Professor Binns

[Kelly]

No: HPFGUIDX 80554


> WANDA:  I'm wondering why Professor Binns 
> > did?  He has seemed like a rather inconsequential, comic figure 
so 
> > far, but now it sounds as if anyone who becomes a ghost probably 
is 
> > rather a sad character. 
> 
> I don't think he knows he's dead.  In OOTP, he called 
Harry 'Perkins' 
> and I remember Arthur's boss is named Perkins.  I suspect Binns is 
> reliving his life. He couldn't think of giving up teaching. He died 
> and just got up and went back to work. 
> 
> What Nick said is standard mythology about ghosts - spirits bound 
to 
> this plane because they felt they had something to do and would not 
> pass on.
> 
> > Wanda

I remember thinking it very strange when Nick asserted that becoming 
a ghost was a choice.  He mentions "choice" twice in his conversation 
with Harry in OoTP (US ed. p.861).  Yet, I immediately thought of 
Prof. Binns.  To me it doesn't sound like he had or made any choice 
at all when he became a ghost.  He just stood up one day and went to 
class and left his body behind.

I think Nick was skirting the issue and knows more than he let on 
anyway.  

Kelly