[HPforGrownups] Re: Time-turning

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 167429

From: Steve <bboyminn at yahoo.com>
>Now the fallible loop aspect seems to be the fact that
>Harry could have chosen NOT to go back in time, thereby
>creating an unresolvable time paradox. In theory, that
>is true, but look at the circumstances. Even though
>he doesn't immediately understand the details of the
>plan, he does understand that it is his one and only 
>chance to save Sirius. 

OK, here are a few key events on the "line", in order:

1) Harry hears the axe fall.
2) Shrieking Shack incident.
3) Harry & Sirius meet the Dementors. 
4) Harry and Sirius get their souls sucked.
5) Harry and Hermoine go back in time. 
6) Oops. 

The only explanation is not a line, but a loop; there's the way the events go the "first time", and then the way they go subsequent times:

1) Harry hears the axe fall.
2) Shrieking Shack incident.
3) Harry and Sirius meet the Dementors.
4) Harry lives, but without help from his future self.
5) Harry and Hermoine go back in time.
6) H&H save Buckbeak.
7) Harry saves himself, changing the past, but not enough to change the fact he went back in time.
8) H&H save Sirius.
9) H & H 1 go back in time, this time with Harry having the memory of having saved himself.
10) H&H save Buckbeak.
11) Harry saves himself, realizing that this is how he got saved the 1st (really 2nd) time.
12) H&H save Sirius.
13) Time marches on.

It's a single loop, but it's a loop.

Bart