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[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 95120

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, SiriusBlack4Eternity 
<willowsgreyghost at y...> wrote:
> 
> Geoff:
> I don't think that's strictly true. In OOTP, we have seen various 
of 
> the portrait folk -  Phineas Nigellus and Dilys Derwent for 
example - 
> who have been sent by Dumbledore to find out information and 
deliver 
> messages at points where they have another portrait of themselves.
> 
> I think that this has been discussed in a thread some time ago but 
> there is a suggestion that the portrait is sentient and has the 
> memories of its sitter up to the point in time where the painting 
was 
> executed. So, a portrait could engage in conversation with a person 
> perfectly coherently, assuming that the discussion did not go 
beyond 
> the then knowledge of the sitter, which is a little more than 
> watching an old video of a friend or relative.

SB4E: 
> I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that DD routinely 
had discussions with the portraits in his office, which if you're 
theory is correct on them being sentients of their former selves 
would serve no purpose for Dumbledore, especially with ones like 
Phineas, because they would be so removed from the current issues of 
the WW that it wouldn't do any good to try and discuss current 
happenings.  Just a thought, because I am still not convinced exactly 
how they work.  

Geoff:
I don't think that my suggestion excludes these portraits to be able 
to discuss current matters once the information has been relayed to 
them by Dumbledore or someone else.

What they /can't/ do is discuss them as if they themselves had 
continued living into the situation. A poor analogy would be to say 
that I can talk about the current situation in the UK as myself but 
not as Tony Blair or Michael Howard; I can look as it as an observer 
and commentator but not as a participant in that sense. Does that 
seem a bit clearer?