Slytherin's Ghost

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 123343


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "TrekkieGrrrl" <trekkie at s...> wrote:
> > This has probably been discussed before, since almost everything has
> > as least once. But forgive an old Auror's memory.
> >
> > I was rereading PS/SS and came to the part just after the sorting
> > when they meet the ghosts. Sir Nick says the Bloody Baron is the
> > Slytherin ghost. ""Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw
> > a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt
> > face, and robes stained with silver blood."
> >
> > Seamus asks Sir Nicholas "how did he get covered in blood?"  Nick
> > answers "I've never asked"
> >
> > What is the story here? We now know that this is Unicorn blood.  How
> > did Harry and Seamus know it was blood when it was silver? I guess
> > because of his name. (The narrator told us. And JKR didn't want to
> > explain anything more.)  What is the story behind the Bloody Baron??
> > Was this explained anywhere else, in the books, interview, etc.?
> >
> > Tonks_op
> 
> Hmm I've never though of it as unicorn blood. Sure it's silver, but
isn't 
> that because the ghost itself is more or less silver. I've always
imagined 
> ghosts as somewhat monochrome. So blood on them would also be white. Or 
> silver, if you'd describe the ghost itself as silvery.
> 
> But if it IS indeed unicorn blood the Bloody Barin is splattered
with, it 
> sure raises some wuestions as to when and where he died. And why. He
must be 
> a former Slytherin to be the Slytherin ghost. But we only know that
Nick 
> died ages ago, the Bloody Baron could theoretically have died
recently...
> 
> And he must be a pretty powerful ghost since he's the only one that can 
> control Peeves.
> 
> ~TrekkieGrrrl

Carol adds:
I really don't think it's unicorn blood since any blood apattered on a
ghost would be silver. (If it weren't for the epithet Bloody Baron,
it's quite possibly that it might be taken for some other liquid he'd
spilled on himself at the time of his death.) But assuming that it
*is* blood, it's quite possibly the blood of the opponent he died
fighting. 

BTW, I'm guessing that he became the Slytherin ghost quite soon after
the founding of Hogwarts, possibly around the time of the Magna Carta,
which King John was forced by his *barons* to sign in 1216. A recent
history of England gives the Age of the Barons as 1189–1327, that is,
from the reign of King Richard I (so-called Coeur de Lion) to the
horrible and degrading death of Edward II. So I'd say the Bloody Baron
most likely dates from that period, possibly earlier, from the Norman
Invasion in 1066 onward, but certainly no later than the Yorkist kings
Edward IV and Richard III (died 1485). The more powerful nobles of
their time, notably the earls of Warwick and Northumberland, were
sometimes referred to as barons. But that's pushing the limits of the
term, I think.

Carol