CoSForums Archive - The big issue: Has time/history been twisted?

Serpentine

July 30th, 2003, 12:15 pm

Sorry if there is already a thread on this, I did a search but couldn't find any... if there is though, feel free to merge. :)

The question that keeps me pondering is the ISSUE OF TIME in the HP series. A couple of weeks ago in the HP Lexicon (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/puzzles2.html) I tripped about a curious puzzle which seemed minor at the time, but has kept bugging me ever since. Later looking through the CoS threads I found more little hints here and there, minor as well, but uncannily fitting in with the theory suggested in HPL and surfacing even more. Here it goes...

quote from HPL:
"And here's why this question gets to me. There is one niggling little comment in GF that suggests to me that--brace yourself--there just might be TWO time lines going on here. Molly Weasley fondly recalls a man named Ogg being the groundskeeper when she went to Hogwarts. Now she's older than Sirius and Lupin, granted, but not so much older that she would have gone to Hogwarts before Hagrid and Tom Riddle, which was fifty years ago. After Hagrid was expelled, however, he was given the groundskeeper position. How does this Ogg fellow fit into the picture then? Okay, this is very thin logic, since it assumes that the gamekeeper and the groundskeeper have always been one and the same person and it also assumes that Hagrid wasn't an assistant or anything for a while (which we know he was, but we don't know for how long). But perhaps, just perhaps, we're dealing more than one time line. Maybe Molly and Arthur remember one time line, a time line that Voldemort changed somehow (changing time is a major no-no for wizards, we learn in PA, but I don't think that would have stopped him). Maybe Harry's big task is going to be to fix the past (Harry's present) so the future turns out the way it should, not the way it did the first time around (when Voldemort survived and somehow maybe even won). I'm not sure what I just said, but you get the drift...

And probably the strongest evidence of some kind of time twisting going in is the comment on CS that Voldemort is the last remaining ANCESTOR of Slalzar Slytherin. Some editions of the books have this "error" corrected, but other later editions have the word "ancestor" put back in. JKR herself suggested that the word ancestor might be used intentionally in an online chat session. We'll just have to see what happens next... "

1. This last mentioned "error" made me think as well. I also noticed that in the movie of CoS (does anyone have the book at hand to check there as well?) Tom Riddle mentions that "Lord Voldemort is my past, my present and my future".

2. It has been observed by many that there are lots of similarities between Harry's time and James's time (source: mainly CoS-thread about history repeating itself - can't find the URL now -, but others as well).

* Harry and James look similar and are both Quidditch stars; they both keep hanging around with a group of special pals (Marauders resp. The Trio, now with Neville, Luna and Ginny added).
* Ginny looks similar to Lily and seems to be becoming a powerful witch. Both she and Harry have already been targeted by Voldemort. Also she seems to be born around the time Lily died.
* There is a group of Death-Eaters' kids present at Hogwarts (Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle), behaving as if they were to become the next DE generation.
* If you take a very close look, hidden in the background, there's also another Death-Eater's son who does NOT seem to be hanging around with Malfoy and friends - Nott jr., rather the studious type it seems. Does anyone feel reminded to Snape? We haven't seen much of him so far, but this might be simply because Harry is not the "Snape-bully" James was.

Nonetheless it's quite evident that history is NOT about to repeat itself exactly as it was 20 years ago. There are lots of details showing that Harry is NOT behaving like the arrogant prat James seems to have been, and I think that was why Dumbledore put him at the Dursleys' in the first place.

3. In another CoS thread on "DD's missing years" (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=15004) someone stated that there's a curious gap between Dumbledore's Headmastership and his predecessor Dippet. OK, it might be just an omission of JKR of some other Headmaster in between, but in the light of the mentioned above it makes me wonder.

4. In PoA Hermione introduced us to the concept of Time-Turners, stating though that their use on a larger basis seems to be a major no-no in the wizarding world. (Time also seems pivotal in OotP: think of the Time Room, prophecies and the time jar!). Nonetheless I just can't see Voldemort caring a heck about major no-nos, so he might well do something like that in pursuit of his goal of immortality.

5. Weak I know, but nonetheless: Anagramming around with Harry's full name (see CoS Predictions thread "Harry's name an anagram?", http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=13995&page=3 ) I found amongst others the following ones:

Temporary rash jet - Restart major hype - Try hear major pets
Three's major party - Jeer that sorry map - Thy rare major pest
Step rat, joy harmer - The temporary jars - Jar or empty hearts
Try jar atmosphere - Jar portrays theme
(Now that's uncanny...!)

Does anyone else think of Harry's rash humour in OotP, Scabbers and Crookshanks, the Trio, the Marauders Map and the Time Room? As I said this may not be much of a proof, but I can just see JKR the names-fan anagramming around and forming an idea growing into a full-fledged series. :)

So there's my theory: There might actually be two timelines similar to each other but yet modified anyhow (in the Pensieve Harry looks at James seeing himself "but with DELIBERATE MISTAKES"). If there's history repeating itself I don't see it as a time circle, but rather as a time spiral - similar but yet on a different level. Voldemort somehow majorly meddled with time twisting the normal course of history, and it's Harry's task now to put things back in place, with Dumbledore taking precautions that he will be able to do so. (Maybe that's even why "Hogwarts - A History" hasn't appeared so far in spite of the requests.)

Any thoughts?

Laura Borealis

July 30th, 2003, 12:31 pm

Horntail

July 30th, 2003, 12:48 pm

Serpentine

July 30th, 2003, 1:21 pm

This is a very interesting theory, but I'm speculative (is this a word?) about it. The facts all seem to be in order, but somethings may just be mistakes. I don't really know what to think. I don't understand the whole Harry's name anagram thing as pertaining to this thread. If someone could find it in their heart to explain it, I would be ever so grateful.

I know that anagrams are not proof, just take a look at the anagram thread - mostly it's just amusing nonsense. :) That was the only reason why I did the anagramming, just for fun. But the coincidences came as quite a shock. As I said it may mean nothing at all, it sounds weak even to me. But I recall that JKR once said that she loved funny names. I wouldn't put it past her to anagram around as well, and suddenly having the idea for a novel resp. series.

purplehawk

July 30th, 2003, 1:37 pm

I have a hard time seeing Molly being that old! I don't have anything to base it on, but I've just never seen her as older than Voldemort, who, by Harry's Fifth Year, would have been 69 or 70 himself! Hagrid would be about the same age.

I'm basing my argument on Voldemort's age on the fact he was sixteen in CoS. If you add the fact the chamber was last opened 50 years ago, he would have been 66 at the time Harry ventured into the chamber and killed the basilisk. Three more years have passed, which would make Voldemort and Hagrid 69-70ish.

Molly couldn't possibly be that much older!

Horntail

July 30th, 2003, 2:11 pm

Now that I've been thinking about it, maybe Molly isn't that old, but she probably did go to Hogwarts pretty close to the time when Tom and Hagrid were there. Hagrid was assistant groundskeeper for a while so I think that it is probably likely that Molly was at school when Oog was groundskeeper and Hagrid was still his assistant. On the Lexicon time line, they figure that Bill was in Hogwarts the same time Lilly and James were (although he was younger) so if Molly isn't older than Voldemort, she should be pretty close to his age, and would have been at Hogwarts while Hagrid was just an assistant.

This is definately one of the coolest theories I have read in a while, though.

Quasi_EviL

July 30th, 2003, 2:28 pm

It's a really interesting theory. Unless it was just a simple mistake on JK's part, I'd really like for there to be more time issues in the next books.

Hagrid was assistant groundskeeper for a while so I think that it is probably likely that Molly was at school when Oog was groundskeeper and Hagrid was still his assistant.

Is that a fact? I don't really remember reading that, but maybe I missed it.

On the Lexicon time line, they figure that Bill was in Hogwarts the same time Lilly and James were (although he was younger).

They said it was uncertain though. I'd hope that if it was the case though, Bill would mention it to Harry at some point.

Daveydee

July 30th, 2003, 2:55 pm

It's an interesting theory - though kinda hard to see how it would all fit together in the remaining two books.

Having said that, however, somewhere along the way I do think that the concept of time will come into play in some way. I think that there are certain elements of foreshadowing in the final scenes in OotP. Namely:

Time Turners making a reappearance.
The bell jar - reverses the passage of time for anyone or anything inside.
The brains - from which emanate moving images of memories.

The whole scene seems to be setting up the concept of the manipulation of time as a major plot theme.

jasper

July 30th, 2003, 4:55 pm

I really hope the manipulation of time is not a major plot theme. But I agree with Daveydee that the evidence points to it.

Mad-I Moody

July 30th, 2003, 5:05 pm

Wow, serpentine! I like your theory/post! Oh, and :welcome: to the forums!

Back in the Great Hall somewhere, there is a thread about Harry actually being a different version of Voldemort, which would sort-of go along with your theory. Harry and Tom look similar, and they both have similar powers, but Harry is making different choices, and that is what is going to make this "history"/harry's present come out all right, rectifying all of the damage done by Voldemort(Harry?) when he messed around with Time. I don't know how this could work, really, becuase the Time-Turner and time-traveling frankly give me a headache to think about! But I can definitely see something along these lines (Voldemort messed with time and it's Harry's job to fix it) developing in the final books. :D Good job, serpentine! :clap:

lea

July 30th, 2003, 5:29 pm

I think we're all expecting a lot more from it than time, I really hope it's not that because I feel that it's a tad bit....boring...

hermy_weasley2

July 30th, 2003, 6:47 pm

jasper

July 30th, 2003, 6:53 pm

I think I read a JKR explanation on Bill's 5 years remark. He was there 5 years ago not because he was in school, but to watch his little brothers in a quiddich match.

Black Dog

July 30th, 2003, 6:59 pm

interesting - i see where you are going with the two time lines thing, and i dont know, its a possibility......funny though...i never thought about the whole ginny thing. i guess it didnt click in my head until you said that both harry and ginny had been targeted by lord voldemort....lucius malfoy plased tom riddles diary in ginnys cauldron at flourish and blotts in diagon alley, but the n again....voldemort had been plotting and malfoy may have been working under his control - after all his is a death eater!!

purplehawk

July 30th, 2003, 7:02 pm

I don't buy it. I think the Weasleys are not as old as some have made them out to be. Hermy seems closer to the mark IMO.

imperfect prefect

July 30th, 2003, 7:09 pm

there is no way a 13-14 year old Hagrid would be a groundskeeper but he could be an assistant training for the job

Serpentine

July 30th, 2003, 8:36 pm

Wow, serpentine! I like your theory/post! Oh, and :welcome: to the forums!

Thanks Moody (and everyone else), like to read that... maybe I'm not as nuts as I thought after all ;)

Back in the Great Hall somewhere, there is a thread about Harry actually being a different version of Voldemort, which would sort-of go along with your theory. Harry and Tom look similar, and they both have similar powers, but Harry is making different choices, and that is what is going to make this "history"/harry's present come out all right

Sounds interesting! I can't seem to find it though, I did a search there but there's just too much about Voldemort / Harry / choices around there. Would you mind to point me there? Many thanks in advance! :)

What I did find though was the history-repeating-itself thread, so that was where it was... http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=4608

I'd like to especially mention two interesting quotes from there:

Quote (Sirius83):
I dunno, there are other coincidences, its in another thread - such as Voldemort rising in 4th year for both the James and Harry generations for instance. Its as if this generation is to do what the previous one failed to.

This kicked me really hard - exactly my line of thinking!

Quote (supergirly):
Remember the Dumbldore quote about your choices deciding who you really are? When you stop to think about it though, almost everything that happens in the books connects to the past in someway. Even Voldie's rise to power is history repeating in a way; maybe the only way to stop him is to go through the whole thing again, but make different choices this time. After all, isn't life just one big cycle? (Stares whistfully into middle distance).

There again: repeated story but choices are pivotal. It seems there we are on to something. :)

Capella

July 30th, 2003, 9:24 pm

You make an excellent point about history repeating itself Serpentine - it's not something I would have noticed, such subtleties are often lost on me until they're pointed out.

But I gotta say I don't agree with this timeline theory based on Molly's recollections about Ogg. The way I see it, Hagrid was thought to be a murderer by Dippet and everyone else at the time, save Dumbledore. Dippet would never have allowed such a person to remain at his school. Dumbledore is the one who gives people second chances, and it's he who has Hagrid's loyalty, not Dippet. So Hagrid left the school, life went on... then one of two things happened:

1. Dippet retired, Dumbledore took over the running of the school, invited back Hagrid to be an apprentice to Ogg, Molly came to Hogwarts, Molly left Hogwarts, Ogg retired, Hagrid became groundskeeper. [alternatively Molly came to Hogwarts before Hagrid, but she still left before Ogg did]

2. Same as before, except Molly attended Hogwarts before Dippet retired, or Dumbledore took over and Hagrid returned.

I think Molly remembering a man named Ogg can be explained in either of these two ways without resorting to theories involving time. :shrug: Hmm, maybe I'm forgetting something though...
Anyways, after saying all that, I do reckon time-travel will come back into play in a big way in future. I doubt JKR will have introduced it for nothing...

purplehawk

July 30th, 2003, 9:59 pm

Capella

July 30th, 2003, 10:24 pm

Ahh, darn. You're so right purplehawk! I knew I was forgetting something... Thanks for setting me straight.
But I still have the feeling that the theory isn't quite right - Ogg could still have retired after Molly left Hogwarts.

Lady_Black

July 30th, 2003, 10:27 pm

This is a really good and thought out theory. It may have been a mistake about Ogg, and the Dumbledore's missing years thread's only evidence was they heard somehow that DD came HM in the 70's, which I refuse to believe unless Jo tells us herself. Remember that these deffinitly could be mistakes or red herrings! Yet this is very possibly true. It also makes my brain hurt...The thing that confussels me is the 'ancestor' 'desendent' comment. I wish I could see the transcript of that little hint. Does anyone have it?? If they do either PM it to me or reply to this with it please! I would rather have you PM it. If you do thanks a ton! Good post!

Quasi_EviL

July 30th, 2003, 10:28 pm

I'm trying to remember... I don't have my copy of Chamber of Secrets close by, but doesn't Riddle tell Harry the Transfiguration teacher (Dumbledore) persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as groundskeeper? If so, Hagrid would never have left the school, to return under Dumbledore's regime. It's highly unlikely Dumbledore would have stood for a 12 or 13yo orphan and half-giant being turned out on his ear with no one to take him in and nowhere to go!

