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Voldemort's interpretation of the prophecy

Trelawney probably made her prophecy sometime between the fall of 1979 and early spring 1980. Harry and Neville were born in July 1980. So why did it take Voldemort until October 1981 to even try to kill one of them? Was he waiting for a significant date? Were the Potters and the Longbottoms just that well-hidden?

Or maybe we aren’t giving Voldemort enough credit.

We readers are introduced to the prophecy in its entirety, years after Dumbledore and Voldemort have decided who the subject is. So it seems obvious that Voldemort should have targeted babies as soon as they were born at the end of July. But was it obvious then?

Dumbledore is the one who says—in 1996, with the benefit of hindsight—that there were only ever two possible prophecy-boys, and that Voldemort “chose” Harry as the greater threat rather than just, say, going after whichever baby he got access to first. Even if he’s telling Harry what he honestly believes, he might be wrong. And he has strategic reasons to convince Harry that Harry is the only person who can defeat Voldemort, regardless of what other interpretations may have seemed plausible sixteen years earlier.

Exactly what interpretations were possible to Voldemort depends on how much Snape heard. Let’s start with the first two lines, which is what Dumbledore claims Snape heard.

“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...”

First, “the seventh month” doesn’t have to mean July. It could be September, the seventh month of the Roman calendar (“septem” means “seven”). Or the seventh month after the month the prophecy was made. Or it could mean the seventh month after the parents’ marriage, or the seventh month of gestation, or any number of things.

What about timing? You could fill in the missing part of the verb with the future tense: “He or she [there is nothing in these lines to indicate the “one’s” gender] will be born to those who have thrice defied him…” But the past tense is also possible: “He or she was born…” The choice of “dies” rather than “died” doesn’t help even if Snape is sure which he heard, because the prophecy could just be using the historical present tense, in which pasts events are spoken of as happening now. “The one” could have been born in the seventh month twenty years ago.

The only way to know for sure that the subject is a child yet to be born is if, contrary to what Dumbledore claims, Snape heard the last line (which does say “will be born”), not the first. While this is possible, we have no solid evidence, and having a larger number of possible candidates makes Voldemort’s actions in 1980 and 1981 more sensible. So, moving on with the possibilities if he heard the first line…

“Approaching” could mean approaching in time, as in, “will be born soon,” but it could just as well mean approaching space, as in, they are on a boat or plane headed toward Britain.

Or walking up to the door of the room where the Seer making the prophecy is. Snape’s first thought might be, “Oh, fuck. I can’t hide that I heard this from the Dark Lord. What if he thinks “the one” is me? There must be something in the wording to rule me out…” He was born in January, which is not the seventh month of our calendar or the Roman calendar. His parents were married for a year before his birth. We don’t know whether he was born at the end of his seventh month of gestation, but even if he was, could Voldemort know that? So he’s probably safe. Whew!

Which leaves Voldemort looking for other candidates. Who has “thrice defied” him?

There is no reason to assume this must refer to a couple. An entire family could have thrice defied Voldemort. Maybe Amelia Bones spoke out against some proposal Voldemort had one of his followers try to push through the Ministry, and Edgar Bones joined the Order of the Phoenix to fight Voldemort, and their other brother (Susan’s father) wrote a letter to the editor about how Voldemort was terrible. Or maybe two of the defiances belonged to Edgar’s father and grandfather: maybe Grandpa Bones turned Tom Riddle down for a job, and Daddy Bones refused to join his new and highly exclusive club once Voldemort returned to Britain. Either way, that’s three! Voldemort was probably planning to kill Edgar anyway; might as well kill the rest of the family too, just to be on the safe side.

Or “those who have thrice defied him” might be an entire nationality or ethnic group. Maybe during Tom’s travels in Albania, three people refused to give him directions, or saw a suspicious foreign wizard poking around and tried to interfere. Therefore, Albanians have thrice defied him, and “the one” could be Albanian. You could make equally plausible cases for a religious denomination (the one will be born to a Catholic family!) or an organization (the one will have parents in the Rotary Club!), depending on who has “defied” Voldemort, in his opinion. Or, yes, it could be a couple. But again, that couple could be old enough to have a grown child.

So babies might be on Voldemort’s list—but perhaps at the end of his list. They weren’t special targets; they were just the only ones left by October 1981.

