Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Evan and Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes’s perch.

He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from inside it a shallow stone basin, the Pensieve.

“From beginning to end, this prophecy has been crucial. It determined that you are Voldemort’s opponent—not me, not Evan, not anyone else, but you, Harry,” said Dumbledore, walking back to his desk and placing the Pensieve upon it. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn in Hogsmeade, I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave, but to my surprise, she was probably inspired by this incident at that time. She made a real prophecy, which was the beginning of everything.”

Dumbledore raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment.

Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin, and Sybill Trelawney spoke, in those harsh, hoarse tones.

“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…”

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence within the office was absolute. No one made a sound, even Fawkes had fallen silent.

“Yes, a real prophecy,” said Dumbledore.

He was still staring at the Pensieve, seemingly completely lost in thought.

“But what did she mean?” Harry asked, “Why …”

“She meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”

Harry felt as though something was closing in upon him. His breathing seemed difficult again.

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.

“The odd thing is, Harry,” he said softly, “Sybill’s prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.”

“But why was it my name on the prophecy and not Neville’s?”

“The official record was relabeled after Voldemort’s attack on you as a child,” said Dumbledore, picking up the prophecy orb again. “It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sibyll was referring.”

“But it might not be me?” said Harry. “I don’t understand why it had to be me?”

“I am afraid that there is no doubt that it is you,” said Dumbledore slowly.

“But you said — Neville was born at the end of July too — and his mum and dad —”

“The key is the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort… Voldemort himself would ‘mark him as his equal.’ And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse.”

“But he might have chosen wrong!” said Harry immediately. “He might have marked the wrong person!”

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice this. He chose, not the pureblood, but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but even when facing him alone — something that neither your parents, nor Neville’s parents, ever achieved.”

“Evan did it too; he escaped from Voldemort many times.”

“Oh, I think that’s because Evan is involved in another prophecy and the plans left by the Four Founders of Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore solemnly. “But his opponent is not Voldemort. The only one who can defeat Voldemort is you; Voldemort himself chose you.”

“I don’t understand, why did he do it?” said Harry, who felt numb and cold. “Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then…”

“That might, indeed, have been the more practical course,” said Dumbledore, “except that Voldemort’s information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog’s Head Inn, which Sibyll chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. This inn is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. Our one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building.”

Evan sniffed. It was Snape who eavesdropped on the prophecy, an incomplete prophecy.

Dumbledore would never tell this to anyone, he had promised, which was why he hadn’t let them into the Pensieve.

Eavesdropping on that prophecy was probably the most painful event in Snape’s life—it was, in itself, a mistake.

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