Yes, he did say to keep Hagrid and train him as groundskeeper. So...maybe it means train him as groundskeeper in a sense that someone else -who might be getting ready to retire or whatnot- will train him

Shikyo

July 30th, 2003, 10:28 pm

So there's my theory: There might actually be two timelines similar to each other but yet modified anyhow (in the Pensieve Harry looks at James seeing himself "but with DELIBERATE MISTAKES"). If there's history repeating itself I don't see it as a time circle, but rather as a time spiral - similar but yet on a different level. Voldemort somehow majorly meddled with time twisting the normal course of history, and it's Harry's task now to put things back in place, with Dumbledore taking precautions that he will be able to do so. (Maybe that's even why "Hogwarts - A History" hasn't appeared so far in spite of the requests.)

Any thoughts?

A paradox, hm? Messing with time is always sticky.

(I apologize at this point, and I suspect that the rest of this post is going to have not quite as much to do with the original post as much as time paradox problems.)

Granted, I suppose it would work (ever play Chrono Cross?) but there's a few problems.

Okay, to oversimplify: let's say there's two timelines. We'll call the first one, the original one prior to Voldemort's meddling...Home. And the post-Voldemort one Another.

The main problem is that the series of events is such that...well, once again, oversimplifying:

1) Voldemort rises to power and ends up creating the Another timeline.
2) Harry, in Another, bonks Voldemort's head and sets things Right.
3) Timeine resumes in Home, Another never exists.

The problem with this is that Voldemort's rising is irrevocably a part of Home's timeline: furthermore, if he had never risen to power, the series of events that would have lead to Home--->Another--->Home never existed. Thus, the essencial time paradox, and events repeating themselves.

One could view possible time loops in the sense of multiple dimensions. In that it's not just a new timeline, but a bit further: at the exact same moment, from the second he was born, Harry existed in two worlds. In the first one, Home, Harry was a cheerful boy raised in the loving care of Lily and James, rather unremarkable, yadda yadda. In the second timeline, Another, we have the series of books we're reading.

The theory that's been encouraged by a lot, namely that of history repeating themselves and the same people filling similiar roles (with James=Harry, Lily=Ginny) seems mostly targetted towards people trying to get those two to get the hook up.

Granted, within the context, it could have merit, but for one question: why would it repeat that little bit of history?

There's three generations of Hogwarts students of note:

1) The Tom Riddle era. Notables include Tom, of course, and Hagrid. Most speculation throws in the Weasleys (Arthur and Molly) as well.

2) The Marauders era. Prongs, Moony, Padfoot, and Wormtail run around and make Snape's life miserable.

3) The Harry era. Take a wild guess.

I'm throwing in Arthur and Molly in the first catagory, because they seem as though they're a bit on the old side: at best, they would be upper-years as the Marauders showed up.

Reason being is that in several locations, I've heard the Marauders ages estimated to be around 35 (I'm not entirely sure if this is when the series starts, when PoA comes around, or during OotP) and I found it to be a sound enough estimate. It would give James and Lily about five years to get settled in and get pregnant with Harry. It would also be about right based around Rowling's descriptions of Lupin, mainly: she's established many times that he is 'young.' Linguisic conventions aside, there's only so far that one could take a character before everyone generally agrees that he or she is middle aged.

Most, once again, generally agree that Bill and Charlie, the eldest of the Weasley children, would be around 8-10 years over the trio. Based around character assumptions, Arthur and Molly don't strike me as the sort to have a secret affair while they're in Hogwarts. Furthermore, if Molly got pregnant when she was still in school, there's a fairly decent chance that she would have to drop out and be kicked out, with Arthur following to support her. The likelihood of this, however, is dubious: if he was a drop-out without his NEWTs, what are the chances he could get a solid enough job at the Ministry without his NEWTs?

Either way, it would add about ten years to the ages of Arthur and Molly, give or take a few. This is working off of the assumption that it didn't take years for Lily and James to get pregnant: which is possible. Still, if one doesn't count possible fertility problems (and given the fact they can grow bones, I suppose that they could address such problems rather quickly) it's fairly likely for a woman to get pregnant. If it was so unlikely as to span seven to eight years, there would be no need of protection.

And I just realized how utterly off topic I got.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I just reread it and saw what I originally was going to say before I got so sidetracked by dating Arthur and Molly. Heh.

Anyway, the one thing that the theory of the Marauder era repeating itself due to some greater paradox relies upon one necessary detail: there has to be something insanely important about that generation of people that would require Voldemort or some greater force, were it deliberate, to go back and specifically meddle with that time. In other words: there has to be something really important in regards to them.

This is possible. Rowling dropped hints about James and Lily's jobs being somehow...important. Mysterious and spoileriffic, or something along those lines. I suppose the best way of putting it is that they had to have done something significant that would require Voldemort to specifically edit something during that time.

purplehawk

July 30th, 2003, 10:52 pm

Just to throw a chink in the fire... what if - ! What if it is a reversal in time and the idea is to prevent Voldemort's original rise to power by preventing his current return to power? (Oh, yikes, I am totally out of my element with this one)!

Would that mean that all the wrongs perpetrated during his first rise be "undone" somehow? Meaning James and Lily never died in the first place and Harry doesn't have that ****able scar? As in none of this really happened?

purplehawk

July 30th, 2003, 10:54 pm

And what about that known error in Goblet of Fire, where some editions show James coming out of Voldemort's wand before Lily (in the graveyard) and others showing their appearance in reverse?

aphelion

July 31st, 2003, 1:17 am

Molly remembers Ogg as a caretaker not a groundskeeper. Filch, not Hagrid, is the person who replaced Ogg.

And as for the ancestor mistake, not even a screwed up timeline would do that. Its not logically possible in any timeline to have an ancestor born latter than a descendent. It was just a typo, and it was changed in latter versions of the book. And as for timeturners ruining/ messing up timeline, the timeturner still changed the same timeline, if its two different timelines they shouldn't overlap at all and we wouldn't even see the discrepancies. And as for anagrams, I am not surprised that out of the 1693440 two worded phrases you can make from harry's letters (I calculated it myself), there are some that appear to make sense. Its a ridiculous theory.

Shikyo

July 31st, 2003, 1:35 am

Its a ridiculous theory.

Yeah, I know: as I said before, it (or similiar past-repeating theories) seems to mostly be justification for Harry eventually snogging Ginny.

Point aside, for some reason, this discussion amuses me so.

And as for timeturners ruining/ messing up timeline, the timeturner still changed the same timeline, if its two different timelines they shouldn't overlap at all and we wouldn't even see the discrepancies.

It depends upon how one looks at this.

The one thing about time changing/altering is that there needs to be the event...the cause, shall we say, of the changing of time to occur.

Let me put it this way. Harry decides to go back and save his parents from Voldemort. He does so, and they all grow up together in a normal family.

But, see, if he grew up in a normal family, he never would have become the Boy Who Lived and never would have gone back in the FIRST place to save his parents. Thus, future!Harry would not have gone back in time to save his parents, and they would have died.

But because they died, Harry ends up going back in time and saving his parents.

Several sources have opted to handle time travel in different ways. Who here watched the Time Machine, or read the book? The man goes back in time to save his wife, but for every misfortune he saves he from, something kills her right afterwards. No matter what turn he takes, she dies: the reason being that the fact of her death is irrevocably a part of his past, and thus unchangable.

Others have made it so that the paradox does not occur: like you mentioned, the changed timeline fits in seamlessly and no one notices the difference. Except for the individuals who changed time. They were like relics of a past universe that winked out of existance, the only ones who knew of the paradox, and the only ones left.

And what about that known error in Goblet of Fire, where some editions show James coming out of Voldemort's wand before Lily (in the graveyard) and others showing their appearance in reverse?

Psst. If it's been changed, chances are it's an error and mistake on the part of Rowling.

Oh, and, clarification on something I said in my earlier post, although no one's called me on it yet. When I said that Lily and James might've been important, I wasn't saying that they were the source of any possible timeline changes or cause of it or that timeline changes happened. I'm just saying that it's possible, definately possible, that they were working on something that would have turned Voldemort's attention to them. Harry aside.

DaN+EmMa

July 31st, 2003, 2:38 am

good theory i just wanna know what happens with "ogg" though. because he's only been mentioned once and left alone and you know how jk likes to do that. i think he is a bigger part of the picture.
--------------------
http://www.eternalmagic.co.uk/images/dan/dr.gif

proud daniel radcliffe and H/H shipper! =]

aphelion

July 31st, 2003, 3:24 am

Shikyo:

The one thing about time changing/altering is that there needs to be the event...the cause, shall we say, of the changing of time to occur.

Let me put it this way. Harry decides to go back and save his parents from Voldemort. He does so, and they all grow up together in a normal family.

But, see, if he grew up in a normal family, he never would have become the Boy Who Lived and never would have gone back in the FIRST place to save his parents. Thus, future!Harry would not have gone back in time to save his parents, and they would have died.

But because they died, Harry ends up going back in time and saving his parents.

This paradox you mention is a version of the Grandfather's paradox, which I mentioned here (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=14984). Many people know it, but few understand its logical consequences: as a paradox, it shows that time travel is impossible, and cannot occurr. It doesn't show what will happen if time travel occurrs, it shows that time travel causes situation which go against the laws of the Universe, and hence like flying off by yourself against gravity, is impossible.

Several sources have opted to handle time travel in different ways. Who here watched the Time Machine, or read the book? The man goes back in time to save his wife, but for every misfortune he saves he from, something kills her right afterwards. No matter what turn he takes, she dies: the reason being that the fact of her death is irrevocably a part of his past, and thus unchangable.

Others have made it so that the paradox does not occur: like you mentioned, the changed timeline fits in seamlessly and no one notices the difference. Except for the individuals who changed time. They were like relics of a past universe that winked out of existance, the only ones who knew of the paradox, and the only ones left.

You commit a logical fallacy here in that you examine a time line, which by definition ought to be beyond the restrictions of time, in an linear, chronological manner. As I said above, any timeline has to be seamless, as otherwise it would imply a contradiction. A timeline has to be logical holistically, in every sense of the word, including people's memories. So two different timelines ought never to exist, and a timeline, far from changing due to time travel, ought to sustain itself. In another words, you can only go back / forth in time to fulfill something which you know will happen (or has already happened), not to prevent something from happening.

Hence, I still stand by my saying that this theory is VERY ridiculous. I am willing to lay money on it, too :cool:

jasper

July 31st, 2003, 8:16 am

That ancestor/decendant "error" is straight out of Hitchihiker's Guide to the Galaxy, isn't it? Talk about a messed up theory of time travel.

purplehawk

July 31st, 2003, 8:47 am

Molly remembers Ogg as a caretaker not a groundskeeper. Filch, not Hagrid, is the person who replaced Ogg.

Its a ridiculous theory.

I think maybe not on Ogg... Molly remembers Ogg as the gamekeeper and Apoleon Pringle (sp) as the caretaker who caught Molly and Arthur after their stroll in the wee hours of the morning.

You are correct, I fervently believe, in your assessment of this time theory!

Mad-I Moody

July 31st, 2003, 9:52 am

Well, we must keep in mind that we are talking about a magical world in which we are at the mercy of JKR and her imagination. So if she wants two timelines to exist (and I'm not saying she does), then they do. Of COURSE we all know that time travel isn't possible, and aphelion's post above is solidified by Harry and Hermione's experience with the Time-Turner in PoA. They go back in time not to prevent anything from happening, as it may seem, but to fulfill things that had already happened (saving Buckbeak and producing the Patronus to drive the dementors away). Those are things that had already happened.

OK, but...
Hermione talks about the "loads of wizards" who have messed with time and ended up causing some major problems and killing themselves and all that. So who is to say that Voldemort isn't one of those people who really messed with time? I mean, it is a possibility...just maybe not a probability. :)

Edit: Serpentine, here is the link for the thread I was talking about:
http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?p=299663#post299663
The particular post I'm talking about is a long one -- number 514 -- on page 18 of that thread. I hope that helps! :p

Serpentine

July 31st, 2003, 2:23 pm

Amazing. This thread is only a day old but has already reached its 2nd page and more than 400 views. :)

Thanks Moody, I'm going to take a look there. :) And you make a good point - time-meddling is not well-looked upon in the HP universe but it clearly is not impossible. Sick, dangerous, but not impossible.

Shikyo, brilliant post about the time-paradox, you made very good points. I'm working at a reply for it :)

Shikyo

July 31st, 2003, 3:06 pm

You commit a logical fallacy here in that you examine a time line, which by definition ought to be beyond the restrictions of time, in an linear, chronological manner. As I said above, any timeline has to be seamless, as otherwise it would imply a contradiction. A timeline has to be logical holistically, in every sense of the word, including people's memories. So two different timelines ought never to exist, and a timeline, far from changing due to time travel, ought to sustain itself. In another words, you can only go back / forth in time to fulfill something which you know will happen (or has already happened), not to prevent something from happening.

Oh, I'm actually mentioning per other authors attempts at describing the effects of time travel/time manipulation, and their ways of circumventing the paradox which we both mentioned. Their ways, in short, of getting around the entire cause/effect problem. It's a much-used plot device in literature, after all.

Kangy

July 31st, 2003, 3:24 pm

I don't think that this is actually happening, but you've put some good thought into it.

There are too many holes in this theory though, ones that you have actually pointed out youself.

Serpentine

July 31st, 2003, 5:27 pm

Wow. Moody, I've been reading that theory you were hinting at. At first it sounds pretty far-fetched, but it does make sense in a scary way... Many of the other theories there sound very interesting as well. Pity that the thread is 92 pages long, I'll never manage to read it all :lol:

Here's my idea: Before Book 1, before Harry's birth, Voldemort had risen to the height of his powers... Dumbledore is at a loss for controlling Voldemort. He cannot defeat Voldemort, he simply has become too evil and too powerful. But Dumbledore is brilliant, and realizes the only way to defeat Voldemort is by pitting Voldemort against himself. But this seems impossible... UNLESS...somehow Dumbledore can rewrite history.... and this is when Dumbledore realizes precisely... that he can!

Dumbledore realizes that history needs to be rewritten. It's not a great option, and it will be very dangerous. Only he will know it has been done. But he proceeds with it, as it is the only way to defeat Voldemort and save the wizarding world from evil.

