Brain room

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 117592


Kim wrote:
> 
> "You know that Brain Room in the Dept. of Mysteries?  Whose brains 
> did they used to be?  Do you think it matters?"
> 
Maddy responded:
> 
> I've wondered about the brains as well, but I hadn't even thought of 
> who the brains might have belonged to. It is a creepy thought
though, isn't it? I mean, I believe that some university had Albert
Enstein's brain preserved for study, but the fact that the brains are
described as "swimming" (or at least that's how I remember it; don't
have my book on hand) makes them seem as though they are somehow
*alive*. And that is want irks me the most about them. After Ron
summons a brain, it has "tentacles" that try to strangle him. And if
IRC they seem to display a projection of thoughts of some sort, don't
they?
> 
> Perhaps the liquid that they were in has some magical properties in 
> them that keeps them from decaying, but also keeps them active 
> somehow.
> 
> Something I did wonder about with respect to the brains is how Ron 
> will be affected by his contact with one of them. Didn't Hermione
say that Madame Pomfrey had said that memories/thoughts from someone 
> else's brain can do far more damage than his other wounds? I've 
> wonder if Ron will start having memories or something from the
person who's brain that was? Maybe it's similar to a
legillimens/occlumens process...only instead of having your own
memories broken into, 
> someone else forces their memories onto you.
> 

Carol notes:
Yet Ron's injuries seem to be physical, like the sting from the
tentacles of a jellyfish (despite the octopuslike appearance), and the
not always reliable narrator reports that both he and Hermione were
restored to perfect health after about three days in the hospital
wing. I can't recall any indication that Ron is not back to normal.
Does anyone? (The brain, BTW, had lost *some* of its memories before
it attacked him, but given the number of memories in an adult human
brain, its potency probably was not affected.)

As for whose brains are in the tank, maybe they're from the Muggle
equivalent of organ donors.(?)

Carol, wondering what the curse was that Dolohov used on Hermione