There and Back Again - a Portrait's Tale

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 183894

I've been thinking about the portraits in the Potterverse, more 
particularly the Headmaster portraits. But first let me start with 
portraits in general.

I don't think there are wizard painters, at least you don't need them 
to create an animated portrait. I think what you do need is a magical 
picture frame and canvas. These are made by wizards that are a cross 
between wandmakers and the manufacturers of the photograph processing 
equipment that makes moving pictures/cards/etc. I like to think that 
there is some potion making involved in imbuing the canvas with the 
ability to host a bit of a deceased witch/wizard.

These frames can be quite pricey, depending on the size of the frame 
and the amount of detail a witch/wizard wants to include in their 
portrait. You have the Fat Lady painted simply sitting in a chair, 
there's not so much background so the frame can be bigger (and let's 
face it, it would need to be). OTOH, Sir Cadogan wanted the pastoral 
scene, plus his pony, his armor, and his sword, lance and whatnot. So 
he could only afford a smaller frame.

I think these people endowed their portraits and many of them secured 
a place at Hogwarts for their portraits to hang. Maybe not a specific 
location, that would depend on their standing within the community 
and possibly where a caretaker like Filch might choose to move them. 
But many of them would have a permanent sticking charm, or controlled 
by the current Headmaster/mistress.

Others could have hung at a previous locale and were bequeathed to 
Hogwarts for any number of reasons. I'll bet the drunk monks portrait 
was endowed by a local nobleman wizard that took a liking to this 
jolly group of clergy. He arranged for the frame and setting and 
secured each monks consent to be included in the portrait. These guys 
obviously enjoyed their wine, so why wouldn't they consent to this 
portrait? The portrait probably hung at the local monastary (a 
wizarding one), until the monastary was abandoned, destroyed, or lost 
favor of the local community. Barnaby the Barmy, he was probably 
duped into taking part in his portrait, don't ya think?

Individuals or families, like the Blacks, regularly secured their own 
frame and decided it's place within their home. This way, a Walburga 
could have her portait positioned and place a permanent sticking 
charm on it before she passed on.

What about those Headmaster portraits? Well, I think the Headmaster 
frames are magically created by the castle, in a similar fashion as 
how the Room of Requirement works. Whenever a headnaster or former 
headmaster dies and we need a new portrait, the charm is activated. 
It's part of the magic of the castle. It's similar in fashion to how 
the Black family tree automatically knows of a family event and it 
posts the name and date of birth or death of any Black family member.

Now, what did I mean by "There and Back Again"? Besides the nod to 
Bilbo for using his title, I think portraits require the consent of 
the witch/wizard to be depicted. Because I think the portrait subject 
is required to give back of him/herself to his/her portrait. I 
picture some essence, not necessarily the soul, of the wizard must be 
returned from the hereafter to animate their portrait. 

How much is given depends on how much the deceased had to give and 
how well s/he wants their portrait to interact. A Mrs. Black was 
probably not too powerful of a witch, and probably didn't value too 
much animation in her portrait. She would think it important to 
burden her family home with her regal likeness, but wouldn't place 
much stock in giving them much to converse with. She was probably not 
too gracious in that respect.

Others would make similar choices. I suppose one could choose to 
endow one's portrait with so much of their essence that there was 
little of them left to continue "the next great journey". They would 
almost be like ghosts in paint. The difference being, they could 
always reduce their paintings essence to more fully partake of the 
hereafter. I got the feeling that the Fat Lady returned a lot of her 
essence, she seemed to rather enjoy being at Hogwarts in front of the 
Gryffindor dorm entrance. Maybe she convinced Violet to give more of 
herself, too.

A very powerful wizard, which probably included most of the former 
Heads, could afford to return more of their essence to their 
portraits and still be fully immersed in that "great journey". 
Dumbledore may have even sacrificed a little more of himself to his 
portrait than he normally would have to see Harry and Snape through 
the Voldemort era. So, he delayed his "next great journey".

BTW, this means that Snape's Headmaster portrait was created 
automatically. But he had not finished with that whole crossing over 
process, whatever his equivalent of Harry's Kings Cross was, so his 
portrait was not yet animated when Harry had his final debriefing. 
Much as Dumbledore's wasn't yet animated at the end of HBP.

OK, that's my theory. What did I miss in consistency with canon?

Mike, who would probably choose to leave a Sir Cadogan type portrait 
of himself ;-)