Time Turner (WAS Re: POA Prongs Patronus, for Alina and Yuiren

[Maria]

No: HPFGUIDX 100416

Debcip asked some questions about how time travel happens and what's 
up with the Patronus, so I quickly wrote an explanation. I hope it 
makes sense, it's not the easiest thing to explain to understand.

The thing is, the Time-Turner doesn't send you back in time. It 
creates a copy of you. The rule is, *there is only one timeline*.

Let me try to explain this, I've never been successful before, but 
who knows. <g>

Let's say it's 5 p.m. And let's say that sometime in the future, at 8 
p.m., Hermione uses the Time-Turner, turning it three times. What the 
Time Turner does is create another copy of Hermione that exists 
during the time period from 5 pm to 8pm. 

So, when Harry and Hermione used the Time-Turner in the hospital 
wing, it created a second version of them (usually referred to as 
Harry 2 and Hermione 2) three hours before. There are not two 
timelines. There is only one, with two versions of Harry and Hermione 
running around. We only go through it twice: once with Harry 1 and 
Hermione 1, and the second time with Harry 2 and Hermione 2. 

All events that happened the first time we went through this timeline 
were influenced by Harry 2 and Hermione 2, because they *were* there 
all along. Buckbeak never died, James never cast the Patronus (it was 
Harry 2). In the movie, Hermione 2 was the one to throw the stones 
and "aroo" from the very beginning. 

Harry 2 and Hermione 2 never changed the course of events: they 
created it in the first place.

Does this make sense? This kind of time travel is very Calvinistic, 
in the sense that it's evidently predestined that Harry and Hermione 
use the Time Turner. 

Maria,
who is having trouble typing.