JKR's FAQ poll -- Neville's potential as prophecy boy

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 129024

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SSSusan wrote:
> Yet JKR is telling us quite straightforwardly that Neville could 
have been The One had Voldy marked him instead, as the curse would 
have rebounded from him, too, if Alice or Frank had sacrificed 
him/herself for him.  
> 
> But OTOH JKR also acknowledges that Dumbledore "believes that 
Voldemort did indeed choose the boy most likely to topple him, for 
Harry's survival has not depended wholly or even mainly upon his 
scar."
>
snip
> 
> See?  There's that *might* again, which gets me back to whether 
there's Something About Harry.  He might have sought this, even if 
he'd not been propelled into it by Voldy's actions.
> 
I sure welcome anyone else's thoughts on all of this.
> 

Not much time, but some quick thoughts.

It seems to me the question she's dancing around and not quite 
leading us towards is "Why did Voldy choose Harry over Neville?"
If I remember aright, Voldy neatly skips this bit of the story in 
the graveyard and starts with the killing of James and Lily, and all 
I recall DD saying is something along the lines of "He saw himself 
in you before he'd ever seen you." 

But Voldy wouldn't have seen it as a choice between the two, would 
he? He'd have killed both boys, wouldn't he? Unless there was 
something else that we don't know, some other reason that made Harry 
more obviously the boy to whom the prophecy referred...  

DD is very evasive at the end of OotP:
"It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that 
Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to 
be the one to whom Sybill was referring."

DD never once says "*I* didn't know until the attack at Godric's 
Hollow that the prophecy definitely referred to you, Harry." So 
whatever it was that led Voldy to attack the Potters, did DD know it 
too?  Did the Potters?  More to the point, when will *Harry* find 
out? 

I do think it's a boring answer, but at least it's not another 
tantalising "hmmm, it might be important, but you'll just have to 
wait and see."  

Dungrollin
Hoping (though not quite sure why) that Harry isn't the heir of 
Gryffindor, and James wasn't the Half-blood Prince.