*MY* confusion about the Time Turner

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 123984


Del replies:
For me, where JKR *really* muddied the waters is when Harry managed 
to perform the Patronus Charm because he had seen himself do it. In 
this instance, Future!Harry had a very definite influence on Past!
Harry.Past!Harry is able to do something in his own future because 
he saw Future!Harry do it.
 
What bothers me is that Harry *managed* to cast the Patronus Charm
*because* he saw himself do it. Harry did have a significant
probability of not managing to cast the Patronus Charm. The only 
thing that turned the odds in his favour is the fact that he saw 
himself do it before. Had he not known he could do it, maybe he 
would not have managed, in which case his past self would have died, 
in which case he should be dead too. So basically, Harry survived 
because he saw Future!Himself, which is a direct violation of 
the "Time-Turning can't change what happened" rule. It seems that in 
that case, there's a significant probability that Time-Turning!Harry 
*did* change the past.
 
The only thing that reassures me is that Harry may be completely 
wrong as to why he managed to cast the Patronus Charm. He had already
managed it once after all, so it is possible that he didn't need any
mental reassurance at all, and that he would have succeeded anyway,
even if he hadn't seen himself do it.
 
But this is not what he *says*...


Alla:

But this IS classical paradox of time-travelling . Now, I see it 
quite clearly in mind, but I do having trouble explaining it. Sure, 
Harry performs trhe Patronus because he already seen himself doing 
it, but on THE SAME TIMELINE. Events did not happen twice, they only 
happen once. The paradox as I understand it as that we don't know 
when they started. You know, when Harry is still in the past for the 
first time, future Harry already travelled back.

Ugh! Sorry. There was a WONDERFUL article on Mugglenet, explaining 
it very nicely and if I find it, I will post the link.

The author was saying that Hermione is sued as "external" factor of 
the paradox or something to that effect.

One more thing - sure, I have no trouble beleiving that Harry could 
perform Patronus, but he indeed needed this EXTRA factor of seeing 
himself do that as final push, so I would not discard it.

Sorry for being unclear.

JMO,

Alla