Re: Bagman – A Death Eater or Not? – You (Generic) Decide (GoF CH 7-9 Post DH lo

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181834

> Goddlefrood, having substantially rearranged and partially 
rewritten earlier posts, presents the case for Bagman being a Death Eater:
<snip>
> In GoF, Chapter 10 (The Dark Mark) Bagman is encountered emerging
from the tress close to where the Dark Mark is conjured very soon
before that conjuring. IMO, we are only *supposed* to believe that he
is hiding from or negotiating with the Goblins as a blind. <snip>

Carol:
Or, conversely, we're supposed to start suspecting him as a red
herring villain here and later.

Goddlefrood: 
> Shortly after this the Dark Mark appears and as we later find out
Barty Crouch Jnr. had conjured it. Is it not possible, even probable,
that Bagman was meeting Crouch Jnr. either in furtherance of the plot
or to have it explained to him and to warn him off from having Bertha
Jorkins searched for too closely? It's unlikely that anyone can refute
this, circumstantial though it is. <snip>

Carol:
We know exactly who was working with Barty Jr. and LV: Wormtail, in
whose arms Baby!mort arrives at the Crouch home. They are responsible
for keeping Crouch Sr. under control and for attacking the real Moody,
whose identity Barty Sr. steals. There's no room for DE!Ludo in this
little plot, and no indication of his involvement.

Goddlefrood:
> Mr. Weasley, a few pages later (page 128) then helpfully tells us:
> 
> "But I'll tell you this 
 it was only the Death Eaters who ever 
knew how to conjure it."
> 
> Further indicating that a person who, as LB clearly seemed to 
immediately, knew how to conjure the Dark Mark is a Death Eater. <snip>

Carol:
Why should we think that Ludo knows any more about it than Mr.
Weasley, ot that he knows the incantation? He knows that it takes a
wand, and the only known casters are DEs, so naturally, Winky wouldn't
know how to cast it, as Ludo rightly points out. And, apparently, it
isn't only DEs who know how to cast it, since non-DE Slughorn admits
that he forgot or didn't have time to cast one when he's making it
look like he's been kidnapped by DEs.

Goddlefrood:
> How did Voldemort know that Lucius ran from the Dark Mark? I 
suggest that LB informed him at some point because LB himself joined
the muggle-baiting Death Eaters. He only rejoined the Ministry wizards
quite some time after they had arrived at the scene of the crime of
conjuring the Mark. He would know that the Death Eaters dispersed when
the Mark was seen in that circumstance. <snip>

Carol:
Barty Jr. is present and casts the Dark Mark. If anyone recognized
Lucius under his mask and robes, it's most likely him. (Ludo was in
the forest with the Goblins, whom we see cackling over their
[Leprechaun] gold--how else did they get it if Ludo didn't give it to
them?) Either that or LV know Lucius well: he's the person most likely
to organize a spot of Muggle-baiting. Or maybe Wormtail was on hand in
rat form, observing the event. (Or it's a Flint.) 


> > Carol:
> 
> > We know that the "big blond Death Eater" of HBP is Thorfinn 
Rowle, not Ludo Bagman. 
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> We do, and I haven't suggested otherwise since DH was released, I
wonder why you bring it up. I can read, IOW.

Carol:
Of course you can, but I thought that the big blond DE was the heart
of your previous argument and that his being otherwise identified
pretty much shot down your argument. My apologies. I didn't mean to
offend you. (It was just one additional point I wanted to make in my
counterargument.) <snip>

Carol responds:
Forgive me for not responding in detail to all of your points. I just
want to add that, of all the HP books, each of which contains a
mystery of some sort, GoF is the most like a detective novel, with
every person in the room with Harry after his name comes out of the
goblet as a possible suspect. We know that Harry didn't put his own
name in the cup, but all of the other people (except, of course, the
champions and maybe Madam Maxime and Professor McGonagall) are in some
sense suspects. Sirius Black turns Harry's suspicions toward ex-DE
Karkaroff, Fake!Moody turns them to Snape (hinting that he, too, is an
ex-DE). Bagman's attempts to help Harry make him a suspect, as does
his behavior throughout the book. If we're watching Fake!Moody, he,
too behaves suspiciously, from the Transfiguring of a student to the
eagerness to teach Unforgiveable Curses to the borrowing of the
Marauder's Map (not to mention helping Harry at every turn). However,
as is the case with every book, the mystery for that book (as opposed
to ongoing mysteries like Snape's loyalties) is solved. We know that
Barty Jr. put Harry's name in the goblet; Bagman had nothing to do
with it or he would have een mentioned while Barty was under the
influence of Veritaserum. Bagman's behavior is fully explained by his
debt to the Goblins (and by his foolishness in trying to repay that
debt in Leprechaun gold. Ludo is not even mentioned in any of the
later books. If he were a DE, we would have seen him in HBP and/or DH.

Carol, for whom the only remaining mystery for Ludo is what happened
to him and whether the Goblins killed him