Ghosts?

[Rebecca Johnson]

No: HPFGUIDX 143608

    Sorry if this has already been brought up, I've been a member for a while but haven't posted because I'm trying to catch up reading everything...
   
  Anyways, the use of Ghosts in HP is something that has always bothered me because it doesn't seem to make sense...at least to me...
   
  CH3ed wrote:
  > (unless your fear of death causes you to become a ghost).
   
  Is this true? Is that how you become a ghost?  Were Myrtle and Professor Binns, the History of Magic teacher, scared of death?  Myrtle was a distraught school girl who had no idea death was coming, if anything I would have put her more in the depressed category (not necessarily suicidal, but I wouldn't have thought she was scared per say of death).
  
  Binns was said to have died in his sleep one day and then just got up went to go and teach leaving his body behind, could Binns have been scared of death while sleeping, or would it be an overall living fear of the unkown after death takes over?

  There are not a large amount of ghosts which seem to be in the WW although there were many at the Death Day party, I would think that if being afraid of death was what turned one into a ghost that there would be a whole lot more ghosts floating around, esp for all the years past... do ghosts ever get released from this world or are they forever stuck roaming the earth?

  Many of the ghosts do not seem particularly upset at being ghosts. I had always thought that you had to perform some sort of spell which binded you to the earth after you had died, I didn't think that it was a fear of death.

  Another Ghost, the the Grey Lady is a highly intellectual young lady who has never found true love as she never found a man up to her standards, according to JKR, she sounds very level headed and not someone who would be scared of death or OTOH be one to make herself into a ghost in the afterlife.
   
  Can ghosts perform magic? What sort of powers do they have, if any, and have there been any mentions of dark wizards who have become ghosts and are now able to forever be in LV's army??
   
  If anyone has any ideas that can help sort me out or if it has already been discussed and you could send me there, that'd be great!
   
  NymphandoraCallel