DH reread CH 12 -- Cracking a Few Eggs.

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186462

bboyminn wrote (re Harry Crucioing amycys):
> <snip>
> Again, I ask as I've asked before, if it only last 3 seconds and does no harm, can we really call it torture? 

Carol responds:
Yes, I think we can. First, Harry knows from Bellatrix, the Crucio expert, that righteous anger won't sustain a Crucio. The Crucio he attempts against her fails. All it does is knock her off her feet, but she doesn't writhe with pain (OoP Am. ed. 810). But with Amycus, Harry realizes that Bellatrix is right: "you have to mean it" (DH Am. ed. ). You have to want to cause pain to cast a Crucio successfully. 

And Harry's Crucio of Amycus *does* cause him to "writh[e] like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain" before he crashes against a bookcase and falls unconscious to the floor (593).

Harry, whose blood is "thundering through his brain," knows that this Crucio succeeded because he meant it, because he wanted Amycus to suffer. And Harry, having been Crucio'd himself more than once, knows exactly what a Crucio feels like.

Near the end of HBP, one of the Death Eaters (perhaps Amycus himself) Crucios Harry for a few seconds before Snape stops him. (Harry, of course, thinks it's Snape who's torturing him.) "[E]xcruciating pain hit Harry; he keeled over in the grass. Someone [Harry himself?] was screaming, he would surely die of this agony, Snape was going to torture him to death or madness--" (HBP Am. ed. 603).

Snape roars "No! and the pain stops as suddenly as it started, but Harry is still lying curled up on the grass and panting, only dimly aware of Snape stand above him yelling at the Death Eaters to leave "Potter" alone and go. A moment later, he's on his feet, aiming all his misdirected rage at Snape.

It's true that the Cruciatus Curse, unlike Muggle torture, causes no lasting damage unless it's sustained so long that it causes insanity (the Longbottoms), but it's torture, nevertheless, and the ruthless Voldemort needs no other means of punishing his followers when they fail him. 

Even if it lasts only three seconds, those three seconds (which surely feel more like three minutes to the victim) are three seconds of unendurable agony.

"Crucio" *means* "I torture" and "Cruciatus" is a real Latin word meaning "torture" or "torment." The successful caster *must* want his victim to suffer unendurable agony, as Bellatrix knows well and as the name itself should be sufficient to inform us. (Even if we don't know Latin, we should see the etymological connection with "excruciating.")

Harry, who did not even connect Amycus with the Crucio he still thinks was inflicted by Snape, has no better reason for torturing him than that he spat on McGonagall (and, possibly, though he doesn't say so, that Amycus used that curse on Harry's schoolmates). Harry is not just taking justice into his own hands, he is performing an act of revenge on a man against whom he has no personal grudge. He's a Death Eater who has performed the Cruciatus Curse; therefore, in Harry's literally hot-headed view of the moment, he deserves a taste of his own medicine. He deserves to suffer agonizing pain rather than merely be put out of action by the more effective and appropriate means of a Stunning or Freezing spell.

Harry is, IMO, scapegoating Amycus, taking revenge against him because he can, when he really wants (and has wanted throughout the book) to take revenge against Snape. He wants to cause the same unendurable agony that he, himself has experienced. His action is beyond "foolish," and it is most certainly not "gallant," whatever the deluded McGonagall may think. (If the Chosen One casts Unforgiveable Curses with no repercussions, it must be okay for her, too.)

Harry, I think, learns his lesson with his visit to Snape's memories in the Pensieve. At any rate, from that point on, he no longer seeks revenge or attempts to cast any Unforgiveable Curses even after he returns from King's cross, having chosen to sacrifice himself rather than fight. His last, best hope in the final battle is not a Killing Curse but Expelliarmus, and rather than seeking to punish Voldemort for his sins (which are far greater than Amycus's), he offers him his one chance for redemption.

Harry's action in Crucioing Amycus may be understandable, but it can't be justified as necessary when ordinary defensive spells intended for the purpose of disabling an enemy would have served his purpose more effectively. (He's lucky that Amycus hit his head and was knocked out.) It's a clear case of choosing "easy" (and wrong) over right. And I think that Harry's later rejection of the Elder Wand is a silent acknowledgment that it's all too easy for the good guys to stoop to using Dark spells and Dark weapons, and he wants no part of that.

I am certain that we are meant to be shocked by Harry's action (and McGonagall's) and to consider them not evil but mistaken in their choice to use Unforgiveable Curses when other spells would have been equally effective.

That aside, Harry *did* knowingly and deliberately torture Amycus. It's perhaps as lucky for Harry as for his victim that Amycus hit his head against that bookcase.

Carol, by no means excusing Amycus and concerned only with Harry in this post