Ghosts in the Wizarding World

NOTE: Any areas that are the same color are from the same reference.

Reference: http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/ghosts.html

"I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead..."
-- Nearly Headless Nick (OP38)

"Wizards
can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where
their living selves once trod, but very few wizards choose that path."
-- Nearly Headless Nick (OP38)

Ghosts in the Harry Potter universe
Ghosts
are an unusual type of magical creature. In some ways, they're not
creatures at all, but rather characters just like Harry, Ron,
Dumbledore, and all the other living people in the books. But they
aren't quite the same, of course; they are semi-transparent,
non-corporeal beings. Only wizards can become ghosts, and then only if
they choose that path before they die. They enter a state somewhere
between living and dead. Nearly Headless Nick describes it thus:

"Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk
palely where their living selves once trod ... I was afraid of death. I
chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn't have ...
Well, that is neither here nor there ... In fact, I am neither here nor
there..." (OP38)

Nick indicated that wizards study the matter in
the Department of Mysteries, which may be a reference to the veiled
archway Harry saw there. (OP35)

Ghosts can pass through solid
objects. They do not eat, but in many other ways they seem to enjoy a
full life. They interact with "live 'uns," as Sir Patrick said,
referring to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. There are differences, however.
It seems that their sensibilities are somewhat altered since their
deaths, since their idea of music -- an orchestra of thirty musical
saws -- is bizarre and dreadful to the ears of the living. Also, they
do seem to be in some way tied to a place, some (Myrtle, for example)
more than others. They don't all get along exactly well, either. The
Bloody Baron is avoided by most ghosts, and the Hogwarts ghosts don't
go into the Shrieking Shack because they say a "rough crowd" lives
there (although this is likely a story they've invented to help support
the official lore of the place).

While ghosts as a rule don't
affect the physical world -- people walk right through them, for
example -- there are some exceptions. Myrtle can splash water out of
the toilet she haunts when she wants to cause a ruckus to demonstrate
how miserable she is. A ghost is very cold, and having one walk through
you feels like a cold shower.

The Ministry of Magic has some
authority over ghostly behavior. When Myrtle was stalking Olive Hornby
in retaliation for the way Olive tormented her in life, the Ministry
was called in and Myrtle was forced to return to Hogwarts and haunt the
place of her death (GF25).

Reference: http://www.accio-quote.org/themes/ghosts.htm

What Jo says about...
Ghosts at Hogwarts

Please
note: unless you see quotemarks, these are summaries, and not JKR's
words themselves. Please see the linked article for the actual text.

* JKR speaks of researching specific ghosts, implying that one or more
of the ghosts in the books are based on ghosts from folklore. [Read the
exact quote from the Diane Rehm Show interview, 1999]
* The
characters she created the very first day were Harry, Ron, Nearly
Headless Nick, Hagrid and Peeves, then she developed Hogwarts.
Conversations with JK Rowling, p.37-8
* Wizard portraits are not
living or thinking entities, they are only a "distillation" of the real
person. This "aura" can give advice or repeat catchphrases but not much
more. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
*
Ghosts can communicate more effectively with people than the portraits.
[Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
* Ghosts were people who were very afraid of death. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
* If a teacher is head of a Hogwarts house, we can assume they were in
that house; that goes for ghosts as well. [Read the exact quote from
Jo's website]
* JKR: "Peeves isn't a ghost; he was never a living
person. He is an indestructible spirit of chaos, and solid enough to
unscrew chandeliers, throw walking sticks and, yes, chew gum." [Read
the exact quote from Jo's website]
* Peeves "comes with the
building" and doesn't really answer to Dumbledore. [Read the whole
quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
* Moaning Myrtle was in Ravenclaw House. [8 May 2007] [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]

Hogwarts ghosts Castle.

* There are at least twenty ghosts at Hogwarts (PS7). ((From De: I would say "around twenty".))
* When ghost-related decisions must be made, they hold a "ghost's council" (GF12).
* The ghosts are pearly white and glow (PA9).
* Ghosts communicate with each other by ghostly letters. Nearly
Headless Nick received one from Sir Patrick of the Headless Hunt. He
must have used something of that sort to invite people to his deathday
party, too (CS8).
* Only witches and wizards can become ghosts (OP38)

Reference: http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-hogwarts-ghosts.html

Hogwarts Ghosts
by Mike Gray

WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT
In
Muggle vernacular, we're talking about ghosts; more specifically, the
ghosts living at Hogwarts. But enlightened Muggles like ourselves know
better, since there are some "ghosts" who aren't ghosts after all.
Peeves the Poltergeist is one: to quote Nearly-Headless Nick: "he's not
really even a ghost" (PS7). There are two connected terms in the HP
lexicon: poltergeists (like Peeves) and ghouls (such as the Weasleys
have in their attic).

