Snape and DADA

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 112257

Magda:
>>> Lately though I've been wondering about something: wouldn't it 
be a total kick if Harry has to time-turner 25 years into the past 
because it's actually Harry and not James who pulls Snape out of 
the tunnel and saves him from a werewolf?  Because Snape is needed 
in the future for some potions work or something?<<<
 
SSSusan asked:
>> I have *such* a hard time w/ time-turning, that I hesitate to even 
ask this, but....  Is it the general consensus that a person can TT 
to a moment *before* he was even born **and then perform some action 
which changes events**?  Not like in PoA, when H/H simply time-turn 
to a point w/in the same day?  Could Harry go back 25 years, to when 
he was "minus-10"??

PK responded: 
> Well, I don't see why, if you can go back in time at all, you'd be
> restricted to times you'd actually been to previously unless you 
> were actually stuck sharing your own consciousness at the time -- 
> which isn't the case.
> 
> Whether he could perform an action which changes events is quite
> irrelevant, as if Harry saved Snape he would of course *always* have
> been the one who saved Snape, just as he was of course *always* the
> one who cast the Patronus that chased the Dementors away. JKR 
> doesn't actually do the changing-events variety of time travel -- 
> it might look that way, but only because the reader and characters 
> didn't have all the facts the first time around.


SSSusan again:
Hey, PK, thanks for answering this.  But, see?  I just DON'T get it!  
If a person wasn't alive in, say, 1800, then why *should* he be able 
to go to 1800, do something which impacted the course of events, then 
return to the present?  It seems like such a cop-out in telling a 
story!  

If a person was born in 1970 and returned from 2004 to 1974, then I 
could see that happening--he really WAS alive in 1974, so it 
makes "sense" that he could *always* have been the one to have done X 
or Y.  But if he travels back to 1800, it *doesn't* make sense to me 
that he was *always* the one to have done X or Y.  

Or maybe you're actually saying that JKR really *doesn't* do this.  
So far in the series, as far as we can tell, the time-turning HAS 
been to points w/in one's own lifetime, right?  If that's what you're 
saying, then I can "agree" with it.  [Can't think of a better word 
than "agree" just now.]

Siriusly Snapey Susan