HBP chapters 24-26 Post DH look

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184449

> 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
 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:
True. Dumbledore knows that Trelawney can make predictions  based on
magic as well as on ordinary intuition and applied psychology
disguised as magic. Such magical predictions are rare
and curious, and certainly worthy of study, though he may politely
doubt that the ability to make them can be taught.

But does he think that such predictions are reliable? He knows that
some have come true. But does he believe that they *must* come true?
Does he ever shape his plans in response to a prediction itself,
rather than his guess as to how someone else will respond to it?

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

Pippin:
But they weren't in equal danger because Voldemort had decided that
the prophecy applied to the Potters only. If Dumbledore had believed
in the prophecy himself, he would have thought that Neville had just
as much chance of being the Chosen One, and he would have protected
Neville accordingly. Further, if he had believed it, he would have
placed Lily and James under special protection before being warned by
Snape.
 

Carol:
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. 

Pippin:
Why wouldn't that be enough?
The Dumbledore family chose to keep Ariana where she was loved instead
of at St Mungo's where she would be safe, and two people died as a
result. Dumbledore would not make the same mistake with Harry.

 I agree that Dumbledore probably suspected at once that Harry had a
soul bit stuck in him, and that this was an additional reason that
Harry needed protection from his fellow wizards, but DD wouldn't need
the prophecy to tell him that. He already knew  that murder and
horcrux construction make the soul unstable, and he would have
suspected that Voldemort had made a horcrux since he suspected that
Voldemort wasn't dead.
 

Carol:
 (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:
It would make sense to Dumbledore, and to JKR if she shares his 
belief that people aren't alive, despite being able to walk and talk
and kill others, if they can't die. (And just in case we don't get it,
she gives us the charming Bathilda  as  unliving proof!)


Harry seems to have forgotten that Voldemort is not supposed to have
heard the rest of the prophecy and doesn't know the "either must die"
part anyway.  I think Harry is simply doing everything he can think of
to make sure that Voldemort engages him in single combat. He needs to
 protect the other people in the room whom Voldemort might  use as
hostages and he wants Voldemort to die by his own spell so that he
himself will not have to cast a fatal curse. It does fulfill the
prophecy, if you read it in a rather convoluted way,  but I don't
think Harry thought about that. He's not a convoluted thinker. 


> 
> 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. 

Pippin:
It isn't just Harry who's in danger from the soul bit, it's the whole
WW. That's reason enough for the protection. If Voldemort, or anyone
else, had realized that Harry had potentially all the powers of
Voldemort, Harry would have become the target for all kinds of schemes. 

Dumbledore did hope that  Harry would become capable of eliminating
Voldemort so that his death, required by the presence of the soul bit,
would serve some purpose. That it might, by a very convoluted reading,
fulfill the prophecy as well, was IMO beside the point.
That is, from Dumbledore's pov, of course. Naturally JKR has every
intention of seeing the prophecy fulfilled, and of forcing us to 
accept her reading in order to see it as fulfilled. 

That's really the only point of having a prophecy  in the story at
all, IMO, since as Hermione points out it's not very magical to be
able to predict the future when you are in complete control of events.

Pippin