Time-Turning (was Re: Snape and DADA)

[hannahmarder]

No: HPFGUIDX 112284

> Chancie wrote:
> It doesn't really make since to me that there would be time limits 
on the TT, 
> but the only thing about not having limits is, why don't they just 
use it to 
> kill Tom Riddle when he's a baby so that no one has to suffer from 
the things 
> that he will do if given the chance.  It would seem like the 
easiest fix for 
> the whole situation.  Harry's parent's would still be alive, 
Hagrid wouldn't 
> have been framed, and expelled.  Cedric wouldn't have been 
Killed.  Neville's 
> parent's would still be sane.  Sirius would still be alive....well 
I think 
> I've made my point.  But then again if none of these things 
happened then 
> there wouldn't be much of a story either huh....  The only thing I 
guess that can solve this is JKR answering it for us.  But then 
maybe something like this will happen in the end.  When asked in a 
chat if the TT will be back her answer was "NOT TELLING!"  

Hannah now: Time travel is very complicated to get my head round, 
and worse so to try and explain in words, so sorry if this doesn't 
make much (or any) sense.  I think the reason they can't kill baby 
Riddle is because all those things *have already happened*.  If, 
say, DD went back in time and killed Riddle, then the future from 
then on would be different, but since the future from then on (i.e. 
the sixty odd years leading up to the stories) happened as it did, 
Riddle obviously wasn't killed.  

When Harry and Hermione went back in time in PoA, they didn't 
*change* anything.  The actions of time-travelled H and H occurred 
parallel to those of first-time-round H and H.  For instance, they 
hear the sound of themselves in the wood, Harry sees himself across 
the lake (but luckily thinks its his Dad).  So when H and H left the 
hospital wing, Buckbeak had already been saved.  DD knew this, 
although they didn't, and perhaps that helped him allow H and H to 
do something so dangerous, since he knew they had *already* 
sucessfully done it.  Harry is able to produce the patronus because 
he knows he has already done it.  At the time he thought his Dad had 
saved him, but that was because he was interpreting events wrongly.  
Once he had time travelled and was standing on the other side of the 
lake watching his past self get dementored, he then realised that 
the spell he had witnessed was actually one his present self had 
cast.

Killing baby Riddle wouldn't work.  If one of the characters time-
travelled now to do it, we know they wouldn't succeed.  Because if 
they did, they wouldn't have known to go and do it in the first 
place, since adult Riddle would never have existed.  I think the 
difficult thing in changing the past is actually making sure the 
*change* that is being made is actually something that happened - no 
wonder it's so difficult!  

Hannah, who feels more confused than when she started.