Prophecies and Chosen Ones

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186801

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "montavilla47" <montavilla47 at ...> wrote:

> 
> I would have liked to have an explanation for the prophecy--because
> it only works if you use the word "live" to mean "live a full, happy life."
> And it only works for Harry, because Harry's the one who has to get 
> rid of Voldemort before he can start enjoying things like snogging.  
> 
> Except for getting paged all the time by his Death Eaters, Voldemort's existence post-GoF would have been much the same whether or not Harry was alive.  He was having a high time killing people and taking  over the world.


Pippin:
The thing is, in the Potterverse, living means dying at the appropriate time, which  Harry cannot do once Voldemort has taken his blood,  and Voldemort cannot do because of the horcruxes. Fudge says that according to Dumbledore, Voldemort can't really be alive if he can't die. 

People seem to think this is too tricky or perhaps too sentimental about death, but I really think this is what JKR expects us to grasp, and to hope, if not to believe: that death at the right time is not a catastrophe but a friend to be welcomed and expected, and only a temporary separation from those we love. Sorry to be sticky, but that's what I get from canon. 

It's interesting to speculate about how Dumbledore would have gone about destroying the horcruxes if Harry hadn't survived. But Neville's emergence as a leader and successor to Harry perhaps gives us a clue. Anyway, Neville was not  on the path to leading  a full happy life with  Voldemort in charge, so I don't see how the prophecy only would hold true for Harry. 

Pippin