Neville and the Prophecy - VERY LONG

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 108271

DuffyPoo:
>> However, I think we believe, at least *I* believe HP "is quite 
special and has powers other wizards his age do not possess" only 
because that's what we've been led to believe through five books. 
Because the WW, DD, etc., all believe HP is the one who vanqished - 
at least for a time - LV and therefore must have special powers. How 
else could a baby have done it? But reading between the lines, and
reading what Diary!Tom deduced, it wasn't baby Harry that did it, it 
was Lily's sacrifice and that alone that saved him from LV's curse.<<

HunterGreen: 
What's interesting is how little Harry buys into all that. When 
Hermione and Ron ask him about teaching DADA, he counters with the 
very facts you are talking about, that he only survived because of 
luck and circumstance. The rest of the wizarding world cannot be 
blamed for thinking that Harry has special powers, they don't, after 
all, know about the blood sacrifice thing. Dumbledore however, 
probably just thinks Harry is 'the one' based on his personal 
interpreation of the prophecy. Whether this, by implication, means 
that he thinks Harry has special powers, is up to you.
Personally, I do think Harry is 'special', although perhaps not in 
the way that the prophecy is describing. I don't think the books have 
been misleading in that regard. From the end of book one, we knew 
that it wasn't anything *Harry* did that stopped Voldemort. From that 
end there was nothing remarkable about him. But there are other 
things that he has done (like being the youngest seeker in a century, 
conjuring a patronus against about 100 dementors, throwing off the 
imperious curse almost immediately, and beating Voldemort in the 
priori incanteam [sic?]), which point to him being a powerful 
(or 'special', I suppose) young wizard. 
And in those cases, it wasn't luck that guided him. (although the 
first two did have certain circumstances that tipped the scales 
slightly in his favor).