Wizarding Portraits

[karenlyall666]

No: HPFGUIDX 68489

I know this kind of thread has already been discussed but I haven't 
seen this exact theory,(I dont think - maybe I missed it in the huge 
deluge of Owls we've all been dealing with recently).

I assume when reading the books that all the portraits we see 
(especially at school and now #12) are of people who are now dead.  I 
wondered if the more forward planning wizard could have had the 
portraits  commissioned - here it comes... 

So that their 'souls' have somewhere to reside when they shuffle off 
their mortal coil?

My reasoning being, that all the pictures of people we have seen who 
are still alive tend to be photographs.  Even in the muggle world 
this is thought of to be a snap shot of a 'moment' not a lasting 
impression of the subject.  Dumbledores Chocolate Frog card could 
have been imbued (sp?) with an aspect of his personality at the time 
of 'image capture' as could Lockhart's posters, book covers etc...

Phineas Nigellus (past Headmaster, and by all accounts a Tyrant) was 
in my opion the type of controling personality who would quite like 
to watch over the shoulders of susequent Heads of Hogwarts 
to 'advise' and offer 'helpful' suggestions if things were not being 
done the way he would have done them.  

In other words he was an interfering old busy body who didn't know 
when to quit and wasn't going to let a little thing like death stand 
in his way.

Any thoughts - or am I repeating someone else's theory - if I am I 
apologise...

karenlyall666