Time Travel Paradoces

Tue May 13 06:04:31 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 57733

Valky wrote:

First I would like to make reference to the question, Why didn't 
Dumbledore use the time turner to save James and Lily? On the 
contrary I think he did use a time turner. To save Harry. Well 
actually Dumbledore sent Hagrid with the time turner. *proof* There 
is no mention of the transport he took to Godrics Hollow. In order 
to get out in time he needed to borrow a vehicle. Hagrid is not a 
small man. I assume he arrived on foot, so, it is unlikely 
Dumbledore sent him running after hearing that Lily and James were 
slain. I suspect a 50 plus year old half-giant is not particularly 
fleet-footed lol.

Me:

I do not believe the lack of a mention of Hagrid's transportation to 
Godric's Hollow is proof that Dumbledore used the Time Turner.  
There are far more plausible ways he could have gone there.  When 
Hagrid comes to Harry on the rock in the sea, he tells Harry that he 
flew there.  This could mean several things: he flew on a broom 
(there's an unwieldy mental image!) or, since he didn't have a broom 
when he entered the hut, he could have been using 'flew' to refer to 
illegal Apparition (we know that Hagrid is not above doing magic 
illegally, even when he hasn't been given special permission for the 
day, *nudge nudge*).  Another possibility is that Harry heard 
'flew,' but Hagrid SAID 'Floo.'  So Hagrid may have reached Harry on 
that little island by taking Floo to the nearest wizard residence or 
business, and then found other transport from there (although 
Apparating is still more likely, as there was only the one boat on 
the island, the one that the Dursleys and Harry had used to get 
there). Or he could have used a combination of Floo and then 
Apparating from the coast to the island, as a shorter distance might 
be easier for someone who doesn't do this much (assuming that Hagrid 
wasn't constantly breaking the law in this way).

So we already have a case in canon of Hagrid getting around in a 
slightly mysterious way without a Time Turner needing to be 
involved.  It's far more likely that he used the same method 
earlier, to go to Godric's Hollow.  However, even if he Apparated to 
Godric's Hollow, he would have needed to use Sirius' motorbike to 
transport Harry to Surrey because there's no evidence in canon that 
you can transport another person with you when you Apparate.  If you 
could take someone else with you, Mr. Weasley and his older sons 
could have let the younger ones sort of 'hitchhike' along with them 
when they Apparated, instead of needing to use a Portkey for them. 
It's unnecessary to bring a Time-Turner into the situation at 
Godric's Hollow on 31 October, 1981, especially as a Time-Turner is 
an item that one must have permission to use, and they're probably 
all closely guarded by the Ministry.  By the time Dumbledore would 
probably be able to get a requisition in for such a thing, everyone 
would know that Lily and James were dead and Harry was the Boy Who 
Lived, and he'd have to explain that he was planning to change time, 
and so wouldn't be permitted to use it.

Valky wrote:

Fidelius Charm. Who could unlock the power of the Charm. While the 
Potters still lived the only people that could save them was Peter 
Pettigrew. *Though that does beg the question; Why, then, was it 
possible for Hagrid to find Harry? After all, the Fidelius Charm was 
his protection too. If he was not covered by it, why then couldn't 
LV just seek and find Harry Potter? Well, guessing that Lily or 
James charmed the secret themselves would explain why the power of 
the Fidelius vanished after their deaths. Most likely Lily, for if 
it were James, accordingly, Lily could also have been saved with 
Harry. Not by Hagrid ,however. Who was probably not a match for LV.

Me:

I'm not understanding your theories about the Fidelius Charm.  From 
the little we know of it, the information about the location of the 
protected people (plural) is locked away inside the brain of the 
person who is the Secret Keeper.  My own theory about this is that 
the Fidelius therefore has to act like a sort of mass-memory charm, 
and that the moment it is enacted, not only is the location only 
known by the Secret Keeper (and if you put your face against the 
window of the Potters' house, you wouldn't see them), but the charm 
must also therefore remove any memories of the location of that 
family's home from the minds of people who knew it previously.  Upon 
the Secret Keeper revealing the information to ANYONE, the charm 
would be broken, and therefore, the buried memory would presumably 
float up to the consciousness of those who previously knew where 
that family lived.  It could be that numerous people became aware 
all at once--Sirius, Dumbledore, Hagrid--that the charm was broken 
because they all suddenly remembered where the Potters lived.  That 
would certainly explain why Hagrid was able to get Harry out so 
quickly.  Peter may have known it would work that way and took 
Voldemort fairly close to the house before revealing which one it 
was precisely, so that they were basically already there when the 
spell was broken, knowing that they would have to work very quickly 
before the others realized why they remembered what they shouldn't 
and came to Godric's Hollow.

Darrin wrote (in a post distressingly free of band names!):

So, Dumbledore, before he suggested to Hermione that she use the 
Time-Turner, already KNEW that they would be successful? He'd 
already realized that Hermione and Harry had helped the critter 
escape -- because as soon as he saw that Buckbeak had escaped, he 
thought, "Well, I must have had them go back in time and they must 
have done everything right and they must have fought off the 
Dementors?" 

"I'd better remember to do that when I see Harry and Hermione again."

Me:

By Jove, I think you've got it! :D  My theory is that the reason why 
Dumbledore thought that Harry and Hermione did this is that he saw 
them out of the rear window of Hagrid's hut and added it up in 
pretty much the way you suggested.  He knew he was going to tell 
them to do this because he already had, basically.  (A la Bill and 
Ted.)

However, I still don't believe that in the Potterverse time cannot 
be changed.  For the most part people seem to be of the opinion that 
it SHOULDN'T, and the Time-Turner itself has severe limitations, but 
the fact that Hermione warns Harry that wizards who had fooled 
around with time (she doesn't say with Time-Turners, but TIME, so 
there must be other ways to do time travel) had killed their past or 
future selves.  Now, if they killed their future selves, no time 
paradox would be necessary.  You simply have a scenario of a) wizard 
kills an older version of himself (that he perhaps did not realize 
was him because he looked significantly different); b) wizard 
realizes over time that he in fact killed himself; c) wizard 
endeavors to avoid time travel so that he won't kill himself; d) 
through circumstances he can't control, wizard is flung back in time 
and ends up killing himself.

No paradox in this scenario.  However--Hermione says that some 
killed their PAST selves.  This would need a new timeline.  If a 
wizard lives his life, perfectly normally, then at the age of sixty 
travels back in time to when he was twenty and kills himself--then 
he'd never get to be sixty and a new timeline would be created at 
the moment that he killed himself.  So unless Hermione misspoke when 
she said that wizards had killed their past AND future selves, it is 
in fact possible to change timelines, because the wizards who had 
killed their past selves would have done exactly that.

--Barb

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