After rereading the last few chapters of OotP last night, I found something that I didn't really understand.

A few pages later, it says


So my question is how come the smashed Time-Turners affected only cabinet in which they were stored, and didn't make the whole scene go back a few seconds ago again and again...

I think it only afected the cabinate because it was the
only thing touching the timeturners.Like in the book
(I don't have it handy but i think this is what happens)
Harry has to touch the time turner also for him to go
back in time with Hermy. So i don't think that it
would have turned the whole place backwards in
time. Just the cabinat.

Yeah Im going to have to agree, they would have only affected the cabinet becaus that is what is touching them. If we were to apply your speculation of the entire scene being replayed over and over again, then Ron would have went back in time with them when they went back to save Sirius in the 3rd book.

I agree with everyone in saying that the time turners only affect what they touch. Harry and Hermione both had to be wearing the time turner in order for it to bring them both back in time. When Hermione was wearing the time turner to get from class to class then she would have changed a lot if it would have affected her surroundings, and, as stated earlier, they would have taken Ron with them when they were going to save Sirius and Buckbeak.

Ditto, Dean Thomas! As in the movie, Harry and Hermione were rewinded back, unto a duty of returning to said place they rewinded from, creating an illusion of smashing, repairing, smashing, repairing!

i think it was because the time turners only touched the cabinets, just like the de who fell in the jar, i guess id consider it to be somthing like a portkey where you must touch it to be affected.

I agree with everyone else but I am going to throw something into this. How did the time-turners turn themselves to make the scene keep happening? In HBP (sorry don't have the book on me so this might not be correct) when Hagrid was asking why the didn't take his classes. They said the couldn't have because the smashed all the time-turners, but they didn't really smash them they just kept breaking the going back and breaking again so what's up with that?

Well, FawkesThePhoenix, I will try to take a stab at this one.

As of now, the time-turners are in a continuous loop of going back and forth in time, while smashing and repairing itself. Remember, this is all taking place as we speak, so to say. The moment the glass hits the floor and shatters, it is the present. When it repairs itself, it is just a replay of the past. So, the only time that the time-turners will work is in the present (because we are in present time), but at that point the turners are broken, and hence unable to be used.

Therefore, the only way one would be able to use the time-turners would be to go back in time, to a point before they were broken. The only way to do this -- that we are aware of, at least -- is by using time turners. Which are all currently smashed.

If you did not understand that (which I am sure none of you did ), I can try to explain it differently...just ask!




_daviD

I suppose it makes sense that the reason only the cabinent went back in time is that it was the only thing touching the time turners, but still I can't quite understand how time would or could change only in a small section of a room.
Time isn't a physical place; it's well...it's time. It's not a 'where', it's a 'when'. And a 'when' includes and encompasses an entire scene, that is, all of the objects in the place where that event is occurring. So it doesn't make sense to me how only one part of the place where the scene was occuring could repeatedly go back in when it was a part of the same time as everything/one else in the room. Hopefully what I'm saying sort of makes sense (it's kinda hard to explain) and I'm not making this too confusing. But then again, time itself is just downright confusing.

Any ideas?

Perhaps the fact that many time turners smashed, probably whilst touching, may have altered how their magic works, causing the constant cycling between past and present as opposed to going to the past and then back to the present only once.

It is not just the timeturner but the majic that was incased in side of it. The time turners being smashed released what ever charm it was unto the sournding area. Been awhile since I read that passage, but didn't the DE who crashed into the cabinet still have the effects on him when he got out of it. His head would shrink and then regrow.

i think that when the time turners fell, one or few or atleast one of then when into an uncontrollable spin, thats like one turn clockwise, one turn anticlockwise, thats the reason maybe that it keeps going back and forth in time and the reason why only the cabinet was affected is because like everyone else has said in this topic.....it was the only thing in touch with the time turners.

Harry and Hermione needed to be encased together when they used the time turner. I think that the time turners need to be "attached" to the object they move prior to starting. Thus, they move only the cabinet through time since only the cabinet was "attached" to the time turners when they began their magic.

I agree that they had to be attached to the cabinet to take it back but what I don't understand is why they kept breaking and repairing and breaking and repairing and on and on. In the book and the movie (correct me if I'm wrong) they had to turn the hourglass in the time turner over to go back. The Time-Turners in the DoM didn't have any one or any thing turning them so why did they keep going back? Unless... this may be very wrong and make no sense at all but it might be right... unless it was just an illusion. Ron saw Harry and Hermione disappear than walk through the door. So you can see something travel back in time so maybe they were just seeing it smash and then coming back from time traveling and it being time to smash again and then coming back and smashing agian... because everything happens excatly how it is supposed to happen when it supposed to happen unless someone does something by going back in time and changing it.

I'm not sure if anything I have said so far has made any sense to any one but me. You are probably all sitting there like

Time travel is so confusing!

I think the reason they kept breaking and re-breaking was that when the time turners were orginially broken, time was swirling around in that single area. As different flows of time ran into one another, they caused different reactions. (Such as how quickly it broke, how long it took to reform, etc.)