We all know Dumbledore has a pet phoenix, Fawkes. A phoenix bursts into flames when it is ready to die, and is reborn from the ashes. I believe Dumbledore realizes a way to pass on some of a Phoenix's properties onto Voldemort... maybe a Polyjuice Potion... and in this way, Voldemort would be reborn.... a brilliant plan... history would be rewritten... and the wizarding world would be saved...

Which brings us full circle to Chapter 1, Book 1.

Baby Harry Potter is born and survives being attacked by Voldemort... but why?? How does Harry survive being attacked by the most powerful evil wizard with no injurty but a lightning scar on his forehead. The answer: Harry Potter IS Voldemort. He is Voldemort reborn, in Dumbledore's finest plan ever. (...)

In a nutshell... Tom Riddle is in Slytherin.... becomes evil... changes his name to Voldemort...becomes all powerful... Dumbledore rewrites history and Harry is born. (...) ...this is the 2nd time around for history. When Harry is placed in Gryffindor, Dumbledore is elated... for more reasons than one... HIS PLAN IS WORKING....

I must say 1) I don't buy the Polyjuice Potion thing, 2) with a Voldie clone there seems to be no way how Lily's and Petunia's "ancient magic" protection could fit in, and 3) Harry being one year old at the time underlines the existence of both IN THE FLESH at least during that year (the prophecy said that "neither can live while the other survives"). Moreover 4) Harry's similarity to Tom Riddle doesn't need to mean anything, because then James would have had to be similar to Tom as well, and that would make three of them. James as a "failed first try" would be over the top, really. *shakes head*

But the rest... it's scary, but it might definitely be a possibility. Change the "cloning" idea to "transmission of identity" or something like that, and there you have it again... And even if it is not the way JKR is going, it sure would be a fine storyline wasted :p

The problem with this is that Voldemort's rising is irrevocably a part of Home's timeline: furthermore, if he had never risen to power, the series of events that would have lead to Home--->Another--->Home never existed. Thus, the essencial time paradox, and events repeating themselves. (...)
Several sources have opted to handle time travel in different ways. Who here watched the Time Machine, or read the book?

I did both. The event you described took place only in the movie, not in the book (there was no romance at all), but I get your point. :)

As far as I remember even JKR said that we will not see Harry's parents come back to life. So their deaths as part of Harry's past are unchangeable. I must confess that Voldemort's existence being part of it as well, this is a problem indeed... but maybe it doesn't have to, because it's the 2nd time around and thus would be a 2nd defeat...
Oh well - I don't know what I'm writing, I'm getting dizzy in the head :lol:

Anyway, the one thing that the theory of the Marauder era repeating itself due to some greater paradox relies upon one necessary detail: there has to be something insanely important about that generation of people that would require Voldemort or some greater force, were it deliberate, to go back and specifically meddle with that time. In other words: there has to be something really important in regards to them.
This is possible. Rowling dropped hints about James and Lily's jobs being somehow...important.

Wow, I haven't even thought of that. Very good point, it might well be the case. I'm really looking forward to learning what they did... hopefully it will be in book 6!

By the way, I do NOT think that Ginny's similarity to Lily necessarily means that she and Harry will end up together. It's all about choices, after all. James chose to be with Lily, but that doesn't mean Harry has to choose Ginny - he might just as well take any other choice.

Webswinger

August 6th, 2003, 12:41 am

There can be a simple answer to all this nonsense about time that Oggs was there for a particular time and then left.Meaning that maybe he was there for just a year and was replaced by Hagrid.Molly and Arthur could have been dating at their fifth or sixth year so they just need to be 56 or 58 by now. If you think logically they have seven kids!!And Charlie has a gap between Percy of 2 or 3 years and Bill has a gap between Charlie of 2 years.This stuff is tooo confusing!!(I'm just reading the part of GF now where Bill and Mrs. Weasley visit Harry, it turns out to be that Serpentine is right!)All I have to say Hagrid was 13 when he was expelled so he was under training.(we allk know that) and so he was there lets say 6 or 7 years before Molly and Arthur's time?I think to become a Game-keeper you must be 24 or 25 because it's not an easy job especially if you're not allowed to use magic!Although Hagrid is more powerful than an ordinary man but he still needed a lot of training!

whizbang121

August 6th, 2003, 1:38 am

QUOTE:When you consider that Bill and Charlie are grown adults (one of them is probably in their early 30's)

Bill is older than Charlie, and in GoF he said something like he'd kinda missed the place, and he couldn't believe it had been nearly five years since he'd been there.That would mean he's only about 8-9 years older than the trio, and 9-10 years older than Ginny. It just doesn't make sense that he would be in his early 30's. In Book1 when Harry was placed on the Quidditch team as a Seeker, everyone was talking about how he was even better than Charlie Weasley, and Gryffindor was looking for a Seeker so I think Harry replaced Charlie. That would make Charlie around 7-8 years older than the trio and 8-9 years older than Ginny. Then again, that's just my reasoning...

Yay! The temporal disturbance theory is revived! It was one of my favorites. Evilmeghan, where are you?

Anyway, the other thing that this explains is the little smile on Dumbledore's face when Harry tells him at the end of GoF about Voldemort's new body. Is this an indication that the right temporal changes are taking effect?

Except for Bill their birthyears are listed in the HPlexicon. Bill was at Hogwarts probably to for a quidditch match or some other event having left some time before.

yankes1903

August 6th, 2003, 2:05 am

these are all interesting ideas to think about now(making my head hurt though) i don't really think they are likely, but something to think about.
anyway; just wanted to add about Molly's age. In harry's first year, someone said it's been 7 years since gryffindor last won the quidditch cup, when charley was on the team. that was probably his 7th, maybe 6th year (i'm assuming, but could have been earlier) so he was about 17 years old + 7 more years (after winning the cup, 24) when harry was 11. i believe bill was about 2 or 3 years older than him, making him about 27 or 28 in book 2, when harry was 12. so, it depends on how old molly was when she had bill, not much younger than 20 i'm guessing. So she was born around when tom riddle openned the chamber of secret, and probably 10-15 years older than the marauders.
all of this is assuming charlie won the quidditch cup 6th or 7th year, and how old molly might have been when she had bill.

harryfantotheend

August 6th, 2003, 10:09 pm

This is the best thread i have ever read...
anyway

I dont think that the re-born thing is true, or the multiple timelines (but...im not saying that this wouldnt be SOO cool, that would be a great twist) but i think that time travel will become VERY important in future books. We have had too many instances, 3rd book: time turner 4th book: fred and george, and if anybody has found book 5 instances, that would be great!!

Keep posting! I just LOVE this thread!!

Fortescue

August 7th, 2003, 6:56 pm

I don't think there are two separate time lines going on because from what we learned in Book 3, whatever changes you make, you see yourself. Like when Macnair through the axe down with a thud because he was angry about Buckbeak's escape, Harry and co. heard it. Harry saw himself conjuring the Patronus, but he thought it was his father. If time was altered, we wouldn't have two stories, we'd just have one, as it would appear had the changes occured naturally.

However, I do see the history repeating itself pattern, in a way. I like the 'time spirals' theory. It's kind of like everything is happening like it always does, but as choices change, the people change too, and create themselves, different from the past. I don't think this will actually have a plot significance, but it was a good catch, Serpentine.

Fortescue

August 7th, 2003, 7:06 pm

Time is a major paradox, when you fiddle with it, everything changes. Has anyone read His Dark Materials? I suppose if you consider each world as different timelines, happening at the same time, but normally without relation to each other, excepting when Lyra and Will go 'adventuring,' then that's a possible way things could be repeated. But somehow I seriously doubt Rowling is envoking this particular theory in the books, since we would have had more solid evidence by now. In Rowling's world, if time is changed, nobody except those who changed it are any wiser. And even those-who-change-it's original selves aren't aware of it being changed. It's one of those things I highly doubt is taking place in the Harry Potter books, although it is an interesting to notice the similarities between Harry and his father, and so on.

Mad I

August 7th, 2003, 8:03 pm

I agree with Fortescue in saying that this is minor to the plot. Personally, though I hate to say it, I think that it is simply a minor slip-up in the books.

Shikyo

August 7th, 2003, 8:14 pm

although it is an interesting to notice the similarities between Harry and his father, and so on.

I always wondered why people made such a big deal out of it, though, to the point of formulating theories such as the time travel bits from it. Harry's related to James. Did they expect James to have blond hair and a huge Snape-nose or something?

whizbang121

August 7th, 2003, 8:51 pm

Time in the OotP comes in the dept of mysteries in the bell jar that the death eater got his head stuck in. Remember his head turned into a baby's? Time is something they study in the dept of mysteries.

And while I don't think there are two timelines, I do think that individual events have been affected by time turners and grandfather clocks.

Fortescue

August 7th, 2003, 9:05 pm

I'm sure individual things are affected by Time Turners, but we'd never be the wiser because that's the magic of Time Turners. If something was changed in the past, what we remember includes what happened, not what might have been. Harry is related to his father, hence the similarities there. As for his gang of pals, mostly everybody has a group of friends who they hang out with, and everyone who goes to school knows that there always are the odd kids out who are always alone with their nose in a book. History doesn't repeat itself, but in essence, some things just never change.

whizbang121

August 8th, 2003, 2:37 am

I see your point.
But maybe individual events, like when Dumbledore smiles after Harry tells him that Voldemort has a body in GoF. Does it have anything to do with a time turner. He knew what to tell Harry and Hermione to do in bk3 and how many turns to go back. How does he know? What other examples are there?

I gotta find the old thread in the Great Hall. Lots of good temporal disturbance and quantum pysics there.

yankes1903

August 8th, 2003, 4:59 pm

that part about PoA when dumbledore knew what harry and ron had to do, dumbledore was at the execution so i think he probably knew buckbeak got away; so from that i think he knew that hermione and harry were going to go back in time, kind of like harry knew he could drive away all those dementors, he had clues about what he was going to do later.

whizbang121

August 8th, 2003, 5:42 pm

I think just as Dumbledore doesn't need and inivisibility cloak to be invisible, (disillusionment charm, perhaps?) I don't think he needs a timeturner to travel freely in time either. We really can't underestimate Dumbledore.

Mad I

August 8th, 2003, 6:21 pm

I agree that Dumbledore isn't to be underestimated, he is pretty much the most powerful wizard in the world, even in his old age.

whizbang121

August 8th, 2003, 11:08 pm

purplehawk

August 8th, 2003, 11:49 pm

Interesting question there. I've been puzzled about that "watch," if that's what it should rightly be called since SS. I had written it off as incomprehensible until Firenze ended up teaching at Hogwarts in OotP. If the centaurs "read" the stars, is it possible Dumbledore is doing the same with the watch? Or maybe a much more complicated means of telling time? He seems to use it to tell time, but I'm not an astronomer and for the life of me can't figure out how the alignment of Mars and Venus would tell him he had 30 minutes to give Cornelius Fudge after his duel with Voldemort at the end of OotP. I guess I don't think it's a time turner, per se, but it does seem to tell time - somehow.

Mad I

August 9th, 2003, 10:23 am

I agree, but I don't think that we will ever see how he uses his watch, or any of Dumbledore's other "toys."

jasper

August 9th, 2003, 11:20 am

I know this is sacrilegious, but I think Dumbledore's watch in book 1 was just a cool wizard sounding gadget. Like the Out Putter. Neat detail, but not a cornerstone of the plot.
It could become a bigger part of the plot if JKR thinks of a way to use it.
If time travel/ time engineering is going to become a major part of the series, I, for one, don't think it was planned that way from the start. I'll be really disappointed if that's what she ends up doing.

Mad I

August 9th, 2003, 1:14 pm

That is exactly what I was trying to say jasper, well put. I can't see time travel or any of Dumbledore's gadgets becoming central to the plot in the next two books.

whizbang121

August 11th, 2003, 1:04 pm

Hmmmm.....Well, there are only two books left and on these boards alone, we have enough theories for a couple of centuries and several completely new fantasy series. So I guess not everything can make it into the books. It's fun to guess which ideas will be developed, though. And I think that even if it's in a small way, the time turner will show up at least once more.

Oo bUMbLE bEE oO

August 11th, 2003, 1:29 pm

time turners...parallel universes...memories seen from pensieves ::which is going back in time::...we've seen JKR messing with time already. She may take it a step further. I was always confused about the ages between everybody. I never imagined Hagrid to be that old or Mrs. Weasley. I always wondered if the Weasleys ever knew the Potters.

I have to wonder if JKR will make it essential in the overall plot. But like some people said, I don't think the Oog comment is enough to suspect two time lines running. If it does, good catch my friend! =)

EvilMeghan

August 11th, 2003, 10:48 pm

Whizbang, I'm here! :D I'm still trying to sort out some of the time travel theories mentioned in this thread. My brain does not do it's best thinking at this hour of the night. I can only hope for more time travel in books 6 and 7...it makes everything so interesting and brings in physics (a great subject)! There's a book out about the physics of Harry Potter, looks like a load of rubbish to me (I didn't read any more than the back cover), but I wonder what it says on this topic.

EDIT: The thing about time-travel and changes in the past that had to happen anyway - anyone ever watch "Quantum Leap?" Great show, one of my favorites! Its spin on time travel is so interesting. :)

iluvsnuffles

August 12th, 2003, 12:54 am

yea i agree

EvilMeghan

August 12th, 2003, 1:14 pm

I just thought of another movie that demonstrates changing time. Frequency - really good movie. A man's father died when he was young, and he finds a way to communicate with him in the past and avoid being killed. But then everything else goes wrong, and he starts to get memories of things that never happened. Pretty cool. Lesson: Don't screw up time.

I don't think the pensieves are literally going back in time. You can't interact with anyone or anything there. But its like a world that exists separately from our own, and off by however many years ago the event took place.

_BT_

August 12th, 2003, 2:18 pm

I really hope the manipulation of time is not a major plot theme. But I agree with Daveydee that the evidence points to it.

i really hope it will be. i always found the time parts in PoA some of the most intriguing parts of the book. lol, but only time well tell what happens... (i'm thinking at least we'll probably see the time turner again)

oh and :clap: to serpentine for an interesting theory!

EvilMeghan

August 12th, 2003, 2:23 pm

I agree with BT - I love the time aspects, they add so much to the book and make it really interesting. If you think about the possibilities...wow!

Mad I

August 12th, 2003, 6:55 pm

I also would like to see the time-turner take a part in the future books, but not in a very major way.

