Fun and games with Baggy

[Barry Arrowsmith]

A supporting character role in just one book, yet Ludo Bagman makes my 
thumbs itch.

OK - so most of the suspicions about him are based on circumstantial 
evidence, little more than his proximity to events plus he had the 
*opportunity* to pull some cunning strokes - but there's so much of it. 
To a reader on the look-out for double-dealing, no-good, dirty rotten 
slime-balls, Ludo might as well have a giant day-glo arrow above his 
head pointing downwards with "Here he is!" emblazoned on it in 
coruscating lights. If it's all a deliberate mislead by Jo then it's 
not so much a red herring as the entire Russian trawler fleet.

He first pops up at the QWC, hail-fellow-well-met type, ex-jock, 
apparently takes nothing seriously, but as the story unfolds we see 
that his sticky fingerprints are plastered all over the critical bits.

Let's play at investigator; now what can we find to underline in red in 
our little notebooks?

Well, he's the one that allocates the seating in the top-box at  the 
QWC. Note that Arthur (not a favourite at the MoM) gets *eight* tickets 
out of a total of twenty. And they're in the front row. Don't you find 
that a bit odd? And what a coincidence that immediately behind Harry is 
an invisible Barty Crouch Jnr (who promptly nicks Harry's wand) and 
Winky, a House Elf scared of heights.

Can you really imagine that:
a) The Weasley party would get 40% of the VIP seat allocation at the 
biggest event in the WW sporting calendar,
or
b) an Elf would be tolerated in one of the best seats in the stadium
or
c) that an apparently empty seat wouldn't be filled by somebody, 
anybody, once the game started if not before?

There's a choice here. Either Baggy's put the fix in or JKR has blown 
it in the plot device credibility stakes.

As you might expect I'll go with the former. It's more fun and it 
doesn't require me to consider that the divine Jo is a fallible mortal 
after all.

Then there's Bertha.
Admittedly what we know of Bertha is all secondhand, but it's 
fascinating nonetheless.
She works for Ludo and goes missing about a month before the QWC.
But there's more - not only is she cognizant of the QWC, she also knows 
about the forthcoming TWT at Hogwarts *and* that young Master Barty is 
in hiding in chez Crouch.
After a little memory manipulation off she goes on a jolly -  to 
Albania. Where Voldy is known to be hanging out. And meets Peter. Who 
she doesn't recognise as a dead hero. Even though they were at school 
together. And Baggy can't be bothered to look for her. Oops!

What are the odds of a chance encounter between her and Peter?
And do you really believe that Peter would be able to persuade her to 
take a walk in the woods *before* he overpowers her? Nor me. Yet that's 
the way Voldy tells it in the graveyard. Peter convinced her to go for 
a night-time stroll - with no authorial inverted commas (as in OoP when 
DD 'persuaded' Kreacher) to imply a euphemism for coercion.

Now this is  where I start to bounce up and down in my seat. 
Considerations of conspiracy are spurting out of my ears. I can't help 
it. It's all too neat, too pat for coincidence. It's planned.

What if Crouch Snr wasn't the only one to tamper with Bertha's mind? 
Wouldn't it be fun if Ludo'd had a little dabble too? Just a small 
Imperio! "Off you go to the Adriatic, m'dear. Oh, and don't bother to 
pack your sun-screen, you'll not need it." Mmm. Nice.

There's a fair chance that Ludo knew about young Barty.  After the 
fandango in the woods post Dark Mark, Ludo deflects a question about 
where he had disparated to by asking Crouch Snr why he wasn't in his 
seat at the match. A killer of a question when an invisible Barty was 
sitting in it. In fact Bagman's behaviour in that whole forest scene is 
dodgy. And Winky - when Diggory questions her as to who conjured the 
Dark Mark, her eyes  flicker from Diggory, to Bagman and then to 
Crouch. Why Bagman? Is it associated with why she later proclaims that 
Bagman is a bad wizard?

Then there's the Goblet lucky dip.
Most assume that it was DD that  brought up the 'magical contract' 
argument. It  wasn't. Read the passage again. It was Bagman who first 
says that Harry is obliged to compete with later backing from an 
Imperioed Crouch Snr. And inordinately pleased he is about it too. 
Meantime Crouch!Moody played Devils advocate, muttering about powerful 
wizards fiddling he cup, putting Harry at risk. Once Harry has been 
press-ganged it's Baggy who gambles heavily that Harry will win. Now 
why would he be so certain that a  semi-trained student two years 
younger than the other competitors will win? Because he knows the fix 
is in? I smell collusion, conspiracy and foul treachery. Splendid!

Note he ran for it immediately after the third task - before anybody 
really knew what had happened or even what the official result was. 
Escaping Goblins? A bit premature - and I don't recall that there were 
any Goblins there anyway. However - Voldy had been calling to the Dark 
Mark brigade - you don't think...

And to add to the fun and jollity there's this little vignette; the 
Pensieve courtroom scene. Oh, he gets off - but he's guilty as charged 
- he did in actual fact pass information to a Voldy supporter, just as 
the charge-sheet said. He pleaded mitigating circumstances, claiming he 
had no idea that Rookwood was with Voldy - unlikely IMO, since he also 
states that Rooky was a friend of his (Ludo's) father - and with the 
tendency of DEs to make friends among their own, that says more about 
his father than being a justification for leniency.

Such a pity that at the end of GoF young Master Barty gets the snogging 
session of a lifetime (no tongue, please!) before anyone thinks to ask 
if there were any accomplices to his vile conspiracy.
What do  you think his answer would have been?

One thing I'm absolutely certain of - Bagman will turn up somewhere in 
the next two books - and we'll get to see if the suspicions are 
justified.

Kneasy