Let the cat out of the Bag(man)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 91445

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Berit Jakobsen" <belijako at o...>
wrote:

> The subject of whether Ludo Bagman is/was a Death Eater has no doubt 
> been discussed a number of times. (snip) "Rowling's voice", Hermione 
> and Dumbledore, won't give us a straight answer...

On first reading GoF, when I hadn't found out about Crouch Jr yet, I
tried to assign one "faithful servant", one "coward", one "who has
left me forever" between Karkaroff, Snape, and Bagman. Of course, once
I found out about Crouch Jr, it's way easy to think Barty = faithful,
Karkaroff = coward, Snape = left. But if Barty's assigned place in the
circle was somewhere else, then the easy assumption is not the right
assumption. 

Maybe Ludo was the faithful servant, altho' I can't see anything but
his position in Department of Magical Sports and Games on which
Voldemort could have based creditting him for Harry arriving to the
Graveyard Gathering. It seems to me that one might just as well give
Dumbledore the credit, for having suggested reviving the Triwizard
Tournament in the first place. 

Still, if Ludo is to re-appear in Book 6 as an active Death Eater, we
will learn that he did more behind the scenes. I just now wondered if
he could have sent Bertha to Voldemort deliberately so Voldemort could
extract information from her. Sending her to her painful death would
show his Death Eater evilness. He could have sent her by talking up
that particular part of the forest as a tourist attraction or giving
her the address of a wizarding widower her age who was lonely just
there. He could have known where Voldemort was by spies listening to
rumors (as Dumbledore and Pettigrew were said to have done) or maybe
all marked Death Eaters know where Voldemort is through their Dark
Mark (so Dumbledore knew about Albania from Snape not from "sources").

But, what information did he think would be of use to Voldemort at
just that time? I don't think telling V that there would be a
Triwizard Tournament would strike Ludo as likely to be useful to V,
unless Ludo had more in his mind. Did he even know that HP was V's
first main target, or did he think it was DD? Surely it would have
seemed to him that there were easier way to kill HP or DD than all
that stuff with the Tournament. And surely none of the 'Death Eaters
who walked free" would gotten involved in a new war to conquer the
wizarding world unless they felt sure of winning.

Could he have known that Pettigrew had run to V or did he think V
would use Bertha as embodiment (like Quirrell)? Could he have known
that V had discovered that spell for permanent re-embodiment or could
that spell have been what he was sending via Bertha? That would fit
Magic Dishwasher, if DD and Snape discovered that spell AND THE FLAW
IN IT and used Ludo to tell V about the spell (but not the flaw). If
Bagman and Snape stood together in that circle, they would have at
least known each other, maybe more than that, giving Snape the
opportunity to pass info to Ludo. 

(Karkaroff and Snape stood together in that circle (according to both
theories) and they called each other by first names, the only person
Snape has been seen to call by first name. That's my evidence that
Death Eaters who stand together have a relationship. Altho' the
Lestrange gap was only big enough for two people, so Rabastan's place
must not have been next to his brother.)

It occurs to me that Ludo might have recently discovered that Crouch
Sr was hiding Jr and Bertha knew about it under a Memory Charm, and
that might be the information he was sending to V. It has been
suggested that the 'servant' who will 'rejoin his master' in
Trelawney's Second Prophecy is Crouch Jr, altho' the Prophecy said
something about 'this very night'. Maybe that very night was when
young Barty threw off the Imperius long enough for Ludo to notice him.