NaFran

September 15th, 2003, 3:24 am

There is an interesting thread about Voldemort going back into time and becoming Salazar Slytherin. It's located here: Ouroboros Theory: the Serpent biting its Tail (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=16927)

hesdead-dealwithit

September 16th, 2003, 10:03 pm

Yeah, that's a great theory. I have a feeling that time turners will come back into play, but I doubt that time has been twisted as this (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/puzzles2.html#When%20did%20Arthur%20and%20Molly%20attend) suggests.

whizbang121

September 16th, 2003, 10:26 pm

hesdead-dealwithit

September 16th, 2003, 11:07 pm

But the quote is "last ancestor of Salazar Slytherin." Not Slytherin himself.

That's been discussed on the thread. Two possibilities - one, LV goes back and becomes his father, or, what I like, DD just got confused in the moment (as it is easy to do) or maybe wanted to hide the fact from Harry, or didn't know exactly what happened, so he said it a little wrong.

SnapesHouseElf

September 16th, 2003, 11:11 pm

Whizbang, Voldemort being Slytherin is currently being discussed in the Ouroboros Theory thread (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=16927); you'll find some good explanations there. It has nothing to do with Serpentine's theory or with the time-twisting discussed in the HP Lexicon for that matter.

GryffindorSeeker

September 17th, 2003, 12:27 am

That is exactly what I was trying to say jasper, well put. I can't see time travel or any of Dumbledore's gadgets becoming central to the plot in the next two books.
No, they probably won't be centeral in the plots, but I have a feeling that they may be important at some point. I wonder how that watch works... *walks away thinking*

pasmosa

January 29th, 2004, 5:18 am

JKR said "wizards have a longer life expectancy than muggles." in this interview http://www.mugglenet.com/scholchat1.shtml

JKR also said that "Dumbledore is a hundred and fifty, and Professor McGonagall is a sprightly seventy. Wizards have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles. (Harry hasn't found out about that yet.)" in this interview http://www.mugglenet.com/scholchat2.shtml

So the idea of Molly and Arthur Weasley being 70+ years old is not weird. It is, in fact, considered "sprightly."

Scarhead

January 29th, 2004, 7:56 am

This is a really interesting thread with thought-provoking theories. I can't buy the double timeline, but definitely see some correlation in things like Fawkes's life cycle and the crystal bell jar in the dept. of mysteries. All the references JKR has made to time have got to mean something and it's kind of fun to speculate what it could be. I'm thinking along the line of those who feel time will have something to do with the demise of Lord Voldemort. I've been wondering how Harry will ever triumph over him (if indeed he does) through magic, as LV is so accomplished.

Violet Tonks

January 30th, 2004, 6:32 am

Barbara Kennedy

January 30th, 2004, 4:33 pm

I doubt Molly and Arthur Weasley are older than their mid-fifties. They don't seem much older than the Marauders.

As for time travel, I think Dumbledore has done some serious time travel in the past. He seems to know everything that is going to happen, which may be why he does some of the eccentric things he does. He knows it will be for the benefit of all.

Arthur and Molly have to be older than the Marauders because their sons Bill and Charlie are awfully close to the age of the Marauders.
They possibly were in school as first years while the Marauders were still there as sixth or seventh years.

Just check out the Timeline on www.hp-lexicon.org in the section A Wizard's Atlas, to confirm the ages of the Weasleys (and others.)

ThruTheVeil

January 30th, 2004, 9:25 pm

I just finished reading PoA for like the thousandth time, and the issue of the time-turner is quite interesting. Obviously the time-turner was needed to save Buckbeack and more importantly Sirius at the end of the book, but there should be more to it than that. We are introduced to so many things that have major implications in the wizard world: the pensieve, the time-turner, and then the veil and the rest of the stuff in the Dept. of Mysteries. Maybe this is just irony, but the time-turner saved Sirius only to have him die when he fell through the veil in OotP. Why use the time-turner to save him in PoA to only kill him off via the veil in OotP? Of course we only can speculate. J.K. Rowling is the only one who really knows why things are happening as they are, but her stretch of the imagination to save Sirius in PoA doesn't line up with the lack-luster death of Sirius she wrote in OotP. If she saved him once in the story in PoA, she could have saved him again in OotP, but she didn't. Instead, she left the overly-simple death of Sirius stand, and I don't buy it. There is something more to it than we know. Anyway, I do think that there is a good possibility that two timelines do exist. All of this stuff about Weasleys and such is possible, but I really can't make a judgement on that since I have not looked at the passages. OotP has left me with more questions than any of the other books had. Very little was answered or revealed, and then the foundation we had going into OotP was totally destroyed. It's almost as if J.K. Rowling has taken everything we thought we knew and threw it out the window. The only thing we can do is speculate in eager anticipation of Book 6. (Which is coming out when?!)

whizbang121

January 30th, 2004, 11:57 pm

ginnybatbogeysyou

January 31st, 2004, 2:17 pm

At the end of CoS, when Harry, Ron, Ginny and Lockhart are brought to McGonnagll's office, everyone is upset, except for Dumbledore, who is beaming. ???

Why? I always thought this was because he had used a time turner, or similar method, to go over some part of the events more than once. He was beaming because he how it was going to turn out. What part of the events in the Chamber might have been twice? Lockhart's "obliviate"? The rockslide? The arrival of Fawkes and the Sorting Hat?

Any other places where someone seems to be out of sync with the events at hand?
I've been wondering about that too. Dumbledore couldn't have known about the succes of the 'mission' the the CoS, because Harry, Ron, Ginny and Lockhart went to McGonagall's office and she didn't seem to send a message to Dumbledore or something. So I guess time-travel by Dumbledore is a possibility.

Lockahrrt had to go to St. Mungo's after he had obliviated himself. Maybe he did it to himself twice, making his injuries worser.

Doggy

January 31st, 2004, 2:29 pm

Personally, I can’t really agree with the two time lines theory (with Ogg/Hagrid = groundskeeper). If Voldemort has changed time (which I wouldn’t put past him) he would have changed time for everybody. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would have had the same experiences as everybody else. That’s the point with changing time (and why it’s so dangerous) – nobody remembers anything else. Nothing else has happened.

Serpentine

January 31st, 2004, 4:54 pm

His watch with the 12 planets. Could that be a time turner device of some kind? The universe is an oversized timekeeper as someone in the old thread mentioned. I wonder how he uses it? He was looking at it waiting for Hagrid to bring baby Harry to Privet Drive. It makes me think of the room with clocks and the other room full of planets in the dept of mysteries. And Dumbledore does have an interest in astronomy.

Did it have twelve planets? :huh: The solar system has only nine including Earth, and even from an astrological point of view (i.e. excluding Earth, including Moon and Sun) they don't add up to twelve. Well, if it includes oddities such as Chiron and the North Node it might work, but that way you could include lots of other oddities as well (fixed stars, Black Moon, asteroids etc.) and never come to an end... :rolleyes:

Anyway, since someone - was it Shikyo? - mentioned the importance of physics in time and time travel theories: we haven't been told much about Arithmancy and Astronomy either. Ok, Harry doesn't take part in Arithmancy (while timeturner-using Hermione does), but Astronomy is one of the classes he does take part in. Still, all we get from there are funny Ron-isms about Uranus and the like.

Any other places where someone seems to be out of sync with the events at hand?

Dumbledore's watch also turned up in OotP. Bloomsbury, chapter 36 "The Only One He Ever Feared", p.722:

''You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts', said Dumbledore. 'You will tell your Aurors to stop searching for my Care of Magical Creatures teacher so that he can return to work. I will give you ...' Dumbledore pulled a watch with twelve hands from his pocket and surveyed it '... half an hour of my time tonight, in which I think we shall be more than able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, I shall need to return to my school. (...)'

I don't have PS/SS with me now, but is it the same watch? Twelve planets or twelve hands? And where else is it mentioned?

Anyway, right afterwards he sends Harry into his office via portkey (p.722/723), and after a short exchange with the paintings Harry sees Dumbledore Flooing in (p.724 below). I could be wrong, but to me it doesn't quite look as if Harry had been waiting in Dumbledore's office for half an hour. Five to ten minutes at most, I'd say. Voldie and a dozen DEs wreak havoc at the ministry, and Fudge is satisfied with a five-minutes account? Can't see that somehow. :huh:

ginnybatbogeysyou

January 31st, 2004, 6:56 pm

Anyway, right afterwards he sends Harry into his office via portkey (p.722/723), and after a short exchange with the paintings Harry sees Dumbledore Flooing in (p.724 below). I could be wrong, but to me it doesn't quite look as if Harry had been waiting in Dumbledore's office for half an hour. Five to ten minutes at most, I'd say. Voldie and a dozen DEs wreak havoc at the ministry, and Fudge is satisfied with a five-minutes account? Can't see that somehow. :huh:
I noticed that too. The time passed between Harry 'portkeying' in and Dumbledore arriving didn't seem like half an hour.

lunalupe18

January 31st, 2004, 10:55 pm

i must agree with an earlier stated idea that DD decided to "Transfer essence" or something of the sort into the year old harry so that they could, well, not rewrite, but append history.

So, we have DD back 1981, when harry was 1 year old, and Vodly at the hight of his power. DD realises that only one as powerful as Voldy, or someone who holds the essence of Voldy inside of him/her can kill Voldy. He has heard the prophesy by this point, and decides it would be fitting to transfer the essance into a child born at the end of July, like the prophesy says, or maybe something about the allignment of the planets made it easier for this to happen to a child born at that time OR in 1980, when harry was born, DD puts part of Voldy's essence into the unborn Harry, thus he is born part with voldy's powers (they're not transfered to him when his parents die and DD lied to harry so he wouldn't know about having the Essance of Voldy in him, and no one would be the wiser cause how could Harry have known what powers he had at birth?) The spells Voldy cast on himself for immortality and all of that were funneled off with part of his essance to Harry, which was how he survived the AK curse in the first place. (And as to the phrophesy, Harry was a weak baby and Voldy was a strong man not entirly human, you might say, and it was like 10% 90% existance, like their sharing a single soul or body or something, but not.)

So, when Voldy comes around, He tries to kill harry, and the protection his mother left him protects him because she knows how important he is to the future. The AK curse rebounds and you get a weakened Voldy. This weakened Voldy (only 5% allive) goes into hiding, and 95% alive Harry goes on with his life.

Then, in GoF, Voldy gets a body. They're living a 50/50 live, existing but not really living either of them, and are trying to compete for dominance, and thus survival.

This means that, if harry ends up killing Voldy in the end (for who can expect the charms voldy put on himself (and his essance) to last through two AK charms or whatever power Harry has?) he thus kills also the essance of Voldy inside of himself, and thus be able to live a full, compelete life for the first time without having to share the same essance.

Off topic a bit, the books Xenocide and The Children of the Mind by Orsen Scott Card have good examples of "soul" or "essance" sharing. And sorry for the long post.

Shiftly

February 12th, 2004, 5:54 am

cool theory, but I was really bummed with the ending to book three, so I hope it's not a repeat of a time thing.

Serpentine

May 19th, 2004, 9:13 pm

Here's another nice instance of a lapse in time, discovered by atac109 and brought up in the thread Dumbledore's missing years (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=15004). Here's what he/she wrote:

A while back I posted a question about what happened to Headmaster Dippet, and people thought it was a pretty pointless discussion. But I think it accomplished a lot. The thread can be found at

http://www.cosforums.com/showthread...happened+dippet

I brought up the point that McGonagall said she became the Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts in December, most likely at the end of the first term. As far as we know, Dumbledore was the Transfiguration teacher before McGonagall, so she must have replaced him. But why would Dumbledore leave his post as Transfiguration teacher? My first thought was that he replaced Dippet as Headmaster, meaning Dippet died suddenly, possibly by disease or murder. But then someone else pointed out to me that Dumbledore is believed to have taken over the Headmaster spot in the 70s. Adding 503 years to the death of Nearly Headless Nick (how long Nick has been dead in OotP) and subtracting 39 years from that (how long McGonagall has been the Transfiguration teacher) we get 1956--the year Dumbledore disappears in our timeline. Once again, he supposedly resurfaces sometime in the 70s when he takes over the Headmaster position.

So what happened to Dumbledore? Some have alread brought up the idea that he simply took over the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, which is very possible. But I think he was up to something else. Remember in the CoS movie when Dumbledore tells Snape he had written a few bylaws himself? At first thought, he must have worked in the Ministry to pull that off! But, as I flip through the CoS book, Dumbledore never says such a thing, and, as we already know, he has had a load of influence on the MoM over the years. This dead end left me clueless. As a believer that Dumbledore *might* be evil, I then started looking for hints that maybe Dumbledore killed Dippet. But where's the evidence? the motive? Plus, I remembered Dippet's portrait in Dumbledore's office. I had nothing.

But could there be something to what I'm saying here? I plan on re-reading the books to look for clues. Does anyone have anything to add? I could really use the help. Also, what was the relationship between Dippet and Tom Riddle? It seems like Dippet respected Riddle--probably because Riddle was so persuasive. Could Riddle have killed Dippet? (I just can't let go of the Dippet thing.)

Pointed towards that instance I thought about it, and atac109 is right - there is a gap in time. In PoA we were told that Lupin was allowed go to Hogwarts only when Dumbledore became Headmaster, which makes early to mid 70s a reasonable suggestion. From 1956 though his earlier position as Transfiguration teacher was taken over by McGonagall. No idea yet where he could have been in the meantime, but it is another time oddity to go along with those discussed here earlier.

Robin Amanda

May 20th, 2004, 2:34 pm

Serpentine

May 20th, 2004, 5:44 pm

Welcome to the boards Robin Amanda! :welcome: Good post for a first one. :)

Ogg isn't a "key clue" to my theory, just one among several (see e.g. my previous post), but I get your point. :D Still, if everything said by any character is to be dismissed as dodgy, how much real info would there be left for us? The only way is to try to gauge individually how trustworthy someone's words could be, what reason he/she could have to lie or to be misled in his/her belief, and what could be in it for them or JKR to mislead us. I haven't found Molly to be prone to lies (though she does seem to be easily swayed e.g. by gossip about Hermione), and Ogg hasn't been important so far, so I don't think she has anything to conceal there. Why toss him in if he wasn't really there in her Hogwarts time? :huh:

While Galadriel Waters' books are certainly interesting to point out overlooked possible clues, I'd take her "rules" with a grain of salt. Unless she's JKR herself (which I strongly doubt) she has no more truth on the HP books than any other sleuth here on the Forums, and she seems to have been wrong before (chamber pot room!), so her word can't be taken as a Bible to HP. Anyone here on the Forums is free to make up his/her own mind about theories, whether to create them, endorse them, or disagree with them.

