Time travel : what does Ron know

[olivierfouquet2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 88952

Olivier :

Wow, an impressive series of great arguments back and forth !
I will try to give what seems to me to be a plausible version of Knight2King. 

So, let us review the hypothesis. Around the end of book seven, Ron travels willingly 
or not 130 years back in the past. He discovers he has to impersonate Dumbledore. 

Now the key point here in my opinion is that if Ron had to do that, it was probably 
quite unexcpected. He has not prepared a slightest bit. All he knows about time-
travel is that it is very dangerous to change the past. So he acts as best as he can to 
mimick Dumbledore's life. He knows from the present that he must work with Flamel, 
that he must defeat Gindelwald and so on. 

But there are also a lot of things he does not know. And that is the solution to many 
problems of Ron!DD.

Ron does not know what the prophecy says (before he hears it from Trelawney) nor 
when Harry learned about it. Therefore, his speech at the end of OoP is not a lie, Ron!
DD does not know when he has to tell Harry about the prophecy and that is a terrible 
dilemma for him. 

Now another problem, pointed by Neri

> Neri responds:
> Imagine that by the end of Book 7 it turns out that DD is Ron, and 
> Harry asks him: "why didn't you tell me that if I'll go to the DoM 
> Sirius will die?". What would DD answer? "Because I believed you 
> would have gone anyway"? I wouldn't have accepted such an answer if I 
> was Harry, and I won't accept it as a reader.

I think Ron!DD might have tried everything he could to save Sirius. But we have to 
remember that Ron!DD is not omniscient, all he recalls from his past, is that in his 
fifth year LV tried to lure Harry inside the DoM and that he had to prevent that. Well 
Canon!DD does exactly that : he tries as hard as he can to prevent Harry to fall under 
the influence of LV, and when he realizes Harry has gone, he goes there as quick as 
he can and almost manages to save Sirius. 

Why did he not say plain and simple "whatever happens Harry, do not go to the DoM !" 
I think he even did better than that, after all, he cannot be sure Harry will be tempted 
exactly by the same trap in this time-line (here I suppose that at least in Ron's mind, 
it is possible to change the past). So he insisted again and again on the importance of 
Occlumency. The only problem is that Harry lied. In OoP, Ron believes that Harry has 
kept on working Occlumency, hence so does Ron!DD, and despite all his efforts, he 
failed.

And this is why he is so sad at the end of OoP, Ron has failed significantly for the first 
time since he has started being DD.

Now why is DD optimistic despite him being forced to relive everything without being 
able to change anything ? In my opinion, Ron does not relive at all, Ron discovers, and 
has a great time while at it. Besides, it could be that when Ron set out for the past, the 
good side was taking a definite edge in the war, so he knows it is going to be hard, 
but he also has high hopes.

Why didn't he stop Tom Riddle opening the Chamber ? I guess the answer to that is 
the sheer cleverness of Tom and Ron's ethic. He cannot act against Tom without a 
proof that he is going to turn to the dark side. And Tom is brilliant enough to attack 
Myrtle before Ron spots him. But once Tom has revealed himself, Ron knows that his 
great task is going to start, so he starts his watch (see Tom's account of that in CoS).

Only Tom outsmarts him again ("probably the most brilliant student" in the own 
words of DD) and disappear, beginning his transformation into LV. 

So in conclusion, I don't think there is a real implausibility to Knight2King. 
Let us see if that is the way JKR chose.

Regards,

Olivier