SORRY I JUST NEED TO WRITE THIS ANGRILY SOMEWHERE BUT I JUST RE WATCHED HBP AND THE FUCKING SECTUMSEMPRA SCENE WHERE HARRYS JUST LIKE "oops lol" WHEN IN REALITY HE WAS SCREAMING IN HORROR AT WHAT HE HAD JUST FUCKING DONE

Let me just break this entire scene down, because I don’t think it happens enough and it is so, so important. This isn’t in defense of Harry–use deliberately used an unknown curse to someone else without knowing what the effects were. There’s no excuse for that. But he didn’t randomly use it and lol.

For perhaps the first time in her life, Moaning Myrtle is not being overly dramatic. Her dramatics match the situation at hand, because these boys are being ridiculous.

And these boys, JFC, they’re like a fourteen year old trying to undo a bra strap for the first time. They only have a vague idea what they’re doing, don’t they? Their curses are missing and their wands are waving wildly. This is not the story of two boys in control of themselves. Can we blame them?

Draco is having an incredibly intimate, emotionally vulnerable moment in the bathroom, and he looks up to find his arch enemy staring at him. And he should have been alone, right? Harry had no good reason to be there, except that he was nosy and went to spy. Of course Malfoy is startled, and of course he’s going to draw his wand. I would’ve done the same.

Harry acts reflexively, full out defense mode, and of course he would. After the World Cup in GoF, it’s Harry that registers the twenty wands raised, who pulls Ron and Hermione down milliseconds before the stunning spells are sent. Harry’s been here before, a wand raised on him, and he’s acting on adrenaline.

The quickly escalates out of control. Draco strikes first, Harry reacts instinctively.This entire duel happens in seconds. Curse curse curse curse CUR, and CURSE. it’s loud and disorientating. Neither boy is thinking rationally. The first four curses, two from each boy, are cast non-verbally, and they all miss. Harry has no idea what Malfoy is casting at him, but he does know that shit is exploding all around him. Malfoy has no idea what Harry is casting at him–benign curses, actually, meant to disorient or disable an opponent, but not hurt them–but he knows that shit is exploding around him. Layer in the bathroom flooding, and Myrtle screaming, and it’s a disaster.

And so, Draco goes for Crucio. He didn’t–he didn’t yell it in anger. His face is contorted, but he doesn’t shout it. Still, I can’t and won’t defend that any more than I’ll defend Harry. I’m sure it was instinctual for Draco, perhaps it was his first time trying it. Maybe it was his twentieth. 

But Harry heard it, this wizard he was in a duel with, who he suspected of being a Death Eater, whom he’d loathed for six years, about to cast an Unforgivable Curse on him. Harry had endured the Cruciatus curse, and he’d be damned if he had to endure it again. Two things registered in Harry’s mind: ENEMY. and SECTUMSEMPRA.

These are children playing at grown-ups, and after…

Harry is immediately horrified by his actions. He gasps, he rushes to Malfoy’s side. He is thrown to the side and lays in the cold, sopping water, covered in blood, in shock. It’s only after he knows Malfoy will be okay that he starts to come to. He stands, he’s shaky, he starts to register his surroundings–the blood, the water, screaming Myrtle. 

This is not a child who is cavalier or unrepentant about his decision. Later, he expresses his regret, even when he’s frustrated at Hermione for nagging about the Half-Blood Prince:

And here, Ginny demonstrates that she exactly knows Harry’s thought process, how he operated, what he was thinking when he cast it. Neither of the boys was right, and Harry definitely wouldn’t have done it, had he known.