What is the greatest HP prediction ever?

[Neri]

Summary of current nominees for the best HP prediction yet: 

>
> Melanie said: <snip>
>   This was pretty dang close I mean not exact...but close I pegged
Lupin and Tonks in some fashion.  :)  I was pretty happy with that.
>    
>   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133690

Neri:
Not bad at all, Melanie. And as a Lupin fan I was happy about it too ;-)


Constance Vigilance wrote:
> 
> I nominate Catlady's prediction of a legal body which she called the
> Witchengamot. That's pretty darn close to the Wizengamot that turned up.
> 

Neri:
I think this is a case where the prediction is actually even better
than the canon. CV, do you know where did Catlady made this
prediction? I ran a search in Yahoomort for "Witchengamot" and didn't
get any results.


Caius Marcius wrote:
> This brilliant post by Eloise, dated Nov. 23 2002, predicts the 
> following:
> 
>  I want to suggest that Dumbledore is sending Snape back to
> Voldemort precisely to prepare the way for his own sacrifice. It 
> seems that Dumbledore has been unable to tell Harry about his destiny 
> up to now. I suggest that he is grooming him for a role that he will 
> be able to take up only when Dumbledore is no longer there, that 
> Dumbledore knows that he must pass his mantle as the greatest living 
> wizard on to Harry. As Fawkes has to die before he can rise again, so 
> Dumbledore has to die before Harry can assume his mantle and defeat 
> Voldemort. Snape, then, has to regain Voldemort's trust and set in 
> motion the train of events that will lead to the 'betrayal' of 
> perhaps the one person who has ever shown him true friendship. No 
> wonder Snape's pale and Dumbledore's apprehensive.
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/47044


Neri:
CMC, first thank you for introducing me to a great TBAY thread I
didn't know before. I was reading and LOLing for the last hour.

Eloise's post is indeed an amazing prediction (and from two books
away!) of a current *theory*. I must point out, however, that it's not
canon *yet* that Dumbledore arranged for Snape to kill him in order
for Snape to regain Voldemort's trust, even if the Snape fans very
much want it to happen <g>. If this proves true in Book 7 I'd have to
say that Eloise's post is indeed the most amazing HP prediction I ever
saw. In the meantime, what can it already claim? Dumbledore indeed
died and Snape indeed was part of a "train of events" that led to it.
>From two books away, pretty impressive.


Jen Reese  wrote:
> OK, here's my candidate for the best prediction I ever read 
> (Cindysphinx):
> 
> "So what is JKR to do with all *that*? Well, she has to *weaken*
> Dumbledore before she can credibly kill him, doesn't she? She has
> to show him becoming weary, worn down, weak. That way, when someone
> pushes Dumbledore off of a rickety catwalk into a river of lava, the
> reader will *believe it* and won't cry out, 'But wait! Dumbledore
> is too *powerful* for that to work!'
> 
> "Yeah, Dumbledore is fading all right, but he won't fade straight to
> the grave. He's going to get a push from someone – hopefully from a
> close and trusted friend." The Captain leans forward, her nose
> inches from George's trembling lips. "Bang!" she whispers.
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39610


Neri:
She was right about Dumbledore becoming weak, about someone trusted
pushing him, but she was wrong about the readers believing it <g>.

But she was dead right about the Bang



> Pippin:
> I don't know if this is the post you're thinking of
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121546
> 
> from January of 2005.


Neri:
Thanks, Pippin. I checked this post by Peggy <pegruppel> and this was
the most prophetic part of it:

> If that soul is lodged in a token, as I suspect, Harry's quest then 
> becomes one to find the location of Voldemort's soul-token and free 
> the trapped soul.

Neri:
It indeed looks rather amazing when you read it like that. But if you
read the whole post, she writes that she predicts it mainly because
it's a common plot device in myth, not because she deduced it from
canon details, and she makes several other related predictions that
proved wrong (or at least didn't prove right yet).


> bboyminn:
> 
> Yes, I argued that points several times, it was the only
> thing that really made sense.


Neri:
It did, Steve, but not for the rest of us <g>. I can't remember anyone
else except you arguing this point at that time. Here, I found one of
your posts about it:

*******************************************************
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/86384

bboy_mn:
I firmly believe that Snape initially contacted Dumbledore back near
the end of the first Voldemort war, and offered to provide Dumbledore
with information. He did this with Voldemort's full knowledge.

Voldemort send Snape to Dumbledore with some sufficiently credible
information to gain Dumbledore's trust; thereby allowing Snape to
appear to be working for Dumbledore against Voldemort. But from
Voldemort's perspective Snape is actually a false spy and is actually
spying against Dumbledore for Voldemort.
*******************************************************

Now compare with Snape's canon words in Spinner's End:

*******************************************************
"You ask where I was when the Dark Lord fell. I was where he had
ordered me to be, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
because he wished me to spy upon Albus Dumbledore. You know, I
presume, that it was on the Dark Lord's orders that I took up the post?"
*******************************************************

This was a dead accurate prediction made by rational deduction, in the
right context and for the right reasons, and there's nothing else in
that post that proved incorrect. So, this is currently my personal
nominee for the best prediction.


Neri