How do you petrify a ghost?

Hey brother!

Okay, how on earth do you petrify a ghost?

I'm speaking of course in reference to the petrification of nearly Headless Nick in Chamber of Secrets.

As a quick refresher, Chamber has a clever running gag in each of the attacks that take place

in the castle, where the Basilisk is always having a near miss on actually successfully

committing a murder and instead always leaves the victim petrified.

The first attack is on Mrs Norris, Filchus Cat, who sees the Basilisk reflected in the water on the castle floor.

Colin Crevy must have heard the Basilist coming and had the good sense to attempt to photograph his attacker and only actually sees it through his camera's lens.

Hermione eventually figures out what is causing the attacks in the castle and her and Penelope Clearwater are both checking around corners in the castle with the usage of a hand mirror.

And then of course Justin Finch Fletcher sees the Basilisk through nearly headless Nick and therefore doesn't look the king of serpents directly in the eyes.

And I'm going to say that I remember especially as a young reader how absolutely like mind-blown

I eventually was when I realized that each occasion

involved some small circumstance that would have otherwise obscured the victim's direct line of sight

ever so subtly.

And of these, I would consider the witnessing of the snake

through a transparent ghost to be one of the more clever ways

to have this ultimately play out.

The small hang-up, though, is the incredibly obvious issue that nearly headless Nick is already

dead and therefore it doesn't really seem like he should have been all that able to be affected in any way by the Baselisk.

Right?

So how is this working and goodness gracious how convenient would it have been for Nick to have just remained unaffected.

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