10 Deadliest Spells In The Harry Potter Universe

3. Sectumsempra

Sectumsempra Draco Malfoy Harry Potter
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What does it do? Creates several large, deep gashes across its victims body, causing them to bleed severely.

Invented by none other than Severus Snape as a way for him to defend himself against the excessive amount of bullying he received in his schooldays, Sectumsempra is arguably the single most brutal spell the wizarding world has brought us to date.

Because - unfortunately, for the victim - it won't kill you straightaway. It'll make you bleed and suffer, dying slowly and incredibly painfully as you literally haemorrhage the red stuff for minutes on end. As much as we hate Draco Malfoy, it felt horrible to watch him fall victim to this curse in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and that speaks volumes as to it's effectiveness and deadliness.

George Weasley lost an ear to Sectumsempra during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and because of the dark, advanced nature of the spell, the ear was not able to be reattached via any known magical means. It's violent, difficult to reverse and tears up its victims with the flick of a wrist - if there's one thing we can take away from this, it's not to bully people until they snap...

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!