Yes: his ear. I'm assuming that the nature of the spell prevented simply re-growing his ear. Snape didn't have to compensate for any missing body parts with Draco. That, and it seemed that Snape had to use a specific counterspell in order to heal Draco, which the Order might not have known.

 

The ear was cut off by Dark magik: the blood loss can be stop, the wound cleaned, but it's impossible to replace the ear or other body part which are cut off.

Muffliato is a more useful spell than Silencio, it's allowed not to be heard but still be aware of the area. Silencio just block the sound both ways.

 

Either A) Molly Weasley is an idiot, B) There's a counter curse Snape also invented, or C) Losing an body part is different from a wound. There's any number of explanations.

@Taure. Fair enough. We seem to have been arguing from different understandings of how legilimency works. I always interpreted the easy mind reading (a la Snape in his duel with Harry, Occlumency lessons) as being similar to a Dresden soul gaze, where both parties have to initially have eye contact. In this scenario, avoiding mutual eye contact, maintaining a degree of calm, etc. all negate to a large degree legilimency's advantage. '

If all that's necessary for the easy version is eye contact on the part of the caster, than you can indeed wtfpown nearly anybody. Based on the evidence we have, neither interpretation is clearly the correct one.

For me, I'd rather not have legilimency be the ultimate skill that allows you to destroy anyone without it. It cheapens all the other skills and elevates legiliimency far past what I read it as, which is another useful skill that has clear limitations on its effectiveness and applicability in certain situations such as battle. If legilimency were the wtfpowing technique you prefer, I think a lot more people in battle-type jobs would be at least basic legilimens.

 

Well, that someone is a teacher's favourite doesn't mean they are the best at the subject. Slughorn always praises Lily's personality, so maybe that had something to do over him prefering her over the more quiet and not so friendly student that was Snape. Anyway, I'll give you that point. But it still doesn't mean she should be in Snape's level, given that he - and I say it again - invented new things (and yes, I was talking about spells).

The problem here is that we're using different definitions of eye contact. For me, eye contact is when two people are looking at each other's eyes simultaneously, while you say that eye contact can be unilateral.

And Wikipedia seems to support my definition:

An example: we have two people, in this case they are backpedalling guy and awesome face guy.
:backpedal | :awesome

While backpedalling guy can see awesome face guy's eyes, he can't enter his mind because awesome face guy is evading his eyes. Here there is no eye contact.

I was talking about inventions in general, not just Potions related.

 

Re: Sectumsempra: I'm with Blaise in the idea that there is a counter curse that Snape, as the creator, knows, but others don't. The issue then beomes why Snape never shared the counter.

Last word on legilimency: agree to disagree is, I think, the best option. Canon evidence is not sufficient to determine it either way. That said, I think you've over-estimating the general knowledge of it. My general conception was that it's a magical skill which is only just below horcruxes on the scale of obscurity. I doubt most aurors have heard of it, never mind have the opportunity to train in it. Of all the Professors at Hogwarts, including some very competent people (e.g. McGonagall, Flitwick), only Snape (and Dumbledore) knew it.

That said, in support of your position, my general view of Occlumency is that many people with organised, logical, minds already have some measure of unconscious Occlumency, which would go some way to countering the effect of legilimency. From what we see of Occlumency it's little more than being able to think really hard. I.e. the ability to think about what you want to think, to resist the mind's tendancy to wander (especially when instigated by a Legilimens), the ability to stay calm and focused. Essentially, willpower.

With that in mind, some people are probably already subconsiously practicing some form of Occlumency, just because of the way they think (e.g. Draco, we're told, took to Occlumency so well because he's capable of compartmentalising). This also means that some people may not need training in Occlumency - they develop the skill on their own. Which would explain how Tom Riddle - unlikely to open his mind to anyone, unlikely to find a teacher for such a rare skill - came to master it.

Edit for Mustaine:

If you really want to be technical about it, "eye contact" doesn't refer to any contact of the eyes at all. When people maintain eye contact, they're actually looking between the eyes and slightly up. Which is why it feels so awkward if you try to deliberately maintain eye contact with someone (e.g. during an interview) and are looking right in to their eyes. It's disconcerting.

Tl;DR: Wikipedia is wrong.

I prefer to think about it for what makes sense in terms of what the spell does. It looks in to a person's mind. Ability to look in to something does not normally require that thing to be looking at you - only that it be visible to you.

With regards to Snape and Lily: I would probably put Snape slightly above Lily for the reasons you say. However, I don't think Lily is quite so lacking in talent as you imply. Remember, she was able to do controlled wandless magic before she even entered Hogwarts. The only other character that's associated with is Voldemort.

 

I don't see why he would, that's almost like buying a gun and then giving the people you intend to shoot bullet-proof vests.

 

Uh, because he was on the order's side? So the question remains, obviously.

 

He invented it [Sectumsepra] specifically for his "enemies", so I was under the impression that he kept it entirely to himself as a secret weapon of sorts. I don't think anyone in canon other than Harry or Snape ever cast it. Nobody needed to know the counter because he never planned for anyone else to ever use it.

 

Maybe he didn't even think he would use it on an Order member, so he saw no need to give them the countercurse. Also, it's not as if it was a really important thing, we discuss it now but for him it would have been just an unimportant detail.

@Taure: Well, if Wikipedia is wrong, then you are right. But if not, then I'm right. And I don't think Lily lacks in talent, in hte scale you made I would put her somewhere between James/Sirius and Snape.

