The Keeper of the Hall of Prophesies

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156109

houyhnhnm wrote:
> 
> S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
> Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter
> 
> I'm assuming that everything up to "Harry Potter" was on the
original label.
> 
> What your question has got me wondering is how does a prophecy get 
> into the Department of Mysteries?  It can't happen automatically
every time someone makes a prediction or the Hall would be full
"Gryffindor (Slytherin/Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw) is going to win the House
Cups This Year"s.  Does the person who hears it (and believes s/he has
heard a true prophecy) request that it be added?  It must be so.
> 
> Obviously, there is some kind of spell involved that puts not only
the contents but an image of the seer into the ball.  Who casts it?
> 
> I am thinking that it was probably Dumbledore who cast the spell
that created the prophecy globe, and he also either wrote the label or 
> dictated what was to be written.  In that case, the label only read 
> "Dark Lord and (?) until the WW shattering event of LV's defeat by
the Boy Who Lived.  The Keeper then added "Harry Potter".  He would
not have needed to know anthing at all about the contents of the
prophecy, let alone the fact that there were two possible identities
for (?), only that the prophecy involved a Dark Lord and an unknown,
and then take it for granted after LV's defeat that the Dark Lord was
Voldemort and the unknown person was Harry Potter.
>
Carol responds:
My view is similar but not identical. Obviously, there's a difference
between a prediction made by an ordinary witch or wizard and a
Prophecy made by a Seer (for one thing, the Seer goes into a trance;
for another, the Prophecy seems to be spoken in an impersonal,
unnatural voice, as if the Seer is some sort of medium, and the
Prophecy has a kind of formal structure involving repetition and
possibly other identifiable elements and equally formal diction, e.g.,
"the Dark Lord" and "the one" rather than the real or assumed name of
the person(s) involved). Somehow, the Keeper would be able to detect a
real Prophecy without necessarily hearing it.

I think that a Prophecy would be brought to the DoM by the person who
overheard the Prophecy in the form of a partial memory--that is, just
the form of the Seer and his or her words, much like Sibyll Trelawney
rising out of DD's Pensieve in OoP--perhaps enclosed in a crystal
vial. The Keeper would then magically transfer the memory of the
speaking figure from the vial to a small crystal orb (or transfigure
the vial into an orb, which might be easier) and label it with the
initials of the hearer and the Seer (who, of course, would not know
what he or she said, but perhaps could be magically identified by the
Keeper), with only a note on the contents or the persons concerned. I
think DD would at least have needed to say that it involved the Dark
Lord and a male child who would be born at the end of July, or perhaps
"the one with the power to defeat him." Either way, once the events at
GH had occurred, the Keeper would be fairly certain, but not 100
percent certain, that the other person was Harry Potter. Hence, the
question mark and the name. Unless the Keeper had *some* idea of the
contents of the Prophecy, I don't think he would have filled in the
blank following the question mark. It would be too great an
assumption, even with Harry's scar and unexpected survival. After all,
DD didn't tell Harry that no one else knew *anything* about the
Prophecy, only that he and Harry were the only two who knew the whole
thing.

Anyway, and this is pure speculation, I imagine the Keeper to be
another wise old wizard, perhaps white bearded like DD, certainly very
powerful, gifted in Legilimency so he knows that those who supply the
Prophecies are telling the truth, very powerful and gifted (rather
like Ollivander, who must be exceptionally powerful to create his
wands and exceptionally intelligent to remember every wand he ever
sold). (BTW, I think that only a Legilimens can remove memories from
his own head, which would mean that Slughorn must be a Legilimens
along with DD, Snape, and LV, and which presents a problem if Harry is
to examine his own memories in a Pensieve.)

Carol, who feels rather sad about all the shattered prophecy orbs and
hopes there's some other record of them in a file drawer or the WW
equivalent of a Rolodex