The Bloody Baron

[The Bloody Baron]

Achtung!

My name, when I was alive, was Baron Manfred von Richtofen. I was known to my opponents in the skies over northern France in the First World War as the Red Baron. I am currently known to the student body at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as The Bloody Baron. But, they're all snotnosed little Englander brats, so they can't be expected to get anything right.

Speaking of not getting anything right, those idiots who make the Harry Potter movies put me in some sort of feeble renaissance garb that looks disturbingly French. I'd never be caught dead in such an outfit.

Anyways, I can be usually found wandering the halls of Hogwarts, checking that everything is In Ordnung and trying to keep that infantile Peeves on a short leash.

[Severus Snape]

Ah, hello, Baron. With your arrival, at last I have an ally to assist me in promoting the good name of the much-maligned Slytherin House, and in instructing all on the proper mode of behaviour.

[PrincessMojo]

What you mean to tell me that I was not enough help promoting Slytherin house?

[Lorpius Prime]

Wait, don't you have to be a magic-person to become a ghost?

[The Bloody Baron]

Lorpius said:

Wait, don't you have to be a magic-person to become a ghost?

And getting 80 kills while flying a slow-as-a-snail triplane doesn't count as magical?

[Lorpius Prime]

Well, but if you were a wizard, then

1) What were you doing fighting in such an obviously pointless war as World War I, and

2) How did you manage to let yourself be killed by a machine-gunner, and from what I've heard, an australian one at that

?

[The Bloody Baron]

Lorpius said:

Well, but if you were a wizard, then

1) What were you doing fighting in such an obviously pointless war as World War I?

I may have been a wizard, but I was still German, and of the Prussian nobility at that. Those stuck-up British wizards may have sat out WW2 while my old comrade Herman Goering's bombers laid London waste, but at least SOME wizards have a sense of patriotism and honor.

Besides, I'm a Slytherin, you'd really expect me to pass up an opportunity to slaughter Muggle pilots mercilessly? I could have sat out the war in comfort as a cavalry officer (which I was before transferring to the Luftwaffe), sitting in a café somewhere in occupied Belgium, waiting for the Heer to make a breakthrough on the front so we could run around behind the enemy lines, but no, I went in for pilot training (having been a beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team helped a lot) and became the Vaterland's greatest hero of the war.

Lorpius said:

2) How did you manage to let yourself be killed by a machine-gunner, and from what I've heard, an australian one at that?

At least that Canadian schweinhund Roy Brown didn't get me. $%#&! Canadians. You go to all the trouble of putting an enchantment on your plane that "no enemy aircraft can ever shoot this plane down", and what happens? Yup, a single lucky hit from some ground fire gets you right between the shoulder blades. The plane was unharmed, but I was a goner. I could have healed myself, but the bullet also broke the wand that was hidden in my jacket, and it was useless. Meanwhile, my aorta was pierced and blood was pouring out all over my nice silk scarf and my best flying leathers. I've still got a silvery sheen of ghostly bloodstains on me to this day.

[mooncroww]

Just out of curiosity, who was Slytherin ghost before you? Or did they simply lack one?

[Lorpius Prime]

The said:

At least that Canadian schweinhund Roy Brown didn't get me. $%#&! Canadians. You go to all the trouble of putting an enchantment on your plane that "no enemy aircraft can ever shoot this plane down", and what happens? Yup, a single lucky hit from some ground fire gets you right between the shoulder blades. The plane was unharmed, but I was a goner. I could have healed myself, but the bullet also broke the wand that was hidden in my jacket, and it was useless. Meanwhile, my aorta was pierced and blood was pouring out all over my nice silk scarf and my best flying leathers. I've still got a silvery sheen of ghostly bloodstains on me to this day.

Ah, so you were just a victim of lack of forethought.

[The Bloody Baron]

mooncroww said:

Just out of curiosity, who was Slytherin ghost before you? Or did they simply lack one?

Well, since you asked nicely, I'll tell you the whole history of Slytherin House Ghosts. I am in fact the fourth official Slytherin House Ghost.

