End of POA, when Harry expresses regret to Dumbledore for saving Pettigrew's life.

 

Try Philosopher's Stone, last chapter.

And PoA, also last chapter:

EDIT: Apparently, I don't see an extra page when I haven't slept much.

Still, the first part wasn't mentioned - there was some talk about debts and Snape in the first book, too.

 

Forgive me if it's already been asked, but is Occlumency being able to circumvent Veritaserum a fanon concept?

Thanks.

 

If it isn't in a firsthand source (the books or JKR), then it's basically complete fanon.

Occlumency and Veritaserum are rarely mentioned in the same breath in the books; and, when they are, it's not really in relation to each other.

 

We're told such on JKR's offical site (the page is now gone but the Internet Archive has it).

-source

 

EDIT - phone delay, ninja'd about ten times, lol. Nevermind.

 

Ok, I am sure this question has already been asked, but there is a tad too many pages to hunt through for the answer.

My question is, is it possible for a wizard's transfiguration and/or conjuration to be permanent if an outside magical force doesn't actively undo the spell? I understand that the run of the mill transfiguration/conjuration spell is only temporary, but I was curious that if a wizard wanted to, and had the necessary skill, could they make their spell permanent similar to an enchantment?

 

I don't think so. I think that there is something about the nature of things that will cause them to revert back to an original form. if things could or would remain permanently in a fixed form, then wizards without much money like the Weasleys could just transfigure clothing and items rather than having to buy them second-hand.

but that's my opinion.. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge will edit and whatnot.

 

I've always assumed that a correctly performed transfiguration will continue unless untransfigured.

Firstly, JKR said on her old website that the difference between Transfiguration and Charms is that charms merely overlays a magical effect on an object, whereas Transfiguration fundamentally changes the nature of the thing. So that seems to imply that a transfigured thing really is the new object.

This would appear to be backed up by the Quindapeds, which are magical creatures created by Transfiguration. Not only has the Transfiguration lasted for hundreds of years, but they have also reproduced.

The upshot of all of this is that when Untransfiguration occurs, you're not changing something into what it is underneath, but rather into what it was in the past. Not unlike the Reparo charm.

I think it's important to remember that conjuration and transfiguration are fundamentally different. Conjuration creates something out of nothing, and we have Word of God that conjured items don't last. With transfiguration, on the other hand, you begin with a real object. On this topic, we have word of God (from Wombat tests) that while you cannot use magic to create food from nothing (i.e. by conjuration) you can use magic to increase and transform it. A book example of this would be Hagrid's pumpkins. I'm sure if Mrs. Weasley had accompanied the Trio on their camping trip, they would have eaten much better. Not Hermione's fault that she's never had a reason to learn food related spells.

As Darth Kali notes, this makes you think about the economy. Namely: why is there one for physical objects like clothes? For me, the satisfactory answer is that most wizards are shit. We're told that most Ministry wizards can't correctly cast a shield charm - OWL magic. This follows the OWLs/GCSEs comparison, as about half the population get below Cs on their GCSEs. And on top of the general crapness of wizards, Transfiguration is hard. Harry - an above average wizard who gets mostly Es in Transfiguration - is unable to perform complete transfiguration. All his objects always have some remnant of the old object as a part of it. So it seems that only Outstanding students can actually get Transfiguration to go all the way - maybe not even all O students. Hell, Krum was the best student at Durmstrang, and he was only able to perform a partial Transfiguration (admittedly, human transfiguration so the most complex kind).

 

I don't know why JKR decided to lump conjuring into transfiguration when the magic required seems more like charms. Perhaps Conjuring is to Transfiguration and Charms as Biochemistry is to Chemistry and Biology, in that it incorporates elements of both branches.

 

Charms is applying spells to objects. Colour changes, size changes, and so forth. But the object is still the same.

Transfiguration is changing the object to a different object - matchstick to needle, human to rat, potato to brick.

Conjuring something isn't applying a spell to something. It is turning nothing into a hat, or a tea-set.

 

Odd thing is, they learn it in both. Aguamenti, for example, which conjures water, is learnt in Charms (also, does water not count as food?). And they learn to conjure flowers in Charms too.

But McGonagall tells Harry's class that they will learn conjuring at NEWT level.

One conclusion is that there are two different types of conjuring: one for Charms (using specific spells) and one for Transfiguration.

Or it could just be a confused situation where it's not clear who has jurisdiction (the Reparo Charm, for example, seems to not quite fit JKR's definition of Charms, but it's taught in Charms anyway).

 

Actually, do we know for sure that he was aiming for a full Transfiguration and wasn't able to pull it off? Or maybe he intentionally wanted only a partial one? Becoming a shark without keeping his mind (as happens when it's not an Animagus Transfiguration) doesn't look very smart. Unless he wanted to win by eating the other Champions.

 

Given that he Transfigured his head, I should imagine he lost his mind anyway.

(The ability to think like a human goes, but maybe certain base desires - like find the girl and bring her back - remain. Or maybe, before the Transfiguration, he Confunded himself).

 

It doesn't necessarily conjure water, we just assume it does. We could also assume that the water being created is actually from the air around them and is merely being condensed. Granted, the water comes straight from the tip of the wand and I'm talking out of my ass, but the point stands.

Actually, we have it straight from Sirius that the mind changes when you undergo an Animagus transformation. He was able to transform into a dog while in Azkaban which lessened the dementor's affect on him, presumably because of the differences between a dog's mind and a human's.

 

Yes, but he still control his actions as Sirius, not a dog. After normal transfiguration a person becomes 100% animal and forgets they ever were humans.

 

Then I suppose mine is a discussion on semantics. Also, are you sure about that second part? I seem to recall the fact that they [The Marauders] needed someone there to change them back when they were first learning, apparently because they were self-transfiguring to help them figure out what it felt like.

 

We have the fact that human-animal Transfiguration makes you lose your mind, and the fact that the animagus transformation is immune to this, straight from Dumbledore in Tales of Beedle the Bard.

 

But we also have the fact that JKR is incredibly fond of retconning stuff overtly, without attempting to do anything about the earlier information with anything more than a simple handwave.

Then again, this comes back to the point that everyone here on DLP has come to a conclusion on; that JKR is a shitty world-builder.