Time-turning as literary device (was: Just a comment about Lupin's malady)

[iamvine]

No: HPFGUIDX 109579

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vmonte" <vmonte at y...> wrote:
> Eleanor responding to SSSusan's post:
> If by "changing the past" you mean "going to the past and doing
> something that made a difference to someone", yes, they did that.
> They rescued Sirius and Buckbeak. That was the point of going back.
> Harry conjuring the Patronus was the same sort of thing, only not
> planned.
> 
> If you think Harry really changed the past, i.e. made history happen
> differently from how it originally did, then you have to suppose there
> was a timeline where he didn't conjure the Patronus. Then you'd have
> to explain why he thought he'd seen someone do it and how he got away
> from the Dementors. I think we're intended to assume Harry did see
> himself, and that all the things he did in the past had always
> happened, but he just didn't know about them.
> 
> I hope this makes a bit more sense!
> 
> vmonte:
> 
> Perhaps, the reason the PoA time-line (in which Harry and Hermione 
> time-traveled) appears to look as though H&H never changed history 
> (we see Harry before he TTs saving himself, Buckbeak appears to have 
> never been killed, etc.) is only because DD's strategy always worked 
> in this instance. Dumbledore knew that H&H would be successful, and 
> the events unfold as though it had always happened in this manner.

Eleanor:
But they didn't follow Dumbledore's strategy.  Harry let himself be
seen.  Or do you think he really saw someone else originally, or that
his memory was changed, or something?

Eleanor