GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182176

Montavilla47:
> I think that's an interesting speculation.  Would nothing have
occurred to Harry if Snape hadn't delivered the half-prophecy to
Voldemort? <snip>
> 
> But, in order for the prophecy to come true, Voldemort would need to
mark the child as his equal.  Could he have done that without knowing
the first part of the prophecy?
> 
> And, honestly, it wouldn't have taken Harry to vanquish Voldemort if
you think about it.  All it would really take would be figuring out
that he had made horcruxes, doing the detective work that Dumbledore
did, destroying them, and then killing Voldemort.  
> 
> Theoretically, anyone could have done that.  Or better yet, a group
of people who had good intelligence about Voldemort and shared
pertinent information. <snip>

Carol responds:

I'm not so sure. First, without the Prophecy and Voldemort's acting on
it, the AK wouldn't have backfired, vaporizing Voldemort and allowing
the soul bit to give Harry powers that no one else but Voldemort had
(Parseltongue and the ability to see into Voldemort's mind). The WW
wouldn't have had a fourteen-year respite from LV, either. The war
would have just gone on, with the Order members being picked off one
by one until no one remained except Dumbledore.

Dumbledore did figure out Voldemort's secret, but even if he had
shared it with others (a very unDumbledorean thing to do), he wouldn't
have known about the diary (which Lucius put in Ginny's cauldron
against orders). Even if Lucius had planted the diary according to the
original plan, with LV still "alive," DD apparently couldn't find or
open the Chamber of Secrets, so the diary would not have been
destroyed. Most likely, the school would simply have closed. It took
Harry, who spoke Parseltongue, to open the Chamber. (Yes, DD arranged
for Fawkes to come to his aid and bring the Sorting Hat containing the
Sword of Gryffindor, but he couldn't have found and destroyed the
diary on his own.) And he didn't know about the Ravenclaw Horcrux,
either. He merely guessed its existence. Helena Ravenclaw had
evidently refused to tell him or Flitwick her story.

Without DDM!Snape, who would not have switched sides had he not
delivered the Prophecy and suffered deepest remorse for so doing (all
for Lily, I realize), Dumbledore would have died from (stupidly)
putting on the ring Horcrux. Or, if he'd had the wisdom not to put a
(former) Horcrux on his finger without examining it for curses first,
he would probably have attempted to find the locket Horcrux by
himself, without a younger Wizard whose powers would not have
registered in the boat. Had he drunk the potion alone, he would have
died there, either from the potion/poison itself or from the Inferi.
And I doubt that anyone other than DD, who knew Voldemort's history
and his "style," having taught him, and was in other respects highly
gifted, could have found the cave and figured out how to get in.
(Regulus got in because Kreacher knew where to look and what to do.)
And, in the unliely event that he survived, he'd have ended up with a
fake Horcrux. He would not know that the original had been hidden at
12 GP nor that Kreacher had anything to do with it.

In short, even with the help of other Order members (who would not
have included Snape if it weren't for the Prophecy), I doubt that DD
could have found and destroyed all the Horcruxes. He wouldn't have
known about the seven-part soul, either, if Harry hadn't retrieved the
true memory thanks to his having Lily's eyes (significant because she
died at Godric's Hollow and Slughorn felt partly responsible).

Carol, who thinks that without the Prophecy and the Chosen One (and
Snape's request and Lily's self-sacrifice and Voldemort's
unwillingness to wait till the Prophecy child grew up), there would
have been no victory against Voldemort