*MY* confusion about the Time Turner

[meltowne]

No: HPFGUIDX 124186


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

> 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.

I agree with you here - but would take it a step further.  I suspect 
two possibilities regarding the time turner.  Obviously it is not 
something everybody has access to, for obvious reasons.  I appears 
that using it to go back more than 2 or 3 hours may cause problems. 
Maybe there is a way to detect its use, maybe it causes a small rift 
in time - larger the farther back you go.

Also as you suggest below, small changes can caus larger more 
significant changes farther in the future.  I recall reading a book 
several years ago where someone tried to prevent Lincoln's 
assassination, only to have him die an hour later of something else.  
If the time turner could be used to go back many years, why didn't 
Dumbledore just go back and plant evidence implicating Tom Riddle as 
the heir of Slytherin?  Maybe because he knows that such a change 
would have enormous implications.

I'm reminded of a recent episode I saw of the Lilo and Stitch where 
they go back maybe an hour several time trying to set things right, 
and have to do it over and over to avoid different disasters.

> 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.

Yes - small changes in the Potterverse I can think of:  If Harry had 
captured Scabbers in Hagrid's hut, Scabbers would not have escaped, 
and they would not have chased him.  Thus Sirius would not have 
dragged Ron into the tunnel, and the main events of that evening 
would not have happened - thus Harry would have no reason to go back 
and capture Scabbers in the first place.

JKR has dealt very well with the idea of perspective.  From their 
original perspective, we think that Buckbeak has been killed, and so 
do we.  I think there is but one timeline, but Dumbledore doesn't 
want the kids to know that quite yet.  Notice he never told them 
Buckbeak was saved, but we are given plenty of clues that nothing 
really chnged, excpet their perspective - In some ways this reminds 
me of the penseive, except that they are able to interact with their 
surroundings.