"Neither can Live"

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 73382

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dan Feeney" <dark30 at v...> 
wrote:
> All these posts about interpretation of "the other" make me think -
 
> well, if the so-called other is either Peter or Neville, then HP 
or 
> LV should kill them, since they can't live while the other 
survives.
> 
> I think that's the problem with taking the interpretation of the 
> other as referring to a third party. It means the prophecy really 
> states that LV and HP just have to get rid of "the other", and 
> not "each other" or "one or the other".
> 
You just know that if a passage is this hard to make sense of, JKR 
has deliberately made it obscure to confuse us.  Here's an 
alternative gloss:  "either must die at the hand of the other for 
neither can live" i.e.: Harry and Voldemort must kill each other, 
and neither one will come out of the contest alive; "while the other 
survives" i.e.:  meanwhile, the other one (Neville?) will survive.  
The lack of punctuation makes it possible to throw the meaning all 
over the place.

Wanda