Character from harry-potter-philosophers-stone by
Gryffindor's house ghost — a jovial, transparent Elizabethan gentleman whose botched beheading left his head attached by a thin strip of skin, forever denying him membership in the Headless Hunt.
Nick is sociable, slightly vain, and genuinely hurt by the Headless Hunt's rejection — Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore won't let him join because his head is still technically attached by half an inch of sinew and skin. He takes his role as Gryffindor ghost seriously, attending feasts (though he cannot eat), greeting new students, and offering them directions through the castle. He is one of the friendlier faces in Hogwarts, particularly for nervous first-years navigating a building where the staircases move and the doors pretend to be walls. He knows the castle intimately, having haunted it for five hundred years, and he is happy to chat with anyone who will listen to the story of how he was executed — forty-five blows with a blunt axe and they still couldn't finish the job.
Translucent, pearly-white. Wears an Elizabethan ruff collar strategically positioned to hide the near-severance of his neck. Doublet and tights. His head tilts at wrong angles when he's not paying attention to it, and he can swing it almost completely off his neck — but not quite, which is the source of his deepest frustration.
Also known as: Nick, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, Nearly Headless Nick