Questions

[John Kearns]

No: HPFGUIDX 136441

Hey Crystalwolf, welcome :) (*wave*)

I saw Geoff Bannister's response to your questions, but I noticed a 
couple of things weren't touched on:

> Crystalwolf:
> My other question is, don't the pictures of Headmasters talk?  Are 
> they a little piece of the headmasters' souls?  The pictures of 
> Harry's parents don't talk, but the pictures on the walls at 
> Hogwarts often do.  It seems like an inconsistency to me.  And JKR 
> says dead is dead, but how come there are some ghosts that are
> "half-dead"?  I realize this is a fantasy, but if you are looking 
> for it to make sense, some of those things just don't seem to.

John K:
I'll agree that some of this is hard to reconcile.  The difference 
is that pictures - like those of Harry's parents and those Colin 
Creevey is famous for - are taken with a camera, while portraits 
come from... well, we don't know where, but somewhere else.  But an 
important distinction is that portraits are *not* a piece of their 
soul; merely a 'shadow' of them in the same way that shadows of 
Harry's parents came out of Voldemort's wand in GoF.  They share 
personality traits and appearances and so forth, but are not as 
close to the true person as are ghosts.  Rowling talked about it in 
an interview, though I can't find the exact quote.  And we don't 
know how many of a person's memories, emotions, or thought processes 
are retained in a portrait, though I'm guessing we'll get a glimpse 
at Dumbledore's new portrait in the next book.

Ghosts, on the other hand, are indeed a piece of the wizard's soul 
(or perhaps the whole thing), retaining their full characteristics, 
memories, and thoughts from life - but you either become one or you 
don't, and for those who don't, dead is most certainly dead.  We're 
supposed to find out what makes a person a ghost or not in the next 
book, as well.

< I snipped the Horcrux question, because it's far less easily 
answered - not that I haven't tried in other posts :) >

> Crystalwolf:
> Someone has said there are seven books.. is that 
> correct?  I have only recently heard that.. but it fits with the 7 
> horcruxes thing.

John K:
There are indeed to be seven books, one for each of Harry's seven 
years at Hogwarts.  Whether it's related to the seven Horcruxes we 
don't know, but seven seems to be a special number in the wizarding 
world, and it's also just the number of years required for secondary 
education, so it might be coincidence.

Hope this is helpful,

John K