What if...?

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 168950

bboyminn:
> 
> Just one problem, we have no precedent for time-travel
> of that magnitude. The only examples of time-travel we
> have occur in increments of one hour. That is, each turn
> of the Time Turner moves you back ONE HOUR in time, and
> only back. We've never seen forward time-travel.
> 
> So, Harry travels back 16 years, that's -
> 
> 24hrs/day X 365days/yr X 16yrs = 140,160 
> 
> ...turns of the Time Turner. 
> 
> That seems very impractical. At eight turns per minute,
> it would take over 4.8 hours. Then, of course, how 
> does he return to the present. From the examples in
> the books, he just lives for another 16 years until
> his time travel self catches up with his present day
> self, except in the present, the instant before he 
> travels back in time, Harry is 17. The next time he
> arrives at that point in time, he is going to be 
> (16+17=33) thirty three years old. And, if he has
> been hanging around for 16 years, where has he been?
> 
> Still, it was a good thought.
<snip>

Dana:
Well I understand what you are saying but I disagree that Hermione's 
time turner is the only kind of time turner or time turning 
available. As we have seen from the DoM battle, there was a cabinet 
there with hourglasses of different shapes and so to me it is not 
hard to imagine that each shape stands for a different kind of 
turning time. And we even see that one can turn time on objects, 
animals and people when we witness the DE fall into the bell jar of 
the unknown liquid and only his head got caught into a time loop 
while his body stayed as it was. To me it is not a lot to imagine 
that the MoM send Hermione a time turner which only made time travel 
by hour possible and that other time turners exist with which one can 
turn back years. 

Also you make the assumption that once you go back in time that it is 
not possible to come back into the future by the same means. If you 
can turn back a time turner than it would also be possible to turn it 
forward. We do not see that happening in PoA because there was no 
need for it. Harry did not need to stay in that time period for 15 
1/2 years and live a double life until the moment of time turning. 
Also I do not think there is a need for JKR to have shown us this in 
advance because she already showed us that going back in time is 
possible. 

Of course we already have had the debate of time turning and people 
turning it into an impossible difficult matter while, as I said 
before, I absolutely do not believe JKR's time turning, in her world, 
has such a high tech basis for it. She is bad at math which probably 
means that she did not look at her time turning being scientifically 
possible or not either. It just needs to be logical in the way she 
uses it (yes, even if it is only to her), in my opinion the problem 
with time turning in the Potterverse is not caused by the way JKR 
uses it but due to problems in the reader's imagination of what 
scientifically would or wouldn't be possible or the assumption that 
JKR must use the rules of how time turning is used in other kinds of 
literature. It is actually not up to the reader to decide, what 
things in the Potterverse could not possibly occur because when it is 
there then it IS possible because JKR makes it so. JMHO 

That is not to say that she will make 15 ½ years of time turning 
possible at all but to me it is not because using a time turner like 
Hermione's, would take to long to turn back all those years and 
therefore make it impossible to do. If she indeed used it to get 
Harry back into time and back to the events of GH then you can be 
sure that using a hourglass that can only be turned back by the hour, 
will not be the way he will go back in that time.  

I do think that a 17 year old Harry could explain some things we see 
in canon, like for instance the seemingly omniscient knowledge DD 
seems to have about certain events and his total lack in knowledge in 
other parts. He would never allow the 17 year old Harry to tell him 
everything but Harry would have spilt the beans on some things with 
or without DD's approval. 

It could for instance be the reason why DD tried to keep Sirius alive 
by having him locked up in GP, not just because he was a wanted man. 
It could be an explanation for Harry's feelings that it seemed DD 
allowed him to face LV because essentially if he met the 17 year old 
Harry, he knows that Harry will survive that ordeal. It could explain 
why DD was taking the time to handle his unfinished business in HBP 
because he knew he was going to die at the end of the year. It could 
also mean that he knew who was going to do it and because he can't 
change the course of events anyway, he knew the time was there when 
Snape entered the tower and why he did not act surprised even if he 
tried to plead with Snape to not let himself become a murderer not 
because it would change anything but because it is in DD's nature to 
not want to see a person lose his soul.

