Professor Binns

Professor Binns is the ghostly History of Magic teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a shriveled, ancient figure who died so unremarkably that he simply got up to teach one day and left his body behind in an armchair in front of the staff room fire. He is the only ghost on the teaching staff, and his routine has not varied in the slightest since his death. He enters his classroom not through the door but through the blackboard, and he delivers his lectures in a flat, droning monotone that sounds like an old vacuum cleaner, a voice so soporific that nearly everyone in the class is in a deep stupor within minutes, occasionally coming to long enough to copy down a name or date before falling asleep again. His subject is History of Magic, and he deals strictly with facts, not myths and legends, a principle he upholds with a dry, wheezy voice and a manner that suggests he has never been properly interrupted by a student, alive or dead.

Reluctant Revelation of the Chamber of Secrets

During a deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, Hermione Granger raises her hand, an event so unprecedented that Professor Binns looks amazed and has to ask her name. When she asks him to tell the class about the Chamber of Secrets, he blinks and insists that his subject is History of Magic, which deals with facts, not myths and legends. However, when Hermione persists, arguing that legends always have a basis in fact, and the entire class hangs on his every word, he is completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest and reluctantly agrees to tell the story. He explains that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. He describes how a rift grew between Slytherin and the others because Slytherin believed magical learning should be kept within all-magic families and disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, and that after a serious argument, Slytherin left the school. He then recounts the fanciful legend that Slytherin built a hidden chamber in the castle, sealed it so that none could open it until his own true heir arrived, and that the heir alone would be able to unleash the horror within to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.

Dismissal of the Legend

Having finished the story, Professor Binns immediately declares the whole thing to be arrant nonsense. He states that the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber many times by the most learned witches and wizards and that it does not exist, calling it a tale told to frighten the gullible. When Hermione asks what is meant by the "horror within" the Chamber, he explains that it is believed to be some sort of monster that the Heir of Slytherin alone can control, but he repeats that the thing does not exist. When students press him further, suggesting that the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir or that Dark Magic might be required, he becomes aggravated, snapping that if a long succession of headmasters and headmistresses haven't found it, it doesn't exist, and that just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't. He cuts off further questions by declaring the story a myth with not a shred of evidence, and within five minutes, the class sinks back into its usual torpor. His refusal to engage with the legend as anything other than a foolish story underscores the official suppression of the truth about the Chamber's past opening, a truth that Tom Riddle's diary later reveals in detail, including the fact that the Headmaster at the time, Professor Dippet, forbade Riddle from telling the truth and gave out a story that the dead girl had died in a freak accident.