TBAY: Dudley's little tail

[Her Ladyship]

No: HPFGUIDX 45683

Mun42 lay in her hammock on the deserted island, sipping at her hooch 
and tonic and really missing ice. It was too bad, really, that she 
didn't have a quill. She still received her weekly Proceedings of the 
Royal Academy of Wizarding Science by owl post, but had no way of 
replying. Not that the owls were in any mood to wait for a response 
after flying a heavy journal 4000 miles to her isle and never 
receiving so much as a knut. So nothing but herself, her survival 
instincts, periodicals, and junk mail to keep her company. She was, 
perhaps, the only person in the world who looked forward to all the 
AOL upgrade discs.

Her eye fell on an article about a group of Italian Muggles 
producting transgenic pigs and frowned. Now where had she heard a 
similar discussion? Aah, yes! She shuffled her way through recent 
HP4GU topics. Eureka! Vestigal tails? Embryology? Brilliant! The only 
thing left to do is expound!

Mun pulled out her trusty palm pilot (stylus and pad made from the 
native foliage) and began to write... 

"I submit sidenote XENOTRANSPLANT (Xing ENOugh Topics to Rail Against 
Non-Surgical Postulates, Laypersons, And Non Techies) to Theory RATS 
BE DISEASES(Removing A Tail Shouldn't Be Enough: Dudley Is Still 
Enpigged After Spell-Enduced Shapeshift).

>Surgically removing his tail could not possibly have reversed 
>Hagrid's failed transfiguration spell. 

I would argue that the spell didn't fail- it was just incomlplete. If 
the spell affected only the area of the coccyx, the surgery would 
have effectively removed all porcine bits. However, it is intersting 
to wonder if the transfiguration succeeded on a cellular level...

> Well, since there is no evidence that magic leaves marks Muggles 
>can detect, it is reasonable to assume that the surgeon did not get 
>the established margins.

She might have been able to establish margins if one of the following 
were true:

1) Hagrid succeeded in completely transfiguring the human tailbone 
into a pig's tail. Even though both Dudley and many breeds of swine 
are pink, there is a discernable difference between the two types of 
skin, especially on a pig's tail. 

2) The pathologist realized that the tissues are not human, ran every 
ELISA in the book before identifying loads of porcine-specific 
compounds.

And now to the meat of XENOTRANSPLANT:

I submit that the tail is merely a superficial extension of Dudley's 
human tissues and not actually porcine tissue and offer the following 
as (admittedly inconclusive) support:

1)Hagrid only had three years of transfiguration and isn't capable of 
such a subtle cellular transfiguration. We have seen that an 
unsuccessful transfiguration is one that is incomplete (turtles 
breathing steam, silvery pointy matchstick). This indicates that a 
complete transfiguration goes down to the molecular level.

2) The tail did not fall off on its own. Part of the problem with 
transplanting animal parts to people is that the immune system 
identifies and destroys any foreign cells. Unless Hagrid managed to 
cast an immune-suppression charm along with the transformation, the 
cells were still human.

3) Dudley's screaming in PS/SS and his reaction to the Weasleys in 
PoA leads me to believe that the transfiguration was painful. This 
would indicate that the nervous system in the tail, as it was being 
formed, was still capable of sending pain messages and therefore 
still human.

I conclude that any porcine legacy left in Dudley during his 
formative years is purely psychosomatic. This is, of course, not to 
downplay or discredit thoughts and theories on how having a pig's 
tail, even for a short time, could affect a child's psyche."

She signed the missive with a flourish and began grubbing about for a 
proper container. Successfully locating an old Arizona Tea bottle, 
stuffing the message into it, and sealing it with a kiss, she tossed 
it into the  rolling waves.

And so the bottle bobbed off into the rolling waves to seek its 
fortune. It floated for a year and a day until one day it bumped 
noisily against the prow of a great ship...

Mundungus42, who is thrilled by biology on HP4GU