Written for The Most in a Month Competition.
Written for the Colors of the Rainbow Competition: Blue: Prompt #1 - Write about a Hogwarts ghost OR Write about a Ravenclaw.
Written for The Choose Your Wand Challenge: 9-10 inches - min 300 words.
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"- and so after being defeated by wizards in 1652, the giants hid in the mountains". Professor Binns stopped his lecture and looked at his students for the second time this lesson - the first time being when one of them threw a ball of paper at him and he looked up mildly irritated. "That was it for today". The man closed the enormous book he sometimes used in lessons to read a few paragraphs from. The loud thud awakened most of the students, who looked around disoriented. Taking a few seconds to realise where they were, before awaking their sleeping classmates.
The professor exited the class through the door and walked down the stairs, towards the staffroom on the ground floor. Cuthbert sat himself in a comfortable armchair before the burning fire and took a large pile of papers and a quill out of his bag.
It was late and he was sleepy, but he still needed to correct the assignments from his third year students. Binns may have been very - very - old, but he still knew what working was. Or at least that's what he told himself.
The fire held him warm and comfortable and after another five minutes of trying to stay awake, Binns was finally claimed by the world of dreams.
His breathing became softer. But, unlike all other nights, suddenly, it stopped. The moment his last gulp of air was used up, the professor became engulfed with a bright, white light. It enveloped him and slowly crawled into the man's corpse.
The following morning, the light let go of the flesh. Slowly coming out, it took form. A white, ghostly face freed itself from its former body. Then the neck followed, then the chest, and the arms and the legs. And finally the professor was awake. He opened his eyes, having a hard time with the small task. 'I'm so tired'.
Without realising what had happened, Binns turned around and flew through the wall. Walking - no floating up the stairs. Not thinking about where he was going, he went through walls and people and chairs, until he flew through the blackboard of the history class and realised he was where he was supposed to be. As always Binns started his lecture without looking whether there were students in the room or not.
Binns didn't notice the screams of the children when he entered his classroom. Nor did he notice the glances following him wherever he passed. And he certainly hadn't noticed he'd died that night and had become a ghost.
The professor lived - although he technically didn't live - like that for over a decade. Flying through the blackboard of his classroom every morning. Giving monotone lectures that made his students fall asleep. Only to leave the room after his last class to float around the castle. Unaware of everything that happened around him.
Until one day Binns was floating through a door on the second floor. He stopped, suddenly noticing something, and turned his neck to look to his left. The ghost had flown half through the thick wood before hanging still. Most of his head and part of his chest and shoulders sticking out of one side of the door. 'I'm dead', he realised. But Binns didn't put much thought into it and after hanging still for another second, he floated further. Towards his classroom.