Paradoxes; Harry, the Patronus, & Time

[meltowne]

No: HPFGUIDX 108704

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <asian_lovr2 at y...> 
wrote:

For the record, time doesn't happen twice. Instead of focusing on when
Harry and Herione left the timeline at roughly midnight, you have to
concentrate on the fact that they entered the timeline at 6:00 earlier
that evening. So, starting at 6:00pm, both (NT!=Normal Time) NT!Harry
and NT!Hermione and (TT!=Time Traveling) TT!Harry and TT!Hermione
existed from that point on. Harry wasn't saved by someone else the
'first time' because there was no 'first time' 'second time'; there
was only one time, and both of him were always there.

Plus, mucking about in time is a dangerous thing. Just watch the movie
series 'Back to the Future'. Essentually, Marty McFly mucks about in
the past, severly altering the future in drastic ways, and he keeps
mucking about the past until he finally create a future he likes. Then
he goes with that alternate future. Great for him, but it does say how
many lives were altered to the negative in order to create his
positive future.

I could see time travel entering the story again in some secondary
way, but if Dumbledore turns out to be TT!Ron, or Harry goes back to
the past and rehabilitates Tom Riddle, or some other such nonsense, it
will be the most unbelievably unsatisfying ending to it all.

Meltowne:

I agree - I suspect it does play a role in how things have already 
played out, but any future use of time-turning will be reserved to 
correcting something within the timeframe of the same book.  Remember 
also that Hermione missed one of her classes - because the boys 
missed her she could not go back and change it, she had simply 
forgotten.  She was very clearly told not to change anything.  The 
reason they were able to save Buckbeak and Harry could cast the 
Patronus charm was because it already happened - they just didn't 
know it had happened.  DD was able to send them back because he knew 
Buckbeak had already been saved - yet somehow he also knew they were 
the ones that had to do it, or at least suspected that was how it was 
accomplished.

Steve:

The time traveler lives in linear real-time, so a time traveler who is
injured in the future returns to the past with that injury. Take
Hermione as an illustration. Let's assume she time traveled for an
average of 6 hours per day. To a neutral outside observer, 24 hours
passes each day, but to Hermione who lives it all in linear time, each
of her days are 24hrs+6hrs=30hrs/day. You can see why she was tired
all the time. 
 
A couple of us ran some estimates and concluded that Hermione aged
about a month from her time travel experience. While in the 10 month
school year, her classmates aged 10 month, Hermione, because of the
extra hours in her day, live 11 months of linear time. Another reason
why excessive time travel is a detrimental thing.

Meltowne:

Of course, we have no cannon for anyone being able to travel to the 
future at all.  As far as we know, the timeturned is a one-way 
device, allowing you to go back and repeat a time.  We haven't been 
told what happens if you interfere significantly with time (or even a 
small bit), but we have been told it is simply not to be done.

The easy explanation for the boys is that either they guessed well, 
or their future selves travelled back to tell themselves - then they 
just had to remember to in fact go back at some point to do it.  This 
also happend in the film "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure."  Bill's 
father had lost his keys early on (so it had already happened), and 
the boys wanted to find them in a bush outside the police station.  
They agreed to remind each other to go back later and take the keys 
(which they did).

We also have the potential situation where Hagrid was using a 
timeturner when he got baby Harry from Godric's Hollow.  Otherwise, 
why didn't he bring him immediately to DD?  How did he know where to 
go, since Dumbledore would have to know who the secret-keeper was if 
he had told him where to find the Potters?  If someone told them 
later (maybe after wormtail was blown up), they would need to send 
someone back to get him.

I don't think time-turning will be used to save anyone, perse, but to 
explain things that have already happened, and that we don't 
understand.