Dumbledore claims that Snape didn’t hear the bit about the Dark Lord marking the One as his equal. We can’t prove this is true. But say it is. Snape could have heard a few more words before the “him as his equal” bit. Would that change anything?

“…and the Dark Lord will mark—”

“Mark” can mean something like “acknowledge,” as in the expression, “mark my words.” But acknowledge what? The threat? Or maybe the Dark Lord will mark something on his calendar. If he’s physically marking a person, that’s bad news—for the Death Eaters. Who are, as you recall, marked by the Dark Lord. Curses, Voldemort might think. One of my Death Eaters might have the power to vanquish me! Which of them was born to a couple, family, ethnic group, religion, or organization which has defied me exactly three times? (And what counts as "defiance," anyway?)

There are not a lot of old Death Eaters. Maybe there used to be more, but they died in a purge, or were sent on suicide missions. And if the Order knows or suspects that Voldemort is killing disloyal followers, maybe that’s why they assume Regulus was one of those purged.

Oryx and others have found hints that the Death Eaters grew more violent around 1979. The prophecy might not be the initial reason for that, but it might convince Voldemort to escalate things even more quickly than he’d planned. He suddenly has a much longer hit list.

Here’s how this might play out. The prophecy prompts Voldemort to increase protections on his Horcruxes (leading to Regulus Black’s death). Late 1979 and 1980 is the most violent period of Voldemort’s rise yet. Amongst the victims are a bunch of candidates for “the one.” He has plenty of reasons to want those people dead, so the neither the Death Eaters nor anyone else (except Dumbledore and Snape) realize there is another, double-secret reason. Toward the end of 1980, he’s down to the candidates with the best protection, like Order members and Aurors, and the long shots, like babies born in September, July, and perhaps very late spring 1980.

(If the prophecy was made slightly less than eight months before early June, Draco is a candidate. Maybe his parents weren’t defiant enough. Or maybe Voldemort was just confident that he could kill an easily-accessible baby, and wanted to put off alienating Lucius until he’d done a few more jobs for him. When Harry blew Voldemort up, that decided him in favor of Harry for good, and Draco was as safe as any of Voldemort’s followers from then on.)

Now that the easy targets are dead, he runs the list by Severus, his only follower who knows about the prophecy, to see what he knows about the remaining candidates—and, in the case of the babies, the candidates’ parents. He learns that James Potter is an arrogant jackass and Lily is very talented and might be useful to us if you spared her, my lord. (And then, unbeknownst to Voldemort, Snape goes running to Dumbledore. This doesn’t mean Voldemort told him he’d singled out the Potters specially, just that Snape is focused on the threat to Lily.) Which is nice, but Voldemort would like more current information and access to those two babies born to Order couples. He recruits Peter, or at least starts putting pressure on him and gets some information before officially recruiting him a bit later, and brags about having a new (unnamed) spy in the Order to Snape. Snape reports this to Dumbledore.

If other candidate babies are easier to get at than Harry and Neville, he bumps them off along with their families over the next few months. No one realizes the babies were the primary targets, because why would they?

Then he gets the Order of the Phoenix class photo in July—thanks, Peter! Over the next four months, he and his followers kill the Bones family, the McKinnon family, Benjy Fenwick, Dorcas Meadowes, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, and who knows how many others in and outside the Order. Voldemort may be able to multi-task: one of Edgar’s children (whether a baby or older child) might be a Chosen One candidate. Maybe a McKinnon is too. Or Dorcas Meadowes, if Snape didn’t hear as far as the Dark Lord marking “him” and so Voldemort doesn’t know the Chosen One’s gender. The surviving Order members all increase their security, as you would expect. The Potters and the Longbottoms may not stand out from the rest.

And good news, Severus has succeeded in getting a job at Hogwarts! And Barty Jr. has joined up! So, he can have Lucius pass the diary to Severus, who will give it to a child at the beginning of the school year. Once it has caused enough chaos, he can have Severus assassinate Dumbledore and Barty assassinate Crouch at the same time. The loss of their two most capable leaders will throw wizarding Britain into despair and assure Voldemort’s ascension. Yay!

In October, Peter reports that the Potters are going to cast Fidelius, and he’s gotten himself nominated as Secret-Keeper. If this is unusual compared to what the rest of the Order is doing—and it might not be—then that might convince Voldemort that Dumbledore thinks Harry is the most likely candidate. But Harry and his parents are already on his hit list, and he’s already closing in thanks to his spy, so this doesn’t change his plans.

