval by the Minister of
>Magic (although, he does seem to be the type of beurocrat that would
>sign anything after just a passing glance at it).

I highly doubt it. He was far to pre-occupied with an escaped convict and 
keeping The Famous Harry Potter safe at the time, not to mention keeping 
the magical world secret from the Muggles, to worry about a small detail 
like that.

>The teachers who teach Muggle Studies and Arithmancy (I'd say that
>also Prof. Trelawney, but she doesn't seem the type to go to the
>teacher's lounge and talk about her students, as going to other parts
>of the school tends to "cloud her inner eye"). They might compare
>notes on their students.

There's no need for them to know. At least, no more need than the pupils. 
Two pupils *do* compare notes (Ron and Ernie, referred to by Ron on p. 181) 
and they're none the wiser for it. Besides, the teachers have no need to be 
bothered about anyone else's schedules, as long as the kids turn up to 
their lessons.

>What about Snape, Lupin or Fudge?

You already mentioned Fudge above. :-) Lupin has no special need to know 
about it, although presumably Dumbledore told him during their chat when 
Lupin resigned.

As for Snape, I say that he didn't know. During the second hospital scene 
(p. 306), Dumbledore stops Snape's rant in its tracks by saying "Unless you 
are suggesting that Harry and Hermione are able to be in two places at once 
...". If Snape knew Hermione had a Time-Turner, he'd immediately put one 
and one together. He doesn't.

(Of course, MAGIC DISHWASHER believers see that scene in a completely 
different light and thus the inference is inconclusive.) :-)

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who has spent *far* too long on this post and really 
should be doing other things.