[HPforGrownups] Re: New Thought on Theory of the Dark Mark

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 60612

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.

Kelly responds:
How many people know about this Mark for sure?  Voldemort, the DE's,
Dumbledore, Fudge, Sirius, Molly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  And the
majority of these people didn't find out about it and its significance until
Snape reveals it at the end of GoF.  Did I miss anyone here?  Now, out of
these, Fudge is the one with the power in the MoM.  However, as we know,
Fudge didn't become a believer after seeing Snape's Mark.  His comment was
more or less, "I don't know what you and your staff are playing at down
here, but I'm going to be calling tomorrow to discuss your curriculum."  To
me, this comment implies that Fudge thinks the Mark to be little more than a
tattoo.  In Fudge's desperation to keep his head in the sand, I can easily
see him believing that Dumbledore wants to create a panic so badly that he
had one of his teachers go to the nearest tattoo parlor and get a tattoo of
the Dark Mark.  Even  better, Snape made it himself and it's not a permanent
one, just put there so it could look scary when he showed Fudge.  Point
being, we don't know if anyone else in the Ministry or any Justice
departement of the Ministry has ever seen the Mark for himself/herself, and
I don't think Fudge will be passing on word to them to check for the Mark on
suspects.

What does surprise me, now that I think of it, is that DD didn't check for
it on his followers.  As I speculated in an earlier post, I think Snape
showed DD the Mark early on when he changed sides.  But yet DD didn't check
other people's arms, especially when he was pretty darn sure there was a spy
close to the Potters.  How hard would it have been to just call Sirius,
Remus, and Peter in and ask them to roll up their left sleeves for a minute
and bare their arms?

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova