A third possibility comes to mind, which I loosely base on Dumbledore from book 6: "Magic always leaves traces...sometimes distinctive traces...." Once again, it's total pulled-from-the-ass goodness.

Assume that transfiguration transforms objects in a physically perfect way - for instance a lamp transfigured into a hat is indistinguishable from something that started life as a hat. It may be physically indistinguishable, but that doesn't mean it's magically indistinguishable. The transfigured version might still retain some magical essence. If that's the case, we can invent a framework in which a transfigured object "wants" to return back to its original form.

tl;dr: Maybe Malfoy really did turn into a true ferret...but to turn him back into a human was easier, because the transfigured form is only quasi-stable - that it's like pushing an object up a hill, and reversing the transfiguration is like setting it into motion back down the hill. Yes, I know this sounds like your first suggestion, but IMO it's slightly different. I'm saying that Malfoy could have been simultaneously identical and different from a real ferret, in a way only possible with magic.

If you want you can even use this sort of bullshitting to explain away the "no transfiguration economy" plot hole mentioned earlier in the thread. You could argue that no sensible wizard would build a house out of transfigured material, because that material might behave less predictably (and less stably) in the presence of magic than its natural equivalent.

 

I thought it was clear that I was saying that Dumbledore was creating things out of thin air with the elder wand not summoning them....I'm pretty sure it was quite clear.

 

Well, as about the bit that says conjured items "don't last".... What does?

She might simply mean that when you conjure something, instead of decomposing or eroding as the normal object would (back into natural elements), it would deteriorate back into non-being at the same rate. Essentially, it would have the same life-span as any similar object, but dissolve into nothingness as it aged rather than degrade into waste components, being composed magically rather than of the natural elements which the normal object would contain.

With a conjured chair, while physically the same as a normal one, I think the appearances in behavior would become more apparent as time went on. If a conjured item is subject to the same reality as the real chair, then it would naturally start to degrade. When it did, the magic might no longer apply to it as the originally conjured item, at which point it would begin to disappear by degrees instead of shedding its particles of decay into the environment around it. When a normal chair fades, or the paint is faded/chipped/worn away, its because the pigment has been rubbed off, transferred elsewhere. Perhaps with a conjured chair, anything rubbed off would simply disappear because it was no longer a part of the magical construct maintaining its own existence. Thus, they erode at the same rate, but a conjured object leaves nothing behind.

 

@Sesc: Why would Krum want to completely become a shark? How would he carry Hermione having nothing but fins and pointy teeth? How would he turn back in to a human being without a wand?

You are reading to much in Bagman words, a full transfiguration is more complex than a partial and would demonstrate greater skill, but the judges of the tournament value more the efficiency in completing the task than the amount of magical skill demonstrated. If skill played such great role in the points, Harry would not have received so much in the first two tasks. And despite not making an unnecessarily difficult transformation Krum had been effective, his third place (40 points) is for coming after Diggory and for not showing sufficient moral fiber.

@Oneiros: Oh well, not as clear as you thought. Or maybe not clear enough for me.

 

It's possible that Harry was only able to repair his wand because he was master of all the Hollows. Maybe he'd get more out of it, or something.

 

In HBP it's clear the Mead is summoned, not conjured, because he says that it's Madam Rosmerta's brew.

 

You guys are reading way too much into this. JKR's theory of magic is sketchy at best and retarded at worst.

For instance, you may not transfigure gold, but why would you want to when you could transfigure something far more valuable like diamonds? Or if it is wealth as a concept rather than gold per sey, where does it draw the line? You could transfigure a million teacups into rats and start a petshop. Or whatever.

I apologise if this has already been pointed out, but I couldn't be bothered to read the canon nitpicking.

 

I thought the whole point of the thread was just to stimulate some activity/discussion in a somewhat flat section of the forum.

 

Yeah, it's a necro. I just had this written up anyway so I thought I'd share. As part of plotting my own stories I started writing down a few 'Rules of Magic' so that I could be at least internally consistent. Wouldn't it have been cool if JKR had written a similar 'bible' before coming up with confusing plot holes like the Trace, the Taboo and the Fidelius?

On Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration

The law states: A complete transfiguration results in the new object having none of the properties of the original and all the properties of the intended result. There are five exceptions:

1. One cannot imbue procreative life into an inert object. Corollary: Life feeds on life. The nutritional value of a transfigured object is only as useful as the original source; don't eat the rocks.
2. One cannot conjure/transfigure knowledge
3. One cannot conjure/transfigure magical ability or enchantment
4. Things with a magical essence will break down transfiguration over time and lose none of their qualities while transformed (note that wizard corpses do not retain any magical essence but could be made into a fine meal if you're desperate)
5. The reverse of the prior four is also true- one cannot kill by transfiguring a living thing into a nonliving thing; knowledge and magical essence embedded in an object is not lost when it is transfigured (or Vanished, by the way); objects with magical essence will also self-restore over time from being Vanished, usually in the place they were Vanished from.
6. Unwritten Exception 6: the Fae know something we don't and if the goblins can't make them talk don't expect a wizard to succeed at it. Ever.

This doesn't explain the economics of magical society except to say that the only things worth trading in magical circles are magical things, knowledge and food. I believe Lupin liked looking shabby so as to go about unnoticed.

There may be some merit in thinking that most wizarding clothing is enchanted in other ways (auto-freshening, auto-fixing, mild jinx resistance) that makes hand-me-downs a viable option for the financially strapped Weasleys. They went nuts taking a vacation when Arthur won 800 Galleons.

I also believe that the goblins have an agreement with the Ministry to trade muggle funds (of almost no real worth) for magical coin only while a muggleborn student is attending an accredited school, and only in limited quantities. Goblin money isn't simply minted metal- it's specifically made to be tradable, unduplicatable but still subject to other enchantments of convenience. Counterfeit goblin money is cause for war.

 

Of these, only the Fidelius is actually a plot hole.

There's no contradiction in the Trace. There is a spell on underage people, called the Trace, which can detect magic used in that person's vicinity, but not who casts it. As such, for children in magical homes, the Ministry has to rely on the parents to enforce the Restriction on Underage Wizardry, whereas in Muggle homes, where only the kid can use magic, they can tell that the kid is the one using it, and so proceed accordingly. Of course, there will be some mistakes here (e.g. a parent of a friend visiting the house), but that's the reason they have hearings.

Where's the plot hole?

Again with the Taboo, I presume your objection is something like "if they can monitor words like this, why don't they use it for x, y and x".

This assumes that wizards haven't heard of civil rights. It's like the "Muggle vs. Wizards" argument "if wizards are stronger than Muggles, why are they in hiding?" - it assumes that wizards will do everything they can do. Muggle governments have the technological capability to monitor their citizens 24/7. But they don't. Why? Because their populations wouldn't stand for it (unless they're British, lol). Same for wizards.

Anyway...

This is clearly too strong. If I transfigure a 3 legged table into a 4 legged one, clearly the two objects share properties. The above law would rule out such transformations. This is mostly an issue of wording, as I can see what you're trying to get at, but wording is important when making laws, lol.

A bit dodgy, given that we know you can transform rocks into dogs (for example). If the dog is indeed a transfiguration and not an illusion (i.e. it has the physical properties of a dog), then when you place it in your mouth the chemical reactions will result in digestion and nutrition. How would you not receive nutrition? The only way to say this would be to invoke a magical explanation, which would mean (something along the lines) that the dog is not a dog, but rather a rock disguised as a dog. Yet we know that this is exactly what Transfiguration is not - it is defined as changing what the thing actually is fundamentally, not just altering the properties.

This is a tricky one. If I transfigure something into a rabbit without knowing the complete biological and chemical make-up of rabbits, then it seems to me that I've created information (or at least, the magic has supplied information). Further, I could dissect the rabbit and learn things.

I would restrict it to saying that you cannot create human knowledge (perhaps "creative works"), such as maps of political geography (a spell that maps physical geography seems possible to me), works of fiction, etc.

Edit: actually, even political geography maps seem okay too. Also: Marauder's map.

Seems to be refuted by Fantastic Beasts, which mentions the Quintapeds - beasts which used to be humans but were transfigured into a new animal. They've been like that for a couple hundred years now.

Also, IIRC, JKR said that the animagus transformation is the only way for a wizard to retain his mind in a transfigured state - it's why it's so special.

I would agree and disagree. Yes, I would say that if you transform a person into a rock then a suitably skilled wizard could transform the rock back into a person (we know Untransfiguration exists). However, unless/until this Untransfiguration occurs, it seems to me that the wizard is dead. Or as good as dead. "A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all."

