Peeves

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 48810

BoBaFeTT asks;

<< isn't a poltergeist a ghost that wants its body back or something like 
that?

 >>

We had a little discussion on this some time ago. Poltergeist activity has 
been documented for centuries, but the definition of just what a poltergeist 
is has changed with the ages.

The most current explanation has taken the intuitive leap of postulating that 
a poltergiest is not the revenant of anything that was ever alive, but, 
instead, a manefestation of psychic energy into the physical plane brought 
about by disruption in its original "realm" due to the sort of trubulence 
which is generally associated with disturbed adolescents. Particularly 
adolescents with some degree of psychic ability.

Given that Hogwarts has served as a repository for anywhere up to a thousand 
psychicly "active" adolescents at a time for most of a milenium, and subject 
to all of their distress, teenage angst, hormonal uproars, jealousies and 
what all, it is hardly unreasonable to expect the castle to have generated a 
poltergeist. If they ever exorcised Peeves, it would probably generate a 
replacement by the end of the next term. 

Granted, Nick is probably not up on current Muggle explanations for psychic 
phenonena, but as a "real" ghost, he would be in the position to know that 
Peeves isn't anything that ever had a soul.

(And, it wasn't Filtch that Peeves listened to, it was the Bloody Baron. 
Filch is the one he torments, just because he can.)

-JOdel