Who conjures the Prongs Patronus?

[Stacy Forsythe]

No: HPFGUIDX 53992

At 08:15 PM 3/20/03 +0000, Edward Post wrote:

>I've seen others say that.  If that's the case, however, what was
>accomplished by using the Time Turner?

Saving Sirius and Buckbeak from execution, and Harry and those with him 
from the mass dementor attack.  These things would not have happened 
without the use of the Time Turner.  However, that doesn't mean there was a 
"first time through" where no Time Turner was used and things happened 
differently.  We know (from the throwaway reference to a door closing and 
feet hurrying away) that the second Harry and Hermione (from three hours 
ahead) were there and going about their mission while the "first" Harry and 
Hermione were living through those three hours; it's just that the latter 
pair didn't know about the former pair until they, well, became 
them.  Thus, there is no need to find someone else to cast the Patronus, 
because Harry2 is already available.

Essentially, the Time Turner didn't give the kids the power to change the 
past; it gave them the power to *be in two places at once*, starting three 
hours before.  It's the same thing Hermione was using it for in her 
classes.  Even though, from her point of view, she went to one class and 
then turned back an hour to attend the simultaneous class (living two hours 
in the space of one), everyone else would have seen two Hermiones going to 
two different classes.  There exists no point, from the outside POV, at 
which Hermione is in the first class but hasn't "yet" gone to the second 
one.  As far as everyone else is concerned, she attends both at the same 
time.  The same thing happened with the two Harry-and-Hermione pairs that 
night after the Shrieking Shack incident.  There was never a time (during 
those three hours) when there wasn't a second Harry running around; thus 
there is no need to find anyone else to cast the Patronus.

I'll admit, the Harry/Patronus example is more troubling to me than the 
others because Harry actually escapes death by the intervention of a future 
Harry who has already done so.  But it still works out if you remember that 
there's no need to imagine the three hours running "twice."  It's the same 
three hours, but Harry and Hermione *live through it* twice, producing two 
simultaneous copies of themselves that are doing different things.  One 
Harry is being nearly Kissed by a Dementor; the other is across the lake, 
casting a Patronus to save the first one.


Stacy Forsythe
deadstop at wombatzone.com