Unlikely, or potions would randomly appear in the Potions rooms every day (given that they're vanished with regularity, and have been for several hundred years).

Or, the average wizard (or even the above average wizard) doesn't have the skill necessary to transfigure clothes.

 

I'll save the potential arguments on the Trace, Taboo and Fidelius for another thread- I only brought them up as I've seen them argued in many places. My only problem with the first two has to do with how they are executed not being well-explained. Can the Ministry detect magic anywhere? When does a child get Traced, or is it an enchantment on the whole island that just constantly searches for new wizards and smacks them? Anyway- different topic.

For sure the language needs to be cleaned up. The initial law should probably state something like 'unless the properties are coincidentally shared'. The intent is to say 'nothing of what was should remain if you're doing it right'.

The idea that you can transform a rock into a dog and have it be a dog indefinitely is the problem- not that this is supported fully by canon, but it somehow annoys my sense of greater thematic truth- if you can't bring back the dead, certainly you cannot create life from clay. Physics takes a back seat.

Cedric needs a couple distractions to misdirect a dragon so he temporarily turns rocks into Terriers- fine. If the dragon didn't flash-fry them, I wouldn't expect the pups to go to the shelter or follow him around, and I wouldn't expect Fang to be making babies with them (assuming Cedric made females).

Similarly if McGonagall needs defenders for the castle it's more reasonable for her to animate the existing statues than to transform them into Celt Berserkers. On the other hand if she could have done so, Minerva may have chosen not to simply because they'd be a hard bunch to feed afterwards.
Cedric may have created the dog but then applied a Charm to describe the behavior he needed it to perform. When Draco conjures snakes they are there to attack something which is outside of their typical behavior. The nature of the Serpentsortia may include both the conjuration and the charm to make them aggressive.

As to the conjuration of knowledge, one can obviously learn a lot about things that the magic will 'fudge into place' by assuming that the pig you conjured and dissected is a typical pig. All that the exception is covering is the idea that you may conjure a duplicate of 'Moste Potente Potions' but the knowledge within won't be written there unless you use a Charm to copy the original over.
Similarly a wizard wouldn't be able to conjure or transform a working copy of their wand- it would look the same but magically have no benefit unless you were transfiguring an existing wand, which would operate no differently than the original.

I'm going to fudge slightly on the Vanishing- I think Vanished stuff is extra-dimensionally stored and a conscientious Potions Master like Snape goes back to flush out the stuff properly at some later time. just because we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Else, why wouldn't you just Vanish the Horcruxes?

The reason I added the 'near where it was Vanished' bit was to cover for the idea that you could Vanish a spare dagger or wand and un-Vanish it later whenever you needed it- if it only reappears close to where it was Vanished, we don't have a super inaccessible extra-dimensional storage plot-hole.
The obvious next question is 'why doesn't Vanish just disintegrate things permanently?' Because things can be part-Vanished and un-Vanished. There may instead be a half-life to Vanished things, such that they can only be restored within a limited time frame. Again, the durability of magical things needs to accomodated.

As to transfiguring a thing to be dead-
I don't have an answer that is quite as clear-cut as I would prefer.
Here's the hypothetical:
You transfigure a child into a lump of soap and leave it in the shower of your vacation home for two decades. When you untransfigured it back would it be the same exact child untouched by age, the same exact child but dead from lack of food water and other essentials, or an adult version of that child with only the memories of everything it had experienced until it became Lifebuoy? Or is it not reversible after so long?

I'm fairly sure Rookwood was going to work on that one before he got thrown into Azkaban.

 

On the topic of transfiguration/vanishing, I'd suggest that when you transfigure/vanish something it does indeed fully take on the properties of the transfigured item/vanish entirely. Then, when the wizard goes to untransfigure/unvanish the item, magic 'looks' through the timeline to find what properties the item had at that time and reverts/unvanishes the item.

This theory has the advantage of being completely within the canon specifications of magic (for transfiguration at least), since we know that a transfigured item becomes the new thing in its entirety, and that magic has power over time. It also removes the extra-dimensional storage facility option that basically anyone could spell into existence and ties it to the vanisher, such that the intent to unvanish the specific item must be present in the caster for the spell to work. General unvanishing would not work.

