Afterlife

Afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is the concept that an essential part of an individual's identity or the stream of consciousness continues to manifest after the death of the physical body. It is unknown if the wizarding afterlife differs from their Muggle counterparts. It also appears that the afterlife is something that most of the magical community believes in, as there is numerous examples of it.

Overview
According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, may not, as in Indian nirvana. Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death. In some views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual realm.

The afterlife in the wizarding war appears to be heavily influenced by the state of an individual's soul. If your soul is not whole and damaged this will effect your ability to go on. For example, with the destruction of all of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes his broken and mangled soul was forced to exist in the stunted in limbo. He had violated the laws of nature and was forced to pay the consequences. A ghost is someone who choose to remain in the world of the living after death, mostly due to fear of the unknown. A ghost is then forced to stay on the physical plain as imprint imprints left by the souls.

The veil is an enigmatic structure located in the Department of Mysteries. It seems to be a manifestation of the barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead. One cannot travel freely between the two worlds, as it is a one-way trip. The living can have the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the Veil on the other side of the archway, their words are inaudible except for "faint whispering and murmuring noises" coming from the other side of the Veil. When the living person tries to communicate, the dead try harder and their whispering and murmuring becomes louder.

History
When Harry Potter and his friends travelled to the Ministry in 1996, they found themselves in the Death Chamber and strangely drawn to the Veil. Harry, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom were all entranced by the Veil, most likely because they all believed more or less in some type of afterlife. It is implied that Hermione Granger did not, as she did not hear the voices. Harry and Luna heard the voices of their deceased loved ones from beyond.

After the death of Sirius Black Harry asked Nearly Headless Nick about ghosts and how a wizard becomes one. Nick stated that ghosts are imprints left upon the Earth and that very few wizards would choose such a path. He also stated that Sirius would never choose such a thing and that he would have gone on, implying that ghosts know that their is some form of life after death.

Harry awoke to find himself lying naked in a formless mist. After a period of adjustment the mist began to take shape into a copy of King's Cross Station. Harry then saw a stunted whimpering child-like form lying on the ground, for which he felt both pity and revulsion. He also saw the deceased Albus Dumbledore and the two had a long talk in which Dumbledore answered many of Harry's questions and told him that he was not actually dead. As a soul that was whole and complete Harry was given the choice to return to the world of the living to finally stop Voldemort, or to board a train and "go on". Harry choose to live instead of boarding a train to the afterlife.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
 * Pottermore