Dumbledore got to his feet and fumbled in his pockets for a bit. He pulled out a small black box which he placed on the floor. "I almost forgot this in my haste to reach you. Luckily, I remembered in time to carry it with me. As I am still not allowed to do magic within your house would you kindly place your wand upon this and perform a standard shrinking reversal spell," he said.
Harry did so and the box expanded into a fine black trunk, Dumbledore bent down, opened the lid and took from inside it a shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges. Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple, he paused. "This is not really a form of active magic. Will it trigger your wards if I remove a memory?" he asked.
Harry waved his wand and cast a few spells. "Now it won't," he said. "I've set the wards to allow you to cast just one spell. You can go ahead and do it now"
Dumbledore placed his wand to his temple again. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand and deposited them into the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and 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. But when Sybill Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before:
"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 was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Harry made a sound.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. "It . . . did that mean . . . what did that mean?"
"It 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 twenty-six years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."
"It means — me?" asked Harry.
Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.
"The odd thing, Harry," he said softly, "is that it may not have meant you at all. 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."
"Then — it might not be me?" said Harry.
"I am afraid," said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, "that there is no doubt that it is you."
"But you said — Neville was born at the end of July, too — and his mum and dad —"
"You are forgetting 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. "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, Harry: he chose, not the pure-blood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing) 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 multiple times so far — something that few other wizards have ever achieved."
"Why did he do it, then?" said Harry. "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 — "
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