Death Eaters

The **Death Eaters** was the name given to the most ardent followers of Lord Voldemort. The group primarily consisted of wizards and witches who were radical pureblood supremacists who practised the Dark Arts with reckless abandon, malevolence and without regard to or fear of wizarding law.

Lord Voldemort used this select group of wizards and witches during both the First and Second Wizarding Wars, employing them as his elite force. They often wore black hoods and masks with snake-like eye slits to cover their faces. The Death Eaters were considered Lord Voldemort's inner circle and had the Dark Mark burned into their left forearms.

## Ideology

There are hints that a long-standing dispute had existed in the wizarding world regarding the relationship between Magic and Muggles, and the status of magically talented people born to Muggle parents. These disputes clearly date back to at least the time of the founding of Hogwarts, as the Sorting Hat described the rift between pure blood-valuing Slytherin and the other three founders, who were enthusiastic to admit any young witch or wizard of talent.

Once upon a time, witches, wizards and Muggles were known to each other and interacted. The International Statute of Secrecy was the solution settled upon in the 1600s to end these relationships, preventing misunderstanding, miscommunication, and cruelty by enforcing the hiding of magic and bringing about the obliviation of any Muggle aware of magic. Probably not coincidentally, the Scientific Revolution began in the Muggle world around this time.

But this remained a controversial choice. There were many in the magical world to whom it occurred that, united, the wizarding community had enough power to openly take control of governments worldwide.

## Organization

The Death Eaters were an organisation of pure-blood supremacists that coalesced around Voldemort. He found them very useful, as their ranks included wizarding aristocrats that could accomplish his goals through government and money, and deadly, remorseless thugs of all stripes. But he did not really share their passion for pure-blood supremacy. It is hinted at in 1995 that he openly shared his origins with them, and did not try to hide that he saw no shame in his half-blood status, though he held his Muggle father in contempt. Though he allowed them to establish purification policies when they took over the Ministry of Magic, he busied himself with increasing his own dominion and stamping out opposition while never bothering to help them with these goals.

Death Eaters followed their leader's commands first and foremost, and he treated them ruthlessly, often sending them on impossible missions and punishing them horribly if they failed him, even due to bad luck rather than incompetence. At his command, they worked against Voldemort's opponents, the Order of the Phoenix, through espionage, murder, and battle, and also infiltrated and undermined the Ministry of Magic. When he needed tasks done to increase his own power, he often sent them if he considered the task trivial enough to not warrant his personal attention, such as retrieving the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries and visiting the werewolves and the giants. The Death Eaters' other, more spontaneous activities included Muggle torture and murder for fun, property crime, and plotting the eventual overthrow of the British Muggle government and replacing it with a wizard-dominated system. Upon their success in taking over the Ministry during the Second Wizarding War, they began a campaign to identify Muggleborn witches and wizards and strip them of their wands, or even imprison or kill them, on the trumped-up premise that they must have 'stolen' their magic from a 'real' witch or wizard.

In turn, even though Voldemort valued the services they provided, and spoke as though they were a family, he saw them as no more than dispensable servants. Voldemort was willing to sacrifice even the most loyal of them if it would serve him well. Becoming a Death Eater meant a lifetime service to Lord Voldemort. Death Eaters had no opportunity to "hand in their resignation" if the situation looked grim: deserters would be marked for death.

## Aftermath

With the death of their master and the battle lost, many of the Death Eaters who survived were arrested, while others went into hiding. A few were pardoned. After Voldemort's death, the Dark Marks on the Death Eaters' forearms faded into scars.

There are no modern "Death Eaters," but blood supremacy is still very much alive today. There are people who still believe that purebloods and half-bloods are the superior wizarding race.

## Pleasant Prefects Death Eater Affiliate Families

- werley

- fawley

- selwyn

- mansfield