Hogwarts's Ghosts

This summer while our family was on vacation in Maine, I received this email from a wise Catholic friend concerned about some of the themes in Harry Potter. I have a question. We read Sorcerer's Stone as a family we are half way through Chamber of Secrets as a family. I see that there is good, but it is hard to get around some of the dark stuff. Like last night we attended a Deathday Party. It seemed a bit creepy for creepy's sake. I am still pro-Potter but how do I get a Christian message out of it? That's a really good question. The following was my initial response: Note that the ghosts are Wizards who refused to move on from this earth. Later in the series they are described as "imprints". Their entire existence as it remains is suffused with vanity in all senses of the word: note Nick's desire to be a real "decapitee" and the vain attempt to derive pleasure from rotten food without a physical body. The headless hunt is nothing more than a moribund fraternity of wannabes and braggarts at having their heads lopped off. Some achievement. Also there is undue attachment to the things of this earth, e.g., the Fat Friar is a good enough fellow, but he's fat, symbolizing an attachment to food. The ghosts play a bigger role later in the books. Ron is always shown as being "impolite" whenever he mentions the fact that Nick is dead. But he's correct in this bluntness and candor! Nick is the one who is rudely invading the world of the living. Harry condescends to Nick's level out of respect for him and attends the party, but doesn't really enjoy it beyond an amused bewilderment. In book 5, Nick tells Harry, "I am neither here nor there," admitting that he probably made a mistake in his vain attachment. I agree with you that it is creepy, but the question is why so. The creepiness is due to the moribund vanity of en-souled creatures who refuse to move on to the next life. I believe this can be one way of seeing the ghosts at Hogwarts. I had meant to post on this earlier; I just thought of the email again today in reference to an idea Merlin mentioned to me once. He stated that the Potter series has an existential dimension, i.e., how the good characters become good as a result of their actions, and likewise for evil characters and those somewhere in between, that is not found so much in other mythopoeic literature (e.g., Lord of the Rings, etc.). The ghosts seem to be living out the essence of their decision to remain on this plane of existence although it is no longer their proper mode of existence.