And the same is valid for this thread. Perhaps I'm way off with my theory - but even if some may find the mere idea of time being meddled with utterly crazy, I don't. We're talking about fiction after all, and Hermione did say it was dangerous to meddle with time. Dangerous, but not impossible. :)

whizbang121

May 20th, 2004, 5:54 pm

You're theory is a very interesting one. However, I'm not sure how accurate it is. You have presented some strong evidence. However, your key clue (Ogg) falls into one catagory from Gladriel Walters' Unoffical Guide to Harry Potter: Never take a charaters word for it. I think that it could be that. HOWEVER, your theory could prove correct. Some more evidence would be that Neville looks a lot like Peter Pettigrew and also seems to be a rather poor wizard, just like Pettigrew. Ron seems to be more of a, shall we say, prankster, like Sirius is/was. And as you mentioned, Harry looks an awful lot like James. Execpt for his eyes.... Another rule from GW's UGTHP is the ever-popular If she [JRK] reinforces it, she means it (and wants us to remember it!). She only mentioned Sirius once before PoA, or the Lovegoods before OotP. Any number of things are mentioned only once and in the most casual way before they become suddenly important.

By the way, this is my first post *cowers*.
:lol: Don't panic. Sometimes we bite, but we never draw blood.

Have we allowed time in Dumbledore's life for his work with Flamel? Discovering the twelve uses of Dragons' Blood probably took a couple of days, too. ;) I suspect Dumbledore may have been working in the Dept of Mysteries for some time. He also may have been traveling. While we don't know for sure, he probably had to leave Britain to defeat Grindelwald in 1945.
There are an awful lot of titles on his letterhead. He would have been busy for any number of years.

Dippet seemed quite elderly when Riddle was a student in the '40s. If he was the headmaster until the seventies when Dumbledore took over, he must have been ancient. It seems reasonable that he died of old age, if he died at all. Do retired heads also get portraits in the office?

Does Dumbledore time travel? I always think of the end of CoS. When Harry and Ron bring Ginny into McGonagall's office after the ordeal in the chamber, everyone is visibly upset, everyone but Dumbledore. He's actually smiling slightly, knowingly. Why? Has he used a time turner or some such device to accomplish something like the errand he sent Harry and Hermione on at the end of PoA? Is this similar to his smile in GoF when Harry tells Dumbledore that Voldemort has a new body?

I keep coming back to Nicolas Flamel. He seems to be at the center of all this.

The marauders came to Hogwarts in the early 70's and about that time, Dumbledore became headmaster. This just doesn't look like a coincidence to me. Perhaps this whole series recounts Dumbledore's trip with a time-turner back to say, 1970, in an effort to manipulate the outcome of the war against Voldemort.

onetruegryffindor

May 20th, 2004, 5:57 pm

now i'm really confused...

basically- my opinion is "no", i dont think anyones been mucking about with time.

whizbang121

May 20th, 2004, 6:39 pm

because .......

jenniweasley

May 21st, 2004, 3:32 am

i dont think it could be a time thing i mean... all the clues seem to point to it but maybe J.K's doing that on perpose haha i dunno... great well thought out theroy tho ( o and by the way J.K rowling confirmed that it WAS a typo about the ancestor thing.. i read it on her website:D)

Elocin4684

May 21st, 2004, 5:11 am

I can really see that you've put a lot of thought into this, but I think that would be way out there for Jo. It's kind of Dragon Ball Z, don't you think? (ie, somebody is sent to the past to fix what is their present but the people's future that their working with). Anyways, the last 2 books are supposed to be Harry's last 2 years at Hogwarts, and I think he would be missing a good chunk of his last 2 years to go back into the past and fix something so big.

And, like the Ultimate Guide tells us, you can't go on what people tell you, including their memories that they show you. Now, I have no doubt that Harry's dad was a cocky little boy, but he might not have been as bad as Snape portrayed. Memories are not exact snap shots of the past... they are somebody's opinion and can be altered without the person even thinking about it.

Serpentine

May 21st, 2004, 3:52 pm

Elocim - Dragon Ball Z? If that's some kind of movie, I've never seen it. :huh:

The motive of time travel isn't new, it has been dealt with quite often in literature, and later in films. The book "Time Machine" by H.G. Wells (translated to German in 1904) and the three "Back to the Future" movies from the 1980s are only two examples of many. It wouldn't surprise me if it did come up again in the HP series.

But anyway, I wasn't saying that Harry is going to travel in time (there's a different thread covering the subject of time travel (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=16898)), but that time has already been meddled with. Whether or not in later books Harry will have to travel back in time in order to put things right, I don't know... It could just as well be that there's no need to, e.g. because the time-meddling was done with the aim to prevent something terrible to happen in the first place - only that we haven't been told about it yet. If Voldemort did it he'd probably have had evil aims in mind, but if Dumbledore did it, I guess it'd be rather the contrary. A fine timepiece he has, he's interested in astronomy, and this thread has dug out some nice time oddities around him... :huh:

Whizbang, good points about Flamel and the 12 uses of dragon blood, and the bylaws written by Dumbledore. :) I recall that latter instance from the film too, but thought it had been mentioned somewhere in a book as well, though in a different place. Does the Department of Mysteries take care of alchemical research too? It'd be interesting to know more about it... are there any Stones around there, or is there a Room of Enlightenment? :huh:

Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald took place in 1945 though, well before McGonagall took over as a Transfiguration teacher. Was that in Britain as well, or did he take some time off to do so? ("See you folks - gotta travel over to the Continent to vanquish an evil wizard, but I'll be back next week. Keep my lemon drops safe, will you?" :p )

As for the Unofficial Guide, I've said before that, interesting though it may be, its author isn't JKR and doesn't hold the complete truth about the HP books either. Its so-called "rules" can't be taken as set in stone just because they're in a book. Luna Lovegood, Sirius Black (thanks Whizbang!) and the chamber pot room turned out to be important in spite of them.

whizbang121

May 21st, 2004, 4:39 pm

Maybe we can take into consideration that JKR's education is in French and Classics. While JK and the writers of Dragonball Z cartoons may be drawing on the same myths, my guess is she hadn't seen them when she began work on HP. She does suggest that the events of the whole series were known to her relatively early on.

And while I'm sure she has a copy of the Ultimate Guide now, it didn't exist when Harry appeared.

Does the Department of Mysteries take care of alchemical research too? It'd be interesting to know more about it... are there any Stones around there, or is there a Room of Enlightenment?
If we're lucky it has a room of comedy and Fred and George will get their own show. ;) :lol:

I see what you mean, though. History has already been tampered with and someone with a time manipulator of some kind has sent Harry back to undo the damage.

That makes so much sense. I have a sense that time is an important element in the books. Perhaps Time is even the power that Harry has and the Dark Lord knows not. But we saw the time rooms in the DoM and we didn't get into the room with the locked door. Of course, we're assuming that that door is the one Dumbledore was talking about. Sometimes I wonder if Luna was right. :eyebrows:

Polychrome

May 21st, 2004, 6:46 pm

Just to throw a chink in the fire... what if - ! What if it is a reversal in time and the idea is to prevent Voldemort's original rise to power by preventing his current return to power? (Oh, yikes, I am totally out of my element with this one)!

Not likely at all. Something that must be remembered from PoA is that you technically cannot change time. The events in PoA already happened before they went back with the time turner.

I'm more likely to believe Voldemort going back in history to become his own father or ancestor with no way back to the future. Then time loops but is set in stone. The future gets rid of Voldemort, and the past can deal with him. :P

whizbang121

May 21st, 2004, 7:10 pm

But they did actually alter the events of the "present" when it arrived. Something did change. Sirius escaped.

Tane

May 21st, 2004, 7:58 pm

But they did actually alter the events of the "present" when it arrived. Something did change. Sirius escaped.

Yes but in the end Sirius still dies in OotP so perhaps this is a clue, that you can not change what is to happen by going back in time because eventually even if you do change history it will catch up with you later on.

Sirius was meant to die in PoA and death just found another way after Harry went back a cheated death by saving Sirius.

Serpentine

May 21st, 2004, 9:37 pm

Of course, we're assuming that that door is the one Dumbledore was talking about. Sometimes I wonder if Luna was right.

Must have missed that. Did Luna say anything about the Time Room or the room with the locked door? (Where's my OotP to check?) If she did though, it might pay to listen to her words. I have a gut feeling that neither she nor the Quibbler are really as crazy as we're led to believe.

I'm more likely to believe Voldemort going back in history to become his own father or ancestor with no way back to the future. Then time loops but is set in stone. The future gets rid of Voldemort, and the past can deal with him.

I like that one, Polychrome. An elegant solution, and good riddance. :lol: Still, as long as he won't die (even Avada Kedavra wasn't enough to kill him), he'd have time on his side to do anything he likes for as long as he likes... and we couldn't be sure that the present would be rid of him either. A milennium of Voldemort is a really scary idea. :scared:

Yes but in the end Sirius still dies in OotP so perhaps this is a clue, that you can not change what is to happen by going back in time because eventually even if you do change history it will catch up with you later on. Sirius was meant to die in PoA and death just found another way after Harry went back a cheated death by saving Sirius.

Technically he wasn't meant to die but to get a Dementor's Kiss - but well, I guess to him as the one concerned it wouldn't have made much of a difference. :p And if this should be true, there might be the crux of the matter. Meddling with time is dangerous, and if you try it anyway, it's at your own risk and of those around you. (It isn't in H.G. Wells' original book "The Time Machine", but in the film when the main character tries to save his love from death by going back in time, death catches up with her every time he tries.)

Drusilla

May 22nd, 2004, 10:17 am

Yes but in the end Sirius still dies in OotP so perhaps this is a clue, that you can not change what is to happen by going back in time because eventually even if you do change history it will catch up with you later on.

Sirius was meant to die in PoA and death just found another way after Harry went back a cheated death by saving Sirius.

Harry didn't technically change time-he didn't change what had already happened,he altered the course of what was about to happen-so he wasn't really changing history.The axe that Macnair swung into the fence would have hit it anyway,whether he did it after lopping off Buckbeak's head or out of frustration at the Hippogriff's escape.Hagrid would've cried anyway-all Harry did was change the possible reason for that-instead of Hagrid's tears being over Buckbeak's execution,they were tears of happiness at his escape.Sirius hadn't already received the Kiss-if he had,nothing Harry did could have saved him.

seeker

May 23rd, 2004, 2:08 am

Actually, Buckbeak was never killed. Harry, Ron, and Hermione heard the axe and Hagrid's cries from a distance, and came to what was at the time the only logical conclusion: Buckbeak had been executed. Only later did the recognize that the axe ahd merely hit the fence and that Hagrid was crying for joy.

Chrysalis

May 23rd, 2004, 9:37 am

Interesting theory. I don't buy the anagrams, and I'm not too sure about Molly living in a different timeline than Harry. For all you know Hagrid was assistant groundskeeper to Ogg and when the latter died became the groundskeeper himself. However I think it is perfectly possible that time has been meddled with, but not too sure how. It probably does have some connection with the bell jar room in the Department of Mysteries.

Serpentine

June 1st, 2004, 7:20 pm

Back to time spirals... *everybody groans*

Whizbang121 mentioned a South-American idea of time moving spiralwise earlier in this thread, and I found it again when researching about the Maya for another thread here on CoSForums. The Maya believed that time didn't run in a straight line but in spirals, and every 52 years people feared something horrible would happen. Here's a nice site with lots of details about, among other things, the Mayan calendar system.

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/maya/mmc06eng.html

The Maya Calendar

(...) Of all the ancient calendar systems, the Maya and other Mesoamerican systems are the most complex and intricate. They used 20-day months, and had two calendar years: the 260-day Sacred Round, or tzolkin, and the 365-day Vague Year, or haab. These two calendars coincided every 52 years. The 52-year period of time was called a "bundle" and meant the same to the Maya as our century does to us. (...)

In the 260-day tzolkin, time does not run along a line, but moves in a repeating circle similar to a spiral. The two cycles of 13 and 20 intermesh and are repeated without interruption. Thus, the calendar would begin with 1 Imix, 2 Ik, 3 Akbal, and so on to 13 Ben, after which the cycle continues with 1 Ix, 2 Men, etc. This time the day Imix would be numbered 8 Imix, and the last day in this 260-day cycle would be 13 Ahau. (...)

The Vague Year or haab of 365 days is similar to our modern calendar, consisting of 18 months of 20 days each, with an unlucky five-day period at the end. The secular calendar of 365 days had to do primarily with the seasons and agriculture, and was based on the solar cycle. The 18 Maya months are known, in order, as: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xuc, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Maun, Pax, Kayab and Cumku. The unlucky five-day period was known as uayeb, and was considered an ominous time which could precipitate danger, death and bad luck.
The Maya solar new year is thought to have begun sometime in our present-day month of July, with the Maya month of Pop. The Maya 20-day month always begins with the seating of the month, followed by days numbered 1 to 19, then the seating of the following month, and so on. This ties in with the Maya notion that each month influences the next. Thus, the Maya new year would start with 1 Pop, followed by 2 Pop, all the way through to 19 Pop, followed by the seating of the month of Uo, written as 0 Uo, then 1 Uo, 2 Uo, etc.
The linking of the tzolkin and the haab resulted in a longer cycle of 18,890 days, or approximately 52 solar years. The end of this 52-year cycle was particularly feared, because it was believed to be a time when the world might come to an end and the sky might fall, if the gods were not satisfied with the way humanity had carried out its obligations. (...)

The time spiral of the "260 day tzolkin" could well have served as an unknowing inspiration for this thread. :blush: I know I read something about the Maya time spiral idea loooong ago, and forgot about it in the years since. But it must have still unconsciously lingered in the recesses of my mind when I first posted that theory. As for the 52 year period - Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore in 1945, wasn't he? It would seem 1997 will be an interesting year for Harry...

What is even more interesting: The Celts (http://www.crystalinks.com/celts.html), once inhabitants of the British Isles (and other regions throughout Europe), seem to have believed in a similar concept of time running spiralwise.

Celts: Calendar

(...) It is from ancient writers such as Caesar that we learn that the Celts were to have counted by nights and not days and in reckoning birthdays and new moon and new year their unit of reckoning is the night followed by the day.