If I were going to stick to sound
(common-sense) linguistics, I'd just grant "ghost" two semantic domains
(the first as a general term for the whole lot, the second as a
specific designation for one of at least three kinds of ghosts). But
"resident non-embodied persons" (RENEPs) has a pithiness to it that
makes a word like "ghost" sound boring. Of course that raises the
question of whether the portaits also evince non-embodied
personalities, so just to keep things clear, I'll ammend that to
resident non-embodied persons, excepting portraits, or RENEPEP's. Which
is a very satisfying term indeed. It's not only politically correct;
it's peppy.

WHO THEY ARE
In PS7 we read that
"about twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall," so there
are quite a few more Hogwarts ghosts than we've had the pleasure of
meeting.

The ghosts representing each of the four houses are
Nearly-Headless Nick (Gryffindor), the Fat Friar (Hufflepuff), the Grey
Lady (Ravenclaw), and The Bloody Baron (Slytherin). We've seen least of
the Grey Lady. In various interviews (including 60 Minutes), JKR has
assured us that the Grey Lady showed up in PS, only we weren't told her
name. [She passes Harry in the corridor in PS12. - ed.] The other three
(particularly Nearly-Headless Nick) are introduced in PS7 and put in
regular appearances thereafter. The Fat Friar comes across as sweet and
dumb (he's the one for forgiving Peeves at the beginning of PS), and
hence as a caricature of Hufflepuff students. Why the Bloody Baron is
bloody, nobody wants to know, but he also fits the Slytherin image of
violent menace ((From De: We come to find later that he killed the Grey Lady, Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, and then himself.))

Nearly-Headless
Nick doesn't embody the Hogwarts bravery as obviously as the Fat Friar
and the Bloody Baron, although he is generous about helping Harry
escape Filch in CS8. As for his personal history, he was not quite
beheaded either 350+ or 499 years before Harry enrolled at Hogwarts. He
is particularly prominent in CS, where he invites Harry, Ron and
Hermione to his 500th deathday party and is later petrified by the
basilisk. He would have died at the sight, if he hadn't already been
dead.

We know three other RENEPEP's who are not connected to any particular house:

Moaning
Myrtle is pimple-afflicted and a victim of the basilisk's first frisk
through Hogwarts. She shows up in CS, where we learn her story, and
again in GF, where she visits Harry in the prefects' bathroom and shows
evidence of a marked interest in naked prefects.

Prof. Binns of
the Hogwarts history department is the only teaching ghost (although
one can question whether his students are actually taught anything by
him). He's certainly the only soporific ghost. Despite his own lack of
tangibility, Binns also is a stickler for good, hard facts: he soundly
denies the old stories about the Chamber of Secrets for lack of solid
proof. One curiosity about Binns: JKR has said that ghosts are unhappy
people, and most of them appear to have suffered violent deaths. All
but Binns: he just died one night and went right on teaching the next
day, sans body. Could the violence here be that he bored himself to
death?

Peeves, as already pointed out, isn't a proper ghost but
a poltergeist. The word means "mischievous spirit", which is Peeves to
a T. The only person in the castle who makes any real impression on him
is the Bloody Baron. As opposed to the other ghosts, he comes in
technicolor, rather than the standard pearly-gray. He's also funny --
Peeves filling in the gaps in the singing armor's Christmas carols is
one of GF's funnier moments. However, Peeves has a sub-human
personality: he delights in any evil events in the castle (the
petrifyings in CS, the terror caused by Sirius Black in PA) and yet he
is not exactly evil. He's just not human enough to require moral
evaluation. Hence, my guess is that he isn't a former human and
probably belongs to an entirely different taxonomy as the proper
ghosts. ((From De: We saw earlier on that Rowling confirmed this.))

WHAT WE'D LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT THEM
There
are a couple of ghost-related inconsistencies. For instance, why did
Nearly-Headless Nick have his 500th Deathday party in CS8 after telling
Harry he hasn't eaten in nearly 400 years in PS7? (I think it's just a
minor inconsistency, but I've seen theories that range from believable
to hallucinatory.) [This was an error in the early editions of PS that
JKR has put on the list for correction in later editions. - ed.]
Another one: If ghosts can't eat or drink (PS7, CS8), how did they
administer the Mandrake Potion to Nearly-Headless Nick?

Now,
why I posted this is because of a possible special ability. I was
trying to come up with a way for it to work and decided that we should
just have a discussion about it.

Quote :

Shelby
has heard and talked back to 'imaginary friends' since she was younger.
At first I was just thinking about making her kind of..out of it
because of what she has been through, but then I had a good idea (Which
is rare). I was thinking that maybe she can communicate with the dead
(Or something along those lines), and they are the source of the voices
she hears in her head.

I replied with:

Quote :

Considering
ghosts in Rowlings books. I think that it should be with only those who
have chosen to be ghosts, but either rarely show themselves to others
or attach themselves to a certain person.

Harry was only able to
communicate with his parents, Sirius and others, who did not decide to
be ghosts, while using the resurrection stone and when his wand and
Voldemort's wand went against each other in The Goblet of Fire; while
their wands are connected shadowy images of the people that Voldemort
killed, beginning with the most recent and ending with the least
recent, came out of it. The wand had performed Priori Incantatem.

Why
they are able to talk to him as if alive or as if they are ghosts is
beyond me. Perhaps we should start a discussion about this and see what
everyone thinks. Unfortunately, Rachyl and Bianca aren't going to be on
for a while. For how long, I do not know.

She replied with:

Quote :

I
don't know much about the books themselves, I haven't finished reading
them yet (No, this does not mean you can't talk about the endings, I
already know how it ends and who dies and all). So, I'm not entirely
sure about how certain things work yet. I wouldn't mind discussing it,
I just thought it was fitting.

So I thought that we should and posted information about ghosts in the HP wizarding world...as you saw.

Because
Peeves could make himself invisible, I had thought that other ghosts
could do so as well, but since he isn't considered a ghost and never
was a living thing, I'm not so sure about that. I can not recall if any
ghosts had been mentioned making themselves completely transparent so
that they couldn't be seen...

I thought that perhaps some may be
too shy to let themselves be seen and that they may speak with certain
people that they may feel comfortable with and that Shelby perhaps
could be one of these people.

But then, something else may be
able to come of this... It seems like there could be some sort of plot
twist here but I haven't come up with one. If anyone has any ideas or
anything to add, please do so.

In the mean time, I'm going to try to do some 'researching', if you will, and see if there can be something else there.

Replies to this thread from the old site:

Aurora Lawson - 13 Jul 2009, 05:02 PM

Quote :: Quote: Because Peeves could
make himself invisible, I had thought that other ghosts could do so as
well, but since he isn't considered a ghost and never was a living
thing, I'm not so sure about that. I can not recall if any ghosts had
been mentioned making themselves completely transparent so that they
couldn't be seen...

I thought that perhaps some may be too shy
to let themselves be seen and that they may speak with certain people
that they may feel comfortable with and that Shelby perhaps could be
one of these people.

This would seem a
rational course to take in my opinion. So the hogwarts ghosts are
fairly visible and verbal, but they have been ghosts a long time and
are comfortable in their surroundings. What about new ghosts? Ghosts
who were so scared of death in life that they didn't really think they
had the requirements to become ghosts but suddenly found themselves in
this predicament? Or what about ghosts whose familiar surroundings were
taken away for some reason or other. No matter what book/movie/song
talks about ghosts, they are always somewhat unhappy, something
terrible happened to them most likely in life but what if their bad
luck didn't stop there?
So in conclusion, Shelby could be one of
those people that the unhappy ghosts are drawn to, Harry didn't know he
was a parcelmouth until he met the snake at the zoo, so maybe Shelby
doesn't know she possesses this ability and just thinks the ghosts are
'imaginary friends'. I think an interesting back story could be built
around this theory, but that's just me, maybe someone else thinks
differently?

A later deleted user - 14 Jul 2009, 02:27 AM

Quote :: (: I love the ideas. I'm pretty open to anything, not really picky when
it comes to this sort of thing. I'm also glad that we are talking about
it, it's nice to know that people are interested enough to actually
have a discussion about it!

Quote: But
then, something else may be able to come of this... It seems like there
could be some sort of plot twist here but I haven't come up with one.
If anyone has any ideas or anything to add, please do so.

That
is a really good idea. Though, I'm not really sure what kind of plot
twist could come out of it. I guess it could have something to do with
a new 'Dark Lord' or something along those lines. If I come up with any
ideas I'll be sure to let you know.

Edolie Holcombe -

14 Jul 2009, 08:42 PM

Quote :: I've been thinking a lot about the curtain that Sirius Black fell into in the Department of Mysteries.

What
I've been thinking to do about that is have the "Unspeakables" still
exist. The people who worked in the Department of Mysteries. Have it so
that they were sworn to always protect everything in the Department of
Mysteries (that survived the DA and DE fight there) so that those
things could never be used and, after the Wizarding world started going
to crap, they turned into a kinda cult type thing. Still bringing in
members who are sworn to protect the DoM. I had been thinking about
making the curtain their main concern or something they became obsessed
with and began worshiping or something freakish like that. We were
never told much about it. Perhaps we could build up something around
that. Harry heard whispering and such coming from it... Maybe those who
are communicating with Shelby are partly trapped by that thing.

I
dunno. Just throwing it out there. Linking the two just came to me just
now because I was thinking on the DoM thing before I read your posts.
If it's a stupid idea, then I apologize. Sometimes I have to go over an
idea a few times before I realize that it's a stupid one.

If you have anything to add, please do so.

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