DE Name Origin, & some Dark Mark

[elirtai]

No: HPFGUIDX 36489

When Amanda suggested the DE would know through the Dark Mark about 
Voldemort being alive, Porphyria wrote:
 
> For one thing, after Voldemort disappeared it was disputed whether 
>he was dead or not (according to what Hagrid explains to Harry). You 
>would think that if Voldemort had informed all his Death Eaters that 
>their lives depended on his welfare that it would have become more 
>common knowledge over 10 years later that he must have still been 
>alive. After all, there were former Death Eaters who were willing, 
>for one reason or another, to tell what they knew about their 
>situation: people like Karkaroff would give the MOM any information 
>they were asked and there were several spies working for Dumbledore, 
>not just Snape. So if the MOM had proof that Voldemort was still 
>alive, I'm wondering why that would have been kept secret 

Now, it wasn't exactly a secret, was it? My impression on reading
PS/SS was that most people were more than a little wary about
Voldemort being alive, if bereft of most of his power, and most
of them doubted whether he retained enough of his power to make
a true comeback - this strikes me as the same kind of thought the
DE's must have had by then.

Some hints about this in the first book:
- When they learnt of Voldemort's failure and disappearance, the 
wizarding world at large goes to celebrate thinking this is the end 
of the dark wizard. Ten years after, they're again afraid; they 
should have moved on but they still fear to say the name. In my 
opinion they still doubt, and hope their doubts never become real. It 
looks like there are enough rumors about him being alive.
- Of course the spies don't go publishing their thought openly, so we 
have just rumors. We've seen (the Pensieve revelations in Gof) that 
information disclosed at the MoM court can't leak out. That probably 
accounts for Karkaroff and Snape and others.
- Dumbledore removed the Stone from Gringotts where it was supposedly 
safe. He was genuinely concerned. I don't think a lot of people knew 
Snape was his spy (not Hagrid for example).
- The layers of protection around the stone at Hogwarts weren't that 
hard to break - I always thought they looked more like a trap to lure 
Voldemort's servants. It might have worked too, if Dumbledore hadn't 
made one of his few mistakes by trusting Quirrell (by the way, the 
easy way in which he was led out of Hogwarts is not very realistic - 
I've read speculations about it, but I rather think JKR slipped. This 
was her first book after all!

> Also, when Voldemort confronts the Death Eaters in GoF, he at least 
>implies that they might have thought he was dead: "And then I ask 
>myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? 
>They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against 
>mortal death?" Then he accuses them of paying allegiance to 
>Dumbledore. It seems odd that he would suspect them of supporting 
>someone they thought could defeat him if they all knew this would 
>spell their own doom.

The ones who really support Dumbledore (like Snape) probably think
death's better than helping Voldemort return. Others must have hoped 
Voldemort would never truly return if they didn't help him, and the
*best* possible situation for them was to maintain the impasse:
V. is alive so they can keep living, but never so strong as to
threaten them again. 

> I guess also I'd wonder why no other Death Eaters (besides, the 
>Lestranges, Barty and the other guy) tried to seek out Voldemort 
>after his disappeared. Surely, if they all thought their life 
>depended on his that they'd be a little more concerned about his 
>rotting away in Albania or whatever they imagined was going on.

As Voldemort himself said, they knew he had learnt to guard himself 
against mortal death. Now a thought, could they hope to live forever
through the dark mark too?

Elirtai