Ancient Celtic philosophy believed that existence arose from the interplay between darkness and light, night and day, cold and warmth, death and life, and that the passage of years was the alternation of dark periods (winter, beginning November 1) and light periods (summer, starting May 1). The Druidic view was that the earth was in darkness at its beginning, that night preceded day and winter preceded summer a view in striking accord with the story of creation in Genesis and even with the Big Bang theory. Thus, Nov. 1 was New Year's Day for the Celts, their year being divided into four major cycles. The onset of each cycle was observed with suitable rituals that included feasting and sacrifice. It was called The Festival of Samhain - linked with Halloween. The Celts measured the Solar year on a wheel, circle or spiral, all of which symbolize creation and the constant movement of the universe * growth and development.

To the ancients, the Heavens appeared to wheel overhead, turning on an axis which points to the north polar stars. At the crown of the axis, a circle of stars revolved about a fixed point, the Celestial Pole, which was believed to be the location of Heaven. At the base of the axis was the Omphalos, the circular altar of the Goddess' temple. The universe of stars turning on this axis formed a spiral path, or stairway, on which souls ascended to Heaven.

This Sunwise, clockwise, or deiseal (Gaelic), motion of the spirals represented the Summer Sun. The continuous spirals with seemingly no beginning or end signified that as one cycle ended another began * eternal life. The spiral's never-ending, always expanding, motion also symbolized the ever- increasing nature of information and knowledge. Many of these symbols often also appeared in triplicate, a sign of the divine.

In addition, the seasons of the year were thought to be part of this cycle. In Gaelic, the names of the four seasons date back to pre-Christian times: 1) Earrach for "Spring," 2) Samhradh for "Summer," 3) Foghara for "Harvest" which refers to Autumn, and 4) Geamhradh for "Winter."

Yet another time spiral, and this time from the Celts. :wow: Intriguing, with the Celtic background of the British Isles and JKR's liking for mythology... (Remember the rebirthing scene with the cauldron?) In the Time Room the bird in the bell jar kept hatching, growing, and returning to its egg to hatch again, and the smashed time-turners kept mending themselves and smashing again. Hmmmm.

(By the way, more intriguing mythological references are discussed in threads on Mayan Mythology (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=25595), on Celtic Mythology (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=25723) and on Egyptian Mythology (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=20899). JKR obviously likes to delve into mythology, so the idea on these threads is to dig into possible source material for her books. And so far the discussion there has proven to be fruitful.)

Tane

June 1st, 2004, 7:38 pm

If Harry had not gone back in time both he and Sirius Black would have been killed.

Harry saw himself saving his own life so in a way he cheated death. Sirius died anyway later on in the series and again it was in an act of saving Harry's life. Sirius defended Harry against Lupin if he had not then Harry could have died, it was that which lead Harry having to defend Sirius from the dementors.

Later on in OotP, again Harry is trouble and Sirius comes running to help him but this time he does die. In a way Sirius should never have lived in PoA and in OotP, time caught up with that.

Anything Sirius did after the PoA would alter time because he should have died, maybe that is the real reason as to why Dumbledore had Sirius locked away in Grim 12.

Spike

June 1st, 2004, 8:20 pm

Voldemort in his quest for immortality would surely have made time twisters a priority but the books seem to shy away from that thus far. Any death eater could have twisted time and stopped him from cursing harry. I really wish this would have been left out of the story.

whizbang121

June 13th, 2004, 6:50 am

The twisting of time is becoming more interesting all the "time." :lol:

Looking for evidence of it in the past could be useful. I often see evidence in Dumbledore's expressions.

Serpentine

June 13th, 2004, 6:45 pm

I really like your PoA film signature, whizbang! "It's all about time", how very right. :agree:
A Celtic sundial on the grounds of Hogwarts, that was built on a Celtic site (according to that Cuaron interview quoted on the "Celtic Mythology" thread). What were the pendulum in the corridor and the huge clockwork there for anyway? Can't remember them from the books, and for the time-turner episode a clocktower would have been enough. Was that the big clue - Hogwarts the giant timepiece?

whizbang121

June 13th, 2004, 9:04 pm

Thanks. As you may know, I think the whole series is about time.
So many references to time. The room where Harry and Lupin worked on the Patronus must have been the astronomy classroom rather than the History of Magic as in the book. Planets were floating around the room and there were moving models of the galaxies and solar systems. I can't remember when but there was a scene with shooting stars streaking across the sky. (Or was it the ceiling in the Great Hall.:blush: The passing of the seasons reflected amusingly on the whomping willow instead of by the marking of feasts as usual.

Time on an astronomical level. :eyebrows:

Serpentine

June 24th, 2004, 2:54 pm

Here's yet another time oddity in OotP, actually one that should have been quite obvious... d'uh, I need better glasses. :rolleyes:

It's at Harry's hearing which surprisingly has been changed to an earlier time and different place. Mr. Weasley gets him there in the last moment. And Dumbledore's there too, though apparently no-one told him about the changes.

'Ah,' said Fudge, who looked thouroughly disconcerted. 'Dumbledore. Yes. You - er - got our - er - message that the time and - er - place of the hearing had been changed, then?'
'I must have missed it', said Dumbledore cheerfully. 'However, due to a lucky mistake I arrived at the Ministry three hours early, so no harm done.'

He hasn't been notified, and yet he's there. Three hours early, due to a "lucky mistake", and by chance he's brought Figgy along too? :huh: Doesn't that scream time-turner, or any other way of time-meddling?

There do seem to be quite a few time oddities happening around Dumbledore, e.g. at his return after the MoM battle mentioned before... And he has that unusual watch of his, with the planets. It's all about time.

winter snow

August 3rd, 2004, 5:48 am

Exactly! It is all about time. The Whomping Willow was planted in 1971--the first year of the Marauders group, and the staement by Molly Weasley that the Whomping Willow was planted the year after her and Arthur graduated which would have been 1970. Add to that fact that the Weasley's had two cildren also within this timeframe. Bill-mid 60's, Charlie-1967. Just with these facts alone, you have to admit that these events cannot have happened as stated-unless two different timelines exist. I don't propose to understand why there are two timelines, I'm just saying the facts are pointing in that direction.
Originally, I thought it possible for Arthur and Molly to have attended Hogwarts with Lucius Malfoy, Nacissa Black, Crabbe and Goyle's parents and maybe Bellatrix as well. I now understand that to be unplausible. Lucius was born in 1954. He entered Hogwarts in 1965. He graduated in 1972. So, the Marauders group were in their second year and Lucius was in his seventh year. Again, Molly and Arthur had Bill and Charlie at this time. Bill was around 7, and Charlie was 5 in 1972. I don't think this is a mistake on JKR's part. I think these details will have a major importance on the plot. After all, there has to be a reason that we don't know when these two particular characters were at school. If it was not important, it would have been relayed to us through the context of the story.
I'm not thinking about scientific ramifications-that's too confusing-it gives me a headache! (If you change this, you change all the events in the timeline vs. if you change that, everything goes the way it was meant to be). I don't think this theory is ridiculous, I believe it has plenty of merit if you're willing to think deep about it and not just skim the surface and dismiss it out of hand just because you don't want the story to end that way. As many people have said, time plays a very important part in the whole series. I just think this theory is more important than some people think it is. That's just mho.

fubby

August 3rd, 2004, 8:52 am

No, simply because I do not believe in the manipulation of time. I believe you can go back but you can never really change anything. Think about it lets say you are in the year 2000 and you want to stop a murder from happening that happened in the year 1000, but you have no idea how it happened. So you go back, well it turns out YOU are the reason that the person was killed all along. Don't understand? Well let me explain, even though your in the year 2000 supposedly before you go back to change things, in order to go back to the year 1000 you would have to go back before you were even born anyways, so even though it is the year 2000 "before you went back in time" you have already been in 1000 and altered time. When you go back to alter it again you will just change what you have already changed. Let me give you an example, in the book PoA harry hasn't traveled back in time yet when he's by the lake and he gets saved by his "future self's" patronus. Even though he hasn't gone back yet his future self is still there regardless. That confirms what I have already said. All he does when he goes back in time with Hermione is change what he has already changed before he went back. Now you might say well yes but he could've done something different? Right? Wrong! You might think he could've but the fact is he didn't and never could. If he did do something different then it would again change the way things happened before he went back. Don't believe me? We'll put things in perspective lets say he like some of you might not believe this theory and tried to do something different. He would never get the chance and heres why. If he would've decided not to save himself with a patronus to "change time" then he never would have survived to go back in time to make the decision to do it or not in the first place. No matter how you look at it it's not possible to change time. I tried to explain it the best I could but perhaps some of you may still not see what I mean. Some of you still might think well maybe if he decided to not save himself he could not have changed time but suppose he tried to change it by doing a little thing and not something important? Well either way he's not really changing anything because even though he makes the decision in "the future" it would change what happened BEFORE he went back in time so in essence he can't change anything but what he has already changed. The whole point of this thread can be sumed up in the statement, "Time travel is possible but changing the future is not, you will just change what you have already changed." That's just my opinion on the matter. I will understand if you don't understand what I mean because if I think too hard on this matter even I doubt myself until eventually I come back to the conconlusion, the simple conclusion that stares you in the face, but is so difficult to come to understand. The way JKR wrote the book with time travel, it validates these statements, It doesn't mean that JKR will not make altering the past part of the plot, as she might not see it as I do.

Wyndsor

August 3rd, 2004, 3:06 pm

No, simply because I do not believe in the manipulation of time. I believe you can go back but you can never really change anything.

I don't know if JKR subscribes to Quantum Physics, and other theories. But if you've ever read Stephen Hawking's stuff you are correct about not changing anything. The way Space/Time work would mean if you dropped a tea cup on the floor and it broke into a thousand pieces, if you went back in time to before you dropped the tea cup, it would still be broken. This is because time operates independent of matter, as there is no correlation.

So by going back in time, I don't think you'd be able to actually stop all of the horrible things that Voldemort did.

That being said, this is JKR's world of magic, so I doubt our "muggle" theories regarding the way time operates apply. But it is something to ponder.

no1 potter fan

August 3rd, 2004, 3:12 pm

I think JKR made a little slip up because this would meen that Molly and Arther are in there 70s and I imagined them no older than 45.

whizbang121

August 4th, 2004, 2:19 am

Could the shrinking potions from PoA be involved. They don't just shrink things. They return them to infancy, apparently.

Snape really wanted to impress the proper preparation of shrinking potions on Neville.

:lightbulb:

ornjbreezy

August 4th, 2004, 3:31 am

^Wow, nice catch at the Neville one, Whizbang!
And I really have to say, this is one of the most interesting threads I've read in a long time! I really like the theory (the original one from the first post), though I doubt it will come into the books completely.

It certainly is all about time...Time and choices, what an interesting combination. :agree:

obliviate

August 4th, 2004, 5:05 am

Fascinating thoughts about time!

As to the shrinking potion: Is it possible Fred and George are actually Molly's relatives, saved through time travel before their deaths at the hands of Voldemort and hidden as infants with the Weasleys? (I know that's a bizarre thought but Fred and George don't seem to fit into the Weasleys' family).

Do some people know about altered events while others don't? And how? Hermione from the start has complained that no one reads "Hogwarts: A History" but says at one point that she thinks that book has been altered, anyway, and doesn't reflect Hogwarts' true history. She must have run across different versions of events in her readings.

Have some characters gone through a fog of time, so they don't remember events that others do?

We recall the past through memories and lots of characters in the books have memory problems.

whizbang121

August 4th, 2004, 5:12 am

Memory actually seems more of a theme in these books than choices do. The author herself said the books were about death and dealing with death.

obliviate

August 4th, 2004, 5:24 am

And memories capture our thoughts and feelings about moments in time -- usually the most important (either good or bad) moments in our lives. Of course, two people can have very different memories of the same event. But it seems to me a lot of people in the books just have NO memory of certain events -- their memory was wiped out. And it seems to me that others, including Harry, keep struggling to pull memories out of their minds. Why does Dumbledore store memories in his pensieve? So he can study them with clarity, so he doesn't forget them.

Lockhart was one of the scariest characters in the books for me because he just wiped out people's lives.

Evangelina

August 4th, 2004, 6:25 am

Do some people know about altered events while others don't? And how? Hermione from the start has complained that no one reads "Hogwarts: A History" but says at one point that she thinks that book has been altered, anyway, and doesn't reflect Hogwarts' true history. She must have run across different versions of events in her readings.

When does Hermione say this?

And also, in the muggle world time travel is "theoretically possible", but you can't change anything that hasn't already been changed. But in the wizarding world, I don't think things are as simple as that.

And yeah, I think Dumbledore and Harry's hearing had time-turning involved in it.

Lanc

August 4th, 2004, 8:17 pm

Hermione complained about Hogwarts: A History just after she'd found out about the House elves working at Hogwarts. She called it "revised" and not indicative of Hogwarts true history because it didn't mention house elves once. I don't believe it had anything to do with time travel or the book actually having been changed.

fawksrox8908

August 4th, 2004, 8:33 pm

you cannot change the past but you can change the future

whizbang121

October 15th, 2004, 7:27 pm

bump

wildchild36

October 15th, 2004, 9:00 pm

Actually on the first point, I allways assumed that Molly had gone to Hogwarts before Hagrid and Tom Riddle. That would not be too difficult to assume since it would make her only a little over 50, maybe 60 or 70 at the oldest. While that seems old to us, JKR has made the point in the past that wizards age slower than Muggles. Dumbledore is probably very old considering he was a teacher at Hogwarts 50 years ago, and was probably pretty old (at least compared to Muggles) at that point already. When you consider that Bill and Charlie are grown adults (one of them is probably in their early 30's) it isn't too difficult to think Molly is in her 60's.

The rest of this theory is really cool, I like a lot of the comparisons that you have made. I don't think that it has to necessarily deal with time exactly, but it is interesting to see how things in the past are similar to the current time.

Pertaining to the age of Molly Weasley, could it be possible that she is maybe only a year or two older than Hagrid and Tom? That way, she would still remember a groundskeeper named Ogg working at Hogwarts while she was there. And it could be quite possible that Ogg was quite close to retirement at the time that Hagrid was expelled, which would make sense that Dumbledore would name Hagrid groundskeeper when he was expelled, giving Hagrid (I'm assuming) the summer to be trained up (I believe he did get expelled close to the end of the year, yes?) by Ogg before he retired.

Just a thought, though.