Halloween is coming up; it might be magically significant, or maybe it’s just that Dumbledore will be distracted by the feast for a couple of hours and so it’s a good time for nefarious deeds. Either way, Voldemort can cross one more off his list. That might leave just Neville. (Unless there is a mysterious Albanian approaching, but how can he know?)

Voldemort wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing about the prophecy for a year and a half. He did start killing candidates immediately. It’s just that his list of possible Chosen Ones was much longer than we realized.

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I am going with the idea that the Prophesy Boy is Severus, born two months premature to Eileen Prince, who refused to go to the Yule Ball with handsome Tom Riddle, even though he asked her three times.

Consider: if Snape had not asked the Dark Lord to spare Lily's life, Voldy would not have given her the opportunity to step aside, and hers would have been a mere combat death like James' rather than a Magical Voluntary Maternal Sacrifice, and the AK would not have bounced off Harry's forehead with aim worthy of the Youngest Seeker in a Century and temporarily vaporized Old Vold. See? It's all because of Severus. And Love, the power the Dark Lord knows not.

Although I have to admit I'm really tempted by that Albanian immigrant who was riding the ferry to Dover at the very moment Trelawney was speaking.

That would be a nice twist! At least Sev trying to save Lily has something to do with love and would make all Dumbledore's blathering about love mean something. The power of exploiting convoluted wand mechanics just doesn't have the same impact.

And really, that is the kind of sneaky trick a prophecy would play, sounding all grand and making you think "the one" is approaching in a metaphorical way when really he's just walking up to the door.

Which also makes Aberforth a candidate. Maybe Kendra and Percival were Tutshill Tornadoes fans, and three of them elbowed Tom really hard while shoving past him to get to their seats at a school Quidditch match.

Ooh, someone could be "born" metaphorically rather than literally. Like, he is already physically born and could be any age, but is only born as "the one" when he fully comes into the power the Dark Lord knows not. (Sevvie the Voldie-Slayer?) This broadens the field even more.

If Rowling had to pull a deus ex machina out at the last minute because she was too in love with the idea of a twist no one could see coming, an Albanian swooping in to save the day at the last minute at least could not be worse than the Elder Wand business, and has some interesting possibilities. Like Harry realizing he was never the Chosen One, and Dumbledore was either horribly wrong and put him through all that for nothing, or was lying and put him through all that for what must be a really twisted reason.

Or maybe the Albanian swooped in and rescued Severus off-screen, and now Sev is "the power" an entirely different Dark Lord knows not, because everyone thinks he's dead.

An entirely different Dark Lord? Huh. Now I’m imagining seven Dark Lords fiercely defending their territories, like the dragons or the guardians in Deltora Quest.

One per continent, perhaps? Maybe Voldemort can’t leave Europe because another Dark Lord would have it out for him...

And one more idea: evidently Rowling’s WW is still colonial era, so we’d likely have India, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc. as colonies. What if ‘those who have thrice defied him’ refers to, I don’t know, embassy officials or other politicians in other countries who refused to let him in? Who’s to say he didn’t try to visit those areas and find himself rebuffed, for whatever reason, by actually competent politicians?

I wonder what the Dark Lord of Antarctica is up to?

Oh, yes, they could have turned him back at customs! Voldemort would get around that and never, ever forgive them. I love it.

Oh, the Dark Lord (Dark Lady?) of Antarctica would be the most terrifying one (at least, they would’ve been until global warming decided to show up and the ice caps began to melt). Can you imagine a Dark Lord with the Elsa-style superpower to freeze masses of land/freshwater at a time? Or, to take another leaf out of Rodda’s book, creatures that could create cold out of nowhere?

I intended this as a crack theory, but Elemental Dark Lords could’ve worked if Rowling had planned that out from the beginning. Maybe there are rare children with the power to command the elements and these are the chosen ones. Of course, that’s wildly AU, but so are the Hallows springing up out of nowhere.

Or if we want to tie it in to souls, maybe creating a Horcrux increases your power over a particular area and element, but at the cost of making you more of a spirit/more tied to your element or your landmass or whatever. So if, say, Voldie had made four Horcruxes and put them each in a place of personal significance (the cave full of Inferi for water, somewhere protected by Fiendfyre for fire, perhaps buried in the Gaunt cottage or the graveyard in Little Hangleton for earth and then... I don’t know, the Astronomy tower or somewhere for air).