It would, in my opinion also, explain why Lily did not disapperate 
from GH with baby Harry because according to JKR, Lily did not know 
anything about the protection her sacrifice would give baby Harry so 
it would be far more logical that she would run into his room grab 
him and get out as fast as she could but something prevented her from 
going and the only thing I can think off that would make a mother 
stay and risk the life of an infant this way is because she could not 
make herself leave her 17 year old son to face LV alone. 

JKR keeps telling us her sacrifice was so much more important then 
that of James, well maybe because Lily did live in the first time 
because she did disapperate with baby Harry and one of his parents 
being alive would not have made LV stop trying to hunt them down but 
it would have prevented his down fall at that particular moment and 
might have let to more horrors in the first time then after the time 
traveling events. 

Maybe Sirius did kill Wormtail in the first event because if LV did 
not fall at GH the first time then Wormtail's betrayal would not have 
let to the need of hiding as a rat for 12 years. It might have been 
Lily that prevented Sirius from killing Wormtail by having Wormtail 
set Sirius up. She could not have changed the events of their 
encounter but whispering a spell into Wormtail's ears, which he could 
use to change the course of events and safe himself. This would safe 
Sirius from becoming a murderer but of course a change in events that 
let to LV's down fall that night might have let to Wormtail's 
desperate measures on his own automatically saving Sirius from 
splitting his soul in an act of revenge. 

It is all just pure speculation of course but I do not think that the 
mechanics of a time turner would prevent JKR using time turning in 
DH. Have us witness the events of GH, by having Harry show up before 
events occured (just at that particular moment or further back does 
not really matter but it would help understand what let up to these 
events but might not be nessecary) will be far more easier to make 
the story of these events click in the readers mind then having 
someone relay it to us. Why? Because having someone else then Harry 
himself present at these events would raise more questions then it 
resolves. 

For instance if Snape would have been there in an attempt to safe 
Lily then his treatment of Harry makes absolutely no sense. Again 
why? Because seeing a mother sacrifice herself out of love for her 
son would not make you hate that son as much as you hated his father. 
He would rather feel guilty to that son that his actions made his 
mother sacrifice herself for him. That would have been the natural 
response of a person witnessing what happened that night. 
Besides Snape would in my opinion be a coward if he broke off his 
rescue mission just because LV was already there, the surprise 
element of Snape suddenly rushing in and throwing himself in front of 
Lily, would have provided Lily enough time to get her son out of 
harms way. So if Snape did not do anything while he was a witness to 
these events then he was by no means a hero even if somewhere deep 
down (at the level of his toes probably), he would have liked to have 
seen things happen differently. And if he was to late then he can't 
tell what happened one way or the other. 

Lupin presents would not make sense to me either because I do not 
believe he would just sit there and not try to help James fight LV to 
give Lily more time to get Harry out (and no I do not believe in a 
ESE!Lupin), the same goes for Sirius or even DD and having Harry 
learn about events by having a DE present at these events will not 
make the story, of what happened, a very believable one. Essentially 
we already got LV's version of events so no need to have one of his 
DEs rehearse it again from his point of view. 

Giving the story from Harry's POV however would be enough to make the 
reader understand what really happened that night. And to me it would 
be the only reason that would make sense to me of why Lily stayed to 
face LV, instead of getting out as fast as she could and why JKR 
drives the Lily's sacrifice being so much more important then James's 
home so fiercely, James would have died anyway. LV offering Lily to 
step aside would just a red herring because he could have offered it 
to her a million times she would never have taken it anyway but her 
sacrificing the life she could have had with Harry if she had taken 
baby Harry and disapperated would be an ultimate sacrifice. I think 
that is what she did, she sacrificed the time she would had with baby 
Harry so 17 year old Harry would not die that night either.  

Of course we have to wait and see and I have no illusions that I 
would be able to unravel JKR's complex mind so it might never happen 
regardless of it making sense to me or not.  

JMHO

Dana