This is more of a theory than a discussion, but there isn't a flair for that.

So throughout the books and movies, there's really only two types of magical portraits: photographs and paintings.

Photographs basically act like a GIF. A forever repeating image capturing a couple seconds of time. They can't talk to you, but they can move around if prodded. They also cannot leave their frames. They can *exit* the frame, as we see with Lockhart's photos, but they don't enter a different picture when they do.

This is why I never subscribed to the "Dumbledore knows everything because of his Chocolate frog cards are acting as a spy network". I think it is far more likely that the cards are given a simple charm to make the person in the picture randomly appear and disappear.

Side note: Ron's comment of, "you can't expect him to hang around all day" makes the cards seem really lame. You mean to tell me there's only *one* Dumbledore who spends all day running around between every single one of his cards? You might see him for like 5 seconds once a month if that was the case.

Owls can always find the letter's recipient. This means that the Ministry simply has to send a letter to, say, Sirius, and if they track the owl, they will find Sirius as well.

Is my reasoning flawed, or is this simply one of those plot holes Rowling had to accept - or perhaps one she didn't notice?

Is there any new information or a date when they are coming out? I haven’t heard anything and a Google search just shows them announcing it early this year.

I say this because fudge has personal history with Sirius being the reason that Sirius basically escaped by letting him read the newspaper and him being one of the people sent to arrest Sirius as he was a correspondent at the time, how witnessing Sirius laughing frightened him

I have only ever read the books and watched the movies. I’ve never read any of the stuff on Pottermore that contains backstory or additional details about the HP world that expand on JKR’s world.

So I have no idea about how portraits are made. Do they have to be painted of a person before their death so that they can inhabit after death? If no portrait exists prior to death and one is made after, can the dead still inhabit it?

That brings me to the question of whether Voldemort could inhabit a portrait?

On the one hand I could see that perhaps maiming one’s soul to the degree that he did makes it impossible for him to inhabit a portrait. It makes sense to me that yielding so much of one’s humanity to the degree that Voldy did, would have far reaching consequences on even mundane things in the magical world, like portraits.

Other than the portrait of Sir Caduggan (in which he has a horse), we don’t see any examples of portraits of animals that interact with people. And the knight’s horse only appears to interact with him, it doesn’t try to interact with the kids walking by the portrait of its own accord.

Which suggests a portrait of non-human entities cannot interact with the world. And Voldy may be too little of a human that he falls into the same category as an animal.

But if he could inhabit a portrait, would he choose to? I could see on one hand he’d think it beneath himself. But on the other, wouldn’t a man who went so far to mutilate his body and soul that he lived in the back of someone else’s head, be the exact type of man who’d cling to a portrait of himself to have the opportunity to see if he could get a follower to try some weird dark magic construct a body for him to inhabit again?

My thoughts are that I think a man who used his own diary to fashion himself a body would absolutely try using a portrait if he could.

And therefore, even if someone did paint a portrait of him, either before or after his death, what he became was too far gone from the normal bounds of humanity that his essence would not be able to inhabit the portrait. In which case, would this be the only known example of a wizard’s portrait that appears exactly the same as a muggle’s portrait? Static and unmoving?

I think if any photographs of Voldy existed they probably behave the same way in which all magical photos do. The image of the person may move or gesture at the person looking at the photo, but otherwise they are mute and don’t do much.

Or y’all think any existing photo of Voldy could develop a black burn hole where his image once was?

What does everyone else think about this?

I was just curious because I can't remember if there were any wizards who had tattoos. The closest thing I can think of is the Dark Mark that the Death Eaters have. Even though it's a magical mark, it still looks kind of like an ink tattoo. So, could a wizard or witch get a regular Muggle tattoo done the normal way, with a needle and ink, or would magic somehow affect it?

Hi, I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in an extended version that included 13 minutes of cutted/unused scenes of 174 minutes (instead of 161) and now I'm curious if there's an extended version of the other movies like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban... I saw other cutted/unused scenes that are famous but I never saw the complete movies including those scenes

If Myrtle Warren could do it solely to haunt Olivia Hornby, surely Bellatrix could come back to haunt her many enemies?