Deltora Quest series 1 does it brilliantly. It has seven incredibly deadly places where the seven gems are hidden, with a guardian for each gem, and our protagonists are almost killed multiple times. Maybe someone from each of the houses could have used their supposed virtues to help out with the quest, and we would’ve had a Golden Quartet instead of a Golden Trio? and they’d have to defeat someone from their own house who was working with LV, whether voluntarily or via Imperius/enchantment.

Really, even a dystopia where Voldie is actually as malevolent as he’s supposed to be could have worked.

Huh, a different dark lord. Some might view Dumbledore as a dark lord. Also, the fact that the prophecy could be referring to a different dark lord might explain why Tom didn’t go and pick up the orb himself. And maybe that question mark next to Harry’s name on the orb created enough uncertainty that Albus was even more reluctant to allow Harry to touch it.

That uncertainty would be a good reason for everyone to want someone else to be the first to risk picking the thing up, for sure.

I am perversely enchanted with the idea of Dumbledore as the Dark Lord of the prophecy.

Let's see. The one with the power to defeat him (Severus) was literally approaching the door. Eileen might have defied Dumbledore in class three times (mouthing off or not turning in her homework or something), or maybe the Prince family as a group has defied him three times. Severus might have been born at the end of his seventh month of gestation. Dumbledore marked Severus as his equal when he basically ordered him to make sure Voldemort appointed him headmaster--they are now equal in their title and power at the school. He has power Dumbledore knows not: he's at least better at the whole "love" thing than Dumbledore, which is an admittedly low bar. He's also slightly better at actually giving Harry useful information when he needs it. Once Draco lowered his wand, either Dumbledore had to die at Severus's hand, or Severus had to die as a result (and he was arguably "at" Dumbledore's hand in the sense of proximity).

The only bit that doesn't work is "neither can live while the other survives," but that wasn't true for Harry and Voldemort either. It might even work a little better in this alternate version, because Severus has no life of his own as long as Dumbledore's alive.

And Dumbledore doesn't call himself a Dark Lord. But that doesn't mean he never did. Maybe he and Gellert both made up grandiose Dark Lord names during their summer daydream phase. They both grew up and realized the names were silly, but the prophecy demons never forget...

Edited 2020-09-16 02:56 (UTC)

Yes, I was having very similar thoughts.

Also, do you recall where/when prophecy demons were first discussed? I remember reading the post(s), but I can’t find anything now.

Edit: I found an essay on Red Hen’s site. http://www.redhen-publications.com/childforetold.html# This may be what I was remembering. And also one of your essays. https://deathtocapslock.livejournal.com/317263.html

Edited 2020-09-16 19:29 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I picked up the phrase from Jodel, yeah. We don't know what's behind the prophecies really, but something creepy seems likely. "Demons" is as good a stand-in as any.

Nice job picking apart the prophecy. This is why I dislike prophecies, both in HP and other works. More often than not they’re completely superfluous to the plot and are vague, mediocre rhymes or passages that could fit any number of people, and the author invariably pulls a bait and switch (instead of Harry, it was Neville all along!). The one thing I think Rowling did right here was to emphasise that prophecies can be self-fulfilling.

The only one I think does the Chosen One/seer well is Hobb, and that’s because her seer character truly is mysterious, and she doesn’t have prophecies anyway, she goes for the “You’re at a crossroads and your choice will affect the fate of the entire world”.

Anyway, your mention of Albanians made me think of Viktor Krum (even though Bulgaria isn’t the same as Albania). Then I thought, how wonderful if Fleur Delacour had been the Chosen One. A woman would also fit if we take ‘he’ as a collective/generic pronoun. Fleur seems to be the patsy and the token pretty girl (but not as ~special~ as Lily, of course) in nearly every one of her canon appearances. The ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’ might be some residual Veela power. Leveled up!DH!Neville would’ve worked too - I doubt Voldie would’ve known about his proficiency at Herbology, since all he would’ve seen in Snape’s memories would be a spectacularly incompetent child who needed to be mothered by Hermione. We can probably safely assume that pedagogical training and staff meetings about underperforming students are shot down quickly, if they happen at all.

Or maybe Myrtle had something to do with it.

But that would’ve required Rowling to come up with a female character who wasn’t airheaded (Parvati, Lavender), shrill and overbearing/annoying (Molly, Petunia, Myrtle, Luna), sociopathic (Hermione) or otherwise completely unsuitable.

