I’m surprised to see everyone overlook the most obvious possibility: Voldemort.
Point one: The earlier prophecy was probably about the same person, and he hadn’t arrived yet at the moment. Even if it was about something different. ‘he has come’ in the last prophecy implies that he had just arrived.
Point two: Voldemort appears to love destruction. I still don’t know how someone as intelligent as him hadn’t killed everyone in the ways Harry thought of -. Harry’s intent to kill, which is presumably very Voldemort-like, is extremely creative and effective even at his magic level and age. But assuming that Voldemort is about destruction, he might want to end the world.
Quirrell or someone (e.g. Snape) might have resurrected Voldemort right after stealing the Philosopher’s Stone—a time-turner may be involved.. Dumbledore was away, Snape might be unreliable, it could have easily happened. A counterindicator is that Dumbledore is probably also aware of this risk, and therefore might have taken counter-measurements, although we can see that Quirrell can fool him in the part where he learns about the zoomagus potion left in Bellatrix’s cell (though it portrays himself and Snape as significantly inferior to Voldemort and Quirrell, so I’m reluctant to believe it was real, rather than them acting in front of McGonagall).
I’m surprised to see everyone overlook the most obvious possibility: Voldemort.
Point one: The earlier prophecy was probably about the same person, and he hadn’t arrived yet at the moment. Even if it was about something different. ‘he has come’ in the last prophecy implies that he had just arrived.
Point two: Voldemort appears to love destruction. I still don’t know how someone as intelligent as him hadn’t killed everyone in the ways Harry thought of -. Harry’s intent to kill, which is presumably very Voldemort-like, is extremely creative and effective even at his magic level and age. But assuming that Voldemort is about destruction, he might want to end the world.
Quirrell or someone (e.g. Snape) might have resurrected Voldemort right after stealing the Philosopher’s Stone—a time-turner may be involved.. Dumbledore was away, Snape might be unreliable, it could have easily happened. A counterindicator is that Dumbledore is probably also aware of this risk, and therefore might have taken counter-measurements, although we can see that Quirrell can fool him in the part where he learns about the zoomagus potion left in Bellatrix’s cell (though it portrays himself and Snape as significantly inferior to Voldemort and Quirrell, so I’m reluctant to believe it was real, rather than them acting in front of McGonagall).