Slow down time! Really!
I've noticed this cropping up in some of the post-OotP/HBP fics I've been (re)reading.
Consider the fics where Harry has the one time-turner left from smashing them all at the Ministry, for example. One would think the Ministry would keep better control over its time-turners and do an inventory check and go, "Hmm. Six kids and about a dozen Death Eaters were here. Now if You-Know-Who has one from Bellatrix Lestrange, this could be SLIGHTLY BAD. Or if one of those six students has the time-turner, it's time to ask why they haven't returned it."
Or the time-turner Hermione used at Hogwarts - somehow McGonagall still has it and broadly winknudges Harmony to Go Forth And Train after Dumbledore died. The Ministry surely would have asked for it back if McG had to go through as much red tape as Hermione implies for the initial time-turner to be issued, and no doubt someone would have noticed during fourth or fifth years, even if we assume that the chaos post- the DoM incident meant the inventory records were scattered about.
These are at least sort of plausible. But when Harry starts using the Room of Requirement as his all-purpose time-slowing device? Or he miraculously finds a house which Granddad Potter had, in which there is a special Time Room?
I think that's reaching a tad bit far there.
Consider the fics where Harry has the one time-turner left from smashing them all at the Ministry, for example. One would think the Ministry would keep better control over its time-turners and do an inventory check and go, "Hmm. Six kids and about a dozen Death Eaters were here. Now if You-Know-Who has one from Bellatrix Lestrange, this could be SLIGHTLY BAD. Or if one of those six students has the time-turner, it's time to ask why they haven't returned it."
Or the time-turner Hermione used at Hogwarts - somehow McGonagall still has it and broadly winknudges Harmony to Go Forth And Train after Dumbledore died. The Ministry surely would have asked for it back if McG had to go through as much red tape as Hermione implies for the initial time-turner to be issued, and no doubt someone would have noticed during fourth or fifth years, even if we assume that the chaos post- the DoM incident meant the inventory records were scattered about.
These are at least sort of plausible. But when Harry starts using the Room of Requirement as his all-purpose time-slowing device? Or he miraculously finds a house which Granddad Potter had, in which there is a special Time Room?
I think that's reaching a tad bit far there.