[HPforGrownups] The one... to vanquish... approaches.... The one... to vanquish will be born

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 168124

From: Kemper <iam.kemper at gmail.com>
>> Kemper wrote earlier:
>> > To refresh everyone, the prophecy in three easy to digest part:
>> >
>> > 1. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches....
>> >
>> > 2a. 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 the power the Dark Lord knows not...
>> >
>> > 2b. and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live
>> > while the other survives....
>> >
>> > 3. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as
>> > the seventh month dies...
---some cutting---
>Kemper now:
>How is 3 redundant?  I don't understand your question nor your
>corresponding answer, please clarify.

Bart
3 appears to be a restatement of the first part of 2a. 

Philip K. Dick wrote a fascinating story (and, like many Philip K. Dick stories, was turned into a movie that added a pointless "government conspiracy" plotline onto it) called "Minority Report". Forgetting the social details, it involved 3 people (who never appeared in person in the story) who could predict future crimes. If at least 2 out of the 3 predicted a crime would take place, police would act to prevent it; if the 3rd psychic found something different, it was called the "minority report". 

In any case,
SPOILER ALERT!!!!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SPOILER STARTING: 
when it was predicted that the head of the police was about to commit a murder, it turned out that there was not one minority report, but three, because the head of the police would get the reports first, and the predictions did not take place simultaneously, the first predicted that he would commit the murder, the second, knowing that he had access to the first, predicted that he would not, and the third, knowing he had access to the first and second, predicted that he would commit the murder, but in a different way, for a different reason. 
---END OF SPOILER.

In any case, I am looking at something similar here; that the fact of the prophecy, in and of itself, changed the future, and, furthermore, the fact that the first part of the prophecy was heard changed the future. Which meant that, halfway through the prophecy, the future had already been changed, yet in such a way that confirmed the prophecy, perhaps in a different way. FOR EXAMPLE, it may well have been Neville that was intended at first, but, since Snape's action would cause Voldemort to act in a way different than if he had not heard the prophecy, it got changed, to ANOTHER person born as the 7th month died. There are other ways of reading it, of course, depending on what part Snape DID hear, but canon (in the form of JKR interviews) states that it was VERY carefully worded, and therefore it is a reasonable assumption that the apparent redundancy is meaningful.

Bart