Chance

October 15th, 2004, 11:48 pm

It's a really interesting theory. Unless it was just a simple mistake on JK's part, I'd really like for there to be more time issues in the next books.

Is that a fact? I don't really remember reading that, but maybe I missed it.

They said it was uncertain though. I'd hope that if it was the case though, Bill would mention it to Harry at some point.

Somewhere JKR said Charlie was 2 years older than Percy (which she had to correct later, because otherwise he would have been at Hogwarts when Harry was a first year) and that Bill was 2 (0r 3, can't remember) years older than Charlie. Don't know how much that clears it up, but I don't think Molly is as old as Hagrid and Tom. That also makes it extremely unlikely that Bill was at Hogwarts the same time James and Lily were, even if he was 1st year while they were 7th.

Spike

October 16th, 2004, 1:42 am

I don't know if JKR subscribes to Quantum Physics, and other theories. But if you've ever read Stephen Hawking's stuff you are correct about not changing anything. The way Space/Time work would mean if you dropped a tea cup on the floor and it broke into a thousand pieces, if you went back in time to before you dropped the tea cup, it would still be broken. This is because time operates independent of matter, as there is no correlation.

So by going back in time, I don't think you'd be able to actually stop all of the horrible things that Voldemort did.

That being said, this is JKR's world of magic, so I doubt our "muggle" theories regarding the way time operates apply. But it is something to ponder.

It would seem that JKR agrees with you. That time is linear and in a straight line that can't be changed or effected by matter.

Time as a layered thing that can fold back on itself and constantly change and be changed would destroy her story. The proof is of course in POA where before Harry twists time with Hermoine the things that they did already happened. The stag etc. It seems that we will not get into a "Back to the Future" view of time as variable and unstable.

The only problem is that in that view there should be absolutely no way to twist time at all. If you can fold back time and change it then you logically you should also be able to change matter in time. Either time is independent of matter and thus really can't be manipulated by man/matter or time is variable and movable thus allowing for matter and events to change if you travel/twist in time.

Basically to me you can have time travel and the complications that go with it ie changing history or you can just rule out time travel/twisting completely but it seems to me that JKR may be trying to have her cake and eat it too.

whizbang121

October 16th, 2004, 2:17 am

Arcturus

October 16th, 2004, 2:48 am

This is a very "deep" thread. And also very interesting to read. It seems to me that people are trying to argue the same point based on three separate things: science, philosophy, and magic.

In science, you cannot prove anything, it can only be disproved. This is done using experiments that may be reproduced by independent people and yield the same results.

In philosophy, the experiments are more like "thought experiments". They are based on logic but may not necessarily be reproduced by others and yield the same results.

In magic... well magic is magic and that is what JKR is dealing with. She is writing a book and can do whatever she wants.

I disagree with the statements others have made that state you cannot change the past. Just because we do not think it cannot be done, does not in any way mean it cannot be done. Time travel is a weird, complicated thing to think about. I beleive it is beyond the comprehension of humans (like a lot of other things in the universe). The scientific community has many hypotheses on time travel, the hard part is designing the experiment to test the hypothesis. Untill you can test it, and retest it, and test it again, it remains an idea and not a fact.

Spike

October 16th, 2004, 3:30 am

It's magic.

We can't imagine what the rules of time travel are in the wizarding world. Probably have nothing to do with the time/space continuum or various dimensions. It's simply magic, like a magical child showing up in a muggle family.

The problem with that is that if it is magic period then there is no reason to believe that Voldemort and company can't change the past.

That is opening a can of worms that offers a paradox that writers would do well to avoid. If it is magic we must assume that history can be altered which logically leads to a big question. Why isn't the time twisters etc the sole goal of Voldemort and his crew? Obviously everything that has been done can be undone and that goes for both sides. Why isn't Harry twisting time to save his parents etc etc...

The only way to get around those unanswerable questions is to say that you can't change the past but if the answer is "its magic" well suffice to say that isn't really a good enough answer.

whizbang121

October 16th, 2004, 3:46 pm

Death can be prevented, but you can't bring back the dead.

Do you remember the little "deliberate error" about the ancestor of Slytherin? :eyebrows:

The only way to get around those unanswerable questions is to say that you can't change the past but if the answer is "its magic" well suffice to say that isn't really a good enough answer.
For whom? :lol: I'm sure you'll be careful not to do it your books, then. ;)

GodricHollow

October 16th, 2004, 4:10 pm

In essance, yes it has, magic itself twists everything, the Time Turner, Floo Powder, Appiration, they all bend our rules of physics and so on, so on that theory, could our world and the Magic world be living on the same plot of land, but at different times, like our world is a few months or days or hours behind the magic world?

galateastilston

October 19th, 2004, 1:15 am

Hello, I'm a newb.
I think the whole "time has been twisted" theory is innovative and rather interesting, but if JKR was really into the whole time travel thing, why is she writing fantasy books?
Every major surprise that JKR has given in her books has been hinted at a lot in her previous books, and has generally sort of been a "wow! I missed that! It was there all along!" kind of surprise, and the whole time travel thing is just a bit too out of the way. You kind of have to stretch the text to make it make sense.

Serpentine

October 27th, 2004, 4:52 pm

I think the whole "time has been twisted" theory is innovative and rather interesting, but if JKR was really into the whole time travel thing, why is she writing fantasy books?
Every major surprise that JKR has given in her books has been hinted at a lot in her previous books, and has generally sort of been a "wow! I missed that! It was there all along!" kind of surprise, and the whole time travel thing is just a bit too out of the way. You kind of have to stretch the text to make it make sense.

First of all, :welcome: to the Forums! :)

I have to admit that I don't quite see the point of the argument "if JKR was really into the whole time travel thing, why is she writing fantasy books?". :huh: Question back: if she wasn't at all, why did she introduce time-turners and all the complications around them in PoA (aka Hermione's warning) in the first place, or the Time room and all its contents in the Department of Mysteries in OotP? You're of course absolutely free to think that the idea of messing around with time is "too out of the way" for your taste. But don't go as far as stating that it's "too out of the way" for JKR as well. We have already seen that it's not.

Secondly, I can't agree with the sweeping statement that "every major surprise (...) has been hinted at a lot in previous books". How many hints about Sirius Black have we been given before PoA? One, back in PS/SS when Hagrid mentioned his borrowed motorbike. How many hints about Luna Lovegood have we been given before OotP? One, before the Quidditch Cup in GoF, and it wasn't even directly about Luna but about "the Lovegoods". How many undisputed hints about the existence of time-turners have we been given before PoA? Not a single one (they came up only during PoA itself, when Hermione used one for her lessons). Same about house-elves prior to CoS, or the Triwizard Tournament prior to GoF. And don't get me started on all the new DADA teachers (Lockhart, Lupin, Moody, Umbridge), who aren't hinted at at all in any book prior to their taking the position. Not major?

Thirdly, I take it that by these statements you're saying that there are no hints at all about any meddling with time so far. Let me ask you: If piercing looks and a repetitive uncanny feeling "as if Snape were reading Harry's mind" was enough of a hint about Legilimency, and if the chamber-pot room was enough of a hint about the Room of Requirement... why would the sheer existence of time-turners, the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries and a bell-jar of time turning a DE into a babyhead not be hints about the importance of time in the series? :huh:

Add to it all those small time oddities listed in earlier posts (like e.g. Dumbledore appearing just in the "nick of time" at Harry's hearing in OotP, without being informed of the change of time and location, because he just happened to be around the MoM two hours early and to have taken Figgy along to boot; Dumbledore giving Fudge "half an hour of his time" for an update before he rejoined Harry in much less time in OotP; Dumbledore's very fast return in PS/SS even though nobody could have told him about Harry following Quirrell yet; or the infamous "missing day" between Voldemort's downfall and baby Harry at the Dursleys' in PS/SS), and you have quite an interesting bunch to ponder. :huh:

As said before, I don't see any reason to believe that the idea of playing around with time is "too out of the way" for JKR. She has already shown us that it's not. It may be restricted by the Ministry, but the possibility is there - and if it suits their aims, I can easily see e.g. Dumbledore or Voldemort taking it even a step further than Hermione did in PoA.

Raven_Girly

October 28th, 2004, 10:34 am

This is a very interesting idea that has kept me thinking for ages! I think that the Mrs Weasley/Ogg thing might be a coincidence, but the idea of history kind of repeating itself is interesting...i might post more after i've tossed the idea around in my head a little more!

Serpentine

November 3rd, 2004, 7:57 pm

So Molly's a Oct 30th Scorpio, hmm? :evil: No year of birth though - but with the Whomping Willow being planted when Lupin came to Hogwarts but after Molly's graduation, we should at least be able to make an educated guess at her year of birth. Or aren't we? :evil:

Mugglenet says that the HP Lexicon timeline (www.hplexicon.org/timelines/main/timeline_intro.html) has been updated, and it says that Lupin and those students of his year were accepted as first-years in 1971. Also her first son was born in 1971. So the HPL people put the year of birth of Molly Weasley (born Prewett) (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/molly.html) around 1950 or so.

Odd thing though: she remembers Ogg the gamekeeper (who held the job before Hagrid), but the Chamber aka Acromantula incident happened in 1942. :huh: Something doesn't quite match up in time... :evil:

jazzy nifflah

December 8th, 2004, 11:20 pm

Since JKR is throwing all those hints at us with the Time Turners in the DoM, I'm thinking there's a good possibility that time may indeed play a major part in the plot, although it would probably be something along the lines as what happened in PoA. Nothing will change, although Harry (and some other characters) may end up going back in time to fix something (which was already fixed, if you know what I mean, lol).

I don't know if it will involve anything as complex as two simultaneous time lines, but it may be part of a major plot twist, something I wouldn't put past JKR. :eyebrows:

ydnam96

December 10th, 2004, 12:27 am

Oh I hope that JK doesn't do much else with the time travel thing. It may not make sense to anyone else...but I want the stories to be "realistic" (and I know it doesn't make sense since they are make believe) but I want the solution of the problems of the books to be something that seems believable. Any more time travelling (beyond the kind we've seen so far, cause it's kind of believable in the HP universe) would dissapoint me.
I've heard theories about how Voldemort is really Salazzar Slytherin and he's time travelled and all that, and in some way I can't really explain it would dissapoint me if that's what ends up happening.

(no disrespect to anyone who wants/believes in the time travel thing, it's just not for me)

niffler12

December 10th, 2004, 4:06 am

:huh: Wow. Mind numbing. Interesting. A little hard to comprehend, all this time twisting and such...boggles the mind.... Cheers, I guess. :huh:

HP_ROCKS

December 10th, 2004, 5:17 pm

wasnt it stated that Ogg and Hagrid had separate jobs... Filch it seems took over for Ogg (care taker)... Hagrid took over for someone else... (game keeper) cant remember his name at the moment. Will look it up and be back in a bit with a name.

Okay .. so this is what i found... GOF... Mrs. Weasley talking ...

"Your father and I had been for a nighttime stroll," she said. "He got caught by
Apollyon Pringle - he was the caretaker in those days - your father's still got the
marks."

Okay at first I thought I was right... (after I found the first quote...but then I found the following... so it seems both jobs were filled by someone else at the time.)

"Mrs. Weasley was intrigued by the Whomping Willow, which had been planted
after she had left school, and reminisced at length about the gamekeeper before
Hagrid, a man called Ogg."

Overall I must say it definitely makes things interesting...

jazzy nifflah

December 10th, 2004, 6:54 pm

"Mrs. Weasley was intrigued by the Whomping Willow, which had been planted after she had left school, and reminisced at length about the gamekeeper before Hagrid, a man called Ogg."
So Hagrid definitely followed Ogg, then, same timeline and all... :eyebrows:

HP_ROCKS

December 10th, 2004, 7:57 pm

well according to Mrs. Weasley.. Ogg was there before Hagrid... but it doesnt fit with the years... the time line does seem to be a bit screwey... Guess it all Really depends on how old Mr and Mrs Weasley are... if we knew that ... we might be able to make more progress with this.

As for right now.. I dont see why it couldnt be true! (jkr's world = anythings possible)

Tane

December 10th, 2004, 10:16 pm

What if it is not something to do with what the children have done with time but more what Tom may have done in CoS with time itself. Remember Tom statement, I am Lord Voldemort, past, present and future or something along those lines. Well Tom preserved his past self in the diary and tried to emerge in Harry's present time but Harry vanquished Voldemorts past form Tom. What if Voldemort or Tom where able to preserve more than just there past but also the future. If Voldemort or Tom had preserved there future then it might explain why Voldemort did not die when he attacked Harry. What if Harry has to defeat Voldemort in his present and future to completely vanquish the dark lord?

I kind of think the time turner works in both directions and that might be how Voldemort survived the attack on Harry, he used time to his advantage perhaps.

I hope that made sense and I really did not know where to put this because I did not want to create another thread about time.

jazzy nifflah

December 10th, 2004, 10:33 pm

I kind of think the time turner works in both directions and that might be how Voldemort survived the attack on Harry, he used time to his advantage perhaps.
Hmm, I never thought of someone using a Time-Turner to go into the future. Interesting thought there... :eyebrows:

HP_ROCKS

December 11th, 2004, 2:17 pm

I would tend to agree that time turners can be used both ways.

lupislune

December 11th, 2004, 7:36 pm

I agree that time is a major theme thoughout the series like I have said many times before in other threads. I think there is there is definitely something going on with time, and anyone who denies it is blind to the evidence that exists. There are so many theories that have there basis on time travel. I am not exactly sure that this theory is what is going on with time, but I think this theory is highly possible.

Secret Squirrel

January 2nd, 2005, 10:27 pm

Hello, I'm a newbie. My crazy theory: (sorry if this has idea has been explored somewhere else, couldn't find anything on it)

Goblet of Fire Chapter 1 -- everyone was confused til we realized that Tom Riddle was both Voldemort's name and also Voldemort's father's name. So we all then deduced that the dark-haired pale boy was Voldemort, and the Riddles that were killed were, in fact, Tom Sr. and his parents (Voldemort's grandparents). Ok, so here's my thought -- what if the pale dark-haired boy was HARRY, gone back in time using the time turner. What we actually saw in GoF Ch. 1 was similar to what we saw at the end of PoA when we hear the axe thud -- we think we understand what it means (Buckbeak's death), that the facts are set in stone, but in actuality it is ambiguous enough to have some wiggle room. Later we would see an alternate timeline come into play and the repercussions of Harry's use of the time-turner will change things that we thought we knew. (i.e. his parents, who did really die in the first timeline, were never killed by Voldemort in the alternate timeline because Harry killed Voldemort first?)

