Polyjuice Potions... Dead or alive?

[pegruppel]

No: HPFGUIDX 59258

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gopotter2004" 
<gopotter2004 at y...> wrote:
> Now, I realize that Crouch, Jr. had to keep Moody alive to get hair 
> and ask him questions and such like that. But was it indeed 
> necessary to keep him alive in a potion sense? Couldn't you just 
> keep a few finger nails (already dead anyway) of anyone dead, and 
> pop them in for a quick-use potion? Sure, you would have a limited 
> number of times to make the potion before using up the supply, but 
> how confused would Harry be if he met his father, or mother? He 
> would probably know it wasn't them, but he would want so badly for 
> it to be, it would probably throw him off pretty badly. Just a 
> thought.
> 
> Becky

Me:
That's something I've wondered about, too.  When Moody was found 
alive in the trunk, I was surprised (not the only thing that I found 
surprising--I've eaten large meals of red herring).

The Polyjuice Potion only affects a person's appearance.  So, it 
*seems* that the hair of a dead person *ought* to work.  For someone 
who doesn't find handling a corpse too creepy, that might be a 
solution to the problem of taking someone else's place, without the 
risk of the other person wandering into the room.  That makes for 
awkward questions at parties.

That brings me to my main point.  Was it Moody's death Voldemort was 
talking about when he said: "One more murder . . . my faithful 
servant at Hogwarts . . ." (GOF, American edition, p.12)?

Maybe Voldemort's intention was to have Peter and Junior kill Moody 
and use his corpse's hair.  Barty realized he couldn't impersonate 
Moody without keeping him alive for questioning, so he stuffed him in 
the trunk rather than doing him in.  That, I think, is going to be 
one of the mistakes that leads to Voldemort's downfall.  As I read 
somewhere (long, long ago), "Never leave a living enemy behind you."

Peg