New Thought on Theory of the Dark Mark

[Tom Wall]

No: HPFGUIDX 60600

Aldrea wrote:
2. The Mark burns black when Voldemort touches one of his DEs arms 
and "calls" them to him.

Tom:
Right – and it's red otherwise, isn't it?


Aldrea wrote:
The last has always made me assume that the Mark was *not* always 
visible, even during Voldemort's strong years. Thus, the MoM didn't 
know about it. <snip> 
I have always thought that the Mark was never visible during the Dark 
Years, unless Voldemort was using it as a means of communication with 
the Death Eaters. I'm going to give him the credit of being Smart!
Voldemort and say that he must have known that having such a 
permanent mark would be a huge disadvantage to picking off who's a 
Death Eater and who's not.

Tom replies:
I'm not sure that I agree with you here – it was my take that the 
Dark Mark would have always been visible while Voldemort was alive, 
or rather `in power.' Snape tells us that it was a means of 
distinguishing one another – so, that sort of indicates that it'd be 
visible most of the time, no? Thus, it vanished after his demise, but 
would have been visible before that.

I think that the Ministry didn't know about the mark (if at all) 
until it was too late, and therefore didn't know that it could be 
useful in detecting Death Eaters hidden amongst them. I figure this 
must be the case because Fudge, who presumably should know about 
stuff like this, is completely in the dark when Snape reveals what's 
on his forearm in GoF Ch.36. Likewise, Sirius seems to be totally 
befuddled when Harry mentions that Karkaroff showed Snape something 
on his arm.

What I'm more interested in if whether or not the MoM will get on its 
toes and realize that searching for the Dark Mark this time around 
might be a fruitful undertaking.

-Tom