The first Slytherin House Ghost was Sir Roger Mortimer, Baron Wigmore and first Earl of March. He was born in 1287 to a family of wizards who had aided William the Conqueror and been rewarded with lands and castles in the Welsh-English border country. He fought for Edward I in the Scottish Wars and at the Battle of Bannockburn. Since you Americans won't know who I'm talking about unless I relate it to a movie somehow, Edward I was Longshanks, the evil king in "Braveheart" and Bannockburn was the last battle at the very end. However, Roger had a falling-out with Longshanks' son King Edward II (the poofy Prince of Wales in "Braveheart", and just as poofy in real life), and began feuding with other barons who closely supported the King. After he tried to kill the king's Chancellor (and gay lover), Roger was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1323, but he managed to escape, one of the few men to ever do so. Being a wizard capable of blasting a hole through the wall with wandless magic helped a lot. He fled to France, where he met up with (and seduced) Queen Isabella (who was a blonde, not a brunette like Sophie Marceau in "Bravenheart", but quite cute nonetheless). Isabella had abanoned her husband Edward II when the gay King tried to make his latest gay lover effectively co-monarch. Together, they raised an army and invaded England. I have no idea why this is never mentioned when Brits brag that their country hasn't been invaded "since 1066", since Roger and Isabella won. They captured King Edward II and forced him to abdicate in favor of his youngest son, who was duly crowned as King Edward III. Roger then murdered the old King by shoving a red-hot iron spike up where only customs men dare to probe. Thus may be the origin of the British slang term "Rogering to death". The new king was just a boy, so Roger Mortimer became his regent, and effectively ruled England from 1327 until 1330. He ruled with an iron fist, like the good Slytherin he was, but this annoyed his fellow barons, who felt he was overstepping his bounds. As soon as Edward III was old enough to rule on his own, he had Roger arrested in Nottingham, tried, and executed at Tyburn in early 1331.

As a ghost, he first haunted the Tower of London for a few years, but decided it was too crowded already. He then tried to haunt his old family castle, but was chased away by dead relatives furious at his treason. However, there he met up with his grandson, also named Roger Mortimer, and also a wizard, and followed him to Hogwarts. There he got on so well with his grandson and his fellow Slytherins that he became sort of a mascot, and the first official Hogwarts House Ghost. Since his title of "First Earl of March" had been dissolved upon his execution, but his family still owned the right to be called "Baron of Wigmore" after a castle they'd managed to hang on to, and because he was such a notorious traitor (the very first English law defining treason, the Treason Act of 1351, was written specifically with his recent acts in mind, and pretty much defined treason as "acting like Roger Mortimer did")...Sir Roger Mortimer's ghost was known as The Bloody Baron...and the tradition-minded Slytherins resurrected the term when I took over many centuries later, rather than have the Slytherin house ghost be referred to by the Gryffindor house colors. Red Baron was out, Bloody Baron it was. Sigh...

Anyways, the Grandson Roger Mortimer, after graduating from Hogwarts, regained control over the family lands and titles confiscated for his grandfather's treason and became the Second Earl of March...and then HIS great-grandson married into the royal family and eventually ruled England as King Edward IV.

When his living relatives finally seized the throne of England, Roger Mortimer's ghost finally retired as Slytherin House Ghost and returned to his ancestral family estate, and he haunts Wigmore Castle to this day, although his ghost has also been spotted in Nottingham Castle.

He was replaced as Slytherin Ghost, the custom of having a house ghost now well entrenched, by the ghost of Sir John Hawkwood, another 14th-century English badass. A classmate of the younger Roger Mortimer in Slytherin house, he was knighted by Edward III and fought under that king's son, Edward the Black Prince, during the 100 Years' War in France. After a peace treaty was signed in 1360, John Hawkwood gathered up some equally bloody-minded knights and formed a mercenary army called "The White Company", and set out for Italy. His mercenaries worked for several different northern Italian city-states, including Florence and Perugia, as well as for (and frequently against) the Pope. At one point, while in the employ of the Cardinal of Geneva, he massacred the entire population of the city of Cesena. He eventually was hired more or less on a permanent basis by Florence as its military commander, and worked for them until he retired in 1392. During that time, he conducted Florentine foreign policy in such a manner that there never was more than a few months of peace in Northern Italy, and he and his mercenaries could be ensured of steady work. He died there in 1394, and his ghost was most annoyed that the people he paid a large sum of money to for the purposes of building him a great marble burial monument had instead had a picture painted of it and hung that in a church instead of building him the monument. They'd out-Slytherined the Slytherin.

His ghost haunted various battlefields in Italy and France for a while, but soon after his death the new English King requested that his bones be removed from Florence Cathedral and returned to his birthplace, the town of Hedingham Sibil in Essex. Sir John's ghost returned with his bones to England, and haunted the tannery where he grew up for many years. Upon Roger Mortimer's retirement as house ghost, John Hawkwood took over the job. Since he'd been a knight, and Slytherin's colors are Green and Silver, he became known as the Green Knight. Many first-year students confused him with the Green Knight from Arthurian Lore...once. No one ever made that mistake twice in his presence. John had a nasty temper.

