Young Snape's cutting curse (Was: LID!Snape rides again)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150289

Nikkalmati wrote:
><snip>
> Also, if SS was defending himself at the end with his cutting 
> curse, he was being careful about it, because he made a small cut 
> on James' face, while we know that curse can produce dramatic 
> injuries.  <snip>

Carol responds:
I agree that *if* this curse or hex is Sectum Sempra, Severus did a
remarkable job of controlling it under the circumstances and given his
emotional state. We see in HBP what Sectum Sempra could have done if
Severus had pointed at James's chest or abdomen and waved the wand
around as Harry did. No flesh wound to the skull; James would have
died unless Sevvie had already invented the countercurse (and was
willing to chant it in front of the entire fifth-year class). I
don'tthink he was willing to risk James's death and his own expulsion
(or arrest) despite his fury at his humiliation. At any rate, as you
say, if the cutting curse *was* Sectum Sempra, it was a tightly
controlled and limited version.

However, I don't think the curse or hex was Sectum Sempra,for a
variety of reasons. "Sectum Sempra" doesn't just mean "cut," it means
"cut always," and there's no indication that James is suffering from
wand-induced hemophilia, a cut that won't stop bleeding and could
prove fatal if not staunched. And who could have stopped the bleeding
from a Sectum Sempra curse other than its own inventor, Severus Snape?
Nor is there any indication in canon of a serious wound that left a
scar, as a Sectum Sempra curse would have done. (Snape advisesDraco to
take dittany to avoid scarring--not advice that he'd be likely to give
to Berk!James.) Surely the characters who are so fond of pointing out
the resemblance of Harry to James would not have failed to point out
that James also had a curse scar on his forehead?

Also, Harry finds the Sectum Sempra curse, marked "for enemies" and
minus the complicated countercurse, in his *sixth-year* Advanced
Potions book (near the end, IIRC). So Sectum Sempra appears to have
been invented after the so-called Prank, when Severus had reason to
believe that Sirius Black (and perhaps the other Marauders) had tried
to kill him. The "worst memory" scene, however, occurs at the end of
fifth year, before Severus was using that book. 

It's interesting, too, that the earliest spells in that book are
relatively innocent, and that Levicorpus is listed as <nvbl>. Maybe,
up to that point, it had been an ordinary verbal hex. Otherwise, it's
hard to see how it could have been used by James or become a fad at
Hogwarts. But the toenail hex is no worse than Densuageo, used by
Draco against Harry and deflected to Hermione, and Muffliato would be
useful to any kid who didn't want, say, Madam Pince to overhear his
conversation. So Sectum Sempra marks a shift from creative hexes and
jinxes to a genuinely Dark spell--prompted, IMO, by what Severus
regarded as an attempted murder by "enemies."

At a guess, the cutting curse or hex used in the Pensieve scene is
some other form of "Sectum" (cut) and Severus derived Sectum Sempra
("cut always") from that basic form in a moment of anger and hatred as
 vengeance against those who had dared to hurt him. (Clearly he never
used it in this form or he'd be expelled and they'd be dead.) I
suspect that in a cooler, more intellectual moment, he developed that
complicated and unDark countercurse, which he could only have done in
secret, perhaps as an adult.

BTW, I refer to young Snape as "Severus" to match "James," "Sirius,"
"Remus," and "Peter." The narrator's use of "Snape" for the teenage
boy reflects Harry's perspective, as does the use of "Sirius" for the
adult Black (in contrast to "Snape" and "Lupin"). Wormtail, IIRC, is
always referred to by his nickname. I don't think we need to speculate
as to why.

Carol, imagining Sevvie's sixth-year Slytherin roommates walking in on
him as he crooned a healing chant over a bleeding Puffskein