Wizarding Worldz
Time-turners work in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child when Albus and Scorpius changed history. But still, the Prisoner of Azkaban previously showed that this is not possible.
The narrative of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was retconned and the way Time-Turners function in the wizarding world was modified as a result of the stage production Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
The little time-traveling gadgets, which were already deemed to pose story holes because they might be used to travel back in time and fix all of Harry’s issues, are returning in the Harry Potter sequel.
This wasn’t the case, as the Prisoner of Azkaban book demonstrated, but the storyline of Cursed Child undermined this explanation, ultimately leading to the creation of even more plot holes.
When it was discovered that Hermione Granger had been using one all year to attend many classes at once, time-turners were first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Towards the end of the book, Hermione’s clever device allowed Harry and Hermione to travel back in time, prevent Buckbeak from being put to death, and cast a potent Patronus that drove the Dementors away from Harry and Sirius’ earlier selves.
Since Harry Potter made it clear that previous events couldn’t genuinely be changed—something Cursed Child threw out the window—this hard aspect of time travel in a story was made simpler.
The Cursed Child Revolutionized Time-Turners in Harry Potter
Albus Potter, the son of Harry Potter, and Scorpius Malfoy, his closest friend, used a Time-Turner to travel back to the Triwizard Tournament to save Cedric Diggory’s life in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
By doing this, they altered the course of Harry’s battle with Lord Voldemort and created an entirely other reality in which Cedric turned evil.
It was the cliched lesson from the literature that time shouldn’t be tampered with, but it finally altered all of the preconceptions the Harry Potter series had previously developed on time-turners.
Hermione was not establishing a history in which she attended Ancient Runes instead of Arithmancy when she used the Time-Turner to travel back in time and attend a different class.
Instead, she used time travel to be in two locations at the same moment. As a result, even before she activated the Time-Turner, another version of herself was sitting in Ancient Runes while she was in Arithmancy class.
She couldn’t go back in time and undo what had already happened. This was a completely different technique of time travel than the one used in Cursed Child, and it makes a lot more sense.
Harry’s Major Lesson In Prisoner Of Azkaban Was Ruined By The Time-Turner Retcon.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry and Hermione travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius Black, the purpose of time travel was the same as it had been when Hermione time traveled to attend courses.
They hadn’t known it when they thought Buckbeak was about to be executed, but they had already spared him. Just like when Harry cast his first physical Patronus to save himself and Sirius, he knew he’d succeed since he’d seen himself do it before he’d even heard of Time-Turners.
In the Harry Potter books, this was a crucial lesson for Harry. The Time-creation Turner’s temporal paradox each time it was used revealed that the past could not be changed.
Hence, while Harry was inclined to go back in time and save his parents, he couldn’t since it had already been done. This disproves the theory that Time-Turners might have ended the Harry Potter series in book one.
But, because Harry Potter and the Cursed Child broke the laws by enabling Albus and Scorpius to modify the past, this ironclad justification has been thrown out the window.