What is your favorite book of the series?

[Zavi]

An old movie called Clockstoppers explained the concept of time travel and aging, I think. But it was really old, I don't even recall it coming out on DVD or video. But the person who overused time travel did age much faster.

And she's using time to time travel, so I think she would age faster.

Let's say you spend an hour going back in time. You've spent an hour in your life, but the rest of the world hasn't. So, you might age an hour ahead of everybody.

But the magical world can do most anything, so they might've stopped that from happening, or something.

[twistedbrain]

Oh, I think I saw that movie! Yeah, the Time Turner might have an enchantment of some kind.

[bex27]

Well seeing as she is technically her present, she doesn't age at all and stays exactly the same age. Though now that I think about it, in the Department of Mysteries that Death Eater's head get stuck in the giant time turner thing and he goes back to a baby then gets old again... So maybe you do get younger in JKR's world if you time travel, you effectively go back in time...

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

You do. As twisted brain said, you go back an hour or whatever so you become an hour younger, then you progress through that amount of time back to the present, recovering that age. It all equals out.

[Claire de Cerises]

That doesn't make sense since there are two of you. You don't go back in time to your same self. Besides you don't have to age physically. You can age mentally.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

when you go back in time you go back to whatever physical age you were at that time, plain and simple. How does that not make sense? There are 2 of you yes, both at the same point of time and both with the same age. The mental aging thing is why people don't use it all the time...

[Claire de Cerises]

That doesn't make sense to me because I was thinking that the "future you" going back in time is not the same as the one at the past time. For instance, in Harry Potter, Harry and Hermionie still have their torn clothes and scars from when they went through their ordeal. They don't magically get better because they go back in time, yet their past selfs are perfectly fine. That is a weird example, but its hard to explain what I mean. Then again, time travel would be very complicated anyway.

[Zavi]

Oh! I get it. You don't morph into your past self, because your future--er--present self is doing the actual time turning. And morphing into your past self would, in theory, eliminate the real past self.

[PJ]

mynamesjacques said:

when you go back in time you go back to whatever physical age you were at that time, plain and simple. How does that not make sense? There are 2 of you yes, both at the same point of time and both with the same age. The mental aging thing is why people don't use it all the time...

Well, it all depends. Since we don't know about the nature of time travel, three things could happen:

a) You, actually, phyisically, travel back in time. Your entire body goes back, and you are the same age as when you travelled back, i.e. you don't grow younger or older as you travel back and forth in time.

b) Your body is transported back in time, but it is younger than before you travelled back, i.e. as you travel through time, you age or un-age responsively. This one doesn't really make sense, because why would the body grow younger but not the mind?

c) In this one, the mind of the future is put into the body of the past; i.e. there is only one "body" in the past, but it is occupied by an older mind. Not many stories have this type, as it involves your mind travelling, which is a lot more spiritual than simply GOING back physically.

[Claire de Cerises]

Yes, however, in Harry Potter, they physically would age, since they disappeared at the present to go to the past and then caught up with themselves. The theory that you would be as old as you were at the time would be silly if you think about it. Imagine, for instance, Dumbledore went way back in time to when he was younger. Would that mean he would have a younger body and therefore live longer as he caught up with the present? In that case, it would be a kind of "fountain of youth", although it would be difficult to keep it a secret.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

But think about it. You do this by turning a time turner. How many thousands of times would Dumbledore have to turn the thing to do something like that? And then he'd have to wait forever since it appears you can't go in the future, or at least no one else has ever tried. And he'd still wind up the same age if my theory works.
The torn clothes and whatnot.. That does present a problem. Hum.

[Claire de Cerises]

I was trying to give you an extreme example. It would be weird to have your body go to the same age as your past self. My point is a person COULD potentionally be young forever IF what you say is true. That is why I don't believe the theory could be true. Then again, most people go back into time only one or two hours, so you can't determine the long-term effects of time travel.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

No they couldn't be young forever. If my theory is true then once you reach the time you were first at and finish the cycle you're the same age. If you travel to the future it then follows that you'd age accordingly(good thing I haven't seen long term time travel in HP or that so wouldn't work...)

[Claire de Cerises]

Yes, but what I am trying to say is what if you did it a number of times? Just going back into the past, catching up to yourself, and then going back again and again. Wouldn't you be able to, in a sense, cheat death? Unless of course you die some other way besides age. Of course, it might be tedious to do that as well, unless you lived different lives each time. That is one reason why I think that "going-back-in-time-and-going-back-in-age" theory probably couldn't work.

[twistedbrain]

You couldn't escape death, because you would not not be dying when you were supposed to, you would be not dying when you were supposed to not die.....