Dark Magic and Snape (was:Re: CHAPDISC: HBP24, Sectumsempra)

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 161379

 
> Betsy Hp:
> I guess my main issue is, and has been for a while, what exactly 
> *is* dark magic?  Is it evil?  Snape identifies his curse as dark 
> magic so I'll take him at his word.  But as has been pointed out 
> before (by Carol, I think?) the celebrated healers in St. Mungos 
> invented some pretty frightening sounding curses.  So a hurtful 
> curse (which I guess is dark magic?) doesn't preclude someone from 
> being good.

Potioncat:
Oh, I have some canon, only I cannot get to it. JKR recently updated 
her website with a description of hexes, jinxes, charms, etc. I 
cannot navigate that very busy page on my very dark monitor. Can 
someone find it and post it?

JKR says that hexes and jinxes are sort of Dark. In my mind it was 
along the line of a little Dark...or maybe it's the difference 
between Dark and dark (someone here uses that comparison)

To me it means Dark Magic is like drug use. I'd bet eveyone here 
would agree that drug use is bad. But some of us wouldn't think it 
was wrong to use pot. Yet others of us would include alcohol as a 
drug and a few would include tobacco as a drug.  

So Dark Magic could start out innocently enough. A jinx here, a hex 
there. Someone like young Snape with a great deal of resentment and a 
bit of paranoia could go too far.