[HPforGrownups] Re: Time Travel Paradoces

[Lissa B]

No: HPFGUIDX 57741

(snipping Valky's discussion of time travel)

Barb wrote:
> 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.

Lissa replied:
Time travel that night may be unnecessary, but I find it odd that
Rowling describes the "very odd watch" Dumbledore pulls from his pocket
in Ch 1 of the first book with such extended and loving detail.  The
description just sticks out.  Maybe it's nothing. (shrug)  But maybe
that watch is more than a watch.  If this has already been mentioned
elsewhere, please ignore my redundancy.  

Barb wrote:
> 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.

Lissa replied:
I was thoroughly convinced earlier this evening by another post that the
Potterverse timeline is inherently static. Now I'm not so sure.

Still, I think the fact that Hermione is able to claim that wizards have
accidentally killed their pasts selves suggests that some type of
paradox effect kicked in that rejected these murders as final, allowable
facts in the Potter universe. If the deaths were lasting ones, how would
time-magic scholars know that such events had occurred?  Who would exist
to say that the time travel--that would now never take place--had in
fact happened in the original timeline?  (And then the paradox starts
cycling because if the time travel never happened, the former self never
got killed and ouch, my head!)

I can no longer say with any faith that I understand Rowling's time
travel laws, but I think if she'd meant readers to believe the past
could be changed, she'd have made it apparent Buckbeak had originally
died--Hermione's statement notwithstanding.  But I wouldn't bet a
gumball on it.

Charred and useless brain cells leaking from her ears,
Lissa