Ah…time paradoxes. Those funny old things in movies, books and other types of fiction where a time travel story screws itself up.
The Harry Potter franchise is not immune to them, even if it was in many ways a very deeply thought-out franchise with a complex universe. Not even J.K Rowling could get around a good old fashioned paradox.
In the Harry Potter franchise, Rowling invented the Time Turner. A magical device first used in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and then it later returned in the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
I’ve written another article which is available on the site where I explain how I don’t like how they show the Time Turner method of time travel, but today I want to focus on one specific aspect of the story which has always been a particular thinking point.
How did Harry Potter know he could do the expecto patronum Patronus thing if the only way he knew he could do it was by watching himself from the future do it?
Already this is a mind bender of a paradox.
Obviously there had to be an original version of time where Harry didn’t know how to do the Patronus. Or at least didn’t know he could do it.
So, what was that timeline? Can we figure it out?
Yes, I believe we can. Harry says he knew he could do the Patronus because he saw himself do it, but if he was unable to do it, the death eaters would have just got him and then he wouldn’t have been in the position to be able to go back in time to see himself do it.
Harry said he was able to do it because he saw himself do it, therefore knowing that he could do it. But obviously he was capable of doing the Patronus regardless of his belief one way or another.
So, all this means is that the first time he did it, it was just that Harry tried to do it and must have succeeded.
However, after then going back in time and seeing himself do it, the second version of Harry must therefore have not realised that he was the one doing it, assumed it was his dad, then forgot that he did do it, because he hadn’t done it yet, and second guessed that he could do it…and then did it because he just tried and it worked.
At this point, it will have created the time loop where he only knew he could do it because he saw himself do it.
And there you are…sorted quicker than if it had been done by the sorting hat.
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