Sectumsempra / ChapterDisc / Ogg&Pringle / lots more stuff

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153088

Geoff:
> I have previously commented somewhere that my take on 'sectumsempra'
was that it was 
> derived from 'sectum' which is part of the verb 'seco' (= to cut)
and 'semper' meaning 
> 'always' or 'forever' hinting that the spell creates permanent cuts.


Carol responds:
I agree that this reading is exactly what the Latin meaning indicates,
which is why I don't think that the slight cut that young Severus
inflicted on James after James had bullied him in the Pensieve scene
was Sectumsempra. There's no indication that James was bleeding
severely or that he was permanently scarred, and certainly Severus,
the only one who knew the countercurse to Sectumsempra, didn't perform
the countercurse on that occasion. (Can you imagine him singing over a
bleeding James? I can't.)

Since the Potions book was used during his sixth year, not his fifth,
and since Sectumsempra is followed by the notation "for enemies," I
think that Severus invented it after the Pensieve incident (which
occurred in June of his fifth year) and possibly after the so-called
Prank, which must have occurred in the following year. Granted, James
uses another of the HBP's spells on Severus at that time, and that
spell also appears in the sixth-year Potions book, but JKR does get
confused on maths and time frames, so that could be a Flint. (How
James could have learned a nonverbal spell from Severus, who certainly
would not have taught it to him, also remains unexplained.)

The rest of the evidence points to Sectumsempra as having been
invented some time after the Pensieve scene as retribution for an act
performed by an enemy or enemies, certainly MWPP and particularly
James and Sirius. Possibly Sectumsempra, "cut *always*," is a variant
of the simpler and less dangerous cutting hex used in the Pensieve
scene, but that jinx or hex is too mild to be Sectumsempra, and the
motivation for inventing Sectumsempra has not yet occurred or is only
at that moment occurring. IOW, I think that the cutting hex used in
the Pensieve scene is a precursor of Sectumsempra but not Sectumsempra
itself. James is certainly not "cut always" and appears to be as
unfazed as he would be by a stinging hex.

Carol, hoping that her argument is clear