Polyjuice Potions... Dead or alive?

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 59299


Linda:
> Dumblefore points out that 
> Crouch Jr has been pulling out Moody's hair all year. I don't think 
> the time contraints are quite as stringent as an organ transplant. 
> After all, Hermione got her hair at the dueling club. But maybe it 
> has something to do with the degradation of what muggles call DNA 
or 
> something along the same lines?

Moody had, in course of his life, lost his leg, his eye and gained 
quite a lot of scars. These options have nothing to do with DNA - but 
it _does_ transform with Polyjuice Potion. Injuries do - magically - 
go along with the