IF Harry wasn't the subject of the prophecy than he wouldn't have been able to pick it up. Its the nature of the magic that only the people that are in the prophecy may take it. Otherwise she is breaking her world rules. The magic wouldn't have been fooled.
Talking about how Voldemort in a way may have chosen Harry might being giving more a reference to the idea that trying to escape fate can seal it. His actions in avoiding his downfall cause his downfall. Pretty classic theme.
I think the prophecy is important because now we know that Harry HAS to kill voldemort. We always knew that Harry WOULD kill Voldemort, but now it looks like he might be the only person that can. Its important for Harry to know also because he probably never thought beyond being part of the fight against Voldemort.
Also, from a fiction writing perspective, it would violate the concept of the Hero if Neville turns out to be the person that Voldemort should have been after all the time. Most readers will probably feel betrayed, and feel that Harry went through a lot of nonsense basically as a kind of cosmic joke.
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Originally posted by sugar and spice
This post is going to be entirely speculation about the last two books, so if you don't want to read that, skip it.
The more I think about it, the stranger the prophecy is. At first when I read it, I had that "So what?" feeling that so many people did. I mean, of course Harry and Voldemort are connected, and of course one is going to have to kill the other. Haven't we understood that from the second or third book onward? Really, the only unique thing about the prophecy was the fact that it could have also possibly included Neville . . . and J.K. Rowling closes that possibility off by saying "But of course it's you, Harry, because of your scar."
From a completely literary standpoint, there's no reason why she should bring up that point just to immediately dismiss it. What she's doing is opening up the possibility of Neville being the subject of the prophecy while, at the same time, leading the readers to think that there's no way it could be Neville. And for those of us who have read the books, I think we've realized that a lot of things that happen that seem strange at the time later turn out to have some deeper meaning.
In short, I'm pretty sure that something is going to happen that re-opens the possibility of Neville being the subject of that prophecy. Otherwise there was no point to the fact that Rowling brought it up in the first place.
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