OOTP Chapter Thirty-Six: "The Only One he ever Feared"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* You know, Rowling, when you’re trying to create in your readers a sense of sadness that one of the main characters has died, it’s probably best not to have Neville coming in with his comedy broken nose voice. It sort of distracts from the pathos of the moment.

* Oh dear, Harry almost loses Bellatrix in the spinning room. Luckily, though, “the plot room seemed to have been waiting for him to ask” how to get out. So that’s alright, then.

* Harry tries to use Crucio on Bellatrix, but because he’s not enough of a sadist only succeeds in knocking her over. Fortunately he’s going to remember her advice about needing to enjoy the pain of your opponent (much better, in fact, that he seems to remember any of his school lessons), and by the end of Book Seven he’ll be torturing with the best of them.

* So is part of the reason why the Cruciatus is considered so bad the fact that you can only cast it with malevolent motives, unlike most spells, which don’t seem to be much affected by your mental state?

* “I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, could never hope to compete—” A pity we never get to see any, then, or find out what makes them so powerful. Is it the effect they have, the effort needed to cast them, both, neither…?

* Voldemort appears, rendering his whole “I don’t want to enter the Ministry and alert them to my return” thing a bit pointless.

* Also, it would have been better if, instead of monologuing like this, Voldemort had just AKed Harry as soon as he appeared. What is it with this man and pointless, time-wasting speeches?

* “Months of preparation, months of effort… and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again…” Well, to be fair, Voldemort, it was a pretty stupid plan. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you deserved to fail.

* I suppose that Dumbledore fighting Voldemort with all those magical creature statues helping him is supposed to be symbolic.

* “‘It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom,’ said Dumbledore calmly.” I’d think that addressing Voldemort by his real first name would be an incredibly cool thing to do, were it not so obviously copied from the Obi-Wan/Darth Vader scene in Star Wars.

* Albus refuses to kill Voldemort because “we both know that there are other ways of destroying a man… Merely taking your life would not satisfy me” – so he’s saving Voldemort from death in order to inflict something even worse on him. Yup, that man’s the epitome of goodness, alright.

* “Merlin’s beard – here – here! – in the Ministry of Magic! – great heavens above – it doesn’t seem possible – my word – how can this be?” Well, Minister, if you’re curious, I could recommend having a few words with your head of security, for starters.

* Dumbledore starts telling Fudge what to do. Ordinarily I’d think this was insufferably arrogant, but after being falsely accused of spreading panic for the past twelve months, I think I can forgive him for enjoying his vindication.

* I assume that Hogwarts usually has some sort of anti-Portkey wards, else any half-competent wizard with a wand would be able to teleport right into the middle of the castle. But this raises the question of how Dumbledore managed to send Harry Portkeying to Hogwarts. Does the Headmaster have the power to remove the magical protections around the grounds? But then Umbrige is in charge now, not Dumbledore. Or does Dumbledore count as the “true” Headmaster, and therefore get control over the wards, sort of like how only the true Head can get into the Office?

Comments

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

It's been suggested that Severus either found or invented the spell (it's not clear which), intending it for use against werewolves, who can't be harmed by most spells. It's a confusing spell, since causing damage which is impossinle or difficult to repair seems to be a sign of dark magic, but when Draco is cut by the spell, Severus is able to heal him completely.

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It's been suggested that Severus either found or invented the spell (it's not clear which), intending it for use against werewolves, who can't be harmed by most spells. It's a confusing spell, since causing damage which is impossinle or difficult to repair seems to be a sign of dark magic, but when Draco is cut by the spell, Severus is able to heal him completely.

<Dumbledore disliked it and preferred the intellectual arena of light magic spells, that were all about precision and education>

I don't think there's any difference in precision between dark and light spells - if Sectumsempra is dark, then, as used by Severus, it is a precise spell. If it is the spell that gashes James' cheeck during SWM, then that is a very precise use (which apparently heals). Avada Kevadra is also a precise spell.

Inventing spells is also an intellectual exercise, whether they be light or dark, and I agree Albus distrusted intellect when used by anyone but himself.

It seems pretty clear that the OMGit'sdarkmagic view as expressed by Lily and other Gryffindors is relatively recent. The Blacks were a well know dark familu and intermarried with Longbottoms, Macmillans, Crouches and Potters without difficulty.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

It's been suggested that Severus either found or invented the spell (it's not clear which), intending it for use against werewolves, who can't be harmed by most spells.

I heard another theory that it was intended for use against Muggle assailants when Severus was back home for the holidays. Severus seems to have grown up in quite a rough part of the country, and if he were mugged or otherwise assaulted he'd have needed to be able to defend himself. A controlled Sectumsempra wound would look like a knife cut, and so wouldn't wouldn't look suspicious in the way that other magic-related injuries might.

It's a confusing spell, since causing damage which is impossinle or difficult to repair seems to be a sign of dark magic, but when Draco is cut by the spell, Severus is able to heal him completely.

He does heal him, but using a seemingly quite obscure spell (at any rate, we don't really see anything like it in the rest of the books), so to most people it might well be impossible or difficult to repair. Unless Snape's spell is just an unusually powerful healing spell, and other, more common, spells would work as well.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Whatever cutting spell it was that Severus used on James was also healed enough that neither Sirius nor Remus ever mentioned that as one of Severus' faults.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Sectumsempra wounds will heal naturally, but they're difficult or impossible to cure using magical means? When George (or Fred) has his ear cut off by Snape, Lupin says that it would be difficult to reattach because it was removed with Dark Magic, although he might have just assumed that whatever spells the DEs used must have been Dark, rather than actually recognising it as such.

[sunnyskywalker]

In the ww, that would make a lot of wounds "impossible" to cure. Muggles could stitch George's ear back on, so long as someone thought to Accio it, but we know what wizards think of stitches.

[oryx_leucoryx]

There was no mention of reattaching. It was mentioned (by Molly?) that it can't be *regrown* because it was removed by Dark Magic. Apparently wizards have stem cell technology that allows stimulating the wound to regrow the tissue that was removed.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

According to my copy, Lupin says "there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been cursed off". "Replacing" could I suppose cover both reattaching the ear or regrowing a new one.

[oryx_leucoryx]

And Molly says "I can't make it grow back, not when it's been removed by Dark Magic." Not that I trust either of them. Remus was caught exaggerating for the sake of drama several times already, and I have no idea what Molly's credentials are in the area of Dark Arts.

[sunnyskywalker]

Unless she's secretly a trained Healer or Dark Arts expert, she probably doesn't know more than advanced first aid. She wasn't in the Order in the first war, though her brothers were (so she might have picked up a few tricks, but she wasn't exactly a battlefield medic). If she has any specialties, I think the evidence points toward clock/tracking magic.

So I believe that she can't grow it back. Whether Pomfrey or Snape or the St. Mungo's staff could is another question we never get answered. Why they haven't recruited someone with those skills is yet another question.