 

'sup Aekiel?

 

I'm completely with the 'general Un-Vanishing wouldn't work'- somehow you're limited to restoring that which you Vanished unless you didn't get it right. A student's partial vanishing (as mentioned in OotP) should be able to be undone by a skilled teacher- that's why I favor the extra-dimensional space theory. The caster creates the space but if it's incomplete 'the door is left open'.

Special elf-rule (see unwritten exception 6) : as part of their clean-up efforts the house-elves of Hogwarts are able to track the Vanished things and either dispose of them properly or dump them in the Room of Forgotten Items. It might explain how they're able to Apparate despite the wards but can't break into Azkaban with picnic baskets. They are actually Vanishing themselves- allowed at Hogwarts but protected against at the prison.

 

I'm not sure about extra-dimensional space - it seems an unnecessary addition, over what McGonagall said in DH. "Nothing, which is to say, everything". My interpretation: vanishing something sends it into "nothing" (equivalent to your extra-dimensional space in function, but without the unwieldy metaphysical baggage). And of course, nothing has no location, so it is accessible from everywhere. Thus, Albus Dumbledore can vanish some mead at Hogwarts, apparate to Privet Drive, and unvanish it there to give to Harry.

 

Well shit. Now I'm stuck because that makes too much sense.

Any ideas on how to close the tactical loophole of Vanishing all sorts of useful things to be summoned from the ether at a whim?
Maybe it only works for soft materials or perhaps even the best Masters of Transfiguration can really only maintain concentration on a few Vanished potential things before they are 'forgotten' permanently.

 

1) Magic cannot be transfigured or conjured. (You could transfigure a mouse into the Goblet of Fire, but it wouldn't have any magical properties. Likewise you cold conjure a reasonable approximation of a phoenix, but it wouldn't have any of the magical properties associated with the species.)

2) A substance cannot be transfigured into gold, nor can gold be conjured. (Obviously, the philosopher's stone can transmute common metals into gold, but I would argue that is more complex than transfiguration by an order of magnitude.)

3) A sentient being cannot be conjured, nor can it be transfigured from non-sentient matter.

4) Magical beings cannot be permanently transfigured. (I would argue that magical beings would revert eventually to their original form, unless some method was used to sustain the effect. I think curses would have to fall outside this exception. Perhaps curses use the targets inherent magic to sustain it.)

5) Food cannot be conjured or transfigured from non-food. (I think that a conjured chicken would not be indistinguishable from a real chicken. Obviously, the goblin waterfall and certain spells and wards can determine if something is transfigured, so it stands to reason that transfigured items are fundamentally different from the genuine article. If that is so, then it stands to reason that rocks transfigured into chickens would be somewhat lacking in nutritional value.

 

I'd go further and say that alchemy is an altogether different subject and as such wouldn't fall under Gamp's Laws in the first place.

Seems reasonable; you might as well just say that a soul cannot be conjured or transfigured.

A curse is more like a charm than transfiguration, it applies an effect on top of the target, so that the item it is applied to is unaffected but the curse on top of it still works. On the subject of transfigured objects returning to their previous state... I'm gonna borrow a Discworld concept and say that each object retains the 'soul' of its previous state and that it will fight against the spell holding it so that it will eventually return to its previous state.

 

I don't know. Lycanthropy is a curse, sort of. Actually, I'd like to know how you differentiate a curse from a charm. For instance, do curses require countercurses to dissipate? Is that part of the definition? Although that also rules out lycanthropy. Meh. Maybe what differentiates a charm from a curse is that curses are aimed at individuals with the intent to harm. So, if Harry uses Wingardium Leviosa on Malfoy in the hallway, he can be properly said to have cursed Malfoy, even though he used a simple charm.

On the "soul" of objects. While I might disagree with the terminology, I do believe that elemental transfiguration could not permanently change an object. I make the distinction of "elemental transfiguration" because I'm sure a cunning wizard or a more complex spell might be used that has more permanent effects. I don't believe that this is merely a matter of power. As a general rule, I don't like the idea that pouring more power into a spell will overcome the basic limitations of the spell. If Dumbledore can conjure or transfigure things that are more permanent than other wizards, then it is because he has more advanced knowledge and ability in the subject, not because of the elder wand or his power levels.