The prophecy doesn’t specify species, either. It could be a centaur (Firenze?). Or occupation — a secret Squib grandchild of the Prewetts’, living in the Muggle world? Or an estranged Weasley, like Arthur’s accountant cousin.

Or for an alternate interpretation of ‘power’, what about a teacher who found a way to make electricity work in the magical world, powered some kind of hydroelectric dam and cut Voldie to pieces or drowned him (or just duped Peter into apparating him somewhere lethal in the Muggle world so that they could kill him there)? Or, as has been suggested, a teacher who could get access to an AK-47?

This opens up so many possibilities.

Edited 2020-08-18 02:31 (UTC)

Very good points! No one ever checked whether a centaur or a goblin was born in anything that could be considered the seventh month to anyone who could be considered to have thrice defied any Dark Lord. And they really don't consider Muggles.

I remember reading a short fic years ago in which Dean Thomas was the Chosen One. He used the power of a big yellow earth mover to crush Voldemort, iirc. It was great. (I feel like this is a game of Clue. Was it Dean, at the construction site, with the earth mover? Neville, on the battlements, with the Devil's Snare? Fleur, in the Great Hall, with distracting Veela allure and Incendio?)

There are so many "powers" that would have been interesting. Hermione set up some great foreshadowing in PS/SS when she pointed out that most wizards don't have an ounce of logic. Maybe the Chosen One is a Vulcan! They didn't consider extraterrestrials either, did they?

It's probably a good thing for Voldemort that didn't get the DADA job, or he might have had to mark a student's papers equally to his own.

Also, I should try to work out whether Dumbledore could qualify as the prophecy's Dark Lord. Eileen could have thrice mouthed off to him in class, and Sev could have been born a few weeks early...

That does sound like an interesting fic! And yes, lots of plants that could’ve worked - a wall of anything, including Devil’s Snare, would be an obstacle at least. Mandrakes (fitting revenge for CoS?), Fanged Geraniums, Bubotuber pus...

Unfortunately the mimbulus mimbletonia seems to have become another victim of slapstick humour. Because god forbid Neville be anything but comic relief until he suddenly takes a level in badass in DH. That could’ve been a really good Chekhov’s Gun.

Haha! I like Jana’s suggestion that Eileen turned down Tom’s Yule Ball invite and that’s where he got the grudge.

Edited 2020-08-18 04:37 (UTC)

Homely Eileen refused handsome Tom because she was already into muggles, and didn't think the boys at Hogwarts were sexy enough to bother with. Tom has resented muggles ever since. It would have saved Wizarding Britain a great deal of trouble if Eileen had never told Tom his equipment was too small.

Folks here at DTCL have mentioned before how magic seems to blunt the male libido, forcing witches to drug boys with love potions to get them interested in sex. Teenage Eileen preferred to spend her vacations hitting the dance clubs of Manchester, picking up guys. Eileen's marriage with Toby was not abusive but rather tempestuous: lots of screaming arguments followed by passionate make-up sex. Little Sev was soooo embarrassed.

Edited 2020-08-18 12:29 (UTC)

I absolutely love your posts, they are so insightful and thought-provoking but at the same time a lot of fun. I sometimes irritate people by picking the books apart asking the logical questions.

So many possibilities, so many questions, so very many plot holes. I just posted my first HP story on FFnet that gives a small hint (blink and you'll miss it small) of my interpretation of the prophecy. If anyone's interested in reading it let me know and I can post the link if that's allowed. If not message me and I can send it.

But keeping within the ridiculousness that JK started why stop with the deathly hallows ex Machina? Why not the Sorting Hat as the chosen one? Riddle is "defied" by each of the other founders by not being accepted in their houses. Sorting hat is "born" to those who have thrice defied him by not letting him in. As for the "power" that he knows not, let Hat drop an anvil on his head.

Thank you! I think picking apart stories is fun (some people take apart cars or computers to see how they work--why not fiction?), so at least we can all enjoy our hobby here together :-)

Did you post a link to the fic on your LJ, or some other easy pointer you can give us?

Ooh, the Sorting Hat would have been an excellent surprise Chosen One. Everyone's so used to thinking of it as a one-trick pony that they would all be caught off guard when it revealed powers they knew not. And we know that it does have at least one extra power: being a magic sword-retrieval service. What else might it do?