Time-turners only affect the object they are touching. Since they were only touching the cabinet, all that happened was the glass repair and break itself. Just like in POA, Harry and Hermione were in the hospital wing with ron right? right, so they didnt all go back right? right, so there was no possible way that everything would go back while in the room.

I think your right,Ginny Weasly-15.The time that hermione and harry were with ron is a good example.But the only thing is in the OotP nobody was there to touch it or anything so how could it just repair itself?do you guys think it was bewitched to repair themselves and break again?

It didn’t affect the entire room because the people inside the room weren’t wearing any. Remember in book 3, Hermione had to put the chain around BOTH herself and Harry? The timeturners I believe were only touching the cabinet.

Im pretty sure the timeturners have to be touching something to make it travel in time. So unless the ministry somehow cleaned the whole things up i think the time turners are just in a perpetual state of breaking and repairing.

I think that if the people that work in the department of mistories, I think they are unspeakables, but I dont have a book with me right know, so I could be wrong, but couldnt they get the time turners wile they are not broken, to stop them from touching eachother, and then they would be able to use them again.

But if they made them once couldn't they make them again, I mean its not like they only made one, because there was a cabinet full of them, so shouldnt sombody know how to make new ones?

I think J.K might have put that in there to rule out any use of timetraveling in the seventh book!

I have a question.How long did the timeturners go back in time?in the movie,for three hours hermione does three spins.but in OotP they only go backin time for like a split second or something..rite?'cause they break repair break repair really fastt.so whats the time period?

Well its probably only a couple of seconds. So when the time turners smashed maybe the little nobbly bits (!!) just shifted a tiny bit backwards.
But i agree with everyone else I think the only reason nothing else went back in time because nothing else was touching the time turners

D.A

Yes, I agree with most of you, only the cabinet and turners went back becasue that is all that they were touching.

I deffinetly agree because it wouldn't go back very far without the turning and just falling could not have done much.

OK, I agree with everyone that the timeturners only effect the things that they touch, and hedwig_321, to answer your question, they complete their whole pattern quickly because no one turned them back (like when Hermione spun it so many times to go back a certain amount of time.) They were only jostled when the cabinet fell over and broke, so they didn't go back in time far, only a few seconds... But that leads me to my question: What would keep someone who was very quick handed from grabbing one while they are whole in that pattern... in other words, as the cabinet becomes whole again, if you grabbed a time turner out of it, would the turner break again outside of the cabinet?

Well, i would have thought Harry might have saw somthing and it would have said, maybe not though. Also, I don't think that a DE or OotP member would have had the time to grab one. If they thought about it, I'm sure they wouldn't want to take the risk of being to slow and going back in time as well.

I agree, Cobra, but I didn't mean getting one at the time of the fight, I meant afterward, when they were cleaning up at the Ministry. What would keep someone from say... using the accio spell just as they become whole again? Would that "break the pattern" and let the time turner that comes to you stay whole?

I know this is completely off subject. But how do I get one of those Cobra please? I also have been readign the posts some good points have been made. [:

The only thing at the time that was touching the Time-turners was the cabinet. Notice in the third book how harry and Hermione had to be on the same necklace to go back and save buckbeak, sirius etc.

The only thing at the time that was touching the Time-turners was the cabinet. Notice in the third book how harry and Hermione had to be on the same necklace to go back and save buckbeak, sirius etc.

I would have to think it was possible. When that someone grabs the timeturner he could stop it from going back and smashing because his 'present' is not the timeturner's past.

But remember, there is still at least one timeturner out there....Just because the timeturners in the MoM are messed up doesn't mean every timeturner in wizardom is gone.....

Cris

This might just be me, but does anyone think the cabinet and all of the time turners still kept going back in time over and over again like that because there were so many of them together in the same place?

I mean, like someone said before, no one had set them to go back in time, and the only thing touching them was the cabinet (and the other time turners), so something had to set them off...

I think that the whole point of this scene, was to prove that no one would ever come back from the past, or be from the future in a following book, or even in OoTH. JK said that in one of her interviews, and I think that this was just to re-emphasize the point.

I don't think it's that they went back a few seconds. When Harry and Hermione went back in time, they had to go back to where they had been before traveling, so Ron wouldn't notice them disappearing. When the cabinet fell, the time turners must have turned a little bit. So then they go back in time an hour, for one turn, right? And then, because they are inanimate, they end up in the same place when they reach the present.

well i agree with most of you. they were broken, and when most things are broken they malfunction, so the time turners were malfunctioning and only going back a few seconds. they were only touching the cabinet so it would go back to how it was a few seconds ago, so the timeturners were all busted and stuck repairing the cabinet. my question is, how come hermione said that they'd smashed all of the timeturners and they couldnt be used ever again? couldnt someone make them again?

Another question: Wouldn't there be people who were in possession of one that wasn't smashed? if so, then not all of them would've been smashed. The trio could've asked for the info and asked if they could borrow it.

I agree with you, talie. That occured to me too, and I'm SURE there were some in possession by other wizards. Not to mention that as long as one was saved, there could possibly have been more created later, by studying the magic that was within it: however, that brings up the subject of how they came to be in the first place.

I guess that since the timeturners were touching the cabnet it was really the only thing affected because in the book harry and hermione went back because they were making physical contact with it.