[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione's Time Turner

[Vivamus]

No: HPFGUIDX 119007

> Vivamus wrote:
> <huge snip of interesting post on time-turning>
> 
> > I'm pretty sure we haven't seen the end of time travel, though.  
> Remember the Quidditch World Cup?   Fred and George bet everything
> they had on a hundred to one shot, with complete confidence, 
> and no indication of surprise that they had won.  Somehow, 
> they *knew.* <big
> snip>
> >
> Carol responds:
> I've addressed this before, so apologies to anyone who 
> already knows my views. IMO, it's extremely unlikely that the 
> twins had a time turner. They seem to be rare items and 
> highly regulated. All it took, really, to win that bet was 
> brains and the Twins' usual creative approach to everything. 
> 
> They knew that Krum was the best Seeker in the world, 
> therefore he would catch the Snitch; they also knew that 
> Ireland had the best
> *team* in the world, therefore they would win the match. Just 
> because the Seeker catching the Snitch usually wins the game 
> doesn't mean that it always does so. The twins figured out 
> that Ireland's Keeper would prevent Bulgaria from scoring 
> many goals and that Ireland would probably get in lots of 
> goals before the Snitch was caught. They also knew that Krum 
> was a merciless player familiar with the Wronski Feint and 
> other diversionary tactics and that he would do everything he 
> could to prevent Ireland's Seeker from scoring.
> 
> Putting all this together, they reasoned correctly that 
> Ireland would win but Krum would catch the Snitch. Ludo 
> Bagman, being a lot less clever and creative than the Twins, 
> put up big money (Leprechaun's gold, to be sure) against such 
> an unusual outcome, but the Twins were right.
> 
> No time-turning necessary. They just needed, like Snape on 
> various occasions, to put two and two together.
> 
> Carol, who thinks the Twins would have been a lot less angry 
> about being cheated if they had cheated themselves

Vivamus:
Thanks for the kind words about my post.  I think we'll have to disagree on
the Weasley twins, though.  While your analysis of what they might have done
is certainly reasonable, and certainly within their abilities, they
expressed a confidence, both in their attitude and it betting everything
they had, that suggested to me that they weren't guessing.  After all, these
guys are poor, and are scraping after every knut.  No matter how good their
reasoning, it would not, I think, be smart to bet every knut on a long shot.


Ah, well, perhaps JKR will reveal more about that in the next book.

Vivamus