Dumbledore and the psychic magic (was: Prophecy)

[mcrudele78]

No: HPFGUIDX 187576

> Potioncat:
> (Hi Mike, good to see you posting!)

Mike: Thanks, PC :)


> Potioncat:
> Scenario 3 (or whatever) Snape over hears and tells LV. LV waits a few years before taking action. Longbottom family is worried Neville is a Squib. Potter family is chasing Harry down the street on his broom and undoing accidental magic. LV makes his choice and targets Potters. Snape asks for Lily and goes to DD. LV attacks little Harry. Lily refuses to step aside and things progress as before. Only LV was around a few more years.
> 
> It could work, but the way it did happen is better.

Mike:
Really, PC, you put in all the elements in your Scenario 3 (I think it was around scenario 16 when you count the whole list). So, yeah it could've worked that way, and yeah I like the way JKR did it better.



> Potioncat:
> 
> So some magic works to have everything in place for the prophecy to be fulfilled. I think DD's actions are just as important as those of Snape, LV and Trelawney--from the standpoint of the prophecy.

Mike:
Piggybacking on your DD reference, I got me a question to pose. I'm going to start with the assumption that prophecies and all those other psychic phenomena that Sibyll and her ilk practiced are forms of magic. They are elementarily explainable in the WW, but Muggles don't understand them and mostly don't believe in them. You (generic you) are free to make a different or contradictory assumption.

My question: How much stock does Dumbledore put in this kind of magic? 

I ask this because DD seems disdainful of Sibyll throughout the series (at least to me he does). I'm not sure how much of that is due to his opinion of that branch of magic (remember, he said he was considering dropping the subject at Hogwarts), and how much of it was due to his lack of confidence in Sibyll's abilities. And I have no proof of my supposition, it just seemed to me that DD's general tenor towards Sibyll was of part exasperration and part unbelieving.

Which brings me to the second part of this question; though DD certainly believed that The Prophecy was a working and true prophecy, he also seems to think that Harry could've ignored the prophecy and stop playing by its rules. Granted, LV wasn't going to ignore it completely, but LV was acting out the remainder of the prophecy in the blind, he didn't hear the second part. What I'm getting at is that though DD says that Sibyll has two (2) true prophetic utterances under her belt ( this one and the one about Peter), he acts as if the players in the prophecy aren't bound by it, aren't bound by the magic of it. 

So does DD believe it takes magic to make a prophecy and that's as far as the magic goes, that the prophecy could be true and still be thwarted by the actions of the players, or that the prophecy, if true, emparts a magic of it's own to ensure it becomes fulfilled in some way, shape, or form? Remember, I'm asking what DD believed, not what you believe, though if you want to throw in your opinion of how prophecies function in the Potterverse, far be it from me to tell you to do otherwise.

I thank you for your support.
Mike, offering 2 bonus points to whomever remembers what product's commercials were ended by that (slightly paraphrased) tag line? ;)