Broderick Bode's visitor

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 105205

Carol wrote:
<snipped> [Bode's] visitor may be perfectly innocent since he didn't
bring the plant. It was sent anonymously. Maybe his gift was the
calendar with the fancy hippogriffs. (?)
> > 
Carol, who's pretty sure we haven't heard the end of this incident

jqwillia responded: 
> I think you are right - we will come back to this incident.  The
visitor to  Bode is descibed as "stooped" (I don't have the book with
me) and so is the death eater Nott in the GoF.  JK has described Nott
as very elderly on her website.  I know this is a stretch, but I think
the visitor did deliver the Devil's snare to Bode, and his identity
was Nott.

> Sorry for any mistakes, this is my first EVER post, from a long time 
> lurker...

Carol again:
Hi. I'm honored that you chose to come out of lurking to answer my
post, so I hope you don't mind if I quote some canon to back up my point.

First, all we hear about the visitor is a brief description: "A very
old, stooped wizard with a hearing trumpet had shuffled to the front
of the queue now," followed by a brief dialogue: "'I'm here to see
Broderick Bode,' he wheezed. 'Ward forty-nine, but I'm afraid you're
wasting your time,' said the witch dismissively. 'He's completely
addled, you know, still thinks he's a teapot. . . . Next!'" (OoP Am.
ed. 480). Nothing about his bearing any gifts. Admittedly DE Nott is
described on JKR's website as "elderly" and in the graveyard scene as
"stooped," but he's not too elderly to attend DE meetings when
summoned or to fight in the DoM battle, and he doesn't use a hearing
trumpet. (I agree that the visitor could be a DE in disguise, but I
don't think it's Nott, and he isn't bearing gifts.)

That scene occurs during Harry's first visit to St. Mungo's, which
occurs while Harry normally would still have been at school. (He and
his friends are portkeyed to 12 Grimmauld Place early because of Mr.
Weasley's injuries.) The gifts, OTOH, are delivered during Harry's
second visit to St. Mungo's on Christmas Day. I can't tell exactly how
much time has passed, but it's at least two or three days after the
first visit and in a different chapter.

While Harry and his friends are "visiting" Gilderoy Lockhart, the
Healer brings in the gifts for Bode:

"'And look, Broderick, you've been sent a potted plant and a lovely
calendar with a different fancy hippogriff for each month, they'll
brighten things up, won't they?' said the Healer, bustling along to
the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying
tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall
with her wand." (OoP Am. ed. 512.)

Although the healer tells Agnes, the dog-faced woman, that her son has
sent an owl and is coming to visit, she says nothing to Bode about who
the gifts are from. And they're not brought into the ward by the
stooped old man with the hearing trumpet, though he apparently did
visit the ward earlier without, so far as we can tell, inflicting any
additional damage on Bode. They're brought in by the Healer herself in
a separate incident, 32 pages after the first one (at least in the
American edition).

The old man could be a disguised DE (the hearing trumpet seems
suspiciously "disguisy"), but the gifts are sent anonymously several
days after his visit. Quite possibly he's a spy who reports to
Voldemort on Bode's condition and circumstances, but he doesn't
personally give Bode the plant. There's no real indication that he's
Nott, either. He could as easily be the old man who shows up with
Macnair for Buckbeak's execution in PoA--or for that matter, Lucius
Malfoy in disguise. I suppose the Healer could be a suspect, too, but
we don't see many female DEs and she doesn't seem the type. Too
trusting for her own good and that of her patients, more likely.

Without question, the sender is a DE (it surely wouldn't be LV
himself), but we don't have any solid evidence to implicate the old
man. Is he a clue or a red herring? With luck, we'll find out in Book 6.

Carol