More theories!
About the prophecy given at the end of Order of the Phoenix:
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...
Now, this has been bothering me since I read it. Not most of it, just one line. "Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..."
Majority of the prophesy simply specifies who the one "with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" is. Vanquish. Not kill. I'm not saying I'm right - again, I highly doubt that I am - it's just an alternate reading that I've not yet seen anywhere. (Not the vanquish part. That has been mentioned many times.) All the specifications point to Harry as the one with that power. That's fine. Unless even Dumbledore is seriously misreading the prophesy, then all the indicators point to Harry. And the "power the Dark Lord knows not" seems to be love, and a willingness to sacrifice oneself. (Gosh, now, that just gave me more ideas that I don't even want to bother with right now...) Then we come to the line that bothers me. And probably everyone else who's read the books and cares whether or not Harry survives the series!
"Either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives."
Well... What if "the other" is a third entity in the prophecy? That would put killing Voldemort (or Harry) into the hands of this mysterious "other," leaving whichever remained to kill or be killed by "the other." Okay - I'm not explaining this very well. It sounded better when I'd first thought of it, before I tried to explain it. Anyway, the point is, what if the other is a different individual altogether?
Then there's the other thought, reading the prophesy as if there isn't some as yet unintroduced "other." Rowling mentioned in an interview that we readers are asking the wrong questions. The whole interview can be found here, but here's the quote:
I thought that I would give you something though, rather than get to the end of today and think that I have not given you a lot. There are two questions that I have never been asked but that I should have been asked, if you know what I mean. If you want to speculate on anything, you should speculate on these two things, which will point you in the right direction. The first question that I have never been asked-it has probably been asked in a chatroom but no one has ever asked me-is, “Why didn’t Voldemort die?” Not, “Why did Harry live?” but, “Why didn’t Voldemort die?” The killing curse rebounded, so he should have died. Why didn’t he? At the end of Goblet of Fire he says that one or more of the steps that he took enabled him to survive. You should be wondering what he did to make sure that he did not die-I will put it that way. I don’t think that it is guessable. It may be-someone could guess it-but you should be asking yourself that question, particularly now that you know about the prophesy. I’d better stop there or I will really incriminate myself. The other question that I am surprised no one has asked me since Phoenix came out-I thought that people would-is why Dumbledore did not kill or try to kill Voldemort in the scene in the ministry. I know that I am giving a lot away to people who have not read the book. Although Dumbledore gives a kind of reason to Voldemort, it is not the real reason. .... Dumbledore knows something slightly more profound than that. If you want to wonder about anything, I would advise you to concentrate on those two questions. That might take you a little bit further.
Well. That spawned some interesting thoughts. And disturbing. I'm almost afraid to write it down, because on some levels it sounds about as likely as my first notion - not very. Actually, I'm doing this backwards. THIS was my first notion - the other was the second. When Mr. Weasley was attacked by the serpent, Dumbledore used that silver instrument with the smoke coming out. Still have no clue what it was... But that's beside the point. Theory here is, the serpent was "in essense divided." I don't think that has anything to do with how Voldemort came to be in Harry's mind - other than the fact that they were clearly both within the snake at that moment. However - in essense divided. I believe that does refer to Voldemort, and is how he managed to survive the killing curse when it backfired on him. Somehow, he isn't all within himself. Whether or not that means that he transferred some of himself into Harry, and that's why Dumbledore didn't kill him at the Ministry that night - because it would have killed harry too - I don't know. Well, I don't know any of this. It's just an idea.