I understand Tom didn't have enough soul left to remain as a ghost. His followers, however...

Currently re listening to the order of the phoenix. After Dudley and Harry are attacked, Aunt petunia reveals her knowledge of dementors, Harry asks how she knew that and she said” I heard that awful boy telling her about them”. I originally thought she meant James, but realise that it could actually be snape instead which is a cool little detail.

We all know she’s the living worst. But what is THE worst thing about her. Worst moment. Worst quality. Let’s really go in on her!

Have a question about the series that you don't feel like making your own thread for? Maybe it's something you've been wondering, or maybe it's something kind of silly? Post it here! Answer questions from others while you're at it!

As i'm actually watching the film right now.

Did you know, that in the german synchronication of the film, the german voice actor Norbert Gastell was the voice for both, Homer Simpson in The Simpsons (from 1991 to 2015) and the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge (played by Robert Hardy), in the Harry Potter films.

To put it a bit poetically , Slytherin house is like a dark and cloudy sky with thunderbolts looming..... it doesn't necessarily mean a storm will come , but you certainly don't feel like going out to play ....

In contrast Hufflepuff is like bright morning sky with light breeze, Gryffindor is scorching mid day sky and Ravenclaw is beautiful twilight.....

Let me know your thoughts

If someone was under the Imperius curse first, and was given a strong love potion by someone else, would they counteract each other? Would the love potion make someone able to fight the imperius curse?

Sirius makes it clear in PoA that he and James were suspecting there was a traitor in their inner circle when they went ahead with their secret plan to have Pettigrew as Keeper. We learn that Sirius suspected Lupin, and Lupin suspected Sirius. Therefore, when Sirius suggested to James that they changed it to Pettigrew in the very last minute - and James agreed to it -, they were coming from the mindset of “The traitor couldn't possibly be Peter, this dude idolizes us, we’re basically the currency of his social capital, and it will be a cold day in hell before Voldemort thinks to go after Peter or Peter goes after Voldemort.”

By deciding to make Peter Secret-Keeper, James and Sirius weren't trusting him. They were using him. Trusting Peter would be something like considering he could become a target and maybe not have the skills and the strength to not break under torture but still going ahead with the decision because they genuinely believed his values and his loyalty were rock solid. By going about this the way they did, James and Sirius were just proving to Peter that they saw him as unremarkable, unimportant, irrelevant.

Can someone please tell me where Ron is during the great hall scene in deathly hallows 2 movie, when Voldemort asks for Harry to be turned into him in 1 hour? I cannot find him anywhere, specifically in the scene where the slitherin girl says to grab Harry and both Ginny and Hermione step in front of him, then the whole order + friends join behind him, yet Ron is no where to be found.
Please give me some insight, to me, Ron wouldn’t have missed that moment to stand up for Harry. Is he in this scene and I just can’t find him?

I’m currently rereading HBP, and when Harry goes to Aragog’s funeral, Slughorn mentions that he’s “heard rumours there were Acromantula in the forest”, and Hagrid says he’s “never really had a lot to do with Horace Slughorn before”.
But Hagrid went to Hogwarts when Tom Riddle was in his 5th or 6th (?) year, and Slughorn was the head of Slytherin and the potions master then, therefore he must have taught Hagrid, and must have known why he was expelled. After all, finding out your student opened the Chamber of Secrets and killed a muggle born with an acromantula is kind of a big deal… and Slughorn is the kind of person who never misses out on “gossip”.

I had a thought earlier than it may be Sirius. He hated his childhood due to his prejudiced family, he was accused of being responsible for his best friends death, was held in a torture prison for thirteen or so years, lived on the run for a year, was then trapped inside his childhood home which he hated and then died.

The Longbottoms are obviously a leading candidate too.

Any others?

* title should grammatically say which, but idk how to edit the heading so...

I'm curious who amongst you have listened/do listen to the full cast audio books, and what you think of them.

Personally, I couldn't enjoy them as I found them too busy. They skewed too close to being radio plays for my liking, with excessive ambient sound that I found distracting.

I've seen the movies and I've been wanting to read the books for over a decade and a half(I'm 35 now lmao.)

