Credit: Warner Bros.Tom Riddle, AKA Lord Voldemort, is the main antagonist of the Harry Potter series. But despite being a truly formidable enemy to Harry Potter, AKA the Boy Who Lived, there’s something seriously missing when it comes to the dark lord.
No, we aren’t talking about conscience or compassion — we’re talking about his grand plan. Simply put, Voldemort’s plan is totally flawed. Of course, we already knew this because, in the end, he loses spectacularly. But did he really need to lose? Did he miss something?
It’s fair to say that Voldemort overlooked many flaws in his plan. And one of them is pretty huge. In his quest to become the most powerful dark wizard of all time, why didn’t he ever turn his attention to a Time-Turner?
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Why Didn’t Voldemort Use a Time-Turner?
Of all the countless magical artifacts that populate the wizarding world, the one that Voldemort should have probably focused his efforts on acquiring was a Time-Turner — you know, that hourglass pendant/necklace-type device that allowed a witch or wizard to travel through time.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Time-Turner serves as a reality-bending plot device that allows Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) to travel back through time so that he can save his godfather, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) and the Hippogriff Buckbeak from death.
Just imagine the power the dark lord could have wielded had he managed to get his hands on one of these. Who needs Horcruxes and the Elder Wand when you can move through time at your leisure; righting the wrongs of the past and bending the future to your will.
While many fans will argue that Time-Turners were heavily-guarded artifacts (which is why they were stored in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic), why, then, did Professor Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith) hand one to third-year student Hermione Granger (Emma Watson)? We suppose that’s another topic entirely.
Either way, at least there’s an answer as to why Voldemort doesn’t seek one out after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: they’d all been destroyed.
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What Happened to the Time-Turners?
In Order of the Phoenix (the book), during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries (the fight between Harry and his friends and the Death Eaters), all the Time-Turners are destroyed. But they aren’t actually destroyed — to fill the entire time-traveling plot hole, J.K. Rowling ensures they are “handled” accordingly in one fell swoop.
When one of them falls, the entire stock of Time-Turners become trapped in an endless loop of falling, un-falling, and falling again, rendering them all completely useless forever (at least until the West End stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).
Still, why didn’t Voldemort try to get his hands on one long before? Well, while he was indeed a truly powerful dark wizard, he wasn’t the brightest wizard in Hogwarts.
Not only did he end up creating his own equal in Harry Potter by setting out to eliminate an equal that didn’t exist in the first place, he also manages to get himself killed despite having a whole bunch of Horcruxes scattered about all over the wizarding world.
Of course, it’s possible he didn’t know about Time-Turners. Or maybe he accidentally split his brain into several pieces when he shared his soul between all those Horcruxes.
Why do you think Voldemort didn’t try to get his hands on a Time-Turner? Let us know in the comments down below!