Ok, so the theory has some holes -- care to shoot me down, anyone?

Snidget66

January 2nd, 2005, 10:33 pm

I think it has but I don't even want to think about it-It's really confusing if you do

enjoi

January 2nd, 2005, 10:36 pm

Great Theory. Also, to some people who don't believe it will happen because they don't think JK will become "repetitious" at all, just think of how the Polyjuice potion came back into play in GoF

Ankaa

January 2nd, 2005, 11:00 pm

Secret Squirrel, awesome theory (although my brain hurts just imagining what it would lead to--lots of complicated time twists that I can't comprehend)! But I'm really confused about one point: If the pale, dark-haired boy is Harry, and the Tom Riddle that died is Voldemort, then how is it possible that Voldemort came back, killed Frank Bryce, and carried on planning his schemes in the Riddle House? I guess the time issue is bothering me.

Snidget66

January 2nd, 2005, 11:40 pm

Well I've always thought that if time could be alteed it would be twisted. I've done some reading on this subject and I can tell you that the way that JK made the plot twist isn't possible in fact. If time travel is possible, then you can't have two things happening at the same time. Not sure if that makes sense!!!

Serpentine

January 16th, 2005, 11:36 pm

So now Jo has corrected herself, saying that Charlie was three years older than Percy and therefore not in Hogwarts anymore when Harry arrived. This still doesn't work properly though. I don't have PS/SS with me to check, but I recall McGonagall telling Harry that the team hasn't won since Charlie left, and that Snape had gotten cocky because the previous year Slytherin flattened Gryffindor in Quidditch. Doesn't quite match up when Charlie left only the year before Harry arrived. :shrug:

Another time oddity (along with those that have been mentioned before - e.g. the "deliberate error" about Tom Riddle being the ancestor of Slytherin, Dumbledore's odd watch, his "accidental" one-hour-early appearance at the hearing with Figgy in tow, and the less than half an hour time span he granted Fudge after the DoM attack and before he rejoined Harry in his office)? :huh: Or just Rowlingometry?

Snidget66: which "two things happening at the same time" do you mean? Not the older Harry saving his younger self in PoA, surely? IMHO that's only one thing happening, not two. :shrug: (Apart from the tiny detail that Jo's books featuring magic are certainly anything but "possible in fact", i.e. scientific reality. ;) )

Snidget66

January 17th, 2005, 2:12 am

It has because Sirius was supposed to be kissed and Buckbeak was supposed to be exacuted. THis will have created an alternate reality. But what I don't get is why would the MOM give something that could alter the universe as they know it to a 13 year old girl?

just_me

January 17th, 2005, 2:44 am

I have not had time to read all the posts on this thread, I will as soon as I can. I have always thought the reason Voldemort did not die was he traveled in time either back or forward as one of his experiments. This experiment either had to do with one of Harry's ancestors or Harry in the future, and Voldemort did not realize this. I feel this is the power Harry has that Voldemort does not realize. If this does not make sense I'm sorry.

HP_ROCKS

January 17th, 2005, 2:29 pm

just_me... I totally understand what you are saying. Sounds possible.. especially with the whole ancestor/descendant error.

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 4:51 pm

The history is clearly repeating himself. Lupin= the smart one, tries to get the other out of trouble. Hermione= the smart one, tries to get the other out of trouble. Ron= The "fun" guy. Always a bit in the shadow of Harry and his brothers. (The girls don't like him as much as they liked Sirius, though...) Sirus: The "fun" guy. All the girls liked him (okay, they weren't too similiar...) James: Good in quidditch. Two best friends (Pettigrew wasn't exactly his best friends, more like Neville, hanging around, being quite a good friend but not best friend.), hated Slytherins. Not too good with girls. Harry: Good in quidditch. Two best friends, hates Slytherins. Not too good with girls.
Lily= Nice, powerful, pretty, popular.
Ginny= Nice, powerful, popular, and quite pretty, I guess. Was posessed by Voldemort.
Snape= Jealous of James' quidditch talents. Slytherin. Interested in the dark arts.
Draco Malfoy= Jealous of Harry's quidditch talents. Slytherin. Interested in the dark arts.

So, I'm into the theory that this generation is supposed to make the old one "better" and kind of save the world from the darkness.

Secret Squirrel: That isn't possible, because then Voldemort would've been dead now. Things done with a time turner has already happened, it doesn't change afterwards. Like when Harry saw himself before he had used the time turner and made the Patronus. So that means Voldemort would already be dead. Actually, I've thought that the "black hair thing" reminded me of the Potter family, Harry or James, and I actually didn't understand that it was Voldemort's father that died until now. But it couldn't be Tom Riddle jr., because he would already be dead, and couldn't have come back and did all the things he did.

Allemande

January 17th, 2005, 5:13 pm

Okay, this could get quite confusing, so bear with me:
Those who have seen the Back to the Future trilogy will remember that in the third movie, Marty and Doc use the Time Machine to go into the future. While they are there, Marty buys an Almanac listing all the winners in football etc. over the past say one hundred years. He plans to use it when he goes back in time so that he can make some money, but Doc throws it in the trash. It is then picked up by Biff Tannen, who is now an old man. Biff uses the time machine to go back and give the Almanac to himself, when he is young...this is in the 50s I think. So then young Biff uses the Almanac and strikes it rich, which changes everything that happens when Marty is a teenager...Biff kills Marty's dad and marries his mom, and the town Marty lives in has basically become a breeding ground for poverty and criminals.
So anyway, Doc figures out that Marty has to take the Almanac from Biff before he can use it. Marty says something like "okay, so we can go to the future and stop the old man Biff from going back and giving it to himself." Only that would not work, because Doc explains that they would be going forwards in time from where they were now, not from where they were when things were normal, which would mean that the future would be as screwed up as the present, and the events that had played out the first time they went into the future would not be playing out if they were to go into the future again. Marty therefore has to go back in time to when Biff was a teenager and steal the Almanac from him before he can use it (which is the same place he went to in the first movie)
So Marty does that, and he manages to steal the Almanac from Biff, thus ensuring that the future(aka his present) will be normal. In the process of getting the Almanac back, he sees himself from when he went back in time the first time. I know, it's very confusing...don't think to much about it or you'll go crazy.
So anyway, the point to be taken from all of this is that there were two ways in which the future(Marty's present) had been playing out: one where Biff had the Almanac, and one where he didn't.
So my thought is that since the time turning thing in PoA is so creepily similar to that of Back to the Future, what if Harry were to use a Time Turner and go really far back in time, before Tom Riddle had the chance to become evil and powerful, and then kill him, similar to Marty going back and taking the Almanac.
Since Harry would probably do this in the seventh book, there would be two different possible futures(or presents), resting on whether Tom Riddle is killed or whether he lives. Right now, Harry is in the present where Tom Riddle was not killed, but the other present could be playing out without us being aware of it, the one where Harry kills Tom Riddle say as a baby, which would mean that everything bad that had happened (i.e. the death of his parents and Sirius, Hagrid's expulsion, the Chamber opening, etc.) would not have taken place in this alternate present: Hagrid would be a fully qualified wizard, Harry's parents would still be alive, as would Sirius, and Sirius would not have spent twelve years in Azkaban.
I know that if this were to happen, there wouldn't really be the Harry Potter stories, but if he kills him, and then goes back to the end of his seventh year, all the events that had previously occured would have still happened, but in the other, much unhappier present.
I know this is really hard to get your heads around (writing this totally confused me), but remember JKR's pattern of introducing an idea earlier in the books (i.e. polyjuice potion), and then reintroducing it later, only in a much more complex way...this could very much be the case.

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 5:20 pm

No, it was great! Only that it can't happen... Because even if Harry used a time turner when he was a 100 years old (if he lives that long, it's just an example) to go back and change something in his 5th year, it would've happened in his 5th year, about 85 years before he used the time-turner. Those things has already happened, done with a time turner. I think I'm one of the few people who didn't find the entire time-turner thing too confusing...

poppy rebecca

January 17th, 2005, 5:37 pm

this theory is way way way to complex. for goodness sake who ever started this thread spends way to much time thinking about harry potter. seriously do you have any friends atall?

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 5:47 pm

poppy rebecca: That was the stupidest thing I've heard here in a long time. It doesn't mean that you don't have a life because you are making theories. You can have time to both - be with your friends and make up theories. Just because you aren't able to do two things at the same time, doesn't mean that other people aren't able to.

Allemande

January 17th, 2005, 5:49 pm

AND...
just because you happen to find my very well thought out theory too "complex" doesn't mean that everyone does.
And just because people enjoy reading harry potter and enjoy posting on these boards, does not mean that they do not have any friends.

just_me

January 17th, 2005, 6:50 pm

Has anyone considered that the time turner could go forward as well.

poppy rebecca

January 17th, 2005, 7:03 pm

ooh sorry i wasnt trying to insult you or anything

hollygo72

January 17th, 2005, 7:29 pm

Has anyone considered that the time turner could go forward as well.

Ahhhh, never thought of that. I wonder....

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 8:38 pm

No, it can't go forward. The thing with a time turner, it's happening before you're using it. You can't use it first, and then it happened like years later. I don't think that's possible. It's not a time machine. Actually, your future is being changed by every choice you make. So if you were able to go into the future, maybe the future would change before you got there. I don't think it can ever be used to go into the future. If you changed the future, wouldn't that get fatal consequenses for your present or past life? It's like a thread, going through your life. And if you went messing with your future, it would be like cutting of or at least mess up the thread too.

just_me

January 17th, 2005, 8:45 pm

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 8:49 pm

Well, maybe not, but I don't think she would do that. I mean, what is the point, if we get to se the future, we will know everything that will happen. Then there is no point in reading the HP series anymore. Read my last post, I didn't say that it certainly couldn't be used that way, I just said that it probably couldn't be used that way. I still agree with my last post.

just_me

January 17th, 2005, 8:52 pm

I don't think it will be used that way. I just think Voldemort used it that way.

nivekllerttoc

January 17th, 2005, 9:00 pm

The time turner probably can go into the future, but it is multiple times more dangerous than going into the past. I think that it is probably illegal, and many people have probably screwed alot of things up by doing it.

ikuko

January 17th, 2005, 9:06 pm

I actually see no basis to build this theory. I mean, there are several assumptions over thinhgs that do not present any difficulty at all. One of the most obvious one is that supposedly Molly and Arthur can not be as old as they are. Why not? if wizards live 200 years or so? and if they have 2 sons living independantly in the beginning of the books? It was already pointed out that JKR made a mistake when she told the ageds of Bill and Charlie, according to the books (in several places) Charlie is at least 9 years older than Percy, and Bill even older. It makes Bill to be early 30s, what's wrong with it? Check the Lexicon timeline, it is very well made. Molly and Arthur must be somewhat younger than Hagrid, who is in turn 3 years younger than LV (he was in his third year when Tom was 16). Assuming that Hagrid did not start his career as Hpgwarts gamekeeper at 13, but had some training under the previous gamekeeper it is not surprising that Molly and Arthur, being couple of years younger than Hagrid, still remember the old guy.

There is no trouble with the timeline (except Hthat JKR is not very good with numbers, as she admitted herself). No, I do not think that any time manipulations were ever used in such large scale. It is sorta degrading JKR's imagination, suspecting that she will need outrageous plot devices like that to pull out the books.

jenny_d_b

January 17th, 2005, 9:11 pm

Tane

January 17th, 2005, 9:30 pm

Well, to me, it seemed like no one HAD gone into the future. Hermione studies everything, I don't think she'd just be happy with what McGonnagall told her. McGonnagall obviously wouldn't tell Hermione that you could go into the future with it if you could, that would be far too dangerous. But Hermione would study it, and don't you think someone would've tried to get into the future, many years ago, so people would know about if? If a guy from the 15th century suddenly appeared and did a lot of weird things, then maybe, but I don't think that's possible. That would destroy the plot, and we don't even know if Harry would have a future to go into. How can he go into it then?Perhaps this is something to come, I mean if your living in the present then you probably would not know whether someone has gone into the future. I still think Tom's remark of past, present and future has something to do with time travel. In a way Tom nearly did travel into the future by preserving himself in the diary and emerging from it as past Tom but much later on in the timeline. Though you have to admit, if you could go into the future with the time turner then why has Voldemort not tried this yet? The only thing I can think of is that Voldemort can not go into the future because he does not posses a time turner or that the time turner can not send someone into the future.

I really do want to see the time turner used again; I think it is too important for only one book.

deej

January 17th, 2005, 10:14 pm

I know that Jo has a habit of introducing us to gadgets and putting things in her books that seem relatively insignificant, but later we are shocked that they play such a major role. I think we can be sure, that the time turner will make a reappearance before the end of the 7th book. I have always been puzzled as to how Mconnigal (sorry for the spelling no books handy), came into possession of the time turner. We know that James left his invisibility cloak with Dumbledore, although we are not sure why, could Lily have left her time turner in the possession of one of her most trusted friends. I have thought all along that the fact that James leaving his cloak in Dumbledore's hands, was for it to be given to Harry to help him. It is as if James knew his son would need tools to assist him in battling the dark lord in the future.

If there was time traveling involved, I believe the only individuals within a timeline, who would remember things differently, are individuals who had traveled back in time and altered the future. Everyone else within the timeline would remeber things as they have occured through time. Using the back to the future example, Marty and Doc were the only ones who recognized that time had changed, when they got back to the present. Everyone else was unaware that things were not as they were supposed to be. So I don't believe Mollys rememberances being possibly different, have anything to do with time travel, unless she herself was the traveler.

As far as the extent a time turner can be used, It appears to manually turn back time in small intervals. I think it near impossible to calculate how many turns it would take to go back 15 or 30 years. It appears to be a tool to alter things in the immediate past. This being said, I do not put it past Dumbledore to travel back in time to immediately before the potters were killed, inform them of what is about to occur, so that they may be aware and provide Dumbledore with some key information and items (ie cloak and things yet disclosed). Dumbledore could have asked Lily who she reccommended to keep Harry (could have somehting to do with what is in the letter dumbledore gave petunia). Harry could have originally been killed in the original time line. When hearing what was about to happen, Lily could have cast the spell on Harry to save him.

I am not sure what the impact of the time turner will have on future books, but I firmly believe we will see it again.