This has just occured to me after re-reading OoTP (AGAIN!!!). When Harry picks up the prophecy...it says:

S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter.

Has anyobdy actually thought what those letters could stand for? It's really bugging me!!

It annoyed me too, but I figured out what they meant:

Sybill P. Trelawney to Albus Percival W (can't remember) Brian Dumbledore.

Professor Trelawney made the prophecy to Dumbledore, remember?

Hope that helped!

*chhermione*

Well, a sufficient answer was given I suppose, but seeing as Im extremely bored in the hour before I go to work.. I will develop the line of inquiry a little more.

S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter.

Sibyll Patricia Trelawney to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter.

Obviously, as stated above, the Prophecy was made by Sybill Trelawney to Dumbledore at an interview for the post of Divination. As we also know, this was the same time that Severus Snape "overheard" the prophecy, relaying it back to his master, the Dark lord, thus setting in motion the events for the entire series.

The label on the Prophecy mentions the Dark Lord, one of the persons included in the Prophecy. It also says "(?) Harry Potter." The question mark is there because it was unknown at the time the Prophecy was made who the "one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" was. The Keeper of the Hall felt it was appropriate to name the "one with the power" as Harry Potter, because of the events at Godric's Hollow.

I hope that helped!

~Albus

.

Albus, so you think the labelling was imposed retroactively? And why "dark lord" instead of Voldemort? Is there anything fishy here? (DL is of course the language used in the prophecy, so I guess its technically most apt, and yet it's odd for the ministry to use that in their labelling....).

Thank you, Albus Dumbledore, I was very tired when I posted (I still am) and you answered it very well, better than what I said.
Do you think you could give me a quote on where it says Sybill's middle name? I can't recall it so I would like to have a look.
Yes, pumpkinjuice, there is something fishy there.........don't only DEs call Voldie the Dark Lord?

Hmm.....I wonder if the person who labelled it was a Death Eater?

The label was imposed immediately after the Prophecy was reported, most likely by Dumbledore. But why would Dumbledore report such a thing, if times were desperate, and he did not want Voldemort to know the full Prophecy? Perhaps there is magic involved, and the Prophecies are magically recorded in the Hall of Prophecy... and the keeper edits the labels. We know that the label was edited after the fall of Voldemort because of the "(?)". They did not know who the "one with the Power" was, and did not know until Harry's parents were killed, and Harry survived Voldemort's unmaking. That is when they added the "Harry Potter" afterward. So yes, part of the label was imposed retroactively, as you put it.

This add some confusion to the story though. Is the DoM hall of Prophecy classified? Who is allowed to know that there is a Prophecy about Harry? Why does the Wizarding World call him the Chosen One? If they call him the Chosen One, the must know enough that there atleast was a Prophecy made. Dumbledore says only he and Harry know the full Prophecy, but why didnt someone mention a Prophecy to Harry sooner considering that they call him the Chosen One and a Keeper of the Hall edited his name in. There is a lot of questions.

As for the reasoning behind the term "Dark Lord". I suppose the keeper of the Hall must be objective in his labelling, especially when Dark Lord is used in the Prophecy. The Prophecy was thought to have meant the Dark Lord Voldemort, but could indeed have meant about some distant Future Dark Lord.... so Dark Lord would be used in labelling for the sake of thoroughness and chance of misinterpretation. But once Harry lived, and Voldemort gone, they added Harry's name, not bothering to remove Dark Lord, because that indeed was his title.



It wasnt in the books. I found it on Wikipedia.org, and I usually trust them for Potter Information, seeing as I have edited a few of the pages myself. I am going to assume that Patricia came from one of the trading cards, a game, or directly from JKR herself.

~Albus

I figured out that it stood for Trelawney and Dumbledore as soon as I posted this..bnut then I was annoyed...like you guys..as to why it says the Dark Lord...is it...POSSIBLE....that Trelawney could...be bad.....Hmmmmmm!!!!

Trelawney be bad.......hmmmm seeing as she doesn't remember herself saying that then I'd say no but good idea. I could be wrong, though.

Hmm.....we just don't know. WE have towait another half a year or whatever it is...to find out!!! It's killing me!

It's just odd that it says the Dark Lord...and not Lord Voldermort...hmm

I dont know if it appears elsewhere, but JKR does say "Patricia" in her World Book Day interview prior to the publication of HBP:


I'm still a bit stumped on the Dark Lord. If as Albus said the keeper of the Prophecies edited the title to reflect "Harry Potter" after the attack, why did s/he not also edit "Dark Lord" to specify Voldemort and precisely NOT some future Dark Lord? Unless of course they are unsure that the actions of LV are in fact the fulfillment of the prophecy.....it is theoretically possible that the prophecy is about other people and always has been I suppose.....

