How recently did SS write in Potions book?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 141772

~aussie~ wrote:
> > How's your Latin? or Spanish at least?
> > 
> > "SECTUP" sounds like "to diSECT" like what macabre biology
teachers get students to do with frogs .... so that part is "to CUT"
> > 
> > "SEMPRA" sounds like "siempre" in Spanish. That means "ALWAYS". 
> > 
> > So the curse used against James may have been "SECTUP", but 
> > not "SECTUPSEMPRA" causing multiple cuts like Draco got.
> > ~aussie~
> >

> CV: That was a typo on my part. Sorry about that. The spell that put
a gash on James was issued silently. I still say it was a sectumsempra.

Carol notes:

Although the spell *could* be Sectumsempra, we can't know for sure
because as you say it's cast silently--and if Severus knows what it
can do, he's using remarkable self-control in not slashing wildly as
Harry does considering how angry he is at James.

However, as far as we can see in HBP, healing Sectumsempra requires an
elaborate incantationlike countercurse--Snape is described as almost
singing to Draco, whose wounds are clearly deep and serious, possibly
fatal if untreated. James comes off, apparently, with a mere scratch--
unless we're to believe that his cut, too, was deep and deadly and
would not have been curable by anyone but Severus Snape, who alone
would know the countercurse for the curse he had created.

Anyone besides me unable to imagine young Severus crooning a
countercurse to get his enemy to stop bleeding? And there's been no
mention of James having a scar from the incident (Draco had to take
dittany to prevent scarring), much less that James's life was in
danger from the wound. 

So I rather like aussie's idea that there's a separate curse for
merely cutting (a superficial cut that can heal on its own).
("Sectum," not "Sectup," to correct CV's typo.) Possibly Severus,
angry after the "worst memory" incident, worked out a more deadly
version of this existing curse, one which would require his elaborate
countercurse to save the victim. (There's no evidence that he actually
used this deadlier curse. To do so at Hogwarts would certainly have
resulted in expulsion. He could well have used it in his DE days,
however.)

As for whom or what he practiced on at Hogwarts, how about a turnip
from the kitchen? After all, you can't get blood from a turnip.

Carol, who couldn't resist that last line