Prophecy wording - why not Neville?

[greatelderone]

No: HPFGUIDX 128341

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, elfundeb <elfundeb at g...> wrote:
> That is what Dumbledore believes, and he can make a very reasonable
> case that it's true, but we don't know this as a fact.  We have no
> idea what may have happened to Neville.  He is not marked 
physically
> on any part of his body that we can see, but we cannot say with
> certainty that Neville was not also marked.  

GEO: I'm not just talking about a physical mark, but also 
similarities and equalities in power and background. It was 
Voldemort's attack on Harry that left the boy with the mark and some 
of Voldemort's own powers including parseltongue, but it also left 
Harry's life very similar to that of the young Tom Riddle Jr: 
orphaned, being raised by muggles who they obviously were not 
particularly fond of, being "saved" through the Hogwarts letters, 
having their shared wand cores and getting the opportunity to be 
sorted into slytherin house, which Harry thankfully avoided. Neville 
shares none of these similarities with Voldemort aside from the lack 
of a mark. 

We also cannot rule out
> the possibility that Voldemort has not, at this point in canon, 
marked
> anyone *as his equal*.  

GEO: But within the realm of our knowledge, Harry is the only one 
that has been as somewhat of an equal to the Dark Lord though 
certainly not in magical power and knowledge, but certainly in 
background and we have seen that in two contests of will power, 
Harry has proven to be stronger than Voldemort or at least strong 
enough to exorcise the latter from his mind and force his wand to 
regurgitate spells in what appeared to be a duel of wills.
 
 In addition to the merits of their
> arguments (as well as the possibility of a wand-order-type error),
> unless Dumbledore has used his Legilimens powers on LV (and there
> doesn't seem to have been much time for him to do that at the 
DoM), he
> doesn't *know* what LV's intent was.

GEO: Considering that Dumbledore was even able to divine the reasons 
for why Voldemort picked Harry instead of Neville, I think the man's 
knowledge of Voldemort's actions and intentions shouldn't be 
questioned, it is just part of his character. 

> JKR unquestionably wants us to believe that Harry is the one.  But 
she
> also wanted us to believe that Sirius was a DE.  I don't think we 
can
> rule out the possibility that Dumbledore's explanation was a big
> setup.

GEO: Two totally different situations. The circumstansial evidence 
certainly showed that Sirius Black was the servant of Voldemort and 
we certainly had no declaratiion from Dumbledore on this subject 
until the end while in the latter Dumbledore does tell us 
that Harry was the One. 

> And, in my mind, the big tip-off that Dumbledore has not correctly
> analysed it comes when he tells Harry that the phrase "neither can
> live while the other survives" means that Harry will have to kill
> Voldemort or be killed.  

GEO: Actually that was Harry's intepretation. Dumbledore just 
confirmed his interpretation and there were other bits of the 
prophecy to take into account like the "and either must die at the 
hand of the other" statement.

>  Also, I don't believe that JKR said that
> Dumbledore is always right either (just like Hermione is not always
> right; she always quotes from a book such as Hogwarts: A History), 
but
> I couldn't find the quote on Quick Quotes.  Do you have a link?

GEO: The issue was discuessed in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/128287

> JKR knows everything, but her characters don't have the same 
luxury. 
> She is a master of misdirection and of clues hidden in plain 
sight. 
> Dumbledore is not omniscient, and admits in the very same chapter 
that
> he does make mistakes.

GEO: Actually in the words of the writer he is the most omniscient 
character in the book though I for one would argue that there is a 
difference in mistakes made by him because of errors in judgement 
and errors in fact and knowledge. He has in the books made quite a 
few of the former including possibly putting Harry with the Dursleys 
to protect him, giving evidence to put Sirius in Azkaban and doing 
nothing for more than a decade and of course his handling of the 
affair between Sirius, Snape and Harry in OOTP while there certainly 
appears to be none of the latter.