Did the Potters know the prophecy?

[Eustace_Scrubb]

No: HPFGUIDX 117419


Eustace_Scrubb pondered:
> [snip]
> > Now what I'd really like to know is _why_ the WW seems to have
> > been so quickly convinced that Voldemort was gone and no longer a 
> > threat. 

dcgmck came up with some really good ideas:
<snips> 
> The WW has a number of means of nearly instantaneous
> communication...Then there are at least two newspapers and the 
> Wizarding Wireless, both of which would have had special
> bulletins... 
> 
> Finally, (and I think I've seen this one on this forum before,)
> there were the Death Eaters like the Malfoys who were only too
> eager to declare themselves suddenly freed from possession and  
> trances when they felt Voldemort's mark decrease in the degree of  
> burn on their arms. Surely if Snape and Karkaroff could feel the
> mark increasing as Voldemort's power grew in GoF, all the DE's could
> feel it suddenly cool and ease when LV's power was suddenly 
> withdrawn...
 
Eustace_Scrubb again:
I like both of these ideas, but especially the second.

While I think you're right that the WW has the means to spread news
very quickly, I'm still puzzled as to why this news was apparently
taken uncritically as _the truth_.  I still would think that one would
accept it guardedly at first.  We could compare it, I suppose, with
the Allied reactions to V-E or V-J day in World War II, but especially
in those cases, the other sides' surrender had been in view for days
or (in the case of Europe) weeks/months...it was just a matter of
when.  In the case of the First Voldemort War, LV was said to be at
the height of his powers and no one would have had any reason to
expect his imminent defeat.  If I was a wizard, I'd smell a rat and I
certainly wouldn't start dancing in the streets for a while.

Now as to the effect of LV's defeat on the Dark Mark and therefore on
the DEs, I suspect that those folks _would_ have had an instantaneous
notice that the boss was gone.  I would guess that the ones who
thought quickly enough about saving their own skins prepared their
stories for use as soon as the rest of the WW caught on.  But I also
think that this makes it even more likely that the LeStrange gang went
after the Longbottoms soon after Godric's Hollow--they would have been
just as aware that LV was gone as the Malfoys' ilk, but would have
been feverishly trying to find out what happened...now I really doubt
they waited weeks or months to try to find LV.

Cheers,

Eustace_Scrubb