HP Timeline: Neville, Harry, Spoilery

[Milz]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
>> 
> > > Pippin:
> > > Yes, yes, but nothing in the prophecy says that it only applies 
to
> > > English wizards. Indeed, it rather sounds as if it doesn't: 'and
> > > he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not.' Only Voldemort
> > > could decide who are the people who have defied him three 
times, 
> > > and he has traveled far and wide, consorting with the worst of
> > > magical kind.
> 
> Milz:
> > True. However if that were the case, then Dumbledore and the OoP 
had
> the responsibility to see that ALL magical babies born in late July
> were monitored or at least hidden in a safe spot. As Kneasy pointed
> out in his post, it doesn't matter if Dumbledore believed the
> prophecy or not, what mattered was that Voldemort believed it
> or there was a possibility that Voldemort would believe it. 
> 
> Pippin:
> What matters, according to Dumbledore, is that prophecies come true
> only so far as people choose to act on them.  If Dumbledore panics 
and
> tries to hide every baby (magic or not;  Voldemort is terrified that
> one among those whom he has oppressed will rise against him) then 
> Voldemort is likely to think that _every_  baby born at the end of
> July must be destroyed (shades of Herod and King Arthur.) 
> 
> Dumbledore will be responsible for a massacre. 
> 
Unless other children were born in late July whose parents deifed 
Voldemort 3 times, there were only 2 babies in the UK (and perhaps 
the world) that fit the prophecy description: Neville Longbottom and 
Harry Potter. The prophecy is pretty specific in that regard.  

Voldemort didn't panic and try to kill Neville too. He choose Harry. 
Why? Dumbledore suspects that Voldie picked the child who was his 
birth-equal, because Voldie "saw himself in Harry". That leads to the 
questions of how did Voldie know the identities of these babies and 
how did he know their parentage in order to pick one? In other words, 
Voldie had enough information about the July babies in order to 
narrow it down to the Longbottoms and the Potters. 

> On the other hand, if Dumbledore sits tight and lets Voldemort stew
> over which child is the One, then they'll all be safe, or as safe as
> any child can be in such times, until Voldie makes up his mind.  Of 
> course Voldemort could slaughter them all just to be on the safe
> side, but not if he wanted  to use the death of the One to make a 
> horseblanket. 
>

That's what I think Dumbledore did: No one 
knows who Voldie will pick, so let's just keep our fingers crossed 
that he'll take a long time deciding? It's irresponsible. 

The most obvious choice would have been Neville--the pure blood. 
Voldie and the DEs thought the pure bloods were superior to the half-
blood or muggle-born. So a pure blood would most likely have the 
power to destroy Voldie than a half-blood. But then, a pure blood is 
too obvious a choice, so a half-blood would make more sense also. 
See, Voldie could have easily decided to kill both Neville and Harry--
to cover all bases. Therefore to not act on the prophecy immediately 
and protect these two families would be irresponsible. And that's why 
the timeline doesn't make sense. If the Prophecy occured 16 years 
before the second half of the school year in OoP, then Dumbledore 
knew about it at most for 1 year. Rowling's recent interview says 
that Harry was christened while the Potters were in hiding but gives 
no dates. YET, PoA gives the date of the "going into hiding" shortly 
before Pettigrew was made Secret Keepr in late October 1981.   

> Milz
> > According to PoA, the Fidelus Charm was performed on Pettigrew one
>  week before Halloween, 1981. Moreover, canon doesn't state how long
> it takes to perform the Fidelus Charm. 
> 
> The Fidelus Charm has more in  common with the Unbreakable Vow 
> than the Animagus transfiguration because the Fidelus and the 
> Unbreakable Vow work on the same basic principles of trust and
> integrity. So, if the Unbreakable Vow took a matter of minutes to 
do, 
> I don't think the Fidelus Charm would have taken years.
> 
> Pippin:
> Interesting analogy, but it doesn't hold up, I'm afraid.
> 
> "An immensely complex spell" [Professor Flitwick] said
> squeakily,"involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a
> single living soul." PoA ch 10
> 
That still doesn't say that it takes days, months, or years to do the 
spell. It only says it's complex. Making fudge brownies from scratch 
is 
more complex than making fudge brownies from a box mix, but both can 
be 
done within the 2 hours. Complex is describes the degree of 
difficulty: it's not a description of time.

> "We've set up headquarters somewhere undetectable. It's taken a
> while" --Lupin OOP ch 3
> 
Here's the full version of that quote:

"Not the Burrow, no, "said Lupin, motioining Harry toward the 
kitchen; the little knot of wizards followed, all still eyeing Harry 
curiously. "Too risky. We've set up headquarters somewhere 
undetectable. It's takes a while..."

No mention at all about a Fidelus Charm being used. In fact, it could 
refer to a charm or spell that makes objects undetectable.

> Milz: 
> > Anyhow, it's still at least 1 year between the time of the 
prophecy
> > and Halloween 1981. 
> 
> Pippin:
> Which seems to be the outside limit of anybody hiding from 
Voldemort.
> But Fidelius isn't the only way to do it. Karkaroff and Slughorn 
were
> both on the run for about a year. I think James and Lily went into
> hiding when the spy informed Dumbledore whom Voldemort had chosen. 
> The choice was not obvious since Dumbledore found it credible that
> Snape had no idea that Voldemort would conclude that the prophecy 
> applied to Lily and James. 
> 

Again, why wait until October 1981 to go into hiding when Dumbledore 
knew about the threat for at least 1 year? As much as I hate to sound 
like Tom Ridge and Rumsfeld, it was a credible and specific threat to 
the children born in late July whose parents defied Voldie 3 times. 
What Dumbledore did was to not do anything until he 
knew 'absolutely'  Voldie was essentially knocking on the doors of 
Godric's Hollow looking for the Potters---too little too late and 
abjectly irresponsible on Dumbledore's and the Ministry's part. And 
that's why the timeline bothers me: it makes it appear that 
Dumbledore sat on the information until the last minute (which makes 
Kneasy's idea of Dumbledore using the children as bait even more 
intriguing)

> It is still a big secret what L&J  did for the Order, so it's also
> possible they were already in hiding because of that, and not 
because
> of the prophecy per se.
> 

That's a possibility too. But again, my problem lies with the 
timeline, because it doesn't make sense pragmatically, ethically, 
strategically---unless Dumbledore was using Neville and Harry as 
bait, which raises questions about Dumbledore's ethics.

Milz