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

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 161382

Shelley here: really snipped conversation just to shed some light on this 
one spell-
> Betsy Hp:
>> IIRC there's a healer whose portrait
>> is hanging in St. Mungo's who invented a disembowelment curse.
>> Why wasn't the invention of that curse a bad sign?

> Jen:  (I thought the disembowlment curse was a misguided attempt to cure
> some ill in the same way people thought blood letting or drilling
> holes in the skull would cure a disease, i.e, pretty rudimentary
> <g>).

Shelley:
Here's how I imagine a disembowlment (spell) would be used to heal someone, 
and I think it might be consistent with what Rowling has written when it 
came to Harry's arm and Lockhart's mistake which lead to his bones being 
removed: Imagine a wizard, however it happens, is cursed or has an ailment 
that starts rotting away his insides. The healers try as they may to heal 
the tissue, but maybe it's one of those curses that just won't leave, and so 
that wizard is in iminant danger of dying without a working stomach, spleen, 
kidneys, intestine, and so forth. What if they already knew how to REGROW 
organs the same way that Madame Pomfrey was able to regrow Harry's bones? 
Then one obvoius solution would be to remove the diseases/damaged/cursed 
organs, and then administer the healing spell to regrow new (healthy and 
uncursed!) organs. Now, since the wizarding world doesn't have the 
equivilant proceedure of a scalpel to cut away only the diseased tissue in a 
surgery, then a spell would need to be developed to remove those 
contaminated organs, hence, the development of the disembowlment spell as 
the first step of that 2 step process. Used properly, it's a life-saver. 
Used by an evil person who has no intention of giving the receipient the 
spell to regrow the organs, and it's a killer. I don't know if the spell 
would be exactly the same, and be performed the same, but clearly the intent 
would make the end result a healing spell or a curse meant to kill someone 
in a very grusome fashion. (Shutter! By comparison, an Avada Kadavra would 
be quick and painless, and more humane, I think!)

Could it be possible that Snape's spell could be used in a surgery 
situation? I know the sounds very unlikely, since the wizards don't do 
surgeries the way that Muggles do. I can't image another possibility of it 
being used for good, especially when Young!Snape had clearly labeled it "For 
Enemies". (Unless maybe you could use Sectumsempra to drain cursed blood out 
of a person and replace it with new blood at the same time to purge a body 
of poison???) In this, intent is everything. The spell is evil because the 
intended outcome is evil. The curse is Dark because the intended outcome is 
Dark. A healer's spell, by contrast, would not be labeled as a curse (nor 
Dark Magic) because the spell wasn't even close to a curse in it's 
application, where the end result saves a life rather than takes it.


> Betsy Hp:
>> But it's the lack of precise definition that I'm harping on.  And
>> honestly, I don't think it's a *bad* thing that the Dark Arts or
>> dark magic is hard to define.

I think the definition is very precise: it fully depends on the intent of 
the user at the time of use. But, as we see many times in the Harry Potter 
books, someone is judged only from their outside actions, and the person in 
not questioned on their intent. The rumors will spread about what the real 
intent was, while that person is chucked straight into Azakaban, possibly 
without even a proper trial. Thus, many witches and wizards wouldn't go 
anywhere near a spell that could be considered to have Dark roots or be too 
close to a curse, out of fear of being punished even if their intent was 
good.

Shelley