The use of DarkLord and Harry with a question mark suggest a possibility of allegiance to LV on the part of the label maker. Both would actually fit with a DE labelling it between LV finding out about it and the attack on the Potters being carried out. That the label was then never changed would suggest that the DE in question lost the job or otherwise departed (Pettigrew?)

Perhaps the reason that the label says Dark Lord instead of He Who Must Not Be Named or You Know Who is because Trelawny used Dark Lord.I dont ever remeber her using LV or any of the other neumerous names he has ,just "The Dark Lord"

well even the ones who recorded the prophecy would have been scared to use his real name. and it would have looked stupid " he who must not be named"

Mod Edit: Short posts are not allowed. Go read the Rules.

~Triad.

You guys are all right! I totally agree... Putting "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" on the prophecy, or putting, "You-Know-Who" would be a bit unprofessional. Cornelius Fudge wouldn't have done things that way, with him being so into the image of the Ministry of Magic. Yeah, but anyway those initials stand for:

Sibyl P. Trelawney to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

Cheers

I don't think Trelawney is evil for saying "Dark Lord" in her prophecy. She has no control on what she says in her prophecy's and can't remember them either.

I think the only one who would have put "Dark Lord" on there is Dumbledore because he would be the only one capable at the time. Nobody else had heard the entire prophecy (supposedly...I think Snape heard the whole thing but thats for another thread), so he would be the only one knowledgeable to do so. Unless they're recorded magically, which would mean that there is no room for interpretation if it also included "(?) Harry Potter". The magic behind it would assume that it meant him, even before the attack on Godric's Hollow. So I think they can be editted, and Albus Dumbledore did a great job summing it all up, in my opinion.

There is also a general consensous that if someone says "Dark Lord" they're automatically a Death Eater or are in league with Voldemort. This is false, though, since Dumbledore and Sirius have mentioned that reference throughout the books (or instead of Sirius it was Lupin), and Snape has said it if he is still a good guy.

Yeah, I like the prospect of the magically recorded prophecies because it lines up with the secrecy Dumbledore kept on the Prophecy. But Dumbledore also says that the Keeper of the Hall edited Harry's name after the fall of the Dark Lord.. so I don't know what to think. Either way, it most likely was written as Dark Lord simply because the Prophecy stated it as such. And if you are talking about my summing in my last few posts, then I thank you, but if you were in fact talking about the Albus Dumbledore, from the books, then I agree with that as well.



Yeah, I am thinking along the same lines. I do not think that the person who wrote the label was a death eater for reasons that El Barto stated. Other people refer to Voldemort as The Dark Lord and it cant be used definitively to say that someone is a Deth Eater or not.

~Albus

No, Tom, I was talking about you Great summary!

I must've missed that part where Dumbledore said the keeper editted it. They are, after all, unspeakables. Not too sure if that is to be taken literally...I suppose they can talk but aren't allowed to, I wouldn't imagine them not being able to talk at all because that would be a horrible job. What if Dumbledore told the keeper who the prophecy referred to. But why do that at all, then? Wouldn't it have been better to keep it a secret (keep Harry's name off the prophecy and possibly 'Dark Lord', and even the initials...but then there would be a blank prophecy ball) to prevent book 5 from happening?

Perhaps they need some sort of identification procedures or something for the hall of prophecy's. Something like, who said it and to who, and the subject (s); or else it isn't considered a prophecy but a mere phrase said by someone. Honestly, I had something going with that but it slipped my mind...I'm also a bit under the weather right now

I think their called 'unspeakables' because their top secret they can't reveil any information about what they do. And they probebly have to label the prophercy so the people whom it was made about could pick it up and hear it. I don't know if there would have been a countercurse to allow the 'unspeakables' to touch it again.
I think its suppose to be anti-theft or something.
And the reason i think that they put 'Dark Lord' on instead of Voldemort is because that Trelawney didn't say-
'The one with the power to vanqiush 'Voldermort' approches...'
She said-
'... vanquish 'the Dark Lord' approaches...'
I dont know if anyone else wrote that.
probebly.
oh well .
too bad i did it too.

Thats what I was getting at They work with classified or top secret things (the unspeakables). But, like you said Benevolent Force, it doesn't say "Voldemort" in the prophecy but it also doesn't say "Harry Potter". It was editted, or at least thats what we can assume because of the question mark before it. My guess is that anyone can call themselves the "dark lord"...kind of like, say, Edgar Cayce (sp?) said that a part of Atlantis would be discovered in 1968 or 69 (not sure on the date..). While the Bimini Road is thought to have been that discovery, who's to say that a single person didn't discover a part of Atlantis and just didn't tell anyone...assuming Cayce is indeed a prophet or what have you.

What I'm getting at is that the prophecy can be interpreted anyway you want. The One and The Dark Lord could be completely different people in a far off generation or they could be Voldemort and Harry, but we know what the story is about so the interpretation of Harry and Voldemort should be right, hopefully.

