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Imprisoned in Azkaban. In Pottermore, The Malfoy Family gives a hint about what happened in the aftermath of the war: Abraxas’s son, Lucius, achieved notoriety as one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters, though he successfully evaded prison after both Lord Voldemort's attempted coups.
- harry potter - Why do the Death Eaters suddenly abandon ...
The Death Eaters were not completely assured that Voldemort...
- harry potter - Why do the Death Eaters suddenly abandon ...
- Overview
- History
- Ideology
- Organisation
- Affiliates
- Death Eaters' influence
- Behind the scenes
- Appearances
- Notes and references
"They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty."
— Forerunners of the Death Eaters
The Death Eaters were the most ardent followers of Lord Voldemort. The group primarily consisted of wizards and witches who were radical pure-blood supremacists who practised the Dark Arts with reckless abandon, malevolence and without regard to or fear of wizarding law, although some of them joined him out of fear or were blackmailed to do so.
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.
Forerunners
Before the Death Eaters themselves came to be, Tom Riddle, as Voldemort was known in his childhood and early adulthood, gathered a gang of Slytherin students who considered themselves his friends, though in truth, he felt no real attachments to any of them due to his lack of desire for a true friend. According to former Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, they were a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking glory, and the thuggish seeking a leader who could show them more refined cruelty, and were considered to be forerunners of the Death Eaters since most (if not all) indeed became the first Death Eaters. He manipulated them to do his bidding, and though this led to several nasty incidents over the years, with Riddle's strategic discretion, none was linked back to the group, much less the model student Riddle himself.
Origins
"Voldemort... this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too –– some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right." — Voldemort gaining his many followers Before 1970, Riddle formed a group he named the Knights of Walpurgis, which was eventually renamed to the Death Eaters. Its original membership comprised people that Voldemort knew from his time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Most of those recruited were from Slytherin House. Members of the organisation Voldemort deemed to be valuable and faithful would be branded with the Dark Mark. This symbol, a skull with a snake protruding from the mouth, was used to summon his followers at will. The Mark was considered the greatest honour among the Death Eaters. Out of respect for their master, they referred to him as the "Dark Lord". Actively gathering an army of Dark wizards, witches and creatures, with the belief that his hidden Horcruxes granted him immortality, Voldemort and his followers planned to overthrow the Ministry of Magic. Their ranks were huge, outnumbering the Order of the Phoenix by approximately twenty to one.
Aftermath
With the Death Eater forces silenced and the battle all but lost, Harry Potter destroyed Lord Voldemort once and for all thanks to his control of the Elder Wand. Without their master, the surviving Death Eaters fell. Nevertheless, a select few, such as the Malfoys, were pardoned. In fact, Lucius had given much information on his former comrades and assisted the Auror Office in their capture, and many Death Eaters were permanently imprisoned. After Voldemort's death, the Dark Marks on the Death Eaters' forearms faded into scars. Following the outbreak of the Calamity on 14 December 2018, whereupon a powerful piece of Chaotic Magic was unleashed upon the world and resulted in one of the most massive breaches of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in the history of the wizarding world, several magical communities around the world saw a sudden resurgence of Dark wizards adorning the black robes and masks of the original followers of the Dark Lord. Capitalising on the troubles of the day, these individuals would be sighted both in Great Britain as well as overseas, presumably trying to expose the wizardkind and provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds as a pretext to re-establishing their prior reign of terror. They were known to have had numerous violent encounters with Aurors, Professors and even Magizoologists counted among the ranks of the Statute of Secrecy Task Force. It is unknown if these were a fraction of Lord Voldemort's old supporters that were still loyal to the cause, family members of former Death Eaters that shared their kin's ideology on a quest for revenge for their defeat at the Battle of Hogwarts, a group of disaffected anarchist wizards that were unrelated to the Death Eaters who enjoyed the chaos and used their public image as a type of scare tactic, or all of the above.
"Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time. You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest... And in your family, so in the world...we shall cut away the cancer that infects us until only those of the true blood remain..."
— Lord Voldemort on his goals in Malfoy Manor
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.
There are also hints in The Tales of Beedle the Bard and other legends, to the point of even Muggle ones, that 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. For some this was just a means of power, wealth, or fame; but to others, such as Dumbledore, who flirted with the idea of a wizard-led society with Grindelwald in his youth, this was an opportunity to improve the world, to use power responsibly and prevent tragedies based on xenophobia and secrecy like the one that had torn apart his own family.
As for Muggle-born witches and wizards, it seems that their status had been the subject of sometimes violent dispute for centuries. At the time of Harry's first year, and perhaps due to the influence of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff long before that, it was considered gross and impolite to openly disparage Muggle-borns or use slurs like 'mudblood'. But clearly, prejudice and belief in the superiority and supremacy of a long-suffering aristocratic class persisted in many corners of the magical community, to the point of it being centred in England around Hogwarts' Slytherin house, just as Slytherin himself had intended.
