Hermione dead and MAJOR SPOILER to "The Sixth Sense" movie

[lucianam73]

No: HPFGUIDX 147149

Please anyone who hasn't seen the movie `The Sixth Sense', directed by
M. Night Shyamalan and starred by Bruce Willis, be aware that a MAJOR
SPOILER for that movie follows. It will completely spoil your
enjoyment of said movie. Also if anyone comments please keep a spoiler
alert in your subject.

Now on with it. This will contain one quote from PoA, all other quotes
from Chapter Beyond the Veil, OotP.

I might have posted this here before, if so I apologize. I don't
really remember, since I've been offline for ages, due to a mix of
vacations and operations, and for some reason I didn't touch anything
Harry Potter since the release of the GoF movie (Ralph Fiennes
possibly scared me too much, har har). I'm very happy to be back, btw,
and hope you'll forgive me returning with this crazy post.

Well, anyway, my suspicion, mind you, NOT theory, since I don't
consider my idea well-fundamented enough to support a theory, is that
Hermione might have died in OotP, during chapter Beyond the Veil.

Before someone yells `Wouldn't one expect she'd stopped walking
around!'), I clarify that I'm not considering the possibilities of
zombie-Hermione or a Death-Eater polyjuicing as Hermione. She's been
around, yes, since chapter The Second War Begins of OotP and she's
been In Character enough to rule out those possibilities. Time-travel
is my excuse for the Hermione-Is-Dead Idea.

I'm not going into the details that prompted me to come up with this,
unless someone would like me to, because it would take too much space
and time and I'd rather go through the idea itself now.

Take a look at both these quotes from OotP, the action takes place in
the Time Room, after the cabinet containing the hourglasses is
accidentally burst appart by Neville, and also after one of the Death
Eaters got his head caught in the bell jar.

(The hourglasses presumably were Time-Turners, since the cabinet kept
bursting apart and mending itself, endlessly _ or at least until some
competent wizard arrived after the battle to clean up the mess.)

`They had run halfway toward it when Harry saw through the open door
two more Death Eaters running across the black room toward them.
Veering left he burst instead into a small, dark, cluttered office and
slammed the door behind them.
<i>Collo</i>_ began Hermione, but before she could complete the spell
the door had burst open again and the two Death Eaters had come
hurtling inside. With a cry of triumph, both yelled, `IMPEDIMENTA!'
Harry, Hermione and Neville were all knocked bakward off their feet.
Neville was thrown over the desk and disappeared from view, Hermione
smashed into a bookcase and was promptly deluged in a cascade of heavy
books, the back of Harry's head slammed into the stone wall behind
him, tiny lights burst in front of his eyes, and for a moment he was
too dizzy and bewildered to react.'

Well, of course I can't be sure, but I think that's a description of
THE `infamous death in book 5', or perhaps a second one. JKR didn't
say only one character would die in that book (at least that I know!).


>

> * SPOILER ALERT *

>

>

>

> * SPOILER ALERT *

>

>

>

> * SPOILER ALERT *

In `The Sixth Sense', we see Willis's house invaded by a burgler, and
we see the burgler shoot him. Next scene, it's a totally new
situation for Willis's character, and we see him talking to Haley
Joel's character so the movie goes on.
Of course, the novelty of the situation resides in the guy being dead_
he died from that bullet, we saw him get shot. He appears in the next
scene (and along the movie) because he kid can see, and talk to, ghosts.

I think the `Willis being shot' scene is very similar to the `bookcase
accident'. As in the movie, we know Hermione crashed into a bookcase_
violently, of course, since the spell knocked her off her feet_ and
was covered by heavy books falling on top of her. The scenes differ,
of course, because we see Willis take a bullet, which obviously
injures him, and though we see the violence of Hermione's `accident'
we can't see her injuries.

When I first read that scene, back in the summer of 2003, I went `OMG!
It's her, she's dead!' because the bookcase scene was an alarming
image. Being told by the press to expect a major character death in
OotP, every time a (major) character had an accident, I though they
could be The One Who Dies. So I worried for Hermione.

Only to see her cry `Silencio!' to a Death Eater's face, two
paragraphs later. No mention of her crawling painfully from under the
heavy books that had `deluged' her. No mention of one hair out of
place. And all too fast! How come she was there, under the books,
seconds before, and now she's not under the books anymore, and
producing spells?

