My opinion, based on nothing in particular, is that polymorphing into a metamorph comes with the metamorph powers.

It makes for a great party drug, actually. Your features just randomly cycle around based on the tiniest nudges from your lines of thought, utterly unable to be controlled because you haven't grown up with the abilities like actual metamorphs do.

And, for the very adventurous, why not have your sex partner(s) take a dose before taking them to bed?

 

I can see some rather amusing/disturbing events happening if one were to do that...

 

I think meatzman has the right of it here, and that powers don't transfer when one takes polyjuice. If they did, polyjuice potion would suddenly become the ultimate weapon. Steal one of Dumbledore's grey hairs, and--presto--you're uber-powerful. Although perhaps that's why Voldemort is bald, as a security measure?

I've read a few fics where powers transfer with polyjuice, and they always struck me as ludicrous. Dumbledore is injured or something, so he takes a dose of Harry juice and becomes superman again. Just not realistic.

 

Polyjuice only requires a body part, not specifically a hair. A fingernail clipping, a drop of blood, etc . . . would work just as well.

 

I agree, for the most part.

In that scene in To Fight The Coming Darkness where Dumbledore uses Polyjuice to become Harry, it wasn't Harry's powers or abilities that Dumbledore gained, it was the musculature and health of a youthful body.

That strikes me as being a more legitimate notion than gaining special abilities. On the other hand, I think the strain of returning to your 100+ year-old body afterward would likely kill you.

As an aside, I've read a lot of stories where a person's voice doesn't change that of person who they've turned into.

Aside from it being canon that your voice changes, if your vocal chords are the same shape as the person you've become, the same sound will come out, maybe not in the same speech patterns or personal quirks, but it will be the same voice.

 

I'm not sure if it would be the same voice. The same vocal chords, yes. But imagine a person growing up in England. Now imagine them growing up in China. Now imagine them growing up in France. Same person, different upbringings. I think their voice would be unrecognisable in each, and that you're rather underestimating speech patterns.

What always interested me with Polyjuice is that you must get their brain as well. Your soul is probably the only thing unchanged, which is what allows for continuity. This would be pretty interesting: I've always wondered what it would be like to feel what it likes to think as someone else. Would you feel noticeably smarter or dumber (i.e. your thoughts become more or less agile, you reach conclusions quicker, etc.)? Do your patterns of thought follow completely new routes? Do you even see the world in the same way? Do you start making decisions based on memories you didn't know you had?

 

I think you are all dwelling way too much on the effect and effectively search for a dog under the cow.

Why not simply accept that the polyjuice potion changes your physical outlook and while it may give you the same itching, whoever has given you the hair had got from that one girl as extra for a small fee he paid for her services, but essentially nothing else. Not your brain, not your thoughts and certainly not your soul or magic along with the unique abilities you might have.

Plain and simple.

 

When Harry was Goyle/Crabbe (I forget which), he wasn't a Harry-sized person who looked like G/C. He was bigger, fatter, etc. His musculature, skelature, etc. changed. Outward appearance is related to inner, they're not two completely separate things. If he was taller, his skeleton must have changed.

So internal organs change too. So why not the brain? And in fact, if the brain didn't change, you'd be in trouble, because you'd have your old brain and a new skull and the two wouldn't fit together. So really, the brain has to change.

Finally, magic is linked with genetics (a bit of a lame idea, but there it is). It seems likely that metamorphmagus is a separate ability to magic, rather than a development of magic, given that they're "born, not made". If it was just a way of using your pre-existing magic, it could be learnt. So it must be separate.

So given that your biology changes, and given that metamorphmagus appears to be determined by a genetic marker rather than a mental skill, it's likely that you'd get metamorphmagus powers.

However, you probably wouldn't know how to use them. Rather than them fluctuating wildly though, I'd say they'd just be dormant.

 

Really, I'm talking more about people who have Harry talking in precisely his original voice when polyjuiced, so he has to try and disguise it. That's just ridiculous.

As far as speech patterns and other nuances, I did mention them, but in situations where you only need to fool someone long enough to say, "Hey, unwitting patsy, come 'ere!" then belt them with a blunt object, it's not much of an issue.

 

Going with the idea that metamorph ability is a born ability, something someone has a birth do to their genetic make-up, and the only way polyjuice could change someone completely into another person is by changing their genetic make-up, I’d have to say that the metamorph ability would transfer.

That being said, this got me thinking of something else. The human body gets older because,
A) We experience a steep decline in hormone production in our later years,
B) Our body becomes less efficient at detoxifying,
C) The DNA in our cells becomes damaged, and
D) A life time of exposure to stress and environmental toxins in our air, food and water overwhelms our body’s repair systems.

Now both polyjuice and metamorph abilities directly change the genetic make-up of a person, so couldn’t both these abilities be uses to keep off the effects of aging, and there for death? Thoughts?

 

Theoretically, yes. Transfiguration, too, theoretically should make someone able to de-age themselves.

But JKR didn't want immortal wizards so it doesn't work for a mysterious reason.

Maybe you could say that it has something to do with transfiguration not affecting the soul. A soul is of a certain age, and it forces a body to age with it.

 

Damn souls, always getting in the way of greatness.