Can one of the Harry Potter experts out there confirm: I thought the whole point of the ghosts thing is that death is just another state of being? Ergo he's not going to come back to life, but is going to be a character in the book?
Ghosts in Harry Potter are a bit odd. First, they can only come from wizards. Or maybe other non-Muggles, though Nearly Headless Nick wasn't too helpful on this. Second, not all wizards leave their ghost behind. Most go on to the afterlife, whereas some are too afraid to go on (such as Nearly Headless Nick), whereas others seek to torment the people they knew in life (such as Moaning Myrtle). In any event, they seem to need to choose to stay.
Based on Moaning Myrtle's recollection of her death, it seemed to me that becoming a ghost was fairly instant. You die, ghost, done. In a later book, when a character dies and Harry wonders if they'll come back as a ghost when the idea occurs to him, he half-expects that character to walk through the door some hours or days later, though we're led to believe that that's a sort of futile hope in his grief.
Also also, Dumbledore - as a former headmaster of Hogwarts - is already found on the wall of the head's office as a portrait. JK Rowling says on her website: "Wizards have ways of making sure their voices are heard after their death: think of ... the portraits of dead headmasters and headmistresses in Dumbledore's office".
We are also told that no magic can bring back the dead. A number of rumours/theories tend to pick up about a given character having faked their own death to get around that e.g. James Potter is still alive and someone with Polyjuice Potion was in Godric's Hollow the night he died. From Goblet of Fire:
"Which means," said Dumbledore slowly, his eyes upon Harry's face, "that some of Cedric must have reappeared."
Harry nodded again.
"Diggory came back to life?" said Sirius sharply.
"No spell can re-awaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand. Am I correct, Harry?"
However, JK Rowling is quite good at setting up rules and then having them, well, not exactly disregarded, but subverted in other ways. And one thing we do know about Dumbledore, direct from Rowling herself (not inferred from the books), is that Dumbledore's Patronus is a phoenix. "And, as many of you have deduced, Dumbledore's Patronus is indeed a phoenix." And in Chamber of Secrets, she does make quite a thing of phoenixes being reborn - we see Fawkes die and emerge from the ashes. So it would be entirely possible for her to have Dumbledore reborn, somehow, perhaps.
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Ghosts in Harry Potter are a bit odd. First, they can only come from wizards. Or maybe other non-Muggles, though Nearly Headless Nick wasn't too helpful on this. Second, not all wizards leave their ghost behind. Most go on to the afterlife, whereas some are too afraid to go on (such as Nearly Headless Nick), whereas others seek to torment the people they knew in life (such as Moaning Myrtle). In any event, they seem to need to choose to stay.
Based on Moaning Myrtle's recollection of her death, it seemed to me that becoming a ghost was fairly instant. You die, ghost, done. In a later book, when a character dies and Harry wonders if they'll come back as a ghost when the idea occurs to him, he half-expects that character to walk through the door some hours or days later, though we're led to believe that that's a sort of futile hope in his grief.
Also also, Dumbledore - as a former headmaster of Hogwarts - is already found on the wall of the head's office as a portrait. JK Rowling says on her website: "Wizards have ways of making sure their voices are heard after their death: think of ... the portraits of dead headmasters and headmistresses in Dumbledore's office".
We are also told that no magic can bring back the dead. A number of rumours/theories tend to pick up about a given character having faked their own death to get around that e.g. James Potter is still alive and someone with Polyjuice Potion was in Godric's Hollow the night he died. From Goblet of Fire: However, JK Rowling is quite good at setting up rules and then having them, well, not exactly disregarded, but subverted in other ways. And one thing we do know about Dumbledore, direct from Rowling herself (not inferred from the books), is that Dumbledore's Patronus is a phoenix. "And, as many of you have deduced, Dumbledore's Patronus is indeed a phoenix." And in Chamber of Secrets, she does make quite a thing of phoenixes being reborn - we see Fawkes die and emerge from the ashes. So it would be entirely possible for her to have Dumbledore reborn, somehow, perhaps.