I believe there is intrinsic similarities in these examples that allow students to grasp the concept. They would then move on from these easy examples to harder transfigurations.

Another transfiguration question: if Minerva hadn't undone Moody's transfiguration of Malfoy into a ferret, would he have transformed back on his own since he was a wizard? Or would he have been stuck as a ferret for the rest of his life... ferret lifespan or human lifespan... so many questions?

 

We can actually work out a lot about how Transfiguration works from the Hogwarts curriculum. All this requires is a single assumption: that McGonagall’s teaching method is to introduce students to a topic by having them perform easy transformations before moving on to more complex ones.

This pedagogy is explicitly recognised with respect to Vanishing, where McGonagall has them start in invertebrates at the start of fifth year:

They then advance to vertebrates later in the year:

So the assumption is not so great a leap, I think. All it requires is that we take McGonagall’s approach with Vanishing and assume it is also her approach in other areas.

With this assumption in hand, we can identify which factors do and do not contribute to the difficulty of Transfiguration. As explicitly indicated in the above quotes, complexity of the subject is a major factor in the difficulty of a Transfiguration. We also see this more generally in how students progress year to year. The curriculum is as follows:

• Turning inanimate objects into other inanimate objects in first year (match into needle in PS Chapter 8),
  
  
• Turning animals into objects from the end of first year (mouse into a snuff box in PS Chapter 16), continuing in second year (beetle into button in CoS Chapter 6);
  
  
• Turning objects into animals in third year (teapot into a tortoise in PoA Chapter 16);
  
  
• Turning animals into other animals in fourth year (guinea fowl into guinea pigs in GoF Chapter 22), as well as switching spells (GoF Chapter 20);
  
  
• Learning Vanishing in fifth year, as above;
  
  
• Learning Human Transfiguration in sixth year (HBP Chapter 15);
  
  
• Learning Conjuration in seventh year (from the fact that McGonagall refers to Conjuration as N.E.W.T. level in OotP Chapter 13, combined with the fact that we know it is not in sixth year).

We see in this the trend towards increasing complexity, from inanimate objects to animals to humans. Also note that an increase in complexity (object to animal) is more difficult than a decrease in complexity (animal to object, which is introduced earlier). But hardest of all is turning one complex thing into a different complex thing (animal to animal; human to human).

Note that the curriculum outlined above shows when new subjects are introduced, not the exclusive year of their practice. For example students are still practicing animal to object transformations in fourth year, when they practice turning a hedgehog into a pincushion (GoF Chapter 15). This makes sense. It is common in teaching to reinforce and expand previously studied material as students’ knowledge grows.

(It is unclear when you study animation and Untransfiguration. They may be included within the 7 years and not mentioned, or they may not be taught as standard at Hogwarts.)

Another factor in Transfiguration difficulty is size (i.e. volume). This is explicitly mentioned in GoF:

In this quote, Hermione makes it clear that something being big makes it more difficult to Transfigure, with something dragon-sized being on the edge of possibility for even a master of the art - Hermione is not sure if McGonagall would be able to manage it or not.

(It’s also interesting to note that it is size, not the fact that the subject is a dragon, which makes Hermione doubt McGonagall’s ability to succeed. This really hammers home the above point that Transfiguration is powerful magic).

A similar factor to size is number. We know that it is possible to transfigure multiple objects simultaneously: Dumbledore’s animation of the statutes in OotP Chapter 36, or his conjuration of hundreds of sleeping bags in PoA Chapter 9,. But the students always practice transforming just one thing. This indicates that performing a Transfiguration on multiple things at once is difficult.

These three factors -- complexity, size, and number -- are all absolute factors when it comes to difficulty. But there is also a relative factor: the similarity of the original object to the resulting object.

We see the importance of similarity in numerous transformations. Size and shape appear to be important relative factors: almost all of the “beginner” Transfigurations which McGonagall assigns to her students are of objects which are a similar size and shape. Textural similarity also seems to be relevant: a teapot made of porcelain has certain textural similarities to a tortoise shell.

Even more interestingly, the names of the objects can apparently contribute towards similarity, with “beetle” and “button” being similar, as well as “guinea fowl” and “guinea pig”. Another example of an abstract relative factor which contributes to Transfiguration difficulty is that of social association: the transformation of rabbits into slippers is a play on the famous (at least in the UK) trend in the 90s of fluffy slippers which resembled rabbits.

We can also deduce certain factors which do not affect the difficulty of Transfiguration.

One of the most important is mass. Turning a matchstick into a needle is the very first Transfiguration the students are introduced to, from which we can deduce that it is extremely simple as Transfiguration goes. Now, matches are typically made of a softwood such as pine, which has a density of around 350 and 550 kg/m3. Meanwhile, a needle is generally made of steel, which has a density of around 7,750 and 8,050 kg/m3. So by turning a match into a needle, students are massively increasing the mass of the object - by a factor of 10 or even 20. Apparently this is something easily done, and so we can deduce that mass is not a factor which the rules of Transfiguration give weight (pun intended).

Another factor which we can deduce Transfiguration treats with contempt is that of chemical composition. This is somewhat implicit in the entire definition of the subject, but we also see it in the transformation of a teapot into a tortoise. The textural similarity of the objects appears to be sufficient to render that transformation suitable as appropriate practice for students, even though porcelain and a tortoise’s shell are made of completely different materials (earthenware vs bone).

However, from the fact that you need a Philosopher’s Stone to make gold with magic, substance does not appear to be completely ignored by Transfiguration. But perhaps the magical theory of substance is not the same thing as the chemical understanding of the elements.

A third and final factor which we can discount as important to Transfiguration is knowledge of chemistry and biology. There is no evidence that either is taught at Hogwarts, and even if they were, it would be impossible for students to have a complete understanding of the biology of rabbits, turtles, and so on. Not even the most educated Muggle scientists completely understand the biology of these animals. Nonetheless, the students are perfectly capable of Transfiguring animals. This shows that you don’t need to have detailed knowledge of the object of your Transfiguration. All you need to understand is how the Transfiguration itself works:

 

With transfiguration being one of the 'hard' subjects at Hogwarts, I've always had a few assumptions about it and given it a sort of equivalence to real world maths or chemistry, as we learn it in school.

Foremost being, like maths, it contains a lot of shit that you don't 'need' in adult life, unless you go into some very specific things. Most wizards and witches probably only use inanimate to inanimate transfiguration in their life, in the same way most of us only really need addition and multiplication and division for day to day non-occupational activities. Yet, at school they have to be challenged by all these more rigorous applications.

Secondly, all magic (even non-fanon arithmancy) to me is actively non-scientific. By that, I mean that there's wiggle room in its use and its specificity in even the harder subjects, rather than anything about its progression or method of development. I think looking at magical disciplines with an eye to how language is taught and understood creates a more satisfying and 'magical' feel than the typical mathemagician exploits we see in bad fanfic. This, to me, is why we see such conceptual similarities in what they practice as they develop their transfiguration.

I do like Taure's use of eponymous laws and internalisation and stuff like that to make it feel like a rigid discipline but I also like the idea that these things have developed from strange understanding based deductions and intuitions on the meaning underlying the transfiguration. A Hedgehog is prickly so there is an easier time figuring out how to transfigure it into things that relate to prickliness or receiving prickliness, etc.

This is all quite waffley, so I should say, basically, the underlying idea for me is - does this magic seem Disney or Sanderson? If the fairy godmother or the No room on the Broom witch could do it then it's probably whimsical enough to be ok.

 

I think it probably leans toward animal abuse. Someone who could perform the transfiguration flawlessly would probably not cause pain to the recipient, but the students are almost never doing the spell perfectly. I cant imagine its comfortable for someone to rearrange an animals entire body make up but not get bone structure or some other element of their body wrong.

On the point of fine details it might be a little of both, the more knowledge and understanding of an object you have the easier it is to get a clear and accurate visualization which would improve the quality of the transfiguration and the more you practice the easier it is to pull up a picture of what ever you want to to transfigure.

 

Permanent vs Temporary Transfiguration

Transfiguration is defined as the branch of magic concerned with altering a thing’s physical composition and structure - what JK Rowling refers to as an object’s “fundamental nature”:

Although JK Rowling phrases this as the difference between “Charms” and “Spells”, from the example of “turning a teacup into a rat” she’s clearly talking about Transfiguration. A Charm, unlike a Transfiguration, is stated to “not fundamentally alter the properties of the subject”, which means that the reverse holds: Transfiguration does fundamentally alter the properties of the subject.

JK Rowling has been consistent on this. As early as 1998 she stated:

The change that Transfiguration makes is a permanent one. We know this from two sources. The first is the pig’s tail that Hagrid gave Dudley, which did not go away on its own and had to be surgically removed:

The second is from the legend of Quintapeds in the companion book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:

Now, no one knows if the legend of the Quintapeds’ origin is true or not. But the key part is that wizards, including the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, consider the story credible enough that they have attempted Untransfiguration. That means that the story -- including the permanence of the Transfiguration performed -- is within the realm of Transfiguration possibility.

So Transfiguration is not some kind of tactile illusion. It is not that the original object lurks “beneath” a layer of Transfiguration magic. Rather, the object is fundamentally, physically changed into a different object.

The permanence of Transfiguration also makes sense. Since Transfiguration is a physical change, there’s no reason for the object to revert to its previous state. Physical objects do not spontaneously turn into other objects in the absence of magic. You would need some new magical intervention to make a further change.

However, Transfiguration can be reversed with Untransfiguration:

But the possibility of Untransfiguration does not mean that the original object is still there, “underneath”. We know from Dumbledore that magic always leaves traces:

So from what we know about the nature of Transfiguration as a fundamental change, Untransfiguration would appear to be a reversal of that change, not a removal of it. The fact that magic leaves traces explains how this is possible, even though nothing physical of the original object remains.

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Detail

We know that it is possible to use transfiguration to create objects with fine detail: Dumbledore's armchairs are noted as having particular character. So transfiguration can do more than create "generic" objects. However, it's worth noting that Dumbledore is a master of the art.

One thing that fanfic writers often forget about transfiguration in canon is that, except for high level wizards like Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape, transfigurations are not performed as a single spell. You don't wave your wand once and hey presto, you've got the object you wanted. That represents the culmination of mastery of the subject, it is not "normal" transfiguration. From what we see in McGonagall's classes, the students spend hours performing a single transfiguration, taking it in stages, performing one aspect of the transformation and then another. This provides the answer to how you create detail, I think: you add it bit by bit, manually, casting different spells to perform different aspects of the transfiguration.

I've begun to explore this in Victoria Potter, where the first year transfiguration curriculum covers three items:

- The Transubstantiation Spell (changing a thing's substance)
- The Shaping Spell (changing a thing's shape)
- The Solidification Spell (changing a thing's state, liquid to solid, e.g. water to ice, wine to grapes)

These are distinct spells, each with its own theory behind it. However, once you have mastered the spells and properly understand them, you may find that they begin to flow together:

The above is from Victoria's end of year exam. McGonagall goes on to explain that "transfiguration by technique", where the spells all merge together to form a single process, is something that students normally only begin to grasp around fourth year at the earliest. She also explains its limitations:

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Reference objects

The above describes how you might add detail to your transfigurations in terms of the casting process, but that is distinct from the theoretical question of where the information comes from for that detail. As I mentioned in my post above, it cannot be the caster's own knowledge of the objects they are transfiguring: Hogwarts doesn't teach biology, and even if it did, students are performing transfigurations on animals the biology of which they couldn't possibly understand at their age (or any age). So it can't really be visualisation, given that the caster lacks the requisite knowledge.

One possible answer, and the one I have used in Victoria Potter, lies in the concept of Platonic Forms:

Basically, magic/the universe has an idea of what a chair is, or what a rabbit is, or what a hat is. Those are the "default" forms for any transfiguration into a chair, rabbit, or hat. The caster is using their various transfiguration spells to push an object towards a different form as recognised by magic. The magic itself provides the detail, unless the caster specifically guides the magic otherwise. So if you're transfiguring a chair, you get the default chair, unless you specifically and manually guide the magic to create detail which deviates from the default form. This would be where visualisation comes into play. But because you're deviating from the default and relying on your own guidance, it's also where errors can easily creep in.

