I'm so embarrassed right now, such a silly mistake :facepalm

 

In order for the Polyjuice potion to work, the person from whom you're taking the necessary ingredient to transform into has to be alive, correct? Or is my mind once more befuddled by the numerous fanfics I've read and have just spouted some gibberish?

 

No canon on the matter. All we know is that you need some part of their body. Crouch Jr kept Moody alive, but this seemed to be mainly in order to have a continuous stream of body parts (Moody's hair was patchy, implying regular removal).

 

What else could be used for Polyjuice though? Besides hair, I mean.

 

Toenails were mentioned in CoS as an example, but Hermione does state any body part will do.

 

Regarding house elves:

Shouldn't the simplest explanation be that the students have no authority to the free the house elves? They don't own the house elves, and so cannot free them. Remember, it was said that the house elves found the hats offensive - they weren't afraid of the clothes - and they would be, if they could have been accidentally freed as such. If house elves are property, for others to be able to free them makes no sense - you might as well have a property regime where anybody can take your shit.

 

The thing is, Hermione is not the type to do something without researching it first. JK Rowling has always maintained that readers can take statements about the wizarding world from Dumbledore and Hermione to be authoritative, as they're her authorial mouthpieces.

So if Hermione thinks that the elves picking up clothes would free them, it seems like she must have some reason to think that.

 

I can't remember if I've brought this up before, but here goes:

Do a sizable fraction of the magical world never learn to conjure or animate or anything that's similar advanced transfiguration? Or never go into advanced charms? I can imagine living without Potions, those you can purchase, but the other two look like pretty core magical skills.

IIRC, Neville dropped Transfiguration after the OWLs, and the story implies that his grandmother did the same for Charms. So she doesn't know stuff like the Aguamenti or the Refilling Charm, both taught in the sixth year?

 

I just reread the pottermore information on werewolves and about how they joined forces with the goblins in the 18th century. Now I am wondering: Is Voldemort's opinion about werewolves known in canon? He allied himself with Fenrir, but where there also other werewolves allied to him? Was Fenrir fighting for Voldemort because Voldemort promised him to improve the werewolves' station in society or was Fenrir the only werewolf in Volmdemort's forces who simply joined because he liked to kill?

 

In the first chapter of DH, he mocked the idea of mating with werewolves in front of his Death Eaters. See the relevant text below.

Later in the same chapter:

 

Rowling: "No, you can't choose. You become the animal that suits you best. Imagine the humiliation when you finally transform after years of study and find that you most closely resemble a warthog."
Source: http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2004/0304-wbd.htm

 

Yes, it's your personality and further, you don't know what your form is until you complete the transformation for the first time.

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-aol-chat.htm

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-edinburgh-ITVcubreporters.htm

Not sure if she's referring to Hermione's Patronus there, or implying that she became an animagus later in life.

Also amusing that Hermione got JKR's favourite animal. So indicative of Hermione's role in the story...

 

She's her self-insert. There's really nothing surprising about this at all.

 

As a follow-up, do we know anything about how one becomes an Animagus?

 

I sincerely doubt that. I don't think Rowling is arrogant enough to consider herself "near-genius". She's an authorial mouthpiece as far as I know.

 

Plus, Hermione is most likely good at math.

 

There's only really one part of canon that might give us a clue.

1. We know that when you use regular transfiguration to turn a human into an animal, they lose their human mind and think like the animal.

2. We know that animagi, on the other hand, are able to keep their human minds when transformed.

These two are in Dumbledore's notes in Tales of Beedle the Bard.

3. Viktor Krum transformed himself into a shark in GoF.

4. In his shark form, he kept his human mind, demonstrated by his continued ability to pursue the task and his ability to untransfigure himself at the end of the task.

Tentative conclusion: Viktor Krum is a shark animagus.

However...

5. Viktor Krum's transformation into a shark was incomplete.

Second tentative conclusion: Viktor Krum has not yet mastered the animagus transformation, and his ability to turn half of himself into a shark demonstrates a person mid-way through their animagus training.

 

It could also be, that Viktor's transformation is unrelated to the animagus transformation, but something else entirely.

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Does this mean that Voldemort was on the same page as Umbridge about muggleborns "stealing" magic from Wizards? Isn't that theory complete bullshit, or was it never proven either way?