What happened here? Did the director said `Cut!' right after the
cascade of books scene, and a it's new scene altogether, exactly like
the `Cut!' between Willis taking a bullet and his ghostly appearance
in the street Haley Joel lives?

Funnily enough,
`Hermione-who-was-suddenly-not-under-the-books-anymore' was cursed
moments later, and Harry and Neville are terrified, thinking she might
be dead. The readers who feared for Hermione getting hurt by the heavy
books fear for her, AGAIN. Fortunately, she has a pulse.

Isn't it funny she had two possible death (or injury) scenarios during
eight paragraphs? Isn't it odd her fiery crosses had faded from the
doors when Harry gets to the circular room, although we `know' she's
alive because Neville felt a pulse? Also note that, apart from that
pulse, Hermione never shows any sign of life again in that chapter;
and she is left in the Brain Room, with Ginny and Luna who are both
unconscious and Ron who is attacked by the brain; we are specifically
informed of what room Dumbledore steps from some time later, when he
enters the Death Room, and it's the Brain Room.

I suggest the reason why Hermione shouts `Silencio!' so suddenly, and
seems to have crawled out from under the book pile (and stood up, and
got hold of her wand
) so uncannily fast is the existence of two
Hermiones in that precise moment in time, in that little office by the
Time Room.

I don't know_ and that's why I can't call this idea a proper theory_
if the second Hermione, the first one obviously being
present-time-Hermione, a Hermione-from-the-past or from-the-future.
I'm inclined to think she's from the future, but I'm really really bad
at Time Travel logistics, as they make my head hurt.

I don't know which Hermione died_ was it present-time-Hermione,
crushed under the books and left unattended for a long time, possibly
the cause of death being a head injury? Was it the
Time-travelling-Hermione, killed by the purple curse that passed right
across her chest, and Neville didn't really get a pulse after all or
she died a few minutes after, while Harry carried her?

If Hermione-under-the-books died it's obvious someone (Dumbledore?)
found her body and kept the truth from everyone. If
Hermione-in-the-Brain Room was dead, presumably Dumbledore knew,
somehow, that there was a living Hermione in the office by the Time
Room and he switched them. He could have done it easily, since
everyone else in that room was unconscious or off their nut. Either
way, I figure Dumbledore knows.

Here's a different quote, from Hermione actually:

"Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when
wizards have meddled with time
 Loads of them ended up killing their
past or future selves by mistake!"
chapter Hermione's Secret, PoA

We don't know what happens when a past or future self is killed, and
neither do we know what happens when a present self is killed, and
past or future self remains (well
 actually I think there's no
difference, is there?). Maybe we'll learn in Book 7.

Suppose what happens is, the self that remains takes up the place of
the other in the time during which the action takes place, and life
continues from that point on?

As I said I'm terrible at Time-Travelling, but here's an example: if
you visited your future self in, say, 2011, and one of your selves
died, the remaining self would go on regardless. If the self that died
was your future self, you (the Time-Traveller) would take his place
and never go back to your "present' (2006) again. And what would
happen in 2006? You'd be gone forever once you turned that Time-Turner.

I'm almost done, but there's still this little puzzle here:

"The Death Eater shook his ugly head again, trying to clear it, but
before he could pull himself together again, it began to shrink back
to babyhood once more

There was a shout from a room nearby, then a crash and a scream."

Couldn't the `room nearby' be the little office by the Time Room,
where Hermione's bookcase crash took place?

Why is it happening earlier? Is Time being meddled with already? Could
the cupboard with the Time-Turners have sent the whole Time Room
travelling?

Sorry about that, I know it sounds even more deranged, but there it
is. The little office is just one door from Harry as
he hears that shout, crash and scream, and we are given very specific
directions to its location. It seems quite fishy.

Oh, and one last thing, I don't think Hermione knows any of this.
Otherwise, she would have been completely distressed in HBP. Maybe
when one of your selves dies in a Time Travel context, you take its
place so completely, you lose all the memories that don't belong to
the 'time in Time' you have been fixed to. Including all memories from
the Time Travel that brought you to your new 'present'.

Lucianam