 

Plato was right all along, but we could not see it because we are filthy muggles. Also, didn't Voldemort transfigure fire into a snake in his duel with Dumbledore? Would that not violate the 'transfiguration = change of physical objects' definition?

 

If (as I suspect) magic operates in accordance with an Aristotelian theory of matter (4 elements etc) then fire would be within the realm of transfiguration.

 

Voldemort's conjuration is certainly an advanced spell. We only really get information about the beginner level of spells as far as I remember. All the really advanced magic is only observed by Harry and we get an occasional comment from a teacher on it. So we have to apply some deduction there like Taure does and I really his take on transfiguration (and magic in general I guess).

So here's my take on Voldemort's spell:
Taure describes how Victoria has an epiphany and suddenly sees the connection between different aspects/steps of a transfiguration. But remember that she's only 11. Wizards on Dumbledore's and Voldemort's level most certainly go further than that. I think there was a post a couple of day ago that compared the different wizards powerlevel in canon. Voldemort, Grindelwald and Dumbledore were described as polymaths, masters of many aspects of magic. Such a polymath could see the connection between different aspects of magic such as a conjuration, transfiguration and dark magic. So in one spell Voldemort conjures fire and infuses both his understanding of a snake to shape it and his hatred/anger into it to attack Dumbledore. I would say that skills like this are the reason that Voldemort, Grindelwald and Dumbledore were so far beyond normal wizards. They saw connections where others didn't and that's why their spells were much more unpredictable and difficult to counter.

Of course, a good part of that explanation is just my own take and not necessarily proven from canon but I also don't think that it opposes canon.
--- Post automerged ---

So if no one had turned Draco back from the ferret would he have been basically dead?

Anyways what exactly happens with the mind of a living creature when it is transfigured into another creature? Or into an inanimate object? Was it still Draco inside the ferret? Or was it a ferret and Draco did not exist in that moment? That would make transfiguring someone and then untransfiguring that person almost like killing and resurrecting that person in a way.

Inferring from the Quintaped case there is definitively some sort of mental change going on. Otherwise why wouldn't the Quintapeds let someone capture them. They most certainly would want to turn back to humans.

 

Dumbledore stated in the commentary to Tales of Beedle the Bard that you do not retain your human mind when transfigured into an animal. That is what is special about the animagus transformation.

I wouldn't call it killing though because the soul is presumably untouched by transfiguration.

With regards to whether Draco would have stayed a ferret, personally I have it that a wizard's magic passively attacks spells cast upon them and over time undoes them (unless they are dark magic) like a magical immune system. It works to undo unwanted transfiguration but it also reverses desired transfiguration like any kind of beautification spell.

 

Right, I forgot about the passive effect of a wizard's magic on transfiguration. Although some spells and specifically curses are too powerful to be effectively fought like this like for example the Quintaped transfiguration and the Withering Curse on Dumbledore. So while Draco might have turned back by himself from Moody's/Crouch's transfiguration, a Transfiguration Master like Dumbledore could potentially make a transfiguration permanent even on a wizard.

What about a muggle then? They would stay forever as an animal. And does it really matter if their soul is still there if they remain as an animal forever if they lose their body and mind? It would also be interesting to know whether a muggle retains his human lifespan if he's turned into a fly or dies within a short time. I'd say he probably dies fast given that he is truly turned.

And if the soul is untouched by transfiguration then transfiguring something into an animal should not create a soul, right? But the transfigured item is now truly a living creature so it should have a soul.

 

I don't think a wizard's magic passively resisting spells cast upon him/her is Canon, though it is a nice idea. It would make healing with spells kind of hard (which didn't seem particularly the case in the books), but on the flip side it is a beautiful explanation for why there are ugly wizards and witches in the first place.

Also, animals don't have souls; either in Christian theology or in most philosopher's accounts (i.e. Plato, Descartes) from what I can remember. As to Muggle transfigurations, they are indeed probably eternal. As I recall, Crouch Sn. gets turned into a bone after being killed and presumably stays that way, so it is likely human transfiguration sans magic is just as permanent as non-human transfiguration.

 

Yes, the idea that a wizard's magic passively resists spells is not canon, it's just how I do it in fanfic. With respect to healing, the way I think of it is this: a healing transfiguration is pushing in the same direction as the "magical immune system", namely restoring the wizard to bodily normality. This is a contrast to both offensive transfigurations and attempted bodily upgrades, which move the wizard away from the body they "should" have. So the wizard's passive resistance would not work against healing spells.

