Newbie theory - Harry at Godric's Hollow

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163892

Matthew wrote:
> I was thinking something along the same lines recently: in Prisoner of
> Azkaban, Lupin is surprised to hear that Harry heard James' voice in
> his memory of that night.
> 
> If we take this to imply that James wasn't there, and that Harry was
> mistaken in his identification of James, then there's a very tempting
> parallel with the end of PoA - Harry thinks that he's seen James
> casting a patronus, but it turns out to be Harry himself. Similarly,
> if Harry thinks he heard James' voice, maybe that will turn out to be
> Harry's own voice.
> 
> I'm not sure I buy it, but it would make for an interesting echo.
>
Carol responds:

I've already pointed out how many turns of the Time-Turner (a
miniature hour-glass) would be required to go back sixteen years.
Technical difficulties aside, however, it would be a bit odd for
*Harry* to say, "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold
him off!" (POA Am. ed. 240). To me, those sound much more like the
"panicking" words (the narrator's description of the man's voice, same
page) of a husband to his endangered wife about their equally
endangered child than a teenage boy shouting to the mother he never
knew to run out the door with his baby self. 

Also, it becomes difficult to explain how James could have died
fighting Voldemort (even Voldemort acknowledges his courage, whereas
in his view, Lily's sacrifice is merely "foolish") if James wasn't in
the same house as Lily and Harry in Godric's Hollow. If Time-turned
Harry had been there, he would have defeated Voldemort with no need
for his parents' death--except that it was only his mother's sacrifice
that enabled him to survive the attack in the first place, and Lily
died after James. 

So, no. I don't see how Time-Turned Harry can have been at Godric's
Hollow, or why he would be there. He can't change history. He'd have
had to have been there in the first place, as Time-Turned Harry and
Hermione were "always" there to save Buckbeak and Sirius Black. they
just didn't know that Buckbeak was never executed and that
Time-Turned!Harry, not James, saved Harry, Hemione, and Black from the
Dementors.

Again, I think the only way to return to Godric's Hollow as it was in
October 1981 is to visit the memory in a Pensieve.

As for Lupin's reaction to Harry's words about hearing his father,
he's concealing a great deal from Harry (and a few choice bits of
information from Dumbledore, as well). His reaction ("You heard
James?") is our first clue that there's a connection between him and
Harry's father, but he instantly minimizes it ("You--you didn't know
my dad, did you?" "I--I did, as a matter of fact. We were friends at
Hogwarts. Listen, Harry--perhaps we should leave it here for tonight.
This charm is ridiculously advanced") and overreacts when Harry asks
if he also knew Sirius Black ("Lupin turned very quickly. 'What gives
you that idea?' he said sharply.") (All quotes from PoA Am. ed. pp.
241-42).

IMO, Lupin is afraid that Harry will figure out all his secrets--he
was a Marauder, the other Marauders were all Animagi (which would
enable Sirius Black to get onto the Hogwarts grounds), and all four
knew secret passages into the school, the same ones that show up on
the map they made together (which he later confiscates from Harry
without telling him that he's one of the makers of the map or turning
it in to Dumbledore). All of those secrets lead to the one secret that
Dumbledore knows but Harry doesn't--that Lupin is a werewolf. More
important, Harry has the right to know that Black is an Animagus who
could be hiding on the Hogwarts grounds, and Lupin has a very good
idea how he got into the school to slash the Fat Lady's painting, yet
even after Black gets in a second time and slashes Ron's bedcurtains,
Lupin maintains his silence.

Lupin could not have been present at Godric's Hollow. He wasn't even
informed of the Secret (James and Sirius, and perhaps Lily, thought he
was the spy, and Peter wanted them to continue thinking it). He thinks
that Sirius was the spy (and the SK, if he even knows there was one),
yet he's concealing what he knows about Black (and some of what he
knows about James as Animagus and co-mapmaker) from both DD and Harry.

No, I still don't think Lupin is ESE, just ESW (ever so weak, not to
mention selfish, to conceal information about the man who seems
dangerously close to murdering Harry).