(Guest Post by Stephen F)
My hot take on the Harry Potter series is that the prophecy could never have truly meant Neville Longbottom….
This is hinted to in Order of the Phoenix but not in the way I originally thought. Harry wonders if Volde… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had targeted Neville I would be him with the lightning scar, and Harry being hugged and kissed by his own mother before heading off to school. Harry then has the dark thought that what if the sacrifice to save Neville (by his mother) didn’t happen… What if she was unable to do it? I truly believe that this would have been the case. Alice Longbottom could never have done what Lily Potter did. Not because she wouldn’t have defended Neville, not because she didn’t love him, not because she wasn’t brave. There is only ONE real defining factor in the prophecy about Volde--He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Harry Potter and that is… Severus Snape.
Lily Potter’s sacrifice was very noble and was the defining act of love that changed so much in the Wizarding World. I don’t wish to take away from that, but to add a bit of context. We are to believe that Lily put herself between Voldemort and Harry and that this act gave Harry valuable protection… But then why didn’t James’s sacrifice mean that too. We are to believe that never in the history of Voldemort’s murders had anyone tried to sacrifice themselves for their fellow wizards?
The reality is Lily’s sacrifice created the protective charm for only one reason, she chose to sacrifice herself when she didn’t have to. When Voldemort heard the prophecy and decided it meant the Potter Family he surely planned to murder them all. Destroy the only chance for his demise. If he would have chosen the Longbottoms he would have known that all of them must die. So the question must be why Lily’s death was so special, and there was only one reason for it. Snape asked Voldemort to spare her… Why else would Voldemort ask her, a muggleborn, to stand aside? Why else show her mercy? Alice Longbottom no doubt would have died for her son, but she would not have had a choice. Lily died for her son when she didn’t have to… She didn’t have to because of the love that Snape had for her.
There is only one person who really made the difference in the prophecy… Snape. He heard it… he took it to Voldemort… He realized it meant Lily… He asked for her life to spared… and due to those actions Harry was marked as Voldemort’s equal and we have the story we do….
My question is what do you all think?
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