[HPforGrownups] A Dark Mark thought

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 16000

> and the reason he looks pale but ready is that the Dark Mark also will
> kill its wearers when Voldemort dies. Snape is being asked to
> systematically, directly, purposefully work toward his own death, and if
> I know Voldemort, a nasty one. This makes his task a potentially

Amanda, this is a really horrible theory.  I say "horrible" not because it
doesn't make sense, but because it makes so MUCH sense that I have the most
dreadful feeling JKR's going to prove you right.

> The problem is, it faded from view, but they didn't die, so if this
> theory is correct, they all must have known that he was alive, in some
> form, someplace--after all, they weren't dead.

Oh, yeah.  Why do you think they were all in such trouble when he came back?
If the fact of their own survival in the face of all other appearances
hadn't been sufficient proof to them that their master wasn't really dead,
V. would have had no reason to blame them for not seeking him out.

Unless it's something simpler and less dire -- that if V. had died the Dark
Mark would have vanished from the arms of the Death Eaters, whereas it
merely faded, proving he was still barely alive somewhere.

But then, in the actual scene in GoF, the reason V. gives for why they
should have known he was still alive has nothing to do with the Dark Mark.
He says they should have known he was alive, and acted accordingly, because
they knew all the radical things that he had done to himself in search of
immortality -- any true Death Eater would know that his master would simply
not be that easy to kill.

> all thought. I had the sudden thought of C.S. Lewis, in "The Silver
> Chair," when the Lady of the Green Kirtle died, the Underworld went up
> in flames, floods, and earth-cracking--"She's the sort who wouldn't mind
> dying if she knew that the person who killed her would be burned or
> drowned a few minutes later" [paraphrase].

And we already know how much JKR loves the Narnia books.  In spite of what
I've just said about V.'s reasoning in GoF, you may very well have something
here.

But for poor Severus's sake, I hope you don't.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj