HBP chapters 24-26 Post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184443

Pippin wrote:
> LOL! We thought Dumbledore didn't believe Trelawney -- turns out he
already knew full well that calamity and disaster were coming nearer
all the time, and he was already doing what he could about it.

Carol responds:
True. But the fact that the cards, particularly the Lightning-Struck
Tower, showed Trelawney that disaster was coming shows that there's
some truth in Divination (in JKR's world), and Trelawney isn't such a
great fraud after all. Also, Dumbledore says in PoA that Trelawney's
prediction about the Dark Lord's servant brings her real predictions
to a total of two.

Pippin: 
> I think Dumbledore believes divination, whether it is authentically
magical or not, comes down to guesswork and only those who fear the
unknown rely on it. 

Carol:
That's certainly true when it comes to interpreting visions in a
crystal ball (which Trelawney "saw" but misread) or even the sorts of
divination that the Centaurs do with their burnt twigs, etc.
Obviously, too, prophecies like those Trelawney and other Seers make
when they fall into a trance are subject to interpretation, but
there's no denying that the Prophecies themselves are not invented by
the Seer and that only those with the Sight have such visions.
Somehow, Trelawney's first Prophecy got into the Hall of Prophecy in
the DoM. did it get there magically or did Dumbledore collect a copy
of his memory and send it there? Trelawney certainly didn't do it. So
Prophecies and prophetic magic exist and are real regardless of what
Dumbledore thinks of Divination as a subject. The only "fuzzy" part i
interpretation, and that's true of all human observations. (Look at
the various interpretations of literary works, historical events, or
even scientific observations.)

Pippin:
I'm not sure what you mean by Dumbledore demonstrating that he
believed in the prophecy: could you be more specific?

Carol responds:
I know that youre addressing Alla here, but I agree with her that some
of his behavior seems to indicate that he believed in the Prophecy, or
at least in Harry's destiny as the Chosen One. Granted, he suggested
the Fidelius Charm to the Potters because Snape had informed them that
they were in danger, not because he believed the Prophecy, but he
apparently took no such precautions with the Longbottoms or other
Order members who were in equal danger. He took care that Baby!Harry
was removed from Wizarding society, hidden from the DEs and protected
by Love magic until he was old enough to go to Hogwarts (and still
protected while he was at 4 Privet Drive until he was seventeen).
Agin, that could be because Voldemort believed in the Prophecy and was
targeting Harry, but I don't think that was his only motive. By that
point, he knew about the scar and had probably figured out, perhaps
using those mysterious instruments but perhaps just thinking about the
Prophecy, that Harry had a soul bit in his scar.

Looking at the Prophecy, "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...," Dumbledore would recognize that
Harry either is or could be "the one with the power to vanquish the
Dark Lord," and if there's any truth in that Prophecy, he must be
given more protection that DD would normally give to people targeted
by the Dark Lord. 

DD would see that the Dark Lord had "marked" Harry, both figuratively
and literally, not only viewing Harry as his equal but literally
making him his equal in the sense of giving him, through the scar,
powers that he would not otherwise have and that few or no other
Wizards beside Voldemort had. (Would Harry be a Parselmouth, a master
Legilimens who can enter people's minds as if they were Pensieves,
capable of possession, etc.? He would have to be watched and guarded
and trained--and kept among Muggles, ignorant of his powers and
destiny, until the time came.) DD would know that "the power the Dark
Lord knows not" is Love, and Harry must be protected with Love magic,
not only to keep him safe from Voldemort and the DEs but to keep him
safe from the Darkness within himself, the soul bit in his scar.
"Either must die at the hand of the other" indicates an inevitable
face-off in which one or the other, or perhaps both, must die (the
fuzzy language leaves three possibilities open--Harry could die, LV
could die, both could die). And DD know that the face-off is indeed
inevitable now that Harry has been marked as LV's equal because LV
will make it happen. As for "born as the seventh month dies," that has
already happened and is responsible for DD's narrowing the selection
of possible boys to Harry and Neville. There's no question which one
he has chosen.