He lasted quite a while, finally retiring after the Triwizard tournament in the 1874-1875 school year, which was held at Durmstrang. Feelings were still running high after the Franco-Prussian War of a couple years previous, and the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students did not get along at all well. Both the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons champions were killed early in the contest, and then the Beauxbatons replacement champion was also killed. The Durmstrang champion was blamed, of course, and relations between the three student bodies went downhill from there. Sir John, who had accompanied the Hogwarts delegation, then got into a nasty fight with one of the Durmstrang ghosts, who happened to be an old German knight named Werner Von Urslingen. Werner had also been a mercenary captain in the mid-1300's in Italy, and Werner's "Great Company" (a group of 30,000 soldiers and camp followers who hired out as a group to various cities and factions) was the main rival of John Hawkwood's own "White Company". Werner's armor at the time (a ghostly version of which he wears for eternity) includes a silver hauberk inscribed with the slogan "Enemy of God, Enemy of Piety, Enemy of Mercy". And he meant it. Old insults, taunts, and slights from the 14th century came back to the fore, and if Ghosts could be killed, surely one or both of them would have been a goner. The fight took place in the great hall during the Yule Ball, and EVERYONE saw them. Attempts at intervention by various teachers and the headmaster of the time were to no avail, and the students and professors all eventually joined in what soon became a full-fledged riot at Durmstrang. Eventually, after an awful lot of Stunning Spells calmed down the students, the riot ended, but nothing could be done about John and Werner. They kept at it for days, until finally the entire Headless Hunt was brought in to separate them. Some say the real reason they won't let my colleague Nick over there join the Hunt is out of annoyance at his begging them to come in and act as riot police.

When they had both calmed down a bit, John realized what an awful mess he'd caused, and he resigned his post as Slytherin House Ghost, and went back to haunting his old tannery. Werner was fired from Durmstrang as well, or rather Exorcised and kicked out of the building, and he's never been heard from since. Some say he's haunting Schloss Eisenberg in the Czech Republic, an old abandoned castle that doesn't get any tourists because it's right on the edge of a gigantic strip mine, but personally I doubt it. The Triwizard tournament wasn't held again for over a century.

(continued in next post due to length restrictions)

[The Bloody Baron]

Slytherin then got its third House Ghost, the ghost of William John Napier, 9th baron Napier of Merchistoun. He had been a Royal Navy captain and British trading envoy at Canton in 1834, and it was his ham-fisted attempts to strongarm the Chinese government into allowing Opium imports and to open up more ports than just Canton to British shipping that led directly to the First Opium War.

Lord Napier was also occasionally called "The Bloody Baron" in homage to the first Slytherin Ghost, and also "The Creepy Captain", since in his spectral form he wore his old Royal Navy Captain's uniform. However, he never really got the hang of life (or rather afterlife) at Hogwarts, and after only 40 years, he resigned his post and wandered off to sea. He's said to haunt the shipping lanes in the South China Sea to this day, appearing out of the fog and scaring customs inspectors in order to let smugglers bring drugs and cigarettes into China and Vietnam.

The Creepy Captain had left shortly after WW1 had ended, and the then-headmaster of Hogwarts tried unsuccessfully to revive the Triwizard Tournament to bring the French, English, and German wizarding schools back together now that their muggle governments were no longer at war. As part of that effort, I came to his attention, and I was asked to become the new Slytherin Ghost. I was German, but had attended Hogwarts for one year as part of a short-lived exchange program back when England and Germany were both enemies of France, one of the first attempts to heal the rift caused by the Riot at the 1874 Yule Ball. It was hoped that my employment would help heal some of the scars of that disastrous Triwizard tournament, but then again, I'm a Slytherin, so I have no idea what they were thinking about that. However, I've been the Slytherin House Ghost ever since.

I could tell you about the other house ghosts, but I think Nick should tell you about the Gryffindor Ghosts. After all, he only died in 1492, so someone must have had the job before then.

[Severus Snape]

You should probably hope, Baron, that Peeves doesn't come on this board. If he knew you were killed in battle by something as pithy as a Muggle bullet, he would no longer be as dreadfully frightened of you as he currently is.

But then, Peeves appears not to possess the attention span necessary to plough through your condensed History of the Slytherin Spirits, so perhaps your secrets are safe, after all.

PrincessMojo said:

What you mean to tell me that I was not enough help promoting Slytherin house?

Not at all. However, Frostine the Slytherin Princess does not appeal to all of us -- some do not have a great appreciation for Candyland. Some are vicious and therefore need a Bloody Baron; others are just evil and need pink-and-power-hungry fairy princesses such as yourself to convince them of Slytherin superiority.

I will take whatever assistance I can get in order to achieve the end of Slytherin dominance.

Besides, one would do well to show due courtesy to the Bloody Baron. He has it within his power to make one's life in the castle rather unpleasant should one be so foolish as to cross him.