[HPforGrownups] Re: Dark Mark and DEs (was:DE Name Origin, & some Dark Mark)

[Amanda]

No: HPFGUIDX 36842

Elkins said many things:

> Eloise, Porphyria, and Amanda were having a really fascinating
> conversation last week about Dark Marks, DEs, scars, and a whole
> lot of great Snapestuff.

Oh, thank you! Nobody seems to be responding to my commentary, and I thought
my postings might be going to the Great Beyond instead of the list--there's
often times when I don't *get* all the posts. Some Yahoo hiccup, I imagine.

<snip superb theory of visibility of Dark Marks. Brilliant. Yes.>

On Snape's reaction to Moody in the hallway NOT being recognition in any
form:

> Because if that had been the case, then surely Snape would have
> recognized the particular *nature* of the tingle or the burn or
> whatever.  He would have told Dumbledore about it immediately, just
> as he'd been keeping Dumbledore informed throughout GoF on the status
> of his own dark mark and of Karkaroff's.  Dumbledore therefore would
> have suspected Moody much sooner, he would have taken some form of
> action, and the entire tragedy would have been averted.
>
> Okay.  So that's not really canon at all, but merely extrapolation.

But sound extrapolation. Very well put. Snape *is* given to taking matters
into his own hands when he feels Dumbledore has not given credence to his
warnings. BUT--he would have warned Dumbledore first, and THEN taken matters
into his own hands. Dumbledore himself says he didn't suspect until Moody
took Harry away after the last task, so Snape said nothing, which I take to
indicate Snape suspected nothing. That, and Snape's surprise when Barty's
identity IS revealed.

> Porphyria:
>
> > I really like the idea of Snape's having properly hysterical pain
> > there, especially since he acts ashamed of reacting to the pain, as
> > if it shows up a weakness.
>
> Yes.  That's my primary reason as well.  For heaven's sake, that scene
> is one of the few places in all canon where poor Severus stakes a
> claim on some pure and undiluted reader sympathy!  If you guys want
> to water down his one unequivocal demonstration of overwhelming and
> deeply-felt shame about his past, then you can go ahead, I guess, but
> I'm not helping.  I'll just stand here in the corner and sulk.

Move over, I'll join you. I also thought there was also a fair amount of
anger in his response to Moody, but it is not righteous anger; it is guilty
anger.

And fear, too, I'd say; Moody can, with a word, do what Snape did to Lupin
and destroy his position. Some highly placed people do know that Snape was a
DE, but if it was reported in Skeeter-esque fashion, there would be an
outcry and Snape would probably have to leave Hogwarts. This would be bad on
many levels---
a) it has been postulated that Snape is there for his own protection; it may
be dangerous for him away from the school, where he could be a target for
both anyone loyal to Voldemort (taking revenge on his betrayal) or anyone
against Voldemort (taking revenge for his being a DE).
b) Clearly, Dumbledore and Snape have some well-laid plans ready for the day
Voldemort might return. Snape's not being there would totally screw these
up, and I believe that the potential for wrecking their plans is enough to
shake Snape up--it's his redemption, in his own eyes, we're talking about
here, that's what's threatened.
There's probably more, but these are what I think would most readily have
crossed Snape's mind in the flash of the moment, along with the angst of
standing in front of someone who knows your secret, knows you know, and is
toying with you.

> Amanda suggested that the mystic link that the DEs share with
> Voldemort might in fact bind their very lives to his.
>
> I find this an extremely compelling theory, particularly as I notice
> that not one of the Death Eaters in the graveyard scene so much as
> *tries* to excuse himself by means of the "But I thought you were
> dead" defense.  Lucius Malfoy whines a bit about not having the
> slightest idea how to go about finding him, but that's not at all
> the same thing, and he does insist that he was "always on the alert."

Oooo. I hadn't noticed that. They none of them do, do they? This Means
Something.

> So I don't have that problem.  I do have one cause for hesitation
> before wholeheartedly embracing Amanda's theory, though, which is
> that to my mind, if the relationship between Voldemort and the Death
> Eaters binds them in life and death, then it would also seem likely
> to me that it would bind their magical power as well.  I would expect
> for the Death Eaters to have lost a good deal of their magical
> abilities when Voldemort was discorporated, and to have remained
> relatively weak for all of those years while he lingered on in his
> impotent state.  And while I can certainly accept Eloise's suggestion
> that the reason that none but the looniest of the DEs ever tried to
> find Voldemort because from their point of view, Voldemort alive --
> but also powerless, safely hidden away, and out of their hair -- was
> a win-win situation, I find that notion a bit harder to swallow if
> alive-but-powerless Voldemort also means alive-but-powerless Death
> Eaters.  If that were the case, then I think more of them would have
> tried harder to restore him to power.

