Questions that don't deserve their own thread.

[afrojack]

Dumbledore did posit that Voldemort knew more about magic than any man living (including himself) in OotP, after describing him as perhaps the brightest student to ever pass through Hogwarts (again, including himself).

[KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!]

Would a basilisk be able to petrify portraits? I don't remember there being any mention of portraits frozen, so why couldn't they just tell Dumbledore/whoever that a giant snake was moving around the school?

One explanation is that the portraits, like the esteemed honey badgers, just don't give a fuck. I think Rowling's pottermore extension of portraits does this explanation justice. They are not alive. They are semi-sentient imitations that need to be taught how to act by the painter/model.

I doubt all those portraits have been imparted with enough sentience/logic to say 'Hey look a giant snake, maybe I should tell someone.'

Still a massive plothole though even taking this explanation into consideration.

[Xandrel]

This is ridiculous explanation, most likely wrong, but here it goes:

Salazar Slytherin cast some sort of spell which makes the basilisk invisible to the Hogwarts portraits.

[chrnno]

Considering how many problems from canon could be solved using portraits and/or ghosts I would say they are all useless except when it is plot convenient.

[Henry Persico]

Warlocke: Pretty much what afrojac said.

Originally Posted by afrojack

Dumbledore did posit that Voldemort knew more about magic than any man living (including himself) in OotP, after describing him as perhaps the brightest student to ever pass through Hogwarts (again, including himself).

Dumbledore is a respectable source of truth in Rowling's work, and being a guy who could have mentioned X wizard from Burkina Faso (like he mentioned Humphrey Belcher about the cheese cauldron making) instead of Lord Voldemort, I think he was right.

It doesn't mean anything, because all that knowledge didn't serve him to win, but it is one (and the most important) of the few hypothetical foundations I have to think that perhaps if he could have completed the 6 horcrux goal, he would have stopped aging, being more powerful, etc.

[E. C. Scrubb]

Are we told that there are portraits in the Library around the shelves, or in every hallway, or in the second floor girls bathroom? Since the basilisk travels through the pipes in the wall (another question, how could something that big travel through the pipes in the wall), isn't it possible, if not plausible, that it only came out in places that had no pictures. I know the movie painted Hogwarts as walls upon walls of pictures with no end in sight, but I didn't think that was necessarily true of every wall and every room.

[chrnno]

Not sure here but I don't remember any hallway that was described not having portraits. Could be wrong though since it has been too long.

At least we know there are parts of the castle with enough pictures in them that one of those portraits can easily guide people by jumping the pictures.

[MonkeyEpoxy]

Originally Posted by E. C. Scrubb

Are we told that there are portraits in the Library around the shelves, or in every hallway, or in the second floor girls bathroom? Since the basilisk travels through the pipes in the wall (another question, how could something that big travel through the pipes in the wall), isn't it possible, if not plausible, that it only came out in places that had no pictures. I know the movie painted Hogwarts as walls upon walls of pictures with no end in sight, but I didn't think that was necessarily true of every wall and every room.

It's a magic castle with moving staircases and a room that can turn into nearly anything and is inhabited by people who can do magic, bro.

[Warlocke]

Originally Posted by Henry Persico

Warlocke: Pretty much what afrojac said.

I think you're both missing the main point of my post.

Said point being that it was primarily intended as a delivery system for this phrase:

Originally Posted by Warlocke

Albus Dumbledore's liver-spotted Grindelwald gate