Snape as "the One"? (Was: A couple of little theories!)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162246

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> I'm not convinced by any explanation that I've read so far
that the discrepancies in the two versions of the eavesdropping
incident that we've encountered so far can be reconciled. (Please,
JKR, don't let them be mere careless inconsistencies!)
 
Brothergib responded: 
> So much good stuff here, I'm not sure where to begin.

Carol again:
Thanks. <smile>

Brothergib: 
> I'll start with my ideas on the discrepancy in the two versions of 
the prophecy. The prophecy begins and Snape is quite happily 
listening outside. DD then becomes aware of the eavesdropper and 
blocks the door (as in OOTP). He also somehow alerts his brother that
 someone is listening in. The prophecy ends and Trelawney comes round,
at which point Aberforth enters with Snape, telling DD and Trelawney
that he an caught Snape listening to their conversation.
> 
Carol:
Lots of speculation here, right? We don't know, for example, that
Dumbledore was aware of the eavesdropper before the door was opened to
reveal young Snape standing there with "the uncouth barman"
(Trelawney's version), or that DD cast any kind of spell (I agree that
Impervius is more likely than Snape's own invention, Muffliato), or
that he somehow alerted his brother, who could simply have seen young
Snape going upstairs and acted to intercept him, knowing that Albus
was holding a job interview and would not wish to be overheard.
(Obviously, Aberforth could not have anticipated a Prophecy any more
than his brother did.) We simply don't know what happened.

But Snape's standing there with Aberforth after the Prophecy (which
Sybill doesn't know she's delivered) is inconsistent with the
eavesdropper's being "thrown from the building" halfway through the
Prophecy, which is what DD tells Harry in OoP. Your version doesn't
resolve that basic inconsistency for me. Snape can't be in two places
at once (unless we bring in a Time Turner, and I don't want to get
into that!).

Carol earlier: 
> > However, Dumbledore says that Snape heard only the first half of
the Prophecy, which means that the first of two lines about the
seventh month would be included in what he heard. <snip> here's the
Prophecy as Harry hears it in OOP:
> > 
> > "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.... 
Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month
dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will
have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand
of the other for neither can live while the other survives.... The one
with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh
month dies...." (OoP Am. ed. 841).
> 
Brothergib: 
> I've mentioned this previously, but compare the two prophecies that
 we have heard. 1. First hand delivered from Trelawney to Harry; 2. 
Second hand - what DD chooses to tell Harry.
> 
> The first [PoA] prophecy is a perfectly constructed sentence.

Carol again:

Is it? Let's quote it for comparison (eliminating the distracting
all-capital letters):

"It will happen tonight" [delivered in a loud, harsh voice before
Trelawney's eyes start to roll and interrupted by Harry's "S-sorry?"]
"The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers.
His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before
midnight ... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his
master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater
and more terrible than ever he was. Tonight ... before midnight ...
the servant ... will set out ... to rejoin...his master..." (PoA Am.
ed. 324).

That looks to me like six perfectly constructed sentences, with one
longish interruption and ellipses for pauses rather than omissions.
(We know that Harry heard the whole thing.) To examine it a bit more
closely: The diction is somewhat formal but not noticeably
old-fashioned (except for "ever he was"), and only "chained" and
"break free" are figurative. Otherwise, it's quite clear and
unambiguous, in contrast to the other prophecy. Granted, 
it's temporarily misleading in that "servant" appears to refer to
Sirius Black but really refers to Peter Pettigrew, but otherwise, it's
straightforward and accurate, not only with regard to the events of
that night but with regard to the Dark Lord's return. (We have yet to
see "greater and more terrible than ever he was," but I expect we'll
see that in Book 7. Makes me wonder whether DD was wrong to think so
little of Divination, but I don't want to get sidetracked.)

Brothergib:
 The second [the OoP prophecy] is rambling, has many pauses/gaps
(....) in it, and is poorly  constructed - e.g. too many ands in one
sentence. JKR was an English  teacher before an author. Nobody with
even a rudimentary grasp of English, would consider the paragraph
above as even remotely  grammatically correct.

Carol:
IIRC, she was a French teacher, not an English teacher, if it matters.
But I taught college-level English for eighteen years, and I do
consider the OoP Prophecy to be grammatically correct. It contains no
grammatical errors though "Born to those who have thrice defied him,
born as the seventh month dies" is a sentence fragment. The diction is
formal and old-fashioned ("thrice," "knows not") and ambiguous (as
befits a prophecy), but unless the sentence fragment indicates that
something has been omitted, the ellipses serve the same purpose as in
the PoA prophecy, indicating pauses (I imagine Trelawney gasping for
breath, but that could be movie contamination). The "ands," BTW, are a
stylistic device used very frequently, for example, in the King James
version of the Bible. Here's a brief Old Testament passage relating to
Elijah:

And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came
into him again, and he revived.

And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber
into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said,
See, thy son liveth.

And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man
of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.

Or maybe this New Testament prophecy is a better example:

"He shall be great, and shall be called the son of the highest: and
the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and
he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom
there shall be no end." Luke 1:31-33. 

To return to the point: the OoP Prophecy is not ungrammatical, but its
style and structure mark it as an inspired utterance spoken by someone
in a trance (as Trelawney is in both cases) rather than normal speech.
(She's "inspired" in the sense that the Greeks used the term; i.e., a
being or spirit of some sort is speaking through her. Or maybe the
future is revealing itself through her--I can't quite work out how
prophecy operates in the WW. My point is that the diction and sentence
structure, as well as the trancelike state and the harsh voice, set
aside these prophetic utterances as distinct from, say, Ron's faked
predictions in Divination class or Trelawney's own prediction that
Harry will have twelve children and be the Minister for Magic.

Brothergib: 
> IMO, the pauses (....) are parts of the prophecy that DD 'chose' not
to let Harry hear. i.e. DD knows the whole prophecy, Snape knows the
first half (roughly) word for word and Harry knows bits and pieces of
all of it. As a result we do not have sufficient info to interpret the
prophecy
> 
Carol:
As I said, the ellipses seem for the most part to be used in the same
way as in the other prophecy, to indicate pauses. I see only one place
where words may have been omitted, but the way Harry hears the
Prophecy, with Trelawney rising out of the Pensieve, seems to preclude
that possibility unless DD altered the memory, and there's no hint
that he did so (in contrast to the fog in Slughorn's altered memory).
Nor do I think JKR would allow him to do that with no hint to either
Harry or the reader that the memory had been tampered with. 

What Dumbledore does is not to *tell* Harry parts of the Prophecy but
to *show* him the Prophecy out of context, as he did with Bertha
Jorkins earlier and with Caractacus Burke in HBP, only in this case
his motive is not simple expediency; it's concealment--not of any part
of the Prophecy, which Harry has the right to know in its entirety,
but of the presence of Severus Snape, whose identity as the
eavesdropper DD doesn't want Harry to know 

Brothergib:
> And the big one for me - how did DD know Harry had defeated LV, if
he didn't know the attack was going to take place?? Answer - because 
> someone at GH witnessed the whole scene and reported to DD. Obvious 
> candidate - Snape!
> 
Carol:
Well, I don't agree with this part of your post, either, but I don't
want to get into that now. I think that Snape was at Hogwarts on the
night of Godric's Hollow with no idea where the Potters were hiding
because no one had told him the Secret. See message #158920 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158920

for one of my many posts on the subject. 

> Brothergib (relatively warm in London - global warming is improving
> the climate!)
>
Carol, wondering if this is the first time Tucson has ever been colder
than London!