PoA Plot does not work.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 91195

John asked: 
> >This is how it is told, but it could not have happened this way. 
How  could Harry see himself, when he had not gone back in 
time yet? It  is impossible. See how the there is introduction of 
another line of  time before he himself starts that line of time? <<


 Well, I usually avoid time turner threads, but I'll take a stab at
it. 

In the magical universe, time is not linear -- it's only perceived 
that way. Think of pearls on a string. An ant crawling along the 
string can only go from one pearl to the next and cannot affect 
any pearl except the one he's passing through, but a human 
being could touch several pearls in several places at once.  

That's what the time turner does--it affects events at the point in 
time where it's used *and* also in the past.  So , suppose there's 
an ant crawling along the string.   There's a red pearl, a blue 
pearl, a green one. 

--R==B==G--

When one of the ants gets to the green pearl, it uses a time 
turner. The time turner creates another string  and inserts it into 
the necklace at the red pearl--and this is the tricky part--at the 
point in time when  our ant was passing through it. From the 
point of view of our ant, there never was a time when there 
weren't multiple strands. The time turner also moves future ant, 
the one who used the time turner,  to the point where the split 
was created and drops him onto the "new" strand. Both ants 
then move through the pearls on independent  courses, the 
second ant being very careful not to make anything happen that 
couldn't have happened during its first journey through the 
pearls.

 If things go wrong, if, say,  the second ant kills the first one or 
vice versa, a paradox is created and --- well, we don't know what 
happens then, but it's not good. Probably the Ministry of Magic 
has a Paradox Reversal Squad. But the important thing is that, in 
the Potterverse, it seems that a paradox does not exist until it is 
observed. The time turner seems to do its best to "anchor" the 
endpoints, so that if you don't *intend* to allow a paradox to be 
observed,  no paradox will be created. 

So there never was a time when Buckbeak was executed or the 
Dementors kissed Harry. Although Hermione *could* have used 
the Time Turner to go back and take Charms class after her 
future self observed that she had  missed it, that would have 
created a paradox, and she would have been in trouble with the 
Ministry.

That's my theory any way. Now have a nice cup of tea and forget 
about it...that's what I'm going to do <g>. 

Pippin