HBP chapters 24-26 Post DH look

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184457

> Potioncat:
> I'm not sure if DD was avoidng Trelawney because he already knew
what  was coming, and didn't need to hear more; or if he was concerned
he would act on something and set it in motion. It seems DD believes
once  acted upon, a prophecy becomes real.

Pippin:
I'm not sure *why* Dumbledore would believe that, since Trelawney's
second prophecy came true without anyone taking action on it at all.  

With both prophecies, if Harry had believed them and known what they
actually meant, they wouldn't have come true. If Harry had realized
that Pettigrew was going to bring about Voldemort's return, he never
would have spared him, and if Harry had realized that he couldn't die
as long as his blood lived in Voldemort, he wouldn't have been able to
offer his life in order to vanquish him.

Potioncat:
> All the prophecies we have in literature/folk lore have someone
acting  upon the prophecy. I don't think we have any stories of ones
being  ignored. 

Pippin:
Exactly. People who believe in prophecies  do not think they should be
ignored. No pious ancient Greek would have dared to suggest that some
prophecies never come true, or that one could place too much emphasis
on them.

Carol:
What, DD would think, is "the power that the Dark Lord knows not"?
Obviously, love. Ergo, Love Magic would be Harry's best protection. 

Pippin:
Dumbledore may well have been  a student of Greek myth, but if he was,
 he wouldn't need a prophecy to tell him he should look for
Voldemort's Achilles heel.  JKR shows us that Dumbledore
already knew that Voldemort's disdain for the power of love was his
great weakness.

Dumbledore couldn't use love magic directly to protect  people besides
Harry because other people hadn't been the object of a sacrifice like
Lily's. But Harry, having been given that power, *could* use it to
protect others, once he grew strong enough.  That, not the prophecy
itself, gave Harry strategic value. That Harry turned out to have some
of Voldemort's powers as well was an added bonus, but not, IMO, the
main reason that Dumbledore chose Harry as his secret weapon. 


I am not sure why you conclude that Dumbledore was giving
extraordinary protection to the Potters, protection that other people
would not get if Dumbledore knew for certain that they were being
hunted by Voldemort himself.   There is no reason to think that the
Order's headquarters in VWI wasn't protected by the secret-keeper
spell along with other safe houses just as in VW2. Probably an Auror
was assigned to shadow the Muggle Prime Minister, too. 

Of course Order members died, just as the Potters did, because
Dumbledore's protection is not an impenetrable shield. People may be
drawn out of hiding as Harry was in OOP, or they may prefer to rely on
their own resources, like Karkaroff and Slughorn, or they may consider
that Dumbledore was exaggerating the danger as James and Lily did in
dismissing the idea that one of their friends was a traitor, or they
may be killed in action like Sirius. I assume the latter is how most
of the Order members killed in VWI met their end, just as in VW2.  

It was obvious that Harry was still in danger after Voldemort's fall
since the DE's might try to take revenge on him, but why should
Dumbledore suppose that the DE's would  attack the Longbottoms? It
still isn't clear why Bella thought they would know where Voldemort was. 

Pippin