Thoughts on polyjuice...

[conuly]

So, we know that polyjuice changes you more than just superficially - Crabbe and Goyle became girls (hee), Harry's eyesight improved....

Question: What happens if you polyjuice into the form of somebody who has a fatal form of, say, cancer, and you stay in that form for a while? Will the cancer progress in you and kill you? What if it was something like diabetes, and you didn't know? Could you die that way?

Question: What if *you* have cancer (or whatever)? Can you polyjuice into somebody else's shape, and just stay there forever? Would the disease come with you into this new form?

Question: If the polyjuiced person is sick when you take the sample, sick with something not part of the body, something contagious, can you pick up the disease while in their polyjuiced form, and spend an hour coughing? Can you get sick in your own form that way?

Question: What if you use an old sample to polyjuice? One from a decade ago? Would you polyjuice into the form the person was then?

Question: If that's so, couldn't that be used to extend your lifespan? You could polyjuice into your younger self, so long as you had enough samples, couldn't you?

Question: When the fakemoody polyjuiced into Moody, he lost a leg, which then regrew after the polyjuice potion wore off. What if he'd lost a limb while polyjuiced? Would that remain lost in his real form?

Comments

[l33tminion]

I think it's safe to say that transmogrification magic in general doesn't have any significant effect on the mind in that "universe".

Of course, our only examples of people under the effect of long-term transformations are people who were crazy to begin with (Barty Jr., Wormtail, Voldemort), and it's safe to say the experience didn't make any of them saner.

(Although, in the case of Barty Jr., the guy he was transforming into wasn't exactly a paragon of mental stability, either.)

[conuly]

I think it's safe to say that transmogrification magic in general doesn't have any significant effect on the mind in that "universe".

Ah, but we know that when Sirius is in dog form, his thoughts are less complex. He's able to tell us this as a human.

[l33tminion]

At the very least, that seems to be temporary.

[conuly]

Is it? How temporary? We know that Sirius is aware enough of the fact to comment on it, but can we prove that his mind hasn't been altered? Look at Peter - he's described, even in human form, as being ratlike in his behaviour. Is this because he was already ratlike when he became an animagus, or did his long stay as a rat alter his behaviour? Or is it a combination - he was already ratlike, but it's been exaggerated by his time as a rat.

This applies to people who change into forms that suit them, of course. What about people who change into forms that *don't* suit him - would that alter them in a way that we can see?