Sirius and the Dark Mark

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 35552

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "hollygolightly95" 
<miss_hollygolightly at h...> wrote:

> If all Death Eaters have the Dark Mark on their arm, it should be 
> easy enough to identify them. If Sirius never was a Death Eater, 
he  doesn't carry the mark, so why was that not enough to prove 
his  innocence? Why was he sent to Azkaban without even a 
trial?

Sirius was captured after Voldemort's fall when the Mark had  
vanished. The vanishing would have been among the signs that 
Voldemort had really gone. The mark only returned as Voldemort 
began to regain his physical form. Thus Snape's remark in the 
Penseive, "It's coming back...Karkaroff's too...stronger and 
clearer than ever." 

I wonder how the Mark was hidden when the Dark Lord was still 
strong. Perhaps Voldemort can control how visible it is. Or 
perhaps the Ministry knew about the Mark from Snape but did not 
dare to use the knowledge, say to  search any suspects, 
because it might have revealed that one of Voldemort's Inner 
Circle was a traitor, thus compromising Snape. In World War II 
the British had to be very cautious about using information they 
had deciphered from the Enigma code because they didn't want 
the Germans to know they had broken it.

Pippin