So, why put Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter, while everyone knows that Voldemort at the time was the Dark Lord? Maybe the unspeakable who editted it, or wrote it down in the first place, assumed that Voldemort had died that night, like a lot of others did. But the prophecy was given before Voldemort's downfall. Maybe it was only relayed to an unspeakable after his death? But how does that explain all the other prophecy's? Surely not every single one of those is only there because the person who heard the prophecy (or said the prophecy and remembered it) went and told an unspeakable...

So I'm guessing these seers try to rely on an unseen magical force that somewhat binds everyone together. While it could be fate, we have learned throughout the series that that can be changed. Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort didn't have to act on the prophecy...but he did. If he didn't, would the events still have taken place just in a different set of circumstances? Who knows. Anywho...this unseen force has been tapped into by the unspeakables, or at least some sort of device they have, which records the prophecy. Someone has to hear it again in order to place it inside those glass balls and then write on it who it refers to. Dumbledore couldn't have just come to the Department of Mysteries and picked a random ball and said that that was the prophecy.

While I don't think its a major part of the story, I think it is possible that an unspeakable had to have heard the prophecy and interpreted it. But maybe was interupted which would help to explain why Dumbledore said that he and Harry are the only ones who have heard the entire thing. But then how did the unspeakable know that Trelawney was saying it to Dumbledore? Maybe, like that broken prophecy, you have the visual of the person who said it. What if that is like an echo of the person who said it? And then the unspeakables do detective work and track down the person who said it in order to verify it. To me it makes sense

1) Prophecy is given and recorded in the Department of Mysteries
2) An unspeakable maybe can only see the echo of the person who gave it
3) After seeing the echo, they track the person down to verify it
4) In this case, Dumbledore stopped the person from talking to Trelawney
5) Dumbledore told the unspeakable what happened and who the prophecy refered to
6) Using the term dark lord prevents somebody from knowing about Horcruxes, because most already believed that Voldemort had died after his attack. So if somebody came strolling by they'd see "dark lord" rather than "Voldemort" and while they could think it means Voldemort they wouldn't know for sure. If they did think that, they can assume the prophecy had already been given.

Can anyone just walk into the hall of prophecies anyway?

ok, I think I left my brain back at the atlantis bit!
lets say that someone went into the hall of prophercies believing voldemort dead, and assuming that the label 'Dark Lord' meant volemort. say it is an unspeakable that worked there, wouldnt they know it hadn't been forfilled because it still was glowing. so they would have to believe that the prophercy was about some other dark lord and harry potter.
not Voldemort.
(this is after it was relabled)
does this make sence?

ok we all now agree that the prophecy is obviously from sybil to albus now let's just look at it this way if the prophecies are recorded automatically then they are transcribed automatically as well and updatred accordingly ie (THE DARK LORD vs (?) ) to (THE DARK LORD vs (?) HARRY POTTER it is the only thing that makes since because the prophecy couldn't have had HARRY's name on it prior to that night in Godric's Hollow because THE DARK LORD had not yet marked him as an equal and why would someone bother adding HARRY's name to the prophecy had been fulfilled since everyone believed THE DARK LORD to be dead

It gets confusing as the series progresses. There was a celebration in the first book that was percieved as the death of Voldemort (first chapter, Dumbledore and McGonnagal are talking about it). However, as we move on, we learn that Hagrid thinks that Voldemort is still out there, bidding his time. The Lestranges seemed to determined after his death to get his whereabouts from the Longbottoms. Even Charlie Weasley says something along the lines in one of the opening chapters in Goblet of Fire that Voldemort is still out there. They could be guessing or in denial, or they all somehow know something

im not sure but i think the ? in the title of the prophecy
is there because they werent sure the prophecy was about harry.
Remember Neville also had the same conditions, he was born around
the same time, and his parents also fought voldy

That's why i think the '(?)' is there.
I'm pretty sure that is what it means.
And maybe V was going to kill both boys but chose Harry first, then because the spell backfired he couldn't get at Neville.
So maybe he really didn't choose any boy inperticular to kill.
Just a thought.
I don't know if there's another thread with thoughts on this subject.

Ok, this is a thought about the labelling of the prophecy as "the dark lord" I don't know if this is true or if I think its right but, I was just pondering that maybe it was a Death Eater that labelled the prophecy, for example Rockwood(sp?), and as, in my opinion, the unspeakables are unable to say anything about the DoM, no one has ever said anything.
Sorry if that's complete rubbish, just thought it was worth a memtion as I don't think anyone has said it before.

im-loveli-rli

Yeah, that would make since because the only ones who call Voldy "The Dark Lord" are Death Eaters... But I think it was Snape who labled it, because he was the other one there when Trelawney made the prophecy, and Dumbledore trusted him, and he always refers to Voldy as the Dark Lord...

