Ron's Notes (Excerpt VI): Paradigm Shifts
Gaining access to the Time Room within the Department of Mysteries did not solve my problems. Instead, it only led to frustration. I thought that Theodore Nott's 'new' time turner suggested research and development ongoing within the Time Room. Instead, I was greeted with a mountain of relatively mundane treatises on the dangers of time travel. Most of those papers were useless to me, or confirmed what I already suspected about Time Turners… That they are essentially unreliable to use safely past the hour threshold.
Some experiments had such grotesque results that sections of the files had simply been redacted with black bars. Time-reversal spells often ended with disastrous consequences. Most of the time experiments were discontinued in 1899, after Eloise Mintumble used a modified time turner to travel back in time to the year 1402. She stayed within that time for five days, and had aged five hundred years once summoned back to her own time. Poor Eloise succumbed to old age in St. Mungo's, but that was not all. At least twenty-five people vanished into thin air after her travels in the past, rendering them un-born. The Tuesday following the ordeal lasted two and a half full days, and the next Thursday lasted only four hours. Due to the results of this catastrophic test, strict limits were placed on time-travel research and experimentation.
This is relatively common knowledge nowadays, since most of these papers have since been declassified. However, I found crucial information within the few classified files remaining. An Unspeakable within that period noted that the critical failure of the test was probably due to their reliance on temporal anchors. Someone properly going into the past would have to sever all connection with their past, allowing their time stream to flow forward without any influence from individuals in the future. This remained theoretical-one long-dead Unspeakable from Eloise's time dubbed the concept 'mass temporal genocide.'
Furthermore, it seemed that time-travelers are limited by lifespan. A classified test revealed that a sixty-two year old Unspeakable traveled twenty years back in time and found himself in a forty-two year old body. When he traveled back to his own time (within a seven minute period) he found that he had aged back to sixty-two. Time Turners are generally exempt from these effects, due to their relatively limited method of time travel.
Despite these dangers, I knew that the danger had to be overcome-or even embraced. I organized one last-ditch effort to persuade Harry to see reason, pleading for him to fund one final time travel experiment… Off the books, of course. He refused.
"I miss Hermione as much as you do," he said. "But I don't think this is healthy. You can't cheat death, Ron."
He then went on a mamby-pamby rant about some things being outside a wizard's rightful domain. I called him a coward. How dare he? How could he turn his back on one of his oldest friends? Hermione had died before her time, and he was perfectly content to let her stay that way! We said regrettable, hurtful things to each other. When the dust settled, I was no longer an Unspeakable, and Harry and I were no longer on speaking terms. It only strengthened my resolve. That coward would not stop me. This timeline was a disease, and I wanted to stop it from poisoning my life further. Harry may have had a happy ending, but I deserve mine. I will have my life back-with, or without his support.