Time-turning

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 167509

> Magpie:
> I agree that any discussion of Time Travel in the HP-verse is going 
> to include how it is written, and the rules the author sets down. 
> But at the same time the characters aren't consciously following 
> those rules. They don't know their world is neatly arranged by an 
> author. Harry and Hermione think Buckbeak was executed and that 
they 
> are going to change it.

zgirnius:
Harry and Hermione are unaware of the rules, yes. This is not because 
they do not realize they are fictional characters. It is because they 
are residents of the Potterverse who happen not to know (or fully 
understand) all of the natural/magical laws that govern that 
universe. 

I would venture a guess that Dumbledore, on the other hand, does know 
how time travel works in his universe (although this too is 
irrelevant to how it actually does). He also does not attribute its 
workings to Rowling, naturally. Whether the laws of nature are neatly 
arranged by an author, as in HP, or by (insert deity of choice or 
appropriate atheistic opinion here) as in our world, they are the 
rules. The opinions of the residents of these worlds do not change 
them. 

Though, considering what the characters know about their world, it 
does seem to me that Hermione may have an inkling about time travel, 
presumably having read/received some information about it along with 
her Time Turner. There is a scene in PoA where Harry and Ron comment 
that she has missed a class, and her reaction is distress that she 
missed it. I always took that to mean that she realizes (because it 
is in the past, an accomplished fact) that she *cannot* use the Time 
Turner to make that class up, hence her distress. Otherwise, she 
could just Time Turn and catch the class after all. Her opinion that 
Bucky was dead but saveable would then indicate she was not thinking 
clearly at the time, or had an incomplete grasp of the concepts.

.