Snape had already delivered the entire prophecy to Voldemort while still being a Death Eater, so why did Voldemort need to get the prophecy from the Ministry?
2 Answers
The Dark Lord only heard part of it, he wanted to hear the rest.
Snape only overheard a portion of the prophecy, not the whole thing. The Dark Lord knew this, and wanted to hear the whole thing in case he missed any crucial information.
“My – our – one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building.’
‘So he only heard –?’
‘He heard only the beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you, and marking you as his equal.”
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 37 (The Lost Prophecy)
After Harry's continued survival, the Dark Lord thought the prophecy might contain some crucial information that would allow him to gain the upper hand and kill Harry.
“Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you.”
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 37 (The Lost Prophecy)
He needed it to know how to kill Harry .
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3Um, that's what the accepted answer says - with much more detail. Did you have something new/unique to add?– RDFozzDec 31, 2017 at 0:01
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I don’t think this answers the question. The question didn’t ask what information the prophecy contained; it asked why Voldemort needed to seek it if he already had it.– AlexAug 21, 2019 at 22:17