 

I'm in two minds regarding the idea of transfiguration affecting wizards less permanently than muggles.

In favour, transfiguration isn't a dark art and I subscribe to the idea that 'darkness' is a quality of magical resistance to a charm, potion or transfiguration making it difficult to undo. Often harmful, but that the harm is incidental to the thing that makes it 'dark'. The idea then that wizards rather than muggles would passively resist unwanted transfiguration is appealing, as we know only magic trumps magic (when not dark).

On the other hand, there is the case of Hermiones teeth, which as far as we know never reverts. Potions seem to last for variable lengths, such as Harry's regrown arm vs. the polyjuice's physical effects which is a bit conflicting but can be much more easily resolved on a case by case basis by the potion and the fact that it's an imbibed substance.

I think making healing transfiguration possess theory and underlying patterns that allow it work in concert, or without conflict rather, with a witch's or wizard's magic is more appealing than an innate synergy between them. This puts the emphasis on the spell work and the caster rather then the recipient, and is more complex in practice. In the same way that modern medicine often does conflict with normal healing and we accommodate for this for a good effect overall. Happily, this makes it more like the usual muggle/magical culture parallels we see in the magical world.

Where things haven't been properly done, the idea that negative effects would persist I think is more in keeping with magic as a discipline that takes knowledge and skill to pull off. Particularly regarding negative effect mitigation.

 

How does that account for Quintapeds not snapping back to human? I suppose you could explain it as them 'liking' there new form, and so not resisting the magic, but then you have permanent beautification transfiguration (absent some edges cases for people with deep seated self-image issues).

 

Keep in mind that this a legend and not clear whether true. But regardless, competent wizards are not saying that it is impossible, which means that it is probably possible to permanently transfigure a wizard in a way that he needs to actively be retransfigured. But at the same time human transfiguration is taught at Hogwarts even though it would be basically like killing someone to transfigure him into a 'mindless' animal that can only be untransfigured if you know that it used to be a human. So I think that permanent human transfiguration has to be a very high-level skill that is limited. Otherwise why wouldn't people just keep transfiguring themselves into younger bodies. As long as it is partial transfiguration it should not affect their minds and they would basically live forever.

Back to the Quintaped case. It sounds like it is very advanced magic and probably fairly dark too. The Withering Curse also could not be stopped by Dumbledore and Snape. Given that nobody knows what exactly happened to the Quintapeds, I think it's possible that this was not merely a transfiguration but some sort of blood curse mixed with the transfiguration that reacts differently from normal transfiguration. Of course, this is just speculation. And furthermore, we know little about what is actually possible at the highest levels of magic.

 

So this is kind of in line with your take that there are Platonic forms, and that magic strives towards that "default" form, right? So a wizard might try to transfigure his cheekbones to be more prominent, but his latent magic would slowly change them back or chip away at the spell unless it were recast every so often?

And is this part of what makes magic so Dark -- it actively subverts the Platonic Ideal that magic normally has?

This does serve to make wizards even more god-like in comparison to muggles, which I like. A Muggle transfigured into a ferret would have no recourse. That's terrifying.

 

@Taure

That's a very good explanation for why wizards are not all super attractive and without physical flaws.

However, do you think there are any permanent alterations you can make on yourself?

Hermione manages to correct her teeth with magic.

Can't recall other instances of beautification that were permanent.

 

I think it is supposed to be painless. If it weren't, then Malfoy would have milked the fuck out of it when Crouch/Moody turned him into a ferret. And Malfoy Sr. would have taken action... which would have been an interesting side plot as Malfoy unknowingly is hindering Voldemort's agent.

Plus, it strikes me as something Hermione would have had an issue with.

Edit: would be interesting to get a list of canon effects.

Bone vanishing: not painful
Bone growing : somewhat painful
Bones transfiguring via polyjuice: not painful but possibly a bit queasy feeling?
Self transfiguration via wand: not painful even if fucked up (cactus ears)
Splinching: very painful
Metamorphmagi: not painful
Animagi: not painful