"The Death Eaters can't be all pure-blood, there aren't enough pure-blood wizards left. I expect most of them are half-bloods, pretending to be pure. It's only Muggle-borns they hate..."
— Hermione Granger regarding the Death Eaters
The Death Eaters were an organisation of pure-blood supremacists that coalesced around Voldemort, the Dark Lord himself, a man who offered a lightning rod for their hatred and bloodlust and especially those who sought to enforce pure-blood supremacy or establish a New World Order to eliminate Muggles. 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. However, Voldemort's single-minded pursuit of power was unpopular and he merely preyed on prejudice to obtain followers to unwittingly bring him to worldwide dominion. Though he allowed them to establish purification policies when they took over the Ministry of Magic, he busied himself with seeking power for himself 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 virtually 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.
Members Allies
The Death Eaters seemed to have a hierarchy, with Voldemort at the top, followed by top ranking members, who were often his most powerful and trusted Death Eaters. Arguably, his topmost Death Eaters were Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy (until he lost favour), Bellatrix Lestrange, Barty Crouch Jnr, Antonin Dolohov, Peter Pettigrew, Augustus Rookwood, Corban Yaxley and Fenrir Greyback.
DeathsPermanent injuriesNon-permanent injuriesDisappearances•In the films, the Death Eaters (and Voldemort himself) are given a lot of spectre-like attributes, such as the ability to transform themselves into a black smoke-like figure and fly, often crashing obstacles in their way. In addition, once a Death Eater is killed, he will mostly explode or disintegrate, like a spectre, rather than leaving a body like an ordinary human.
•The Death Eaters were at some point named the "Knights of Walpurgis". This name seems to be a play on Walpurgis Night, the evening of 30 April when, according to legend, witches and demons gather.
•Walpurgis Night is the day before the feast day of St Walpurga on the first of May. 1 May, 1998 was the last full day of Voldemort and the Death Eaters' reign of terror. They were finally destroyed on 2 May.
•It is possible that Tom Riddle had formed the Death Eaters under the inspiration of the army of Gellert Grindelwald.
•The hoods worn by the Death Eaters in their first film appearance bear a resemblance to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan. For later films, the design was changed to one with a full mask and no point on the hood.
•There is an individual named Pyrites who appears in a cut chapter of the series. This character is described as a "servant" of Lord Voldemort. It is most likely that Pyrites is a Death Eater though it's possible that he is merely an ally. It's unknown if he actually exists in canon however.
The Harry Potter Wiki has 481 images related to Death Eaters.
•Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First mentioned) (Indirectly mentioned only)
•Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) (Indirectly mentioned only)
•Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Indirectly mentioned only)
•Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Mentioned only)
•Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) (Mentioned only)
1.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 9 (The Dark Mark)
2.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 1 (The Riddle House)
3.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 33 (The Death Eaters)
4.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 1 (The Dark Lord Ascending)
5.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32 (The Elder Wand)
6.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 12 (Magic is Might)
The Death Eaters first existed over 11 years before the events of the Harry Potter novels, torturing and murdering Muggles (non-magical people), as well as anyone who opposed them. When a deadly curse from Voldemort rebounded off Harry Potter and disembodied the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters largely disbanded and vanished.
Apr 10, 2017 · The first time we see the Death Eaters formally converge is during their master’s rebirthing ceremony in the Little Hangleton graveyard. To understand which Death Eaters were present during this event I started with the ones known to definitely be there (e.g. Lucius Malfoy, Walden Macnair, Avery, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and Peter Pettigrew).
Jun 11, 2020 · The Death Eaters were not completely assured that Voldemort would indeed win. When Harry seems dead, many are uncertain about approaching him, despite his appearance of death. This implies that even then, they were not completely convinced of Voldemort’s triumph over him. “There was complete silence in the clearing.
Mar 26, 2023 · Lucius Malfoy is one of the Death Eaters who avoided Azkaban after Voldemort's first defeat, as he claimed he was under the Imperius Curse. Coming from a pure-blood lineage and holding status as a member of the social elite, Lucius always maintained an influential status among wizards, even though the majority of wizards knew he was loyal to Voldemort.
Nov 14, 2024 · Updated on November 13, 2024, by Ajay Aravind: For the most part, the Death Eaters were just as cunning and malevolent as their master, committing so many horrific crimes that they were instantly packed off to Azkaban following Voldemort's first defeat against Harry Potter. When the Dark Lord returned, however, it was clear that some Death Eaters weren't as willing to participate in Voldemort ...
