Locket or Time Turner? (Was: Hi! I'm new and theory about the new cover)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167078

Adesa wrote:
> <snip> You bring up an interesting point: we all assume that to be
*the* locket (and I'm still leaning that way), but it is rendered 
without much detail--or even clean lines. Is this artistic license or
author's intention? I'm really hoping it's the locket; that
time-turner made things a bit too sci-fi for my tastes. But a
time-turner is certainly another possibility.

Carol responds:
I suppose that Hermione could be mistaken in saying that all of the
Time Turners were destroyed in their battle at the MoM, but still,
Time Turners were central to PoA whereas it looks as if Horcruxes will
be central to DH (and the locket Horcrux depicted on the Bloomsbury
adult cover reinforces that impression).

The admittedly blurred and undetailed rendering of the object around
Harry's neck does make it somewhat ambiguous (if it weren't for the
R.A.B. note and so forth in HBP, I doubt that I'd suspect a locket.
More likely, I'd think, "What's Harry doing with DD's pocketwatch
around his neck?"). But Voldemort wouldn't have the moment of terror
seeing DD's pocketwatch--or a Time turner--that he'd have seeing a
deactivated Horcrux around Harry's neck.

There's also the description of Hermione's Time Turner in PoA to
consider--it looks like a small hourglass on a chain--and Grandpre's
drawing of it in the chapter art:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/pa/rg-pa21.html

Scroll down a bit to see it.

All in all, I think the thing around Harry's neck is the Slytherin
locket, which is probably not a Horcrux at this point or Harry would
not be wearing such a serene expression.

Carol, who thinks that time travel in DH, if any, would involve going
back to Godric's Hollow rather than what appears to be the final
confrontation with Voldemort, which will occur in the present (as
Harry is experiencing it) rather than in the past