 

Maybe because, he only planed for him to know that spell. I don't remember anyone in canon but Snape and Harry using this spell. I know that there are many characters in fanfiction using this particular spell (Bellatrix and other DE). If he was to teach counter-course to Order member for example, he would have to teach actual curse. He only indented to use it for enemies. Maybe he was also fearing that Maruders will steal this spell like others and use it on him. He seemed furious when, Harry was trying to use that spell on him on the end of the HBP book. He said something like that:
"You dare to use my own spell on me!".

EDIT: Seems like, many people wrote the same answer at the same time.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. I never got the impression that he shared it with the DE's either.

 

On topic but completely random:

Calypso's animagus form has been revealed.

Spoiler

(I haven't been able to get this image out of my head all story.)

 

You know, that is probably the most on topic thing posted in the last few pages of this thread.

 

Didn't Lupin recognize that Snape hit George with the Sectumsempra? So he either knows how to cast it or has at least seen/heard it. Harry definitely didn't tell him, so who else might it be than Snape?

- - -

That post is a while back, but I just saw it and wanted to respond:

Point taken. Prodigy might to too much.

However, my point stands that both Sirius and James are much more than above average students. The interaction between Sirius and Remus just before they go and humiliate Snape implies both Sirius and James being able to attain O's in OWL DADA and Transfiguration without little to no effort.

I definitely am.

However, I don't see your connection from me saying that Peter got 'lucky' and you saying my opinion suffers because of my bias.

Peter got 'lucky' in this regard because without his friends, he would neither have the reason nor the skill (we can argue all we want whether it's rare or not, but becoming an animagus is definitely not easy) to become the animagus he is. Sirius tells us that much in book 3. While you're at it, go look up the conversation that Harry overhears in The Three Broomsticks on his first illegal trip to Hogsmeade. McGonagall says that Peter never 'played in the same league' as James or Sirius, implying a) that James and Sirius are indeed more than above average wizards, enough to merit an additional mention and b) Peter isn't.

tl;dr: James and Sirius aren't prodigies. I pulled up that word too quickly. However, my statement that Peter was 'lucky' has nothing to do with my existing bias and everything to do with what canon suggests me to think.

 

Exactly how would you say that Lily is more talented than James or Sirius? The potion instructions that were modified were Snape's work, we have no evidence to suggest that Lily was able to do the same. She was one of Slughorn's favourites. For all we know, Snape could have been Slughorn's favourite too.

All canon suggests about Lily's magical ability is her exceptional talent in Potions. That is all.

James and Sirius on the other hand were animagus by their fifth year and helped Peter to become one. And I consider that a sufficiently difficult task for two kids. And McGonagall says that becoming animagus is difficult and I'm willing to take her word on it, given that she undoubtedly knows her subject.

Also, McGonagall mentions in PoA that both James and Sirius were exceptional students and given that she is quite impartial, I assume what she says is true.

Also, Snape's memory shows that both James and Sirius were quite brilliant students as evidenced by the OWL exams.

 

I have been following this story for quite a while, and I can easly say it is one of my favorites.
Probably the best Durmstrang I've seen, and best not-boy-who-lived I've read.

Someone should open a thread for the disscussion about the scale of magic users in the books. It is an interesting disscussion, but it has no direct connection to the this thread.

 

We have no evidence that Lily was unable to do the same. If Slughorn and Snape were both teaching in the same school for a whole year, why did they have (as far as I recall) no shown interactions, if Snape was (supposedly) one of Slughorn's favourites as well? I'd guess that Lily was at least as good as Snape was in Potions, except she didn't write in her book and washed her hair.

Having said that, I think that Lily and (school-age, at least) Snape should be on the level of James and Sirius as well. But anything beyond this point, basically, is just conjecture. JKR didn't give us enough information, thankfully, or people would have even more to write about in their shitty Marauder-era self insert fics.

 

The entirety of this thread is filled with pages long discussions of topics that have little to no direct connection to the Santi's story. Eventually this topic will peter out and we'll swing back to the story. At which point the cycle will begin again.

Leaving aside the debate over how much better than Pettigrew Sirius and James are; lets look at the implications of his skill level.

If Pettigrew is in fact an incompetent fuck who just got lucky in having smart friends, that actually weakens the argument that the Animagus transformation is extremely difficult and rare. No matter how smart your friends are, if you're fundamentally incompetent and lucky its extraordinarily unlikely that you'll master a rare, very difficult skill.

This line of argument about the Animagus transformation also benefits from Rita Skeeter being an illegal animagus. Skeeter never gives off the impression of being a highly skilled wizard. We have no direct evidence from Hogwarts, but the fact is she works as a gossip reporter, who makes the majority of her stuff up. Not a great deal of skill required. Also, while Hermione was blackmailing her, she was unemployed and unable to find any other work. She's described as being in a "bedraggled state" during this time period. Again this strongly suggests that she doesn't possess the magical skills necessary to find any other job or even take care of herself properly. Finally, she's beaten and blackmailed by a 15 year old girl. Hardly a ringing endorsement of her skills.

So if Peter is an lucky, poor wizard, then 2 of the 5 revealed Animagi in the book are unskilled wizards without outstanding talent. That doesn't really support the idea that the Animagus transformation is so difficult as to be extremely rare.

EDIT

The obvious counter-argument to this is that Slughorn favored the charming, good-looking, rich, and potentially successful. Snape fufills only one of these qualities. Snape in canon was an arrogant, supercilious, sarcastic, unkempt boy convinced of his own superiority. It's entirely possible that he wanted nothing to do with Slughorn. He could have been extremely good and modifying potions and coming up with spells and yet not been one of Slughorn's favorites.

 

See Vicktor - he had an understanding of himself and was able to do it easily. Same could be said for Rita and Peter. If we try and fit The Santi's theory in with the books. Though considering the books don't go into detail about magic really, my view on the matter, or other characters such as Rita and Peter, we may never know.