Why is everyone so convinced the prophecy is correct?

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 82269

<snips>
Laura:

Now, Kneasy, no one wants you to feel unappreciated.  *smiles* I 
just want you to know that between the "crying wolf" thread and this 
prophecy business, I've had several rather restless nights.  I went 
back and reread the Shrieking Shack scene (again-I think I've reread 
this one more than any other scene in canon) and the prophecy 
discussion in OoP (which made me read to the end of the book, which 
made me cry again...sigh). 

A few thoughts and reactions:

Kneasy: 
> 
> Firstly DD and 'Neville may be the one".
> 
<snip>...if DDs function is to look after and protect 
> Harry, then he's made a bloody poor job of it. The conclusion
> of the piece [a previous post]wonders if Harry hasn't been set up 
as a  decoy.
<snip> I'm not so certain now, but it is still a possibility that 
cannot be totally discarded. (Poppy Pomfrey going on about mental 
wounds being worse than physical ones makes me wonder.)
> 
Laura:

I agree that Neville has a major part to play in the upcoming 
books.  And it's very hard to deny that DD has a Plan.  But I don't 
think it's using Harry as a decoy, unless he's trying to do a double 
switch in which he'd throw a lot of attention onto Harry, hoping 
that LV would be suspicious and decide it was someone else, when 
really it was Harry all the time.  But if so, it hasn't worked.  
Maybe LV is just suffering from a bad case of cognitive dissonance.  
He's decided that it's Harry and that's the way it's going to be-
don't confuse him with the facts.  


> Next, the prophecy <snip>
> 1. A prophecy can only be considered accurate *after the events it
> foretells have happened*. 

Laura:

Which makes me wonder what good the blasted things are in the first 
place.  At no time and under no circumstances does learning a 
prophecy help anyone-it's either too early or too late (as Kneasy 
points out below).

Kneasy:
> 
> 2.Even then it  may depend on the interpretation or imagination of 
> the reader or viewer (this is where old  Nosty came in). 
> 
Laura:

That's for sure.  We can't even agree on the correct reading of a 
prophecy that seems pretty straightforward to me (once you do a 
little sentence diagramming).

Kneasy:
> 3.The prophecy storage at DoM may be a sort of Quality Assurance
> programme; store and protect so that no-one can read or interfere
> with them until events involving the named persons actually 
> happen. Then check events against prophecy. Grade the seer for
> reliability by  their track record. 

Laura:

Probably, but then what?  They're invalidated if they're heard 
beforehand and they are useless after the fact.  Talk about a 
meaningless job...being a Seer must be a big drag.  No wonder the 
centaurs are so cranky.

> Kneasy:
> 4.Anyone who reports a possible prophecy must take care not to
> perform any action that may affect the course of events the
> prophecy deals with. Foreknowledge by too many people may 
> influence events as they may act as if the 'prophecy' *must* 
happen.

Laura:

And that's why this particular prophecy has been tainted almost from 
the moment it was uttered.  Once LV heard any part of it, his 
actions would influence the remainder.  We know that the original 
prophecy could have referred to one of two children.  If LV had been 
smart (apparently his spy neglected to tell him at the time that 
s/he was passing along incomplete information-or else LV is not as 
smart as he thinks he is) he would have bided his time in scenic 
Albania and waited to see how the 2 kids grew up.  But LV panicked 
and marked Harry, thus putting Neville out of the running.  And 
having marked Harry, LV had no choice but to try to kill him.  This 
isn't prophecy, it's a logical result of his choosing to mark 
someone.  

After PS/SS, and definitely after CoS, it should have been 
completely obvious to anyone in the WW who cared to notice that LV 
was back and after Harry.  Subtlety is not LV's best thing.  The 
prophecy has now done all the damage it can do.  Whether or not Lv 
knows that, DD certainly should.  The whole business in OoP about 
keeping the wretched thing secret was a huge waste of time-and of 
Sirius's life.  
> 
Kneasy:
> 5.This is Dumbledore's situation and dilemma.
> 
> If in fact my reading of the prophecy is right and  DD understood 
it,then he knew, or at least suspected that the Potters (or the Long-
> bottoms) would die. Before the event. And he could do nothing
> about it. To do anything could invalidate the prophecy and prevent
> the appearance of "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark 
Lord." (post 75081)
> 
> I've mentioned in passing in a number of posts that DD allowed 
Lily to die, but got no response. (That Kneasy. He's paranoid!) 
Maybe, but it's fun having an active imagination and a suspicious 
mind.
 What would be Harry's reaction when this sinks in? That DD may 
> have been able to prevent his parents deaths and didn't? 
> Plot line par excellance for the next book!

Laura:

How would DD be able to conclude that the parents of the child in 
question must die?  Most people on this list agree that the power LV 
knows not is love.  But it's a leap from that to deducing that 
someone has to die for that power to activate.  What happened with 
Harry, Lily and LV was without precedence in the WW, so why would DD 
come to that conclusion?  

I've already rejected your reading of the "neither...either" phrase 
for what I think are logical reasons.  (Nothing personal, old boy). 
JKR may love plot twists, but we haven't seen her twist grammatical 
rules of the English language. 

And don't worry-Harry still has lots of legitimate reasons to be 
very, very angry with DD.  Lily's death was not DD's fault.  

I'm also wondering if James's death had any protective power for 
Harry.  After all, James also died protecting his child, as well as 
his wife.  But I still don't agree that LV's reaction to the 
prophecy (or the part he knew) would lead him to kill Lily and 
James.  If LV had thought about it for a minute, he might have 
realized that Harry would be better protected as a baby than he 
would be later at school, just because that's the way parenting 
works.  He couldn't have taken DD's involvement into account because 
he didn't know about it, except in a general way (DD wanted to keep 
all the people in the Order alive, that is.) In fact, if LV had 
known how the power that would protect Harry would come to him, LV 
might have gone to great lengths to keep Lily and James alive, just 
to prevent Harry from receiving that ancient magical power. 

As for referencing prior posts, I for one always appreciate it when 
someone does that.  There are just too many to keep up with, and if 
you miss a day or more, the volume of posts you haven't read can be 
rather overwhelming.  I suspect that a certain amount of repetition 
and rehashing is inevitable with a group this size; new people join 
regularly and go through the same thought processes the rest of us 
did when we started up.  We who have been here a little while can 
always skip the threads we think we've covered adequately.  

Now, about that Shrieking Shack scene...