Maraurders/he exists

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 168354

Neri:
> If the curse Snape uses in SWM isn't important, no one comments on 
it, and it's not even Sectumsempra, then why showing it at all??? 
Snape could have attempted any other of a long list of innocent 
familiar hexes against James and fail. Why would the Author choose 
one that draws blood in the first place and then de-emphasise it?
*(snip)*
A Sectumsempra curse could fail on James because Snape cast it too 
fast, either missing and merely grazing James's face, or simply 
because he failed to cast it appropriately 
*(snip)*
But the main point is: why would the Author make Snape use an unknown 
cutting hex in the first place, downplay it in the original scene, and
then spring Sectumsempra on us just a few chapters before the tower?

Ceridwen:
I know you weren't asking me, but I'm jumping in with my impressions 
anyway.  :D

When I first read SWM, I thought the mild cut James received was 
there to show the level of hostilities, and how upset Snape was at 
that moment.  I thought it was a plot device, conveniently enough, 
since no one mentioned it.  Here was the first blood of this 
particular altercation, and Prefect Lupin isn't on his feet, Prefect 
Lily isn't saying a word about it, excitable Peter isn't faux 
fainting, and James doesn't even seem to care.  Heck, James doesn't 
even say he needs to do laundry now, it was such a non-event.

When I read about it in HBP, the first thing I thought of was that 
little cutting curse.  There is no doubt in my mind that Snape sees 
the Marauders, individually or in a group, as enemies during school.  
Here's a convenient curse for enemies, why not use it?  People knew 
Levicorpus, why not Sectum Sempra?  (I was one of the clueless ones 
who wasn't absolutely positive that Snape was the HBP.  I so do not 
trust seemingly obvious clues any more!)

Next, I naturally noticed the differences between Snape's controlled 
motion and Harry's wild slashing, and the expected difference in 
their respective results.  Snape gives a little nick, Harry slashes 
like a Mideival knight in an epic battle.  James gets a little cut, 
Draco nearly bleeds to death.  Rather than Snape doing the spell 
wrong, or too fast, or missing and merely grazing James, I think he 
did it right.  He was in control of the spell.  He knew it, he knew 
what it did, he was able to wield it successfully.

Harry wasn't.  He didn't know what it did, he didn't use brief, tight 
movements, he slashed.  If we exchanged the wands for swords, James's 
cut would be the nick Errol Flynn gets from Basil Rathbone during a 
fencing duel, while Draco's massive damage would be the black knight 
who won't let Arthur's men pass in Monty Python and the Holy Grail 
(though Draco wasn't swearing it was only a flesh wound).

I don't think the nick on James's face was made by anything but 
Sectum Sempra.

Ceridwen.