Ghosts v Portraits

JKR spoke about the Patronus with Harry Potter fans: the outstanding spell is 'Expecto Patronum', and you know what that does don't you? It creates the Patronus, it creates a kind of spirit guardian in a way. And that's partly because of what it does. It's the protector, and you could protect yourself and other people that you cared about with a Patronus, but it's also because it's such a beautiful spell. You know, the image of the silver Patronus emerging from a wand. I really like that.

JKR said wizard portraits are not living or thinking entities, they are only a "distillation" of the real person. This "aura" can give advice or repeat catchphrases* but not much more. Ghosts can communicate more effectively with people than the portraits.

If a teacher is head of a Hogwarts house, we can assume they were in that house; that goes for ghosts as well.

 

Dolores Umbridge and Patronus at Ministry of Magic
How could Umbridge conjure a patronus when wearing the locket?
JKR said, "Because she is a very nasty piece of work. She has an affinity
for this horrible object, which would help rather than hinder her."

In an interview, JKR was asked the following about the portraits at Hogwarts:

All the paintings we have seen at Hogwarts are of dead people. They seem to be living through their portraits. How is this so? If there was a painting of Harry’s parents, would he be able to obtain advice from them?

JKR: That is a very good question. They are all of dead people; they are not as fully realised as ghosts, as you have probably noticed. The place where you see them really talk is in Dumbledore’s office, primarily; the idea is that the previous headmasters and headmistresses leave behind a faint imprint of themselves. They leave their aura, almost, in the office and they can give some counsel to the present occupant, but it is not like being a ghost. They repeat catchphrases, almost. The portrait of Sirius’ mother is not a very 3D personality; she is not very fully realised. She repeats catchphrases that she had when she was alive. If Harry had a portrait of his parents it would not help him a great deal. If he could meet them as ghosts, that would be a much more meaningful interaction, but as Nick explained at the end of Phoenix—I am straying into dangerous territory, but I think you probably know what he explained—there are some people who would not come back as ghosts because they are unafraid, or less afraid, of death.

go original text of the interview here

JKR told Alfonso Cuaron that there is a graveyard at Hogwarts, over near the other side of the castle to where Hermione punched Draco. The graveyard will play an important part in book 6 or 7. The founders of Hogwarts will also play a role in Book 7.
She also said that a sundial would make perfect sense because when the castle was built it was on an ancient Celtic site. see map

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Myrtle aka Moaning Myrtle

She is a ghost who haunts the second floor girls' lavatory at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Her knowledge of some less-visible-goings-on at Hogwarts since June 13th, 1943 has proved invaluable to Harry Potter. She is instrumental is providing help to the trio during the search for the Chamber of Secrets. But, true to her nickname, Myrtle has a problem with rejection and feels unloved. Her tendency to sob, whine, wail and complain makes it difficult, according to Hermione, for most people to spend any time at all in "her" lavatory. She also has an adverse effect on the plumbing.

Unlike the other Hogwarts ghosts, Myrtle is not very sociable, and is sensitive about the fact that she is dead. She has a crush on Harry and helps him in the middle of the Triwizard Tournament. It is Myrtle who tells Harry how to solve the puzzle of the golden egg that he retrieved in the first task, by opening the egg underwater.

 

 

* The shell, in traditional metaphysical terminology. go to article from my journal, In The Field With Dowsers for more about 'the shell' or 'the Deva' [sounds like DAVE-a].

 

House System - the Sacred Tarot, special place for house ghosts defined by properties, pattern and theme of Trump VI, The Chapel, & linked to the Ministry of Magic

Line of Intuition

Transfiguration

 

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

 

The Tower House

Irish actor Richard Harris paid £75,000 for the Tower House in 1968, after discovering that the American entertainer Liberace had bought the house but not yet put down a deposit. Harris employed the original decorators, Campbell Smith & Company Ltd. to carry out extensive restoration work on the interior. In 1972 Jimmy Page bought the London home from Richard Harris, successfully outbidding David Bowie.
Coordinates: 51 29’59’’N 0 12’9’’W Tower House

The Tower House is a late-Victorian town house, built between 1876 and 1878 in the 13th century French gothic style, by the Victorian art-architect William Burges for himself. The architectural design resembles the private rooms and office of Professor Dumbledore at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harris always claimed that he was meant to own The Tower House, since he had awakened on the lawn of the home early one morning when he was 24 years of age. He purchased the mansion nearly a decade and a half later. Many of the decorative items designed by Burges for Tower House could have appeared in any Harry Potter movie - the Narcissus washstand and wardrobe, some of the items are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) including Burges's washstand and Golden bed. His furniture is characterised by its historical style, its mythological iconography, and vibrant painting. The painting of his furniture was central to Burges's views on its purpose.

