Polyjuice possibilities?

[Grey Wolf <greywolf1@jazzfree.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52121

Torsten wrote:
> Some questions that occured to me, I'm interested in your theories;
> 
> If Lupin polyjuiced into someone else, would he still be a werewolf 
> and transform under the full moon?

I'm inclined to think he would not, since that would be an easy -albeit 
unconfortable- way to "cure" lycanthropy: if you could transform into 
someone else for the duration of the full moon, you wouldn't be a 
danger. That said, however, I have participated before in Polyjuice 
discussions (see messages #42869, #42883 and #43741) and my position 
has always been that of the cell-based transfomation, i.e., that you 
transform into a perfect copy of the person involved down to the last 
cell of his/her body. The last time, it was aked from the other side, 
and I said that if you polyjuiced into a werewolf, you would transform 
into wolf form during full moon. I am not so sure now, though. I have 
the feeling that lycanthropy is a curse (based on the fact that 
werewolves cannot reproduce into werewolves, which indicates that it is 
not a naturally self-perpetuating species, thus that it is not a *real* 
species).

In conclusion, there is no way to tell, one way or the other. I incline 
myself that a werewolf would still transform, no matter who he 
polyjuiced into, and a normal person polyjuiced into a werewolf person 
would change *too*, by taking the curse with the potion. The 
transformation would probably go wrong at some point, since we know 
that the PP (Polyjuice Potion) doesn't cope well with animals.
 
> If someone polyjuiced into Lupin, Sirius or Harry, would he gain 
> their werewolf / animagus / parselmouth traits?

No. Canon tells us that Harry and Ron didn't become stupid when they 
PP'ed into Crab & Goyle. This indicates that your mental abilities 
remain the same and thus, if you weren't an animagus before, you are 
still not one. Parselmouth is a little more tricky, since it is not 
clear what exactly it is - since it seems to be a "gift" more than a 
learnt ability, you might just adquire it with the rest of the person. 
But the again, you might be able to hear the snakes, but not understand 
them. In this case, I'd be willing to think that you would, indeed, be 
able to speak parseltongue for a while.
 
> Barty Jr and his mother showed it's possible to turn into the 
> opposite sex. If you drink polyjuice potion with the hair of a 
> pregnant woman, will you too be pregnant while transformed? Would a 
> pregnant woman lose her child while polyjuiced into someone else? 
> Would the child itself be affected since it gets some of the potion 
> through it's connection to it's mother? If a man polyjuices into a 
> woman, can he get pregnant?

I answered all these questions in my post #42833 (and following). 
Here's an abstract of what is presently the theory I prefer (more or 
less corrected):

Cell-transformation:
--------------------

[Answering: can a man!woman copulate and/or get pregnant?]
If you turn into an identical copy of the original person (down to the 
very last cell), copulating would be possible, and possibly getting 
pregnant would be, too. However, you would misscarriage within the 
hour, since the person you're polyjuicing into isn't pregnant herself, 
so you'd change into the non-pregnant version of her. A woman turning 
into a man could help another woman to become pregnant, too.

<snip> I don't think that polyjuicing into a pregnant woman would make 
you pregnant, since the baby is a different person. Unless you happened 
to take tissue from the fetus, he/she wouldn't be included in the 
potion. (and if you include the tissue of the fetus, you'd probably 
die, since you won't have a 
mother around you to feed you, give you air, etc.)

In this case, however, if a man turns into another, has (unsafe) sex, 
and the woman involved becomes pregnant, the DNA would be the one of 
the person he has polyjuiced into. The same works for a woman that 
polyjuices into another woman (half of the DNA of the children is that 
of the woman you've polyjuiced into), although it would probably 
misscarriage, since they would have to be compatible for the fetus to 
survive. [Note: It was noted later that this wouldn't necessarily be 
the case. Read the above-mentioned post for the full story]

> Can you polyjuice into a baby and be able to walk and talk although 
> the baby's normally too young for it and can't do it? Would be a nice 
> disguise, nobody expects toddlers to start throwing AK's around.

A baby cannot walk because he hasn't the strength to do so, not because 
he doesn't have the coordination or the knowledge. Put it to test: if 
you hold a baby over a table or any other surface, you holding it and 
keeping it straight, he will be able to move the legs in a semi-walking 
gait. Equally, I think that the vocal cords of a baby are unprepared to 
be used until later. Thus, although it would be a good disguise, you 
wouldn't be able to do anything from it (and I do mean *anything*: 
babies haven't even control over their sphincter). You would, however, 
be able to see and listen to what goes on around you... but then again, 
you still need someone to baby-feed you PP every hour.

> Hermione said polyjuice isn't for animal transformations. What about 
> giants, veela, centaurs, merpeople, vampires ... can you turn into 
> one of those?
>
> -Torsten

I assume that, for the purposes of PP, "animal" means anything outside 
your own species. Thus, I doubt that any of the above would work 
correctly. We could make a case for mixed blood - if humans and giants 
are close enough to produce offspring, they might be close enough for 
the potion to work. I certainly couldn't say one way or the other at 
this point.

On a sidenote - most inter-species offsprings in real life (the few 
that are possible, that is) tend to produce barren children (e.g. 
mules). In fantasy books, however, traditionally this is not the case 
(the only exception I can think of off hand is Dark Sun world). I 
wonder if JKR *has* made Hagrid barren?

Chris wrote in a one-liner:
> Me: can you take on the actions of someone for a while as well,
> therefore explaining why fake moody could fool dumbledore.
> 
> Chris

Since Harry didn't turn into a drooling idiot when *he* used the 
potion, we can discount that. More canon, I hear you ask? Harry tells 
Ron how Crabbe swings his arms - it doesn't come naturally. Even more? 
Dumbledore tells us that Crouch keept Moody in the trunk under 
Imperious so he could ask him what he would do and, in general, to 
learn how to be him. So, no, aparently the PP doesn't give you either 
the mental capabilities nor the manerisms of the copied person.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf