• Event When Professor McGonagall finds Harry in the hallway near the petrified Justin Finch-Fletchly and Nearly Headless Nick (CS11), she takes him to Dumbledore’s Office, using the password “Sherbet Lemon” (CS12). While waiting, Harry looks around at the many sleeping Headmaster portraits on the wall, as well as Dumbledore’s… Read More
• Event Following Cedric’s hint, Harry takes his golden egg with him to the Prefects’ bathroom and – with some nudging from Moaning Myrtle – figures out that he can make out the words to a cryptic merpeople song about the second task and the Hogwarts lake when he listens to the… Read More
• Character Nearly Headless Nick is the nickname of the ghost of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington, a wizard who died in a botched execution on October 31, 1492. He was hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe, but a half-inch of skin and sinew remained connecting his head… Read More
• Character More commonly known as “The Grey Lady,” the Ravenclaw ghost. Harry and Ron first encounter this tall ghost as she glided past in the corridor while out looking for the Mirror of Erised (PS12). Harry eventually discovers that The Grey Lady is Helena, the daughter of Hogwarts founder Rowena… Read More
• Character The Grey Lady is the Ravenclaw House ghost; in life, she was Helena Ravenclaw, the daughter of Hogwarts founder Rowena Ravenclaw. Helena stole her mother’s diadem to make herself cleverer and fled to Albania. Her mother became deathly ill soon after and sent Helena’s long-time admirer to find her and bring her back. When… Read More
• Event Helena, the daughter of Hogwarts founder Rowena Ravenclaw, stole her mother’s diadem and ran off to Albania. Her mother became deathly ill soon after and sent Helena’s estranged fiance, a baron, to find her and bring her back (DH31). Read More
• Magical identities There are at least twenty ghosts that reside at Hogwarts (PS7). Each of the four houses has their own house ghost; Nearly-Headless Nick is Gryffindor’s ghost, the Bloody Baron is Slytherin’s, the Fat Friar is Hufflepuff’s and the Grey Lady is Ravenclaw’s. When ghost-related decisions must be made, they… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays
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… Read More
• Schools Hogwarts is one of the world’s finest wizarding schools, located in a massive castle in Scotland. Hogwarts takes students from all over Great Britain, starting at the age of 11. The students leave school after their seventh year. The students at Hogwarts are sorted at the beginning of their first… Read More
• Character Olive Hornby was a Hogwarts student in the early 1940s. She teased Myrtle about her glasses, but regretted it later when Myrtle was killed and came back to haunt her (CS16). Read More
• Article
Posted by in Harry Potter Lexicon Minute
When did House Ghosts become a recognized part of life at Hogwarts? Nearly-Headless Nick celebrates the 500th anniversary of his death in Chapter 8 of Chamber of Secrets. In the following chapter, Professor Binns states that Hogwarts was founded more than a thousand years… Read More
• Creature Non-Human spiritous apparitions are a strange form of magical creature which have a ghost-like form but which have never been a living being. This category of creatures includes Boggarts and poltergeists (Pm). Read More