photo vs. painting in magical world/DD's legilimency & 1st OoP/worse than de

[entropymail]

No: HPFGUIDX 80457

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "wry1352000" <wry1352000 at y...>
wrote:
<snip>
> I wonder why there should be such a difference between the arts of 
> photography and painting in the magical world.  Both people in 
> photographs and people in pictures move and get in and out of their 
> frames, but people in paintings can also talk and seem to be aware of 
> what goes on, while people in photographs don't talk and don't seem 
> to be aware of later events (the Potters on the picture Alastor Moody 
> showed Harry didn't mind sitting on both sides of Pettigrew).  In a 
> way, the paintings' sitters are still alive (like ghosts) and can 
> participate in life around them, while photographs' sitters are more 
> like images frozen in time.  <and snip>

It seems to me that the paintings are all of dead people: all of the
paintings in Dumbledore's office are past (dead) headmasters, and all
of the paintings I've noticed elsewhere throughout the castle are of
people dressed in what seem to be very old costume so they are,
presumably, dead. (Side note: I do remember paintings of Gilderoy
Lockhart in his classroom in the film, but haven't been able to find
them described in the book, so maybe those don't count). These
portraits were probably painted after the person in question was
already dead, perhaps as a place where their spirit can reside. Maybe
that's why we've never seen a portrait of Nearly Headless Nick, or The
Bloody Baron, or any of the other "house ghosts"; they're still using
their spirits, and can't be bothered with sitting around in a frame
all day!

The photographs, however, are all done while the people are alive (of
course).

This leads me to wonder whether we'll be seeing Sirius again in Book
6. Is there an empty frame hiding somewhere in the rambling Black
house that we have yet to discover? Or will Dumbledore commission one,
to hang beside the Gryffindor fire? Oh, the possibilities!

:: Entropy ::