Portrait curse

Portrait curse
Type	Curse
Effect	Imprisoned individuals in portraits

Patricia Rakepick: "This is clearly the latest curse. If we don't break it soon, everyone in this castle will share Miss Haywood's fate."

Bill Weasley: "How did she end up inside a portrait?"

Patricia Rakepick: "She hasn't been able to give a clear answer. Whatever she's experiencing inside of the portrait appears to be distorting her perception of reality. She may soon lose her connection to reality altogether..."

— Patricia Rakepick and Bill Weasley discussing Beatrice Haywood's suffering of this curse

The portrait curse (incantation unknown) was a curse that would, once unleashed, trap individuals in magical portraits. The longer the individual stayed inside the portrait, the more the person would continue to gradually lose touch with reality outside the frame, slowly driving the victim to insanity.

Nature

While a miserable existence it would appear that, when the victims were subjected to this curse, their bodies were somehow transfigured into paint on the canvas, although Jacob's sibling theorised that the victims were trapped in a space created using an advanced Extension Charm, and whilst they retained their mental faculties, years could go by without the victim dying of starvation or dehydration, as demonstrated by both Jacob and the Hungarian Horntail that guarded the Buried Vault. The longer an individual stayed inside the portrait, the more they would continue to gradually lose touch with the world outside the frame, slowly driving the victim to insanity, and quite possibly death hinted by Beatrice Haywood appearing to get weaker. The human victims could not move into other frames unlike the dragon, that guarded the vault, which was able to break out of the frames inside the vault without the curse being broken beforehand.

Effects

While trapped in a portrait, the victim did not age or change in any way and, upon being freed from the curse, emerged from the portrait not a day older than when they were first trapped, as demonstrated by Jacob, who did not look any different from when his younger sibling saw him last, to which he replied; "Well, I've been trapped in a portrait for years..." The curse appeared to get stronger over time with victims apparently no longer having to touch the frame, like Beatrice, to get trapped inside. Interestingly, however, victims trapped inside the vault appeared to be better sustained than those outside the vault, as Beatrice was more affected by the ordeal within a school year in the portrait on the Grand Staircase than Jacob had been after several years spent trapped inside the vault. It is unknown if this had to do with the relative positions of the portraits compared to the area the curse was unleashed on specifically, or if it had to do with the skill and/or strength of mind of the victim.

History

"We need to find the next vault before she's lost forever. Before every soul in this school shares her fate..."

— Patricia Rakepick referring to Beatrice Haywood

At some time in the past, a particular Hungarian Horntail became trapped in a portrait, or may have been deliberately trapped there to act as a guardian for the vault. Unlike the other victims, the dragon was able to leave its portrait, at least temporarily, to menace intruders.

Some time before 1984, Jacob became trapped in a portrait and was then abandoned in the vault by his companions during an unsuccessful attempt to gain access to its treasures.

A victim of the portrait curse

In the 1988–1989 school year, Beatrice Haywood and several other students became trapped inside portraits on the Grand Staircase as the result of this powerful and malign curse being somehow unleashed after a cloaked figure was seen moving the portraits. The Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor and renowned Curse-Breaker Patricia Rakepick tried to break the curse with the help of Jacob's sibling, Merula Snyde and Bill Weasley. The curse was broken near the end of the year when Jacob's sibling and their friends entered the Buried Vault.

In 2020, the missing wizard Kit Gerrard was discovered trapped inside Merlin's portrait at Hogwarts with no memory of how he came to be there, seemingly a victim of this or a similar curse. Penelope Fawley was also found to have been trapped inside a portrait with a curse by Gareth Greengrass in her office at the Ministry, which was then transfigured into a paperweight, completely concealing her whereabouts. She was recovered towards the end of the Calamity.

Behind the scenes

• A similar curse is depicted in Roald Dahl's 1983 dark fantasy novel The Witches, in which a young girl named Solveg is trapped inside a painting by an evil witch, with the girl in the painting remaining trapped inside it for the rest of her life, only changing her position in the painting when no one was looking before eventually disappearing altogether from the painting fifty four years later after ageing.
  • In the 1990 film adaptation directed by Nicolas Roeg, the whole town searched for the girl, this time named Erica, before anyone noticed her in the painting, similar to how the Hogwarts staff searched for Beatrice before Merula found her.

Appearances

• Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (First appearance)
• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (Mentioned only)

See also

• Wall trapping spell