mjc, I think you're rather reaching for straws here. No matter what money-making schemes the Weasley's could use, it's clear that they don't, which is pretty in line with the general trend of wizards not using their magic to its full potential.

The Weasleys are poor. We have even more evidence of this than we have of Harry being rich: we only saw Harry's vault once, the same amount of times as we have seen the Weasley vault, and in addition to this we see day to day evidence of the Weasleys being poor.

 

Ok...

The Weasleys are definitely on the bottom end of the financial ladder...

And, yes, it is very true that JKR's wizards are bunch of lazy sods.

But...

No, the whole idea that they are there because they choose to is rather revolting. They have a very easy way out and don't use it. Dumb. Of course they (Arthur and Molly) could just be total crap at Transfiguration and couldn't do anything about it even if they did want to.

 

I approve of this thread


I don't really have anything else to add at this time, as Methene, Taure, and mjc have expanded things a bit, but if I have any new thoughts regarding Transfiguration, I will post them.


Actually, there is something I'm curious about:

Is Alchemy ever defined in canon? We know that the ultimate goal of Alchemy is to create the Philosopher's Stone, but what about early and intermediate Alchemy (if we presume the PS is the holy grail of Alchemy)? What does it do? What use has it?

Is it merely an obsolete form of Transfiguration? I have a mental picture of Alchemy from Full Metal Alchemist where it is essentially Transfiguration, only it uses magic circles/geometric shapes, runes/symbols, and other ingredients (human lives being the notable one for the PS). I would laugh my ass off if Nicolas Flamel created the PS FMA style by sacrificing hundreds of human lives. That would be interesting.

I don't remember any fics where Alchemy is clearly defined. Anyone want to try it?

 

I think Alchemy in Harry Potter is exactly what it was/is in real life, only with the possibility of being successful. Basically, magical chemistry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

 

Would that make Alchemy an advanced form/branch of Potions though? Say you can take Potions in Hogwarts and study Alchemy with a Master afterwards.

Either way (advanced form/branch) I would think some minimal aptitude in Potions is necessary.

Actually considering that the end result of the whole art is the Philosopher's Stone I would say it is more likely it is a branch, but the whole subject is more advanced than regular Potions.

 

I probably quote too much from this guy's reviews, but Mike Smith is a chemist himself and when he was reviewing PS/SS he had this to share about alchemy in the HP series vs. what real alchemy was:

 

I think my days of debating Magical Theory for Harry Potter are over, so I'll post the only useful thing I have to this discussion. I made this curriculum outline in a fit of boredom AGES ago. Taure might remember it, I think I posted it in another thread once upon a time. Anyways, feel free to pick through it and leave your thoughts.

Hogwarts Transfigurative Arts Class Curriculum.

Year 1: Basic Transmutations

-Inanimate to inanimate transformations
-Organic to Inorganic transformations
-Enlarging and Reducing mass
-Repair Charms/Switching Spells

Year 2: Basic Transmogrifications

-Animate to inanimate transformations
-Organic to inorganic transformations
-Larger scale Transmutations
-Vanishing Charms

Year 3 - OWL Preperatory: Advanced Transmogrifications

-Inanimate to animate transformations
-Basic command Animations
-Advanced Transmutations: Merging objects and reversal

Year 4 - OWL Preperatory: Duplicating Matter

-Advanced Repair Charms
-Duplication of Inanimate objects
-Duplication of Animate objects

Year 5 - OWL: Basic Transfigurations

-Plantae to Plantae
-Plantae to Insect
-Plantae to Mammal/Avian/Reptile
-Insect to Insect
-Insect to Mammal/Avian/Reptile
-Mammal/Avian/Reptile to Mammal/Avian/Reptile
-Ethical debates

Year 6 - NEWT Preperatory: Conjurations and Animations

-Conjuring Inanimate objects
-Conjuring Animate objects
-Conjurationary Permanence
-Advanced Animations: Limited Sentience
-Summoning Vs. Conjuring

Year 7 - NEWT: Advanced Transfigurations

-Human to Plantae
-Human to Mammal/Avian/Reptile
-Animagus Theory
-Human to Human
-Gender differentials
-Hair Growth
-Metamorphmagi
-Healing Introduction

 

Of course you approve, you started it... (Not Relevant)

You could have cut that quote down to smaller parts so it wouldn't have felt so much like a helluva lot of TL;DR

 

Not sure if its been said before(in this thread or others) but...

