I've always wondered whether someone, under the effects of polyjuice, could have their arm cut off then transform back into their original form perfectly fine. For example, would a polyjuice prostitute, never having sex outside her polyjuice induced state, retain her viginity? I'd thinks so, and that's probably how the Gin slut does it.

 

You know, I never thought about that. Somehow I doubt it. The real question is though, would said polyjuice prostitute have AIDS if she got it in her polyjuiced state?

 

I've always wondered about what would happen if a thread got started in the proper category.

 

I think it would only fix minor wounds like cuts and scrapes.

If a person poljucied themselves into themselves would the potion have any effect?

 

The fake mad-eye(Crouch's son) regrew his eye after his polyjuice wore off, so I think you might be able to.

 

I think that was because he was transforming into someone with a pre-existing injury. For instance, if you transformed into someone who had AIDS, you wouldn't sustain that injury because it's truly their affliction. However, if you sustain an injury or ailment while polyjuiced that was not already suffered by the person you've turned into, it is likely that that injury would be sustained.

 

I actually think that if you were to get your hand chopped off in polyjuice form, it would grow back afterwards. It just seems to me that when you take the potion, it alters your genetics and changes you into that person completely. Thus, when you change back, you'd get the genetics you had before, unaffected by anything that happened to the other set.

Of course, that also brings about the question of whether or not you could stay youthful forever with polyjuice. If at 20 years old, you continually kept someone else's form and changed back 100 years later, would you still look 20?

 

Wouldn't that mean that if you were killed while polyjuiced, then you would come back to life again after the potion wears off. I don't think so.

The Polyjuice potion just somehow makes you look different than you really are and that's it. Personally I think that if in your real form you didn't have your left arm, then you would have it in polyjuiced form, providing of course that the person whose form you are assuming has it.

 

Hehe. The only fanfic I can think of at the moment where this was addressed (sort of) was Draco664's Midnight Duel, Midday Love.

Spoiler

Ginny polyjuiced herself into Cho so she could trick Harry into having sex with her. Cho wasn't a virgin but Ginny was. Even though she looked like Cho at the time, she was still physically a virgin, just as she would have been in her own shape. Or, to get straight to the point, the Cho whose hair went into the potion from had no hymen but the Cho that Ginny became, did.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. It was an interesting plot device but would seem to go against the canon example of Crouch Jr. inheriting Moody's missing parts while transformed.

Just how much can polyjuice do? If you regrew amputated limbs when you changed back, everyone would drink polyjuice before going into battle. What would have happened if Pettigrew had used polyjuice to become someone else, cut off his hand for the ritual that gave Voldemort his new body, then changed back to himself afterwards? Would he have his hand back? Would the ritual have failed because it required a sacrifice and cutting off a hand that you can grow right back isn't really a sacrifice? Or would it have failed because it didn't count as the 'flesh of the servant' but rather the hand of whoever he changed into?

If you weigh 120 pounds can you polyjuice into a person of vastly larger weight, maybe a 500 pound person? If so, where does the extra mass come from? In that scenario, if you cut off a few pounds of flesh before you change back, will you be okay? In the reverse, if you weigh 500 pounds and change into someone who only weighs 120, where does the mass go?

Theoretically, Crouch Jr. is proof that you can successfully polyjuice into someone with fewer parts but can you polyjuice into someone with more?

I'm inclined to think that if you use polyjuice, then chop off your hand and wait to change back... you are well and truly fucked if you expect to grow your hand back.

Polyjuice is one of those things that would drive you crazy if you tried to explain it scientifically or if you tried to apply a unified theory of magic to every spell, potion, item and creature in the Harry Potter world and expect it all to work together. It's meant to be a neat plot device that you nod your head at and don't think too hard about.

Don't let that stop the speculation though. That can be half the fun.

 

Yeah, magic can't really be explained by science. It goes more on the rules of common sense - you can't bring the dead back to life, you can't grow back limbs if they get chopped off, though it would be amusing if the person whose hair you stole got the injury as well .

Aekiel

 

I know I've probably used conflicting ends of the spectrum on the limitations of polyjuice. But for the sake of discussion, I'm of the mind that polyjuice potion only affects 'apparent' physical characteristics. If Ron and Harry take Crabbe and Goyle polyjuice, then they don't become dumber. Their metabolism or hunger isn't affected. They don't gain any diseases. It's merely their body changes to look like Crabbe and Goyle.

Or else you get the silly polyjuice as a treatment for lycanthropy idea. Or as a treatment for anything debilitating. I've always considered the Dark Mark a piece of magic tied into the Death Eaters, and therefore not easily replicated. Or else it'd be easy to figure out who has the Dark Mark. Just take a potion and look.

A more intriguing discussion might be whether a piece of hair or fingernail retains the current imprint. So a bag of hair from pre-injury could help someone post-injury. Like say, Pettigrew polyjuiced to have his human flesh hand again. And how long is it good for. Could someone dig up Helga Hufflepuff's hairbrush and would it still work, 1000 years later?

As for the polyjuiced sex, it's a question of say, Ginny got a hair from Cho. Now does that hair include all the information about Cho's body? If so, then the physical aspect of the hymen being in one piece or broken could come up. Of course being a virgin or not has very little to do with the hymen. It just makes lying about it easier or more difficult.

