Did the Potters know the prophecy?

[texaschow]

No: HPFGUIDX 117299


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dungrollin" says: 
<snip snip snip>
> DD says that Voldy wanted the prophecy as a weapon - to find out 
how 
> to destroy Harry.  It's always confused me, because the prophecy 
> says no such thing.  Why would Voldy think that it did?  

> Why is it so important that Voldy doesn't know about the power
> that Harry's got in such quantities and that he has none of?  And 
> most intriguingly: how could the prophecy mean something *more* to 
> Voldy than it means to us?  

~Cathy~(out of lurking)here:
I believe that Dumbledore is relating what Voldemort *believes* to be 
true, not the actual truth of the propecy.

While we know what the prophecy says, Voldemort has never heard it in 
its entirety.  He's assuming that their is some clue to defeating 
Harry in the part that he did not hear.  All he knows for certain is 
that he tried to kill Harry as a baby, and it backfired badly.  At 
this point, Harry has now defeated and/or escaped Voldemort as an 
infant, again at 11 years old when Voldemort cohabitated Quirell's 
body, again the following year as the memory of Tom Riddle in the 
Chamber of Secrets; and the biggest surprise of all - the escape from 
the graveyard when he was 14.  As far as Voldemort is concerned, 
Harry should have been long dead by now.  The only explanation to him 
is that there must be something important in the part of the prophecy 
that he does not know.  The last thing that Voldemort wants is for 
Harry to grow up and become a fully trained and very powerful wizard 
that could meet him head-on. He wants to find a way to stop (kill) 
Harry by any means possible/necessary before that can happen.  So, 
even though we know what the prophecy says (and still have a dozen 
ways of interpreting it), Voldemort is just desperate to find out 
before things get any more out of hand.