*MY* confusion about the Time Turner

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 124170


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cdayr" <cdayr at y...> wrote:
> 

> 
> cdayr responds:
> 
> ....
> 
> Oddly enough, your timeline of a 5-hour time turn might have 
> actually been a better choice, security-wise. .... I'm trying to 
> think of disadvantages besides the general increased risk of being 
> seen because there are two of them around for longer, and right now
> I can't. Anyone  else see any?
>
> -cdayr, who doesn' think this has any major implications for 
> anything, but loves thinking about it anyway...


bboyminn:

In the hypothetical situation posed, Sirius escapes, and a couple
hours after that Harry and Hermione time-turn back to facilitate that
escape, all other events play out as the initially did in the book.

Now, Cdayr asks if anyone can see a problem with that hypothetical.
Well, I do see one small flaw in that alternate course of events.

If Sirius has already escaped, there is really no need for anyone to
go back in time. If Sirius has already gotten away, everybody's happy,
and Harry and Hermione run off to bed. I mean, what's the point of
going back in time and fixing something that isn't broken?

In the orginal series of events, Harry and Hermione travel back in
time to prevent something from being /broken/, to prevent Sirius from
being sent back to prison, being killed, or being kissed by a
Dementor. That represents a real urgency.

In the hypothetical, which assumes universal timeline events still
play out the same to an outside neutral observer (Ron, Fred, George,
Dean, Seamus, etc...), once Sirius escapes, nothing needs to be done
all urgency and motivation is gone. Like I said, time to call it a day
and go to bed.

While Dumbledore was certainly cheating a bit on his allowed use of
the Time Turner, he is still mindful of the Law regarding wizards
changing history. He already knows Buckbeak escaped, although, he is
probably not certain how or why. He knows Harry, Hermione, and Sirius
were saved from the Dementor. And he has the curious fact that, Harry
seems to have been saved by his father. These and other preceptive
clues (per my other posts), eventually lead to all the clues gelling
into Dumbledore's realization of what happened and what must now be done.

The sense of urgency is to resolve the events of the night before
Sirius's fate becomes (generally) irrevocable history. 

If Sirius had been kissed, I think time travel could change that
history, but I think that making such a substantial change to the
timeline is an extremely unpredictable and dangerous thing to do. 

To substantially change history in a significant way could spawn a new
alternate timeline in which extreme changes occur to the present and
future that are seemingly unrelated to the changed event. Again, the
recent movie "Butterfly Effect" is based on the concept that small
changes in the past, create HUGE changes in the future.

Just rambling a bit.

Steve/bboyminn