Why a Time-Turner won't work for GH & theory about Dumbledore's Watch

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 164073

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at ...> wrote:
> First I have a theory about the watches, one that could tie up some 
> loose ends and *might* explain more about the events of GH (although 
> I can't reconcile two issues with the information we have so far).
> 
> The MOM couldn't trace Dumbledore's comings and goings in HBP and 
> Dumbledore mentioned jinxing Dawlish as a way to evade MOM 
> interference.  But Scrimgeour was head of the Auror office and was 
> said to be clever, so there must have been other ways he attempted to 
> locate Dumbledore besides a tail who kept getting jinxed out of 
> action.  Then I remembered Dumbledore's comment in PS, 'I don't need 
> a cloak to become invisible.'  
> 
> Given the symbols on the two watches, the planets on Dumbledore's and 
> the stars and odd symbols on Ron's, do the watches alter not time, 
> but space and matter?  If so, I wondered what the restrictions would 
> be for such an event and decided the person might specify a certain 
> amount of time in which their physical matter would dissolve, leaving 
> them able to observe events but not act. 

Ken:

Those are interesting observations. The watches could just be there
for atmosphere or they could be significant. I agree that the most
natural function of a magical watch would be time traveling (the time
turners look like time keeping devices, hourglasses, after all)  but
we've seen no evidence that Dumbledore was time traveling so far. As
you say, his watch might have some other effect on space-time that
could be the key to some of his activities. The Weaselys also have a
very special magical clock but its function has nothing to do with
time so there is precedent there in canon.

> Jen: 
> 
> I took this a little further to speculate about GH and wondered if 
> Dumbledore could have been there but couldn't act.  That might 
> explain the cave scene, he was reliving the awful memory of GH: 'Make 
> it stop....it's all my fault...don't hurt them, hurt me instead'. 

Ken:

Again that is interesting. I never attached any significance to those
utterances but Dumbledore doesn't actually get much chance to speak in
the novels so perhaps we should think more about what those words
could mean. Much of what he does say is significant, it could be
unwise (not that we are in any danger here!) to dismiss these words as
random ravings. You might have hit on the right idea. Throughout the
series we've seen that Dumbledore holds back on what he knows. I would
not be surprised if DH reveals that he knew details about that night
at Godric's Hollow that he *still* hadn't told Harry.

It's Dumbledore's major failing isn't it? Secrecy is important to what
he does but he seems too secretive even with his close advisers. They
can't give good advice if they don't have the information they need to
reason from. Paradoxically Dumbledore encourages Harry to share his
information with his "team". One only wishes that Dumbledore had
followed his own advice in this respect.

Ken