What can/can't a wizard or witch conjour up?

[dungrollin]

> bboyminn:
<snipped>
> Another rule related to 'conjuring'. Things that are created from
> nothing are not premanent, they are created from nothing and in 
time return to their original state - nothing. 
> 
> So, you could create food using conjuring, but before you had time 
to digest it, it would return to the /nothing/ from which it came, 
and you would starve. So, conjured food might satisfy you in the 
short term, but in the long term, you would die.
> 
> That's not all bad though. For example, when the cream sauce comes 
out of Molly's wand, that could have been intentional if we assume 
she conjured it. Cream sauces are very heavy and loaded with 
calories and fat; not very healthy eating. But if it was conjured, 
it would disappear in an hour or so; no calories, no fat, but all of 
the flavor.
> 
> Think of the implications here. You could eat a gallon of conjured 
ice cream, and not a single calorie or a single gram of fat. You 
could eat to your hearts content. Even foods that are filled with 
fat and cholesterol wouldn't affect your health if they were 
conjured. 
> <snipped>

Dungrollin:
Questions questions questions, and I know you like thinking about 
this stuff, Steve, so I'm asking you. Could I smoke as many conjured 
cigarettes as I liked with no ill-effects? Or, since the damage done 
is far more immediate would it be just as bad as smoking real 
cigarettes? Or would the damage to my lungs miraculously vanish when 
the conjured particles of smoke did? Ron's peck-marks from the 
attack from Hermione's conjured birds were there long after the 
birds had (presumably) disappeared. So perhaps smoking conjured 
cigarettes is worse than smoking real cigarettes, because you get 
all the damage but the nicotine doesn't hang around in your system 
for long, so you want another soon after...

Would conjured smoke make someone sitting next to me cough, or bring 
on an athsma attack? Would I get hayfever from conjured hay? I 
assume so.

bboyminn:
> As a side note; keep in mind that not everything that appears to
> appear from nowhere is conjure. For example, when Dumbledore made 
the squashy purple sleeping bags appear; we don't know if he created 
them from /nothing/ or if he just transferred them from their storage
> location in the castle. Also, the food that magically appears on 
the Hogwarts House tables is cooked normally and transferred up from 
the kitchens below; it's real food, really cook, but magically 
served - so it's not /conjured/.
> 

Dungrollin:
Except that if DD had simply transferred the sleeping bags from 
elsewhere, that's a kind of remote apparation. Far more powerful 
that a summoning charm like accio since they disappeared in one 
place and reappeared in another immediately. You could then bring 
anything from anywhere - why bother with the Hogwarts express? The 
Teachers could simply summon each student at the beginning of term, 
and avoid complications such as the Flying Ford Anglia.

What about the refilling charm Harry used at Hagrid's hut to get 
Slughorn and Hagrid sloshed? Was that conjured booze or kosher stuff 
nicked from Hagrid's cupboard? If it was conjured, did they have 
hangovers or not? 

I suppose it all depends on how long these conjured objects actually 
last - something which could be supposed to vary with the skill 
and/or power of the witch/wizard in question. Which would allow DD 
to conjure a thousand squashy, purple sleeping bags at the drop of a 
hat and have them last for a week if necessary. Presumably that 
would also apply to other types of magic (charms and whatnot) - Gred 
and Forge's inventions tend to wear out quickly, and the charmed 
Quibbler article didn't last the whole evening. How long did Ron's 
figure of Krum keep slouching around, and did it stop doing so 
before he broke it? Will a Petrificus Totalus wear off in the end?

bboyminn:
> Transfiguration becomes more complicated, in general, I think you 
can transfigure anything as long as you know the proper spell and are
> sufficiently powerful. But complications do occur, for example, if 
you transfigure a living thing to an inanimate object, what happens 
to its life force? Or even more confusing, if you tranfigure an 
object into a living thing, is that living thing truly living or is 
it merely animated? 
> 

Dungrollin:
Complications indeed. More to the point, is transfiguration 
permanent in a way that conjuring isn't? If it is, then what's to 
stop the Weasleys transfiguring pebbles into Galleons?  

Curious, but lazy,
Dungrollin