Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Broderick Bode

Overview
Broderick Bode is a worker in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries.

Goblet of Fire
Bode attends the Quidditch World Cup, and Arthur Weasley points him out to Harry as he passes the Weasleys' tents.

Order of the Phoenix
When Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley, accompanied by Mad-Eye Moody and Tonks, arrive to visit Arthur Weasley at St. Mungo's, the day after the snake attack, they wait in line after an old stooped wizard who is there to see Broderick Bode. The Welcome Witch says he's wasting his time, Bode still thinks he's a teapot.

Some days later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen to end up on the long-term residents floor, due to a chance encounter with Gilderoy Lockhart. There, they see Bode, who is apparently getting better. He receives a pot plant (US: house plant) for a Christmas present from an unnamed well-wisher.

Hermione later reads that he has been strangled by the pot plant, which turns out to have been a Devil's Snare.

In a dream Harry has in late February, where he perceives things happening in Voldemort's mind, Harry hears that Bode had been placed under the Imperius spell by Malfoy, but that he had known that he would not be able to do what was being asked of him, and so fought the spell very hard. Based on this sketchy information, Harry, Ron, and Hermione conclude that Bode was placed under the Imperius Curse by Lucius Malfoy, and was supposed to remove a prophecy concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort from the shelf it is stored on. As an employee in the Department of Mysteries, however, he knew that he could not touch it, so he fought the curse unsuccessfully. The shock of touching the prophecy may have lifted the curse, but left him unable to speak. He was admitted to St. Mungo's, but was killed by the anonymously sent Devil's Snare plant as he began to regain speech abilities. It is theorized that the Death Eaters wished to silence him and so sent the plant, which his Healer thought was a harmless Christmas gift. Encouraged to care for the plant himself, Bode touched the Devil's Snare and was instantly throttled. His death was only briefly mentioned in the Daily Prophet.