Describing his ideal medieval chamber in the lecture on furniture, delivered as part of the Art Applied to Industry series, he writes of its fittings being "covered with paintings; it not only did its duty as furniture, but spoke and told a story." The designs were frequently collaborative, with artists from Burges's circle completing the painted panels that they mostly comprise. The contributors were often notable, Vost's sales catalogue for the Mirrored Sideboard suggesting that some of its panels were by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Much of his early furniture, such as the Great Bookcase and the Zodiac Settle, were designed for his offices at Buckingham Street and subsequently moved to the Tower House. The Great Bookcase was also part of Burges's contribution to the Medieval Court at the Great Exhibition. Later pieces, such as the Crocker Dressing Table and the Golden Bed and its accompanying Vita Nuova washstand, were specifically made for suites of rooms at the Tower House. John Betjeman, later Poet Laureate and a leading champion of the art and architecture of the Victorian Gothic Revival, was left the remaining lease on the Tower House, including some of the furniture, by E.R.B. Graham in 1961. He gave the washstand to the novelist Evelyn Waugh who made it the centrepiece of his novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, in which Pinfold is haunted by the stand. In fact, Tower House has long been haunted by the spirit of an eight year old child who had been buried under the tower. Harris formed a long standing relationship relationship with the little boy after a slightly bumpy start. At first, the nocturnal lifestyle of the boy kept Harris from his regular sleep at night... a new meaning to the phrase, "the patter of little feet." Finally, after the boy continually ignored the actor, Harris made peace with the little fellow by constructing a nursery at the top of the stairs to the tower and filled it with amusing toys and games.

The vision of Tower House is, nonetheless, quite unique. As was usual with William Burges, many elements of earlier designs were adapted and included, the street frontage from the McConnochie House, the cylindrical tower and conical roof from Castell Coch and the interiors from Cardiff Castle. Of red brick, and in an L plan, the exterior is plain. The house is not large, its floor-plan being little more than 50 feet square. Each room has a complex iconographic scheme of decoration: that of the hall is Time, in the drawing room, Love, in Burges's bedroom, the Sea. Massive fireplaces with elaborate overmantels were carved and installed, a castle in the Library and mermaids and sea-monsters of the deep in his own bedroom.

The Tower House, which remains a private home, owned by Jimmy Page [Led Zeppelin] for many years, retains much of its internal structural decoration, but the furniture and contents that Burges designed for his home have been dispersed. Page bought Burges' London residence in the mid-seventies, later commenting in an interview, "I was still finding things 20 years after being there - a little beetle on the wall or something like that, it's Burges' attention to detail that is so fascinating."
see also
Dowser 2, journal notes including The Tower House
Behaving Badly: Richard Harris, by Cliff Goodwin - Ebury Publishing

 

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Do you know Hogwarts School Song?
The school song is not sung every year. In times of crisis, Dumbledore does not include the song in the opening festivities. With the rise of Voldemort in the mid-1990s [c. Y15], the song has not been sung recently (JKR).

Harry Potter Lexicon has posted Hogwarts School Song

view more about the Patronus
A silvery-white, conjured creature created by using the Patronus Charm. The Patronus is used against Dementors and Lethifolds. A Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus).

The Primrose Fairy
Primroses have the power to reveal the invisible. Consume them to see the fairies. Touch a fairy rock with a posy make up of the correct number of Primroses and the way to Fairyland will be open to you.
The Cloak of Invisibility appears throughout the history within every sophisticated culture that features mysticism. Albus Dumbledore, who could perform magic without needing to say the incantation aloud, could recognize the Cloak of Invisibility, and those veiled, by using 'homenum revelio' - the human-presence-revealing spell Hermione makes use of in Deathly Hallows.