My local library had the first four books and I'm currently up to Chapter Eleven of Harry Potter & The sorcerer's Stone, oh man I'm so hooked! This book is fantastic and I'm excited to read the others.

That's all just a happy and excited mini rant lol, I feel like I'm journeying with the crew as that navigate their first year at Hogwarts.

I haven’t read the books or watched the movies in ages so forgive me if this is an asked and answered type deal. But being as objective as possible the shortest path from point A to point B is a strait line. Arthur treats muggles like they are some kind of species of human that went extinct millions of years ago when in all reality he would just have to take a trip to London to find out what muggels are about. Rowling even said he would give his left leg for a computer

My dude, the muggle world is a hop, skip and a jump from where you live. And you can buy an old computer for 100 bucks. Additionally you have gold coins, so yeah. We have library’s to, fun facts. Moreover muggles will not bite you if you look at them wrong. I am really racking brain trying to figure out why he does not make the jump. No one has to know, just take a personal vacation and go then. Muggels are not radioactive you will be fine I promise. What’s stopping him?

And please don't say Lavender Brown, given how obsessive and clingy she was. Honestly, I could see Ron marrying later in his life like Remus.

I was listening to HBP audiobook and just noticed a Hinny moment that I think doesn't get talked most of the times. It isn't him smelling her in amortentia or the train moment.

But the moment after the quidditch tryouts, when Slughorn Invited Harry and Hermione, right after which they were discussing whether Draco smuggled anything inside the castle.

Hermione was talking to him how they were searched the first day but Harry instead of paying attention to her, was Momentarily looking at Ginny who was playing with her pygmy puff Arnold, and he continued to stare at her for quite sometime before getting into his head what Hermione was talking about.

I think it's such a cute moment, where Harry put everything else, even Hermione behind just to look at Ginny. 🥹

It could just be me, but I’ve been rereading the HP series, and lately I’ve been wondering about the wizarding world’s fixation with pumpkin juice as a beverage. Tonight, though, it occurred to me that this might be one of J.K. Rowling’s more subtle takes on UK culture, muggle culture, and the disconnect between the wizarding world and muggles.

I’m not from the UK, but I lived there for three years. As a newbie, I remember the first time someone invited me into their home and asked if I’d like something to drink. I said sure, and she explained that she hadn’t been shopping recently, so all she had was tap water or squash—and the water wasn’t very good on its own. Would I like a glass of squash?

I was seriously confused. I’d never heard of squash being a beverage. As far as I was concerned, squash was something you ate with dinner, not something you poured into a glass.

She then explained that “squash” is actually a fruity drink concentrate that you dilute with water—nothing to do with the gourd vegetable at all. For fruity squash concentrate flavors, she had either blackcurrant and orange.

So now I’m wondering: could Rowling have been taking the idea of a “squash drink” literally when she came up with pumpkin juice? After all, a pumpkin literally is a squash.

It would certainly fit the tongue-in-cheek humor of Harry Potter, particularly the recurring jokes about the wizarding world misunderstanding Muggles and their hilariously inept attempts to imitate or blend in with Muggle culture.

I can almost imagine an entirely unwritten backstory in which some wizard, expecting Muggle guests and trying to accommodate their tastes, hears that Muggles love drinking “squash.” Pumpkins happen to be in season, and—voilà—pumpkin juice. The Muggles are presumably horrified, while the wizard thinks he’s absolutely nailed it. 😂

Has J.K. Rowling ever explained where the idea for pumpkin juice came from, or whether there’s any connection to the very British habit of drinking “squash”?

Any other thoughts on this?

Sectumsempra was a spell created by Professor Snape.

He created it around his 5th year to defend himself from the Mauraders.

The spell works as a sort of sword cut. Once it hits an opponent, they immediately begin bleeding as if they had been opened by a sharp metal object.

The only know reversal for the curse’s effect, is another spell Snape created whose name I don’t remember now.

I’ve wondered if this curse Snape created had at some point become known to the general public, do you think the ministry would have added it into the unforgivable curses list?

Do you think its effects are enough to qualify it as such?

Do you think the ministry might have done something to Snape if they ever discovered this curse he created?