[HPforGrownups] Draco as Victim in GoF (was: Re: The Huge overreactions...)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150308

> Carol:
> Exactly. I wouldn't strenuously object to the idea that the spell used
> in the Pensieve was a very controlled Sectum Sempra, but it doesn't
> fit the chronology, and we don't see the bleeding and scarring from it
> that we'd see with Sectum Sempra. There's no indication that James
> could have died from that cut or that it's any more dangerous than a
> stinging hex.

Magpie:
It certainly could be a different hex, but I really don't see anything in 
that scene that makes it impossible it's Sectumsempra.  We just saw 
Levicorpus used in the scene, and that's in Snape's book too, so I didn't 
think we needed to think the book offered a chronology.  Iow, the stuff 
written in Snape's Advanced Potions book doesn't have to be stuff not 
invented before Snape's sixth year.  If Levicorpus can be in the book and in 
the Pensieve scene, I think Sectumsempra can too.

When it comes to what the curse does to Snape I honestly saw no difference. 
It cuts James' cheek with a spatter of blood.  That's exactly what it does 
to Draco.  Only James is only given a small cut with the sword and Draco is 
sliced all over his body, which is why Draco and not James is in danger of 
dying.  I imagined Snape never invented the curse intending to use it to 
murder people; I figured he just created it to use as a weapon.

Carol:
>
> For good or ill, I don't think that Severus had invented the true
> Sectum Sempra curse yet--either that or JKR has messed up her maths
> again. And the explanation that works best for me is that he invented
> SS as retaliation for the so-called Prank, with the cutting hex he'd
> used on James the previous year as a precursor to the darker, deadlier
> model that was prompted by the Prank, which we know he saw as a murder
> attempt. What cause he might have had before that to develop a truly
> Dark curse I can't imagine. I don't think he did.

Magpie:
I think he had very good reasons for creating a truly Dark curse before 
that: he had a dark imagination and people he hated, especially those who 
bullied him.  Snape could have used Sectumsempra without it getting the kind 
of attention it got in HBP because he knew what he was doing with it--and 
might have invented it before he ever used it.

I mean, we could also speculate that there was fallout from that incident in 
the Pensieve that included Snape's curse coming to the attention of the 
Mediwitch and he got in trouble for it and didn't use it again, nor did 
anyone else before Harry's sixth year.  Harry easily connects Levicorpus 
from the DEs, to James, to himself when he uses it because it seems the 
same, so it seemed natural to do the same thing with this curse.

-m