Explain This Passage

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 180614

> > Angel:
> > But I'm saying it now if I haven't so before, this story is not
> > Harry's it's Snape's!!!  It always was :)  Any explanation that
> > excludes the Snape factor in Riddle gunning for Harry over
> > Neville will undoubtedly fall short.
> 
> Mike:
> Whoa Angel, You can't do that! ;) You can't just leave us hanging 
> after a statement like that. C'mon girl, dish. LOL

zgirnius:
I can't say what Angel means by this, but the following seems true to 
me.

Once the prophecy was made and reported (by, yup, Sev), whatever 
Voldemort chose, whether Voldemort chose Neville, and went after 
Harry as an afterthought, or vice versa, it was always going to be 
Harry who would be the Boy Who Lived. Not because of any innate 
property he possessed that set him apart from Neville, but because it 
is only his mother, not Alice, who would be given a chance to step 
aside by Lord Voldemort, as a favor to one Severus Snape.