Hmmm. I don't think wizarding powers are the type of thing you can bind that
way. We're talking about innate abilities, like good balance or color sense
or perfect pitch. Hogwarts and other wizarding schools teach you to use the
ability, but the ability itself is inborn.

Removing life from someone via a means like the Mark would be relatively
easy--all you must do is damage the body enough, in any of myriad unpleasant
ways. But I don't know that you could alter one facet of their personalities
like this; even Memory Charms don't obliterate, they interfere with function
(at least, that's what evidence suggests).

If it were possible to bind to communal power this way, I imagine that
Voldemort wouldn't have spent his years possessing squirrels--he'd tap the
power of the DEs through the bond and come bouncing back ready for more. I
think the nature of the bond is what we speculated, that the Death Eaters
did, in fact, "take" his death for him, and his survival at all is the
workings of that.

Nor would anyone, including Dumbledore, have been able to stand before
Voldemort with the combined power of x-teen wizards at his command. So I
don't think the binding of powers is a possibility in the way JKR's world is
set up.

Interestingly, though, it has been speculated also that Dumbledore is in
some way "bound" to Hogwarts itself, and able to draw upon the school itself
somehow. So many other magic objects in JKR's world seem to think for
themselves, and exercise their powers with some degree of will--it seems
unreasonable that Hogwarts, a focus of wizarding study for so long and
founded by so renowned a set of wizards, would not have its own power and
will on some level. Perhaps the Founders imbued it with their personalities?
The Sorting Hat was Gryffindor's; does it show any of his style, I wonder?
Perhaps the powers of objects, having been put their magically, can be bound
magically; while the powers of wizards, being an inborn part of their
beings, cannot.

But I stray off the thread; sorry.

> So okay.  Amanda's convinced me.

Yaaay! Somebody thinks I make sense! Even us old guys need an attaboy
occasionally!  :::does happy dance:::

> (Of course, if one accepts
> Fourth Man, then it doesn't really matter if Voldemort names Avery,
> as everyone present would already know his identity -- but let's just
> leave Fourth Man out of this one, shall we?)

Um. About that fourth man thing. I really wasn't following it and have no
idea what you guys are talking about, and now that we're into hovercrafts
and neon paint, I'm totally at sea. If anyone wants to make a sober
statement about what is at the core of the discussion (or was, before we got
into spiked brandy), certain of us would like that....

> Or have they preferred to assume that
> all of the DEs whose Names get Named in the graveyard really were
> people of some importance -- or people whose covers had already been
> blown -- and so secrecy for them was not an issue anyway?
> I tended to read it as a bit of stakes-raising on Voldemort's part,
> myself, combined with a bit of punishment.  I don't think it at all
> likely that people like Avery and Nott had ever previously been Named
> to the DE circle as a whole.  I think that by naming them -- to my
> ear, he does so rather deliberately that first time with Avery,
> almost as if he's making a point -- Voldemort is both expressing his
> disapproval of their past performance and making it clear to them
> that their loyalty to him this time around really is their best
> chance of personal safety.

Also, it might be moot in Voldemort's mind at this point. He's just removed
the main obstacle that thwarted him previously--Harry. He thinks Harry is
powerless to stop him, having overcome the love-barrier. He's about to kill
Harry and then Portkey himself and all the DEs to Hogwarts, there to attack
the gathered assemblage and probably win, right there. The crowd at Hogwarts
includes the highest-ranking MoM officials, the most powerful Hogwarts
teachers, the children of the most prominent wizarding families in the UK,
and the children of (probably) several of the most prominent wizarding
families on the Continent. The Portkey will bring Voldemort and his guys in,
*inside* the wards of the school. Nobody in the crowd suspects a thing, is
on guard, or is focused on anything but the maze and the task. The ones he
doesn't kill, he will hold hostage, and what he can do to hostages is
probably beyond our imaginings. Voldemort is about to take over the world.
Why the hell should he *care* if his DEs know each other's identities now?

[Incidentally, this has always been my argument for the "why bother with the
whole Cup-as-Portkey thing?" It's a deliberate stratagem.]

> I find it telling, for example, that while Voldemort does name the
> Lestranges (whose cover has already been blown sky-high), he never
> once speaks Crouch Jr.'s name, nor those of the "coward" and
> the "traitor."  Now, this is obviously primarily an authorial matter -
> - JKR wants to keep us guessing -- but I also think that it makes a
> certain degree of in-character sense: Voldemort isn't yet *certain*
> about what's going on with the suspected coward and traitor, and
> before he knows for sure that they really aren't both loyal and
> potentially useful to him, he's not going to put them at risk by
> revealing their names.

The way I read it, he was assuming the others knew who they were. But it's a
good thought. Also, when he arrives at Hogwarts, the coward and traitor
might yet prove useful, and he doesn't want to have to eat his words. Or so
goeth my verbose speculations. Whatcha think?

--Amanda