I decided to jump ahead to reading
Half-Blood Prince (I was at the Yule Ball in
Goblet, and decided I couldn't take reading the rest of it and
Order, which I find rather frustrating. Umbridge is just so
nasty), and all the talk of the prophecy at the beginning has got me thinking along a new line.
The prophesy says:
Quote:
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The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the dark lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the dark lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord will be born as the seventh month dies…
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What I'm wondering is what JKR means by "... the
power to vanquish ...." Does she simply mean that the person in the prophesy is the only one who can do it, or does she mean some particular ability? Dumbledore has already named one power that Harry has that Voldemort can't stand up to: Love. But by using Harry's blood in his re-embodiment spell, Voldemort co-opted that particular power, albeit second-hand (if you'll pardon the punny allusion to Wormtale's contribution to that same spell). It also occurs to me that Voldemort may have made a huge error in insisting on using Harry that way, he's likely bound the two of them together even more tightly than they were before.
But if that
is the "power" that's referred to in the first part of the prophesy, then that part has quite possibly already been fulfilled by Voldemort's first encounter with Harry. In which case, it really is a crap shoot as to what happens when next they meet.
If that's not the right "power," then what else could it refer to? Or is it just the less interesting meaning that only Harry can do something that can lead to Voldemort's death?