What would happen if 2 animagus of the same species were to have sex? Would it be possible for the female to become pregnant and would she still be when she went back to human form?

 

I’ve always thought about transfiguration with a pre-Socratic approach…
Everything in the magical world would be composed with the four magical elements: air, water, fire and earth; the basic difference between each thing would be the percentage and the organization of the small pieces.
So Transfigurations would be such a difficult subject because it would take a lot of knowledge and power to be able to reorganize the small particles in order to create something different from the original natural thing. Human (or animal) Transfiguration would be harder because you would have added to those 4 elements the fifth: soul. So, in order to transmigrate a body to something inanimate you would need to disperse the soul element into nature; and, to be an animagus you’d need to reorganize your soul human-form particles into the animal-form soul particles.
Hum, does it make any sense to anyone other than me?

 

Well, assuming that the female did become pregnant, then presumably the animagus change would affect the embryo, just as it affects clothes and glasses and other things which aren't a part of the body, and thus the dog-embryo (or whatever animal it was) would transform into a human-embryo along with the animal into human.

One possible answer.

 

All kinds of perverted thoughts come to mind at that...

 

A possible answer Taure but I dont think that the embryo would change with the female back to human form. Animagus transformation is only changing your self, your arms, hair, eyes etc and any objects you might have on you. When they would have trained to become animagi, they would not have trained with a embryo(human or otherwise) inside them.

Although like most aspects of magic JK did not go into great detail, so we cant really tell can we?
Would the scenario chance if the female dog animagus were to have sex with a ordinary non animagus dog ?

 

An embryo is a part of you till childbirth you know... (Or could be considered as such)
It is connected to you, your very own flesh and blood

 

Even if what you say is true, my point is still valid. The animagus would not have trained with a embryo , so how would they know how to transform one?

 

Instinct? And wouldn't the embryo die, because of the differences between, say, a deer womb, and a human womb?

 

Actually, we know that Pettigrew's finger was affected in both human and animagus form, we know that both forms are related; they're not entirely seperate. So it would be reasonable to think the foetus would act exactly like an additional organ, and go from animal to human. That's very weird.

 

That's what is most likely to happen I think.
Although what would happen if the animagus stayed in deer form and had the foal, would the foal have the ability to transform into a human?
(like what happened in the dresden files, book 2 I think)

Yes but Pettigrew's finger/hand was a inanimate object. An embryo is not.

 

To be truthful, it doesn't make much sense to me. I just don't see the point of the Aristotelian element model in the first place. Why would things in the magical world be composed differently to things in the muggle world? I think most (or at least some people) would see things similarly, but a lot more scientifically: transfiguration applies to muggle objects, which are composed of atoms (etc), and probably in some cases involve changing one element into another (as in change the atomic structure - nothing to do with the aristotelian thing).

There is no evidence that an animate body created through transfiguration has a soul, or that souls have human and animal forms, or that they are composed of particles.

I said his finger, and it definitely wasn't inanimate before he cut it off.

 

It is not that they are composed differently, merely that the magical world uses a different model.

The atom/particle theory is just a model. There aren't really little orbs of energy flying around, it is just a way of modeling how things work and predicting future outcome. In 100 years, another superior model may have taken its place.

So too was the Aristotelian element model just a model - an inferior one to atoms in the Muggle world, but in the magical world maybe it is the other way around due to magical factors.