by Nightcrawler » Thursday 18 August 2005 1:12:00pm
I doubt it can be used on paintings. The way I see it, paintings are not people at all; they're just magic paintings. I see them as the equivialnt of a really, really, really advanced computer program. They are designed to mimic people's personality, mimic emotions etc. This is all just my opinion, but my interpretation of it is that when a wizard dies, their soul passes on; it doesn't somehow get trapped inside a frame.
As for ghosts... I doubt it. They don't have a physical brain that would give away information and react to to the person doing the legimency.
I don't think it would work on people in thier animagus forms either. When Voldermort was possesing animals, he said that thier bodies were ill equipt for performing magic. Animals don't think and concerntrate the way humans do. Sirius was able to escape the Dementors because whilst he was in his animal form, they had a much harder time sensing his pressence and detecting his happiness. Maybe legimency would be possible to an extent with animals, but I imagine it would be really hard and you wouldn't get much info out of them, just emotions and perhaps flashes of images.
Just my speculation.