Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (also known as Nearly Headless Nick) (died October 31, 1492) is the Gryffindor ghost.

Death
His neck was almost completely severed in life when it was hit forty-five times with a blunt axe, but his head was not off enough to join in the games of the Headless Hunt, a society of ghosts who had been decapitated on earth (a source of annual vexation to the ghost). Harry Potter becomes friends with Sir Nicholas when he attends his "deathday" party (the 500th anniversary of the event) in a Hogwarts dungeon. In the first draft of 'Chamber of Secrets', Nick sang a self-penned ballad explaining how his head had (nearly) come off. Here is the story of Nick's decapitation in his own moving words:

It was a mistake any wizard could make

Who was tired and caught on the hop

One piffling error, and then, to my terror,

I found myself facing the chop.

Alas for the eve when I met Lady Grieve

A-strolling the park in the dusk!

She was of the belief I could straighten her teeth

Next moment she'd sprouted a tusk.

I cried through the night that I'd soon put her right

But the process of justice was lax;

They'd brought out the block, though they'd mislaid the rock

Where they usually sharpened the axe.

Next morning at dawn, with a face most forlorn,

The priest said to try not to cry,

"You can come just like that, no, you won't need a hat,"

And I knew that my end must be nigh.

The man in the mask who would have the sad task

Of cleaving my head from my neck,

Said "Nick, if you please, will you get to your knees,"

And I turned to a gibbering wreck.

"This may sting a bit" said the cack-handed twit

As he swung the axe up in the air,

''But oh the blunt blade! No difference it made,''

My head was still definitely there.

The axeman he hacked and he whacked and he thwacked,

"Won't be too long", he assured me,

But quick it was not, and the bone-headed clot

Took forty-five goes 'til he floored me.

And so I was dead, but my faithful old head

It never saw fit to desert me,

It still lingers on, that's the end of my song,

And now, please applaud, or you'll hurt me.

1992
During the 1992 school year, when the Chamber of Secrets was opened, he was one of those petrified by the Basilisk. By the end of the year he was revived (back to being a ghost).

1995
After Sirius Black, Harry's godfather is killed, Harry asks Nick if he can return as a ghost. Nick explains that only a wizard afraid of death can become a ghost. The alternative is moving on.

Behind The Scenes

 * In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Nick says he hasn't eaten in nearly 400 years. Yet he had, at the time, already been dead for over one hundred years longer than that.
 * The Harry Potter timeline is based upon Nick's deathday party in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Having died in 1492, and celebrating his 500th death day, this ostensibly places the novels in the early to mid 1990s.
 * While most of the Hogwarts students call him "Nearly Headless Nick," he prefers the more formal "Sir Nicholas."

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows