Paradox of Time Travel in PoA

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 132028

davenclaw wrote:
"- the original way, before time was changed
- the altered way
- as time-travelers"

Del replies:
Try seeing things this way:

There is only one time-line, in which Buckbeak and Sirius are always
saved and Harry and Hermione always Time-Turn. So what happens is that
Harry and Hermione simply experience the SAME timeline from two
different viewpoints.

There is NOTHING to change, because events CANNOT be changed. Events
happen only once, and they can NEVER be changed. This is why Harry
can't just Time-Turn at the end of OoP to save Sirius. He can't do
that, because the event "Sirius dies" cannot be changed.

What CAN change, though, is the number of participants in an event. It
 took an additional pair of Harry and Hermione to make the events of
PoA happen. Or so it seems!! For all we know, maybe there is yet
another pair of Time-Turning Harry and Hermione, or *whoever else*,
interfering with the events happening right now. But those people, if
they are indeed there, can not *change* any event that happened in
"their" past: they can only participate in them. And if those people
are here, then they ARE here: if Harry decides to Time-Turn in 50
years for whatever reason, then he is already here, in the only
timeline that has ever existed and will ever exist.

davenclaw wrote:
"Reading through it again, I realize that WE NEVER SEE THE ORIGINAL 
EVENTS.  We only see the events as they were changed, and the events
from the perspective of the time-travlers."

Del replies:
We never see the original events *because they don't exist*. There
aren't any original and changed events: there is just what happens,
what always happened.

davenclaw wrote:
"I understand what everyone is saying about how once events are 
changed, they are changed.  But this ignores the basic fact that there
were events that took place prior to Harry and Hermione going back in
time - otherwise, what were they changing?"

Del replies:
Nothing :-) !! They are NOT going to *change* anything, they are going
to PLAY THEIR PART, the part they always played. That's the whole
beauty of Time Travel: TT!Harry and Hermione played their part BEFORE
their present-time counterparts even knew they would Time Turn.

davenclaw wrote:
"And remember when Dumbledore says they can save two innocent lives? 
Clearly he is speaking as though Buckbeak had been executed."

Del replies:
I disagree completely. DD is speaking as someone who just understood
what happened. DD knew all along that Buckbeak had escaped, because
that's what happened, what he saw. But what he didn't know was HOW
Buckbeak escaped. Then, when he sends Harry and Hermione back in time
to save Sirius, he suddenly realises that this is probably the
explanation.

By the way, my personal explanations as to how DD knew to delay the
executioners from leaving Hagrid's hut are quite simple: 1) he can see
through walls, and so he simply saw Harry and Hermione freeing
Buckbeak ; 2) he's a Legilimens, so maybe he simply "heard" Harry or
Hermione thinking about how they had to hurry to free Buckbeak - I
know I sometimes think very strongly of what I want someone to do, so
maybe DD simply picked up Harry or Hermione's mental pleadings of
"Don't come out now, just wait another minute" or something like that.

Del