[HPforGrownups] Re: Young Snape's cutting curse (Was: LID!Snape rides again)

[Karen]

No: HPFGUIDX 150433


On Apr 2, 2006, at 10:35 PM, justcarol67 wrote:
>
> So, IMO, the so-called curses that eleven-year-old Severus came to
> school knowing--*not* labeled as "Dark" even by Snape's enemy Sirius
> Black--were almost certainly hexes and jinxes, not powerful,
> long-lasting Dark curses. (He was a little kid who had not even
> attended Hogwarts at this point.) The darkest among them might have
> been along the lines of Serpensortia, which Draco could cast in his
> second year. Not difficult for a child to cast and very easy for an
> adult to counter, but plenty scary for the kid on the receiving end.
> In fact, if Severus cast spells like Serpensortia or Densuageo (the
> tooth-growing spell) very frequently, the other kids would quickly
> learn to fear or at least avoid provoking him. That might account for
> his apparent unpopularity later, after his older friends (who no doubt
> regarded him as a prodigy) had left.

kchuplis:

I still don't get the feeling from the Mauraders comment that Snape  
just knew more minor stuff. There is a distinct impression left that  
Snape knew, or knew a lot *about* the Dark Arts. Now, they could have  
known that and not known that he was more interested in defense than  
using it, but the way that most matters is in James perception of Snape.
>
carol:
> I am still not convinced that the cutting curse in the Pensieve scene
> was Sectum Sempra for reasons that can be found upthread. But if it
> was SS, it was a very controlled version. If Severus had already
> invented Sectum Sempra, before Sirius Black tried to kill him, then he
> could have killed James, or at least hurt him very badly in
> retaliation for the cruelty of the Scourgify spell, the public
> humiliation of using his own spell against him, and the unprovoked
> two-on-one attack. Instead, he merely cut his cheek. That, in a hurt
> and angry boy who had already created a potentially lethal spell,
> shows remarkable self-control.

kchuplis:

I still say he *was* really angry and James was lucky. I think Snape  
missed.

carol:

>
> I really don't think, however, that it was Sectum Sempra. I think the
> "You wait!" means that Severus intends to come up with a spell that
> will get James back and that the so-called Prank provided still more
> incentive.

kchuplis:

Or it could mean, "you wait until we are in a situation that I can  
really use this fr*kin curse on you properly". Who knows?
>
carol:
>  And the number of spells that
> Severus knew is the point that Black is making: *more* curses than
> half the seventh years, not *darker* curses than the much older kids
> were using.
>
> Hogwarts can be a cruel place, and the kids don't need Dark magic to
> abuse each other, as James's using Scourgify to wash out Severus's
> mouth illustrates nicely.

kchuplis:
I just wanted to point out too that kids don't always let adults know  
everything that they can do, but other kids certainly know what the  
kids know or are capable of  very often. We see very sad accounts of  
this everyday now. And certainly DD isn't as aware of everything as  
he makes out to be, as we have seen often enough. Again, it *could*  
be that Snape was *not* or did not *set out to be* a *user* of the  
Dark Arts but the Mauraders certainly had the impression or knowledge  
(which is what I think) that he had ample amounts of the Dark Arts,  
and maybe more than was normal for a kid his age . As Steve says,  
just a thought.