Time Turners

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 142264

lucianam wrote: 

> It doesn't make any sense. If you can go back in time and fix 
> everything, we wouldn't have a plot _ so of course you CAN'T  use 
> the Time-Turner to fix all the world's wrongs. 
> 
> Which brings me to the point: why did Dumbledore allow, or even, 
> suggest, that Harry and Hermione would go back in Time and change 
> history, that particular time? Why was it ok then, but not ok, say, 
> to save Cedric or Sirius or Harry's parents?

zgirnius:
Do we know that Buckbeak died in Chapter 16 of PoA? I would say that 
the answer to that is, no. Which means that a possible solution to 
your question is that Buckbeak did not die, ever. And Dumbledore, who 
was present at Hagrid's hut with the executioner and Fudge, knew that 
Buckbeak had escaped, despite having been tied in place.

And being a clever wizard, Dumbledore wondered how Buckbeak might 
have escaped. He could, of course, have somehow, against all 
probability, freed himself. But I'm sure McGonagall would have 
discussed obtaining a Time-Turner for a student with Dumbledore, so 
he knew Hermione had it. When he learned of the Sirius fiasco, he saw 
the Time-Turner as a way that Harry and Hermione might buy time to 
work out a plan to save Sirius (who was not yet dead or Dementored, 
just locked in a tower). And once he started thinking along those 
lines, it occurred to him that one reason Bucky might have been able 
to escape was if someone had freed him...this is why he said to 
Hermione "If all goes well, you will be able to save more than one 
innocent life tonight". He didn't want to tell her straight out what 
to do, in case he was wrong. In which case he would be breaking the 
Time Turner rules by changing the past. But, as it happens, he was 
right. The reason Bucky had escaped *was* that time-turned Harry and 
Hermione had been there to rescue him.