Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181695

> Magpie:
> > I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about 
things 
> > much more obviously violent. Draco isn't a killer either, but the 
> > only thing that kept him from being a murderer of Ron and Katie 
was 
> > that Snape intervened, because the poison was a lot more serious 
> > about killing than Draco himself was. Harry was ready to use 
> > Sectumsempra on Snape and had already almost killed somebody with 
> > that. Because Sectumsempra was more serious about its purpose 
than 
> > Harry was. Neither boy could really be said to not know how to 
kill.
> <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> Sectumsempra is Snape's own spell, and he parried it easily when 
Harry
> tried to use it on him. And even if Harry sneaked up on Snape in his
> Invisibility Cloak, he's never learned to cast a nonverbal spell, so
> Snape could duck, cast a Protego, or parry the curse as he saw it
> coming toward him, judging the direction based on the light from the
> spell. 

Magpie:
I don't think it being Snape's spell would matter if he were on the 
receiving end of it in the right anatomical place--Levicorpus was his 
spell too. And a number of things could be going on as well--Sirius 
should have been able to duck, cast Protego or parry Bellatrix's 
spell. It wouldn't have to just be Harry and Snape alone with Snape 
having nothing else to concentrate on but stopping Harry.

But still, I'm not arguing--and I don't think a_svirn is either--that 
Harry is a better fighter than Snape or that he should be able to 
best Snape in a fight. Neither was Draco a better dueler than 
Dumbledore. By the same token Bellatrix probably shouldn't have 
fallen to Molly Weasley. But regardless, if Snape's got something 
Harry thinks he needs to take out Voldemort, and thinks Snape will 
never let him have it, and already wants to avenge Dumbledore's 
death, there's some risk of Harry killing Snape or trying to kill 
Snape added that isn't completely erased by all the reasons Harry 
shouldn't be able to succeed at it. Dumbledore's plans often fail to 
take into account all the crazy things that could happen, even though 
he himself witnessed the accidental killing of his sister, and the 
destruction of the Potters.

Obviously as it happened Harry didn't kill Snape or try to kill him. 
He stopped his obsession with going after the Hallows when Dobby 
died. But Voldemort did kill Snape and it was really not hard to 
predict that he would under those circumstances.

-m