IOW, much of the Prophecy had already come true. The rest of it would
happen in some form because of the scar, LV's Horcruxes (which would
enable him to return), and LV's vendetta against Harry. Only Love
magic, the power that LV knows not, could protect Harry until DD
himself could prepare him for the confrontation that not only *would*
happen because LV willed it but *must* happen to destroy the soul bit
in Harry's head. And after that? Well, "either must die at the hand of
the other" left open the possibility that Harry might survive, and the
drop of blood that Voldemort took into himself in GoF made it likely
that "the power the Dark Lord knows not" would be his undoing and save
Harry. (I've left out "neiher can live while the other survives"
because it makes no sense to me even now. I do have my own
interpretation of it, but it doesn't match Harry's interpretation, one
will have to kill the other, which fits better with the preceding
line, "either must die at the hand of the other." I think JKR just got
"neither can live while the other survives" stuck in her head and
assigned it a meaning that it can't have, either logically or
grammatically.)

Pippin: 
> I think he believed in *Harry*. He believed that Harry had the
courage, resilience, resourcefulness, determination, and most of all
the moral strength to withstand the temptations of the horcruxes and
defeat Voldemort, not because the prophecy said so but because Harry
had amply demonstrated all those qualities as he was growing up.
Dumbledore also included Ron and Hermione in his plans, and they
weren't predicted by the prophecy at all -- but they did have many of
the same qualities as Harry.

Carol responds:
Nevertheless, he placed all those protections on Harry (and watched
him and gave him opportunities to test and prove himself) *before* he
knew that Harry had resourcefulness, courage, resilience, etc. Of
course, his being sorted into Gryffindor would give DD hope and
encouragement, as would Harry's parentage. (I don't like Lily or
James, but I don't deny that they both had intelligence, talent, and
courage, and James, at least, had resourcefulness.) And, of course, DD
made sure that Harry received a certain useful Hallow that was
rightfully his. I'm not so sure that he would have relinquished the IC
quite so soon or so willingly if he hadn't been quite sure that Harry
really was something more than the Boy Who Lived (no doing of his own
but the result of Lily's self-sacrifice).

Pippin:
> 
> In the event, bits of Voldemort were destroyed by Harry, Dumbledore,
Ron, Hermione, Crabbe, Neville and Voldemort himself -- there was no
single "one" who could vanquish the Dark Lord.

Carol:
True. But only Harry could perform the act of self-sacrifice that
destroyed the soul bit, protected those around him, and come back to
finish him off. I suppose that someone else could have dealt the final
blow once the Horcruxes were destroyed and LV was mortal, but neither
LV nor Harry would have let that happen. And even then, only Harry
(through a series of coincidences and luck) was master of the Elder
Wand. And probably only he would have trusted to Expelliarmus against
the Dark Lord's inevitable AK.

Of course, the Prophecy would have remained unfulfilled if Harry had
died before LV returned (he was mortal despite the soul bit until the
shared drop of blood in GoF tied his life to Voldemort's and even then
an AK could send him to King's Cross, where there would be no waiting
DD until the end of HBP). But only Harry could fulfill it. And Harry
could have failed if the Horcruxes hadn't been found and destroyed, or
if he had tried to kill LV instead of sacrificing himself, but even
then the Prophecy would have been fulfilled. He was still the one with
the power to vanquish the Dark Lord because of the scar and the Love
magic, and if he had died at Voldemort's hand, "either must die at the
hand of the other" would still be true. But there would no longer be a
Chosen One, and the WW would have lost all hope, not knowing that LV's
Horcruxes were destroyed. He would simply make one more, probably from
the soul bit resulting from Harry's murder if he can actually choose
the soul piece, and his victory would be assured.

Others besides Harry had love in their hearts (Luna had much more than
Harry did). Others besides Harry had courage and resilience. (Look at
Neville.) Others, among them Hermione and Dumbledore, had more
resourcefulness. Snape had all these traits (granted, the love was
focused on one person) and determination to match Harry's. The moral
strength to overcome the evil influence of the soul bit was, I agree,
crucial, but I think that DD's Love magic helped Harry there. None of
that would have mattered if LV had not chosen Harry and given him the
scar with the soul bit, fulfilling the first part of the Prophecy and
making the confrontation that would in some way fulfill the second
part inevitable. No one but Harry could have done that. LV could not
have been defeated while Harry lived with that soul bit in his head.
That was the key to the whole mystery, that and self-sacrifice, the
ultimate act of love that robbed LV of his formidable powers.

Carol, who thinks DD knew that this Prophecy, like those in mythology
and history, could be fulfilled in different ways because of its
innate ambiguity, but once LV knew of it and acted to thwart it, its
fulfillment in some fashion was inevitable