Half-Blood Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183823

Carol earlier:
> > I don't agree. If James, who didn't know the countercurse to
Sectumsempra, had been hit with that curse, he would have kept on
bleeding till Severus Snape, the one person who did know it (assuming
that he'd invented it at that point--it was pretty
> complex)performed it on him.
> 
> Pippin:
> If it worked that way,  George would still be bleeding, too. But
canon says Mrs. Weasley was able to stop it, though she couldn't
restore his ear.

Carol responds:
Let me rephrase that. He would still be *cut open* even if Madam
Pomfrey, whom we know was not a Dark magic expert, could stop the
bleeding. Unless, of course, you disregard the literal meaning of the
spell. And, as you say, Mrs. Weasley could not restore George's ear,
but she didn't know the counterspell. Snape did.

Pippin: 
>  Probably James knew the same anti-bleeding charm, and as we know,
the scar could be restored with dittany. 

Carol:
But you're missing a step. If the cut were an ordinary cut caused by
an ordinary spell (call it "Sempra" for the sake of argument), it
could be closed by the quick nonverbal spell that Dumbledore uses to
close a knife wound. (James, however, would be unlikely to ask Madam
Pomfrey for dittany and equally unlikely to have any on hand.)
However, it if were Sectum*sempra*, he could stop the bleeding, as
Mrs. Weasley did with George, but he'd be unable to close the cut
without the specific anti-Dark Magic countercurse that Snape used.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be *Dark* magic--"for enemies"--it would just
be another hex in his arsenal, no more deadly and dangerous than the
boil curse that Harry tries to use on Draco, which ends up sending
Goyle (onto whom it's deflected) to the hospital wing in agony but is
easily reversed by Madam Pomfrey, who, unlike the adult Snape, is not
a Dark Arts expert.

Pippin:
Canon only says there was a flash of white light and a gash appeared
on James's cheek; nothing about gestures that I can find. We can't be
sure it was sectum sempra, since it was a non-verbal spell, but it
seems an unnecessary complication and Flinty besides to have it be
something else. 

Carol:
Yes, it's a nonverbal spell, which means that we can't definitively
settle this disagreement. But if we look at the *effects* of the
spell--a bit of blood running down James's cheek that doesn't even
call for a visit to the hospital wing or leave a scar, much less a
gaping wound of the type left by even the controlled use of
Sectumsempra, I think it can be argued that it was only a precursor to
Sectumsempra. In fact, SWM and the so-called Prank provided sufficient
motivation for Severus to go beyond his earlier hexes (Langlock and
the toenail hex and Levicorpus) to something dangerous enough to be
marked "For enemies."

Pippin: 
> Certainly you won't deny that James used levicorpus? That was also
in the potions book. 

Carol:
Of course I don't deny that James used Levicorpus, which presents the
whole problem of inconsistency (the spell is written in the margins of
a *sixth-year* book but used in fifth year) and raises the question of
how James learned a nonverbal spell. But that's beside the point.
(It's a Flint, IMO--JKR gets James's age wrong, as well.)

The spell (a mere hex from all appearances) that Severus uses on James
is never identified. Lily, who accuses Severus's *friends* of using or
attempting to use Dark magic never charges Severus himself with the
same offense, as she certainly would have done if James had been left
with a gaping wound that Madam Pomfrey couldn't heal because it was
beyond her expertise.

Pippin:
We already were told that Snape knew curses beyond his years, and we
have several other students, Hermione and Harry among them, who
learned NEWT level spells before they'd passed their OWLs. <snip>

Carol:
That's not quite what we're told. We're told that he knew more curses
when he came to Hogwarts than half the weventh years in school at that
time. Harry and Hermione have nothing to do with it. And Black, who
may be exagerrating given the Severus we see in "The Prince's Tale,"
telling Lily that they won't get in trouble for accidental magic, only
for using a wand outside school, is talking only about the *number* of
spells that little Severus used. I don't doubt that he knew spells
beyond his years--he was evidently a prodigy and in Ron's words, a
genius--but that has nothing to do with his using Sectumsempra in this
particular scene. There's no question that he invented that spell
while he was still at Hogwarts--most likely, IMO, after his "enemies"
had given him provocation--but whether he used that spell at Hogwarts,
a Dark spell with dire consequences requiring a specialized and
elaborate countercurse, is another matter. I seriously doubt that he did. 

And even if this incident really is an example of the controlled use
of a nonverbal Sectumsempra that Madam Pomfrey or James himself,
despite not knowing the countercurse or anything about Dark magic, was
somehow able to heal, we're still left with the question of how Lupin
knew that it was Sectumsempra. The curse was nonverbal, and he didn't
know that Snape was a DE, so he couldn't have known that Sectumsempra
was his trademark curse at that time, if indeed it was.

A recognizable Sectumsempra like the one Harry used on Draco, aimed at
the neck or chest, could have killed the victim unless Severus himself
administered the countercurse. And Severus would never have been so
foolish as to use a recognizably Dark and dangerous (and probably
illegal, not being Ministry-approved) curse while he was still in
school. Had he done so, Lupin would have known about it--and
Dumbledore could never have hired him to teach at Hogwarts, repentance
or no. (Look what happened to Grindelwald at Durmstrang, who may have
used a similar curse of his own invention.)

Carol, who sees Lupin's remark as baseless if not outright
inconsistent in terms of canon, yet another flaw in DH that jars *me*
out of my state of willingly suspended disbelief