Time-turning

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 167547

> Zara:
> This last, is the only point at issue, as it is the only event
> occuring in a hypothetical future after Harry or Hermione chose
> differently. The first two events had *already happened* at the time
> the choice was made. Odd though it may seem to you, Harry and
> Hermione's decision does not matter in a universe under those rules.
> 
> Magpie:
> If the past can not be changed so 
> they didn't think there was a reason to use the Time Turner in that 
> instance, it would result in a totally different sequence of 
events. He and 
> Hermione would not just have made a different decision, they would 
have 
> experienced a different few hours leading up to the decision.

zgirnius:
The way I look at it, here is the answer:
The past cannot be changed, but when making the decision whether or 
not to Time Turn, Hermione must consider whether the past is the way 
it is *because* she is about to Time Turn and make it so. The actual 
way her past is at that moment might be a consequence of the decision 
she is about to make. This of course seems illogical because causes 
should precede effects, but time travel moved the effect back before 
the cause.

She knows she cannot change that Bucky lived, or that Harry and 
Sirius were mysteriously saved, but there are things about the recent 
past in this instance that she does not know, that might be hugely 
important to her. She might have saved *two* innocent lives already. 
(But she has no memory of this, because it is her future self that 
did it.)

> Magpie:
> Once Rowling wrote the version she had to come up with a decision 
on their 
> part that fit everything we saw. 

zgirnius:
I don't doubt this is the approach she took to writing it. I think 
she also went and back-edited the original sequence of events to put 
in some clues to the presence of the time-turned Harry and Hermione. 

> Magpie:
> You mean that events would just conspire against her somehow to 
make her 
> miss the class regardless? I agree they would).

zgirnius:
Yes, they would. And one way they could do so would be to cause her 
to simply disappear. The real-life formulation in theoretical physics 
of this theory of time travel uses some fairly ominous-sounding 
words, when applied to people we care about. A reason not to set out 
consciously trying to alter a known fact in the past, in my view.

Magpie:
> I mean, Hermione does spin it and get in it most days. 

zgirnius:
Most days, she is not trying to change the past. Suppose Hermione 
plans to go to Class A, timeturn and go to Class B, and timeturn 
again and go to Class C, all in a day's work for her, in the usual 
manner when she does not mess up. It is my contention that if we 
followed her into Class A, then left after the start of the lecture 
and peeked into Class B, we would see Hermione there too. And 
likewise, if we wandered over for a look at Class C, there she'd be, 
sitting in the front of the class waving her hand in the air. Because 
while she timeturns after Class A to achieve this, she was in Classes 
B and C all along. 

 
> Magpie:
> So how does that work? Hermione takes class for two hours. The 
first hour 
> she's taking Charms. She has not yet taken Arithmancy. It makes 
more sense 
> to me to assume that during that hour of Charms there was no 
Hermione in 
> Arithmancy, and then when Hermione went back in time and did take 
Arithmancy 
> whatever existed of the Arithmancy class that was going on when 
Hermione was 
> *only* taking Charms stopped existing, replaced by the one with 
Hermione in 
> it in her second hour. I don't see why this would be a strange 
idea, given 
> that we see actual Hermione's ceasing to exist due to her Time 
Travel.

zgirnius:
I am not saying your idea is strange or unnatural. (In one sense, as 
Ken has argued, all ideas of time-travel are unnatural. In another, 
which I brought up in my discussion, *both* our views find some favor 
with physicists.) I am just saying that it is not, in my opinion, the 
correct idea about what happens when one time-travels in the 
Potterverse. As I already explained, I take the precisely opposite 
view that she would already be in all her classes. And I believe I 
have canon support, in that when we read the first set of chapters in 
PoA in which Harry and Hermione leave the castle, go to Hagrid, etc, 
etc, we are already given clues that they are there in duplicate. You 
say 'but the narrator is living in end-time', but it seems to me my 
explanation is also consistent with what we are shown.

> Magpie:
> I don't see how Hermione is supposed to approach 
> her double schedule without thinking she's changing time. That 
would be how 
> she experienced it, wouldn't she? She took an hour of Charms by 
herself. 

zgirnius:
I am able to conceptualize her activities in this way. Since I 
believe that she is truly a gifted student and not the parrot some 
take her for, I would hesitate to assume that I am in this regard 
brighter than Hermione. Though, again, Hermione's conceptualization 
of her activities is irrelevant to what actually happens when she 
time-turns.

> Magpie:
> At 
> the point before she used the Time Turner, during that hour, there 
was only 
> one of her in one classroom. If she forgot to use her Time Turner 
that day, 
> it would stay that way.

zgirnius:
Of course it would. It would always have been that way.

If a Seeress had told us that Hermione was going to omit to timeturn 
for Class B on a particular day, the morning of that day, we could go 
to Class A with Hermione, and leave to look in on Class B. If the 
Seeress was right - guess what? We would not see Hermione there.

On the other hand, if we watched her go to Class A, and snuck over to 
find her also sitting in Class B, we could predict with amazing 
accuracy that she would time turn.

If DD got that bright idea because he *saw* Hermione - then he had no 
doubt what she would decide.