ETA: Comments here with links get screened iirc. They might show up eventually, but it's usually quicker to provide an alternate way to find stuff.

Edited 2020-08-22 02:46 (UTC)

I think picking apart stories is fun (some people take apart cars or computers to see how they work--why not fiction?) ...

The critical aspect of your comparison here is that cars and computers *work*. Whereas we know that Rowling's work has huge holes all over ... holes that she doesn't care about, over which she simply shrugs her shoulders. Her fiction doesn't 'work'. Walk up to an average HP fan, ask them why Harry prevailed, probe into the workings of the deus ex machina stick and typically the conversation will stumble to a halt.

I appreciate and understand the intellectual challenge of going into the fine detail of things. And I pity the people in the fandom who, like Rowling, just run away from the details rather than consider alternatives to the popularly accepted orthodoxy.

But, on the other hand ... after a while in the fandom I personally got rather jaded in doing this sort of disassembly of Rowling's work. We *know* the real world answer is that she simply didn't have the aptitude to cover all the bases. So reading other possibilities within the HP canon was something like shooting fish in a barrel. Just as easy/futile as it would be to walk up to J. Rowling and discuss her thoughts on relativity. Or anything else that would cause her to wave her hands in an 'oh, maths!' response.

I think we all, long ago, understood that Rowling's prophecy was unfocused, open ended, could apply to a myriad of dark lords and permutations. I never went further than that. The second half of your article was therefore good fun to read, with an excellent closing summation. "His list of possible Chosen Ones was much longer than we realised". Heh. Or longer than *Rowling* realised. Her fictitious villain was smarter than his author! :)

/Or anything else that would cause her to wave her hands in an 'oh, maths!' response./

This reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live sketch where Chevy Chase was doing a parody of former US President Gerald Ford and said "It was my understanding that there would be no math."

I'm not the greatest with numbers either but I can look up a calendar for pity's sake.

Edited 2020-08-22 14:25 (UTC)

cars and computers *work*

Well, not all of them ;-) People still enjoy figuring out what's gone wrong with the broken ones.

I don't believe for a minute that Rowling realized how many different ways the prophecy could be interpreted. But since she accidentally left that door open and gave us a chance to let Voldemort be at least semi-competent, I think we're justified in taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Here's the link and description.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13672918/1/To-Face-What-He-Denied

The end was only the beginning for Severus Snape. After that, there is a clarity to be found and one can see things as they really are, not how one imagined them to be. This story picks up during the Deathly Hallows at the scene where Snape has just been bitten by Nagini and has been left for dead by Voldemort. This is AU and will be more of a character study of Snape.

Our Albanian immigrant, as he sails across the Channel, is being “borne” by those who have thrice defied the Dark Lord. A couple of the crewmen just happen to be old salts who were drunkenly rude (three times!) to little Tommy on one of the orphans’ seaside holidays back in the day.

Also, with regard to the Sorting Hat: it is “borne” into the Great Hall by the Deputy Head of Hogwarts at the opening feast each year, so it could easily qualify as the object of the prophesy.

Edited 2020-08-19 21:03 (UTC)

Oh, yes, we can't forget homophones. Good catch. There's no way Severus--or anyone--could be sure it was "born" rather than "borne." And that's exactly the sort of sneaky trick a prophecy would play on listeners.

Maybe Tom decided that it was either Harry or Neville because he’d heard that Dumbledore believed it was one of the two. And Dumbledore thought Harry to be the more likely candidate because Neville hadn’t yet appeared on the Hogwarts registry.

It might have ended up that way. It seems like the Potters weren't especially more "in hiding" than probably any other Order member until quite late in the war, so maybe Dumbledore telling them they needed additional security tipped off Voldemort via Peter that Dumbledore thought they were candidates. (He heard the whole prophecy, so Voldemort would assume he had additional clues.) But that might not have been until, say, spring 1981, give or take a few months. Voldemort could easily have been knocking off other possible candidates for a year before that point.

Either way, I think Dumbledore giving Harry the impression that Voldemort only ever considered Neville and Harry, and chose Harry specially (rather than just managing to turn one of the Potters' friends but not one of the Longbottoms' friends, say) is... uh, not necessarily a full or accurate account.

I can see why he'd give Harry this highly edited account that skips all the other possibilities. I mean, what if the kid started asking if maybe it could still refer to someone else?

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