And then the question becomes if you got a hair from Tonks, would it turn you into her so-called "base" form. Or would it turn you into whatever her physical appearance was at the time of the hair-plucking? If physical characteristics are really all stored in the hair/piece of person, then Tonks can theoretically shift her form into say, Voldemort, pluck a hair (a short and curly since he's bald), and now anyone can polyjuice into a passing resemblance of Voldemort. Or Malfoy, or Fudge, or hell, Peter Pettigrew (just so he's seen in public). Assuming it's a form Tonks can shift close enough to resemble.

 

Voldemort sightings in Las Vegas. "It's him! It's him! I know it's him! Avada kedavera, you bastard!"

 

So you don't believe that genetics are changed, nor are magical abilities? If you are using someone's body part to change into them, is it not taking their D.N.A. from the hair and using it to change your own D.N.A? Are nucleotides in the D.N.A. what differentiate a muggle from a wizard? Would that not mean that a polyjuiced individual, using someone's D.N.A. to change forms, also gain magical abilities that come from certian nucleotides?

 

No I don't believe magical abilities are transferred. Simply because if that were true, then a werewolf only has to keep dosing themselves with some non-werewolf person over the course of a full moon. Presto. No transformation or furry problem.

Or force feed a baby a Harry Potter polyjuice and practice hitting it with an AK. Or the DOM could experiment on his scar without him around. Heck drink a polyjuice of someone with special magical talents or more power. That seems too easy.

And arguing the "science" of it will be a giant honking waste unless you can scientifically account for magic.

I think the idea that it's only a physical transformation is the most likely way to avoid the most pitfalls. But like my example of Tonks, even that gets muddy.

 

I just like to think of it in the way it would benefit the storyline the most.

There's no reason you should limit yourself on things like this. If it works, it's a good idea and I'm all for it. If it ruins the story, then it's bad.

And really, look at this goddamn guide if you're going to start a thread:

 

I see someone has been reading his Strunk and White.

 

If only the rest of those who desire to contribute to society did as well...

 

Would it surprise you to find out tha I fap to that book?

 

I don't think he can use polyjuice at all anymore. More specifically, I think he could use it but his hand would always be silver. Sure, it works like it's a part of him but I'm going to say that it's not an organic part of his flesh and blood body. If he polyjuiced into, say... Lucius Malfoy, he'd look like Lucius with a silver hand. It's like changing into Mad-Eye Moody; you don't get his artificial eye along with his pretty face. That's all that hand is; a fancy prosthesis.

Whether the average witch or wizard could use a pre-injury hair sample to temporarily regain the missing limb, I don't know. It changes the shape of the parts you DO have but can it make you grow what you don't have? It's one thing for your skin to grow and darken into a large mole that you didn't have but the sample-provider did. It's another thing to grow an entire set of bones, tendons, muscles, etc. that you no longer have but the sample-provider does.

A related question: Did Crouch Jr.'s eye and leg simply shrink up until they were scarcely visible, imitating Moody's missing limbs, or did they *POOF* magically vanish while he was transformed? The answer to that may also be the answer to whether you can use the potion to temporarily regain a limb.

We can sort of discount the idea that Polyjuice works by copying a person's genetic code. It works through magic to copy a person's current appearance and that's that. After all, if it used your genetic code to copy the appearance, things like scars wouldn't copy over. You could take Moody's hair and you'd turn into a version of him that never got scarred or lost any body parts. His genes would remember he was born with two legs two eyes and a smooth face and that's exactly what you'd get.

Since the potion copies a person's current appearance, disregarding that subject's original appearance based on genes, you could theoretically collect three samples of Moody's hair, one from before each injury, then save them and have three people use them at the same time. One would have both eyes and legs, one might have both eyes but be missing a leg and the third person might be missing an eye, a leg and a piece of their nose.

Taking that a step further, what if you saved hair samples from when you were in your prime and used them when you were seventy-five? You could have a second honeymoon with the wife for your 50th anniversary... and actually look like you did on your original honeymoon! And who would suspect that the adorable six year old girl with the pigtails is actually a polyjuiced, thirty-five year old hitwizard... er, hitwitch (I had Harry nearly get assassinated that way once)?

For a really fun scenario, if afflictions were temporarily transferred along with the appearance of the 'sample doner' but Peter's hand couldn't transform, what would happen if he transformed into Remus?
Would his hand set off Remus' silver allergy and cause Peter to inadvertently kill himself before the polyjuice wore off? (He'd probably just cut the silver hand off, we already know that, despite his cowardly personality, he has the sac to commit self-amputation.)

Now that is a kick ass idea!

A very good question. My bet is that you'd turn into her base form (which has varied wildly in the fics I've read. I vaguely remember one where she disliked her base form because she looked like Princess Diana and it made people gawk at her. I personally have used three different ones in the stuff I piddle around writing. But I digress...)

I was left scratching my head at the movie, where Harry and Ron had to try and disguise their voices. After all, the polyjuice would change the shape of your vocal cords, sinuses, etc. which should make you sound like the person you've changed into with zero effort on your part.

FYI: I don't think you can use Polyjuice to change gender. You'd either change to look like the other person, except for the reproductive organs, or you'd end up in the hospital wing getting your shit sorted out like when Hermione became part feline.