Snape should have kicked James/Sirius' behinds!!.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156457

Allie wrote:
> 
> Which begs the question, why didn't Snape use nonverbal magic?  He 
> must have known that it COULD be done, having invented levicorpus 
> himself.  Why didn't he try something else, ANYTHING else, to get 
> James off him?  Even if he wasn't sure it would work without his
wand, I think he would have tried, like Harry did on the train after
Draco broke his nose.
>
Carol responds:

I think you may be confusing nonverbal magic with wandless magic. The
one spell Severus cast (the one that cut James's cheek), was
nonverbal, which is why posters are arguing over whether it was
Sectumsempra or not. Also, of course, he invented the nonverbal hex
that James is using against him (Levicorpus), so he *can* use
nonverbal magic when he has a wand in his hand. But just as Harry
couldn't make his wand come to him by calling "Accio wand!" Severus
can't deliberately do wandless magic, as indicated by the fact that
his wand just lies there when he's yelling curses (obscenities?) and
hexes at James as he's lying on the ground. 

Although the adult Snape can snap his fingers and cause the ropes he's
just conjured to fly into his hand (PoA), I don't think the teenage
Severus can. Also, I can think of at least one instance in which Snape
*may* have performed the sort of accidental magic that results from
anger (not counting sparks coming from his wand because he's angry,
which I think also happens in PoA). In OoP, after Harry's unauthorized
visit to the Pensieve, a jar of cockroaches explodes over Harry's
head. Even though Harry thinks that Snape threw it, it may have
exploded because Snape was so angry (cf. Harry "blowing up" Aunt
Marge). It seems to have exploded in midair, before it hit the wall.

So while I think that Severus would have been more than a match for
James in a one-on-one fair fight, I don't think either of them could
do deliberate wandless magic at that point, and Severus's ability to
cast nonverbal spells was of no use to him when his wand was ten feet
away.

Carol, wondering why anyone would think that Snape *wanted* Harry to
see this humiliating memory