Bathroom Scene - A Different Perspective

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165167

aussie wrote:
> Wasn't Harry going to try that curse out on Ron in the Dormitory as
a joke? Harry didn't know what it would do.
> 
> Harry's definition of an "enemy" was very different to the HBP's
understanding. Harry was shell shocked when he saw what it did. He
began to better understand how dark the HBP was. 
<snip>
> "Sempre Sectum" looks like the amended curse Snape used against 
James in the Pensieve. That curse only cut once, not multiple times
... but most curses don't draw blood. Was Snape thinking of James when
he wrote "for enemies"?

Carol responds:
It's Levicorpus, a nonverbal spell not labeled "for enemies," that
Harry tried out on Ron. He was thinking of trying out Sectumsempra on
*McLaggen* (rather like his father hexing people who annoyed him in
the hallways), but fortunately, for both Harry and McLaggen, he didn't
do it. Nor did he test it out on some inanimate object or look up the
Latin roots. It was just an unknown spell, clearly nastier than
Levicorpus or the toenail hex given the label, but Harry was, as you
say, "shell shocked" when he discovered what it did.

We don't know for sure that Sectumsempra was an advanced variation of
the cutting spell that Severus used on James, but I think it was. For
one thing, there's no indication that James is bleeding to death, as
he would be even without the slashing movement with a spell whose
meaning is "cut always," and which requires a complex countercurse,
not a simple healing spell like the one DD used on himself in the
cave. Also, Sectumsempra appears in Severus's NEWT Potions book and
was consequently probably invented during his sixth year, after the
so-called Prank, the "enemies" being James Potter, Sirius Black, and
possibly Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The Pensieve memory occurred
at the end of his fifth year, before he'd be using that book, so I
think that Sectumsempra, as opposed to a simple, easily healed cutting
hex (Sectum?) had not yet been invented. Clearly, however, Severus
never used the full-fledged Sectumsempra while he was in school or
he'd have been expelled.

I'm of two minds about the countercurse, which is complex and does not
appear to be jotted in the margins of the book like Liberacorpus, the
countercurse for Levicorpus. I think it was created or discovered
later, when when Snape was a fully-qualified adult wizard who had
turned to Dumbledore's side and developed an interest in Healing
(which is hinted at by the Bezoars but only fully revealed in HBP),
but whether he invented it or found it in a book of ancient magic, I
don't know. I'm pretty sure, however, that he's the only person at
Hogwarts who knows that countercurse.

Carol, who thinks that Sectumsempra, in contrast to the minor hexes,
useful charms, and ingenious Potions hints elsewhere in the book,
indicates that Sevvie was heading in a new and dangerous directions
thanks to the desire for revenge