Moody's death / Dumbledore's portrait

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 179498

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
<dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:

> <huge snip>
 
> Eh, isn't his (DD's) portrait way too smart for portrait? 
> Isn't what he did looked more like alive person than portrait? 
> Didn't JKR say that portraits are only imprint of the person or 
> something and they only know stuff before they died?
> 
> I do not remember if I asked this question before or not, but DD 
> seems way too smart for portrait for me.


zanooda:

This is an interesting question and I must say that I wondered about it 
as well. The problem is, I have very little understanding of 
this "portrait magic" to answer the question :-). The only idea that I 
had was that, maybe a portrait's "liveliness" depends on how magically 
powerful the wizard depicted in it used to be. 

For example, all Hogwarts' headmasters were supposed to be very able 
wizards (I hope :-), and their portraits seem "smarter", in your words, 
than others. At least Phinneas Nigellus definitely knows more 
than "stuff before he died" :-). He seems perfectly aware of the 
present situation, IMO.

If (and only if) this theory is true, then DD's portrait have to be  
closer to his former alive self than the others, because DD was the 
most powerful wizard of the century. Maybe someone who used to have the 
most magic when alive, leaves the most deep "imprint" :-).

Anyway, this is the only thing I could think of. Maybe others, who 
understand better how "portrait magic" and magic in general work, can 
answer better :-).