Image credit: here

Elizabeth Burke is a former headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Being the successor of Antonia Creaseworthy, Burke held her position from around the mid to late 1600s and delivered a contrary administration compared to the previous headmistress. Burke grew up in a high class pure-blooded family that often looked down on Muggles and Muggle-borns. When she attended Hogwarts, she was sorted into Slytherin as was expected of her by those who knew her. After graduating from Hogwarts, Burke had a job at the Ministry of Magic until she was contacted about the headmistress position at Hogwarts. Feeling vaguely nostalgic about her alma mater, she took the position.

Although she was not the most popular headmistress at Hogwarts due to her obvious favoritism towards pure-bloods and Slytherins, quite a few portraits were painted of her aside from the one that hangs in the Headmaster’s office. One hangs in the Grand Staircase and is said to hide a passage to the dungeons. Another one hangs at the entrance to the dungeons, and a third one is near the entrance to the Potions classroom. Outside of the castle, her portrait is hung at Borgin and Burkes, mainly due to the fact that she is the ancestor of Caractacus Burke, the co-founder of the shop. It is also rumored that other pure-blood families have her portrait as decor in their home. Even though there are so many different portraits, they are merely replicas of the first portrait she had painted when she was thirty-five years old. Her reasoning for having it painted specifically during that age was that this age was when she felt she was most beautiful and she wanted that beauty to remain immortal through the portrait.

Any attempts by students to approach her are often met with a scoff from Burke’s portrait, unless the student is either a Slytherin or if the student’s last name is from an old, respected wizarding family that would have been around when she was alive. Even then, Burke is quite haughty and condescending in conversation and will often ignore the person speaking to her by checking her appearance in a handheld mirror when the conversation begins to bore her.