Well it could mean she is a death eater. As only death eaters call voldemort the dark lord. But as she has no recollection of what she said this also could mean this whole thing is a fluke. She could have said "Dark Lord" at that time. Because when the prophecy was made voldemort was at full strength and perhaps she said it because she was scared.

I don't think it was Snape who labelled it as I thought only 'Unspeakables' were allowed to. Plus Snape would have known the full content of the prophecy and we know he didn't.

Well it hasn't really said anywhere that it is the unspeakables who do label them... It sould be that if a prophet is made, you put it in the ball think label it and send it the DoM...


I don't think Trewalney is a Death Eater...
Hasn't Dumbledore already explained that it was a fluke? That it never would have happened unless Voldy found out about it and killed Harry's parents??

It is strange to know that Voldemort made Harry the person who could kill him. By what DD says in HBP Harry got all he needed to kill Voldy from Voldy himself. Voldemort killed Harry's parents, killed Cedric, killed Sirius and DD (well he was the reason!) and thus provided Harry with that desire to get revenge which is the most important thing.

So in a way that Prophecy is well just something which is not so important now.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but Rookwood wasn't an unspeakable.

Rookwood was an unspeakable. It's mentioned in the pensieve at Ludo Bagmans trial.
im-loveli-rli

I think the Unspeakables have to have some sort of spell put on them so that they can hold normal conversations, but don't accidentally let anything that shouldn't be made common knowledge slip...that would explain why Voldemort was not aware of the rest of the prophecy even though Rookwood was an Unspeakable. What else would stop Voldemort from sending Rookwood to obtain the contents of the full prophecy after being told of it by Snape?

ok well as everyones saying s.p.t. to a.p.w.b.d. means sibyl patricia trelawny to albus percival wulfric brian dumbledore. i think it says dark lord instead of voldemort because in the wizarding world everyone one says the dark lord or he-who-must-not-be-named or something like that. well, as far as i remember......none of the wizards besides harry, dumbledore, and sirius have ever called voldemort voldemort instead of you-know-who. well that's just my opinion =) hope it helped!

Sibyll Patricia Trelawney to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter.

sorry but u said that every wizard beside harry sirius and dumbledore called voldemort voldemort i disagree because hermione always say and i think that harry's parents called voldemort and a lot of brave people who believed that the fear of a name just encourages fear of its owner

Sybill P..... Trelawny to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Hope that helps you
xxxx much love xxxx

"Sybill P. Trelawney to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore." It stands for that. At first I couldn't understand what it was, either, but when I read HBP I understood Hope I helped

as dumbledore had said to harry, snape did only heard the first part of the prophecy, so as he has told his master then.
the newly reborn voldemort would want to hear the entire contents of the prophecy, because of what had happened in the graveyard, his and harry's wands had acted most peculiarly in their duel. he would want to know the entirety of the prophecy before taking steps with his plans. the very night the dark lord's rebirth, harry had once again escaped him, so he become obsessed with wanting to hear the other half of the prophecy.

The Dark Lord is not a foolish man, and he's not about to go after something foolishly because of a few words from a possible seer. He rarely takes risks, and the chance to validate the prophecy would allow him to make his next move. However, because of the lack of time he was given to piece it all together, the actions he took were, perhaps, not the best. He came to the conclusion that getting rid of the threat sooner than latter would be the best course of action, as he wasn't going to risk any chance of loosing his power. We see this with other single-party states leaders such as Stalin and Mao who both purged their parties and the general population to prevent anyone from usurping their power. I doubt that the Dark Lord was any different.

After this failure, which cannot be attributed to anyone, as Snape didn't know he was going to hear something so valuable this day, and the Dark Lord had no idea how significant the rest of the prophecy would be, the Dark Lord then searched for any reason for why he failed.

This leads me to one question. If the Dark Lord knew that something had gone wrong, why did he not attribute it to the prophecy, and thus Snape? From all we know, he never blamed Snape for what went wrong, though it seems so easy. Snape was very good at Legimency, as we all know well and I doubt the Dark Lord is so oblivious, thus it wouldn't be that hard for him to lie to the Dark Lord. We know he's done it before. He could have easily blamed Snape for his failure in that Snape didn't tell him all the truth, and that there was a part he left out to force the Dark Lord out of power and become the next leader. It would have made so much since, and have been rather justified. Yet this question was never asked. Why?


~Aeryn~

This has probably already been answered but S.p.t means Sybil ... Trelawney to Albus Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Because Dumbledore was the one the prophecy was made to and Trelawney was the one who made the prophecy about Harry/Neville and Voldemort.

It's from Professor Trewlaney (Sibyll; I don't know what the 'P' stands for; Trelawney) to Dumbledore (Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore)

It must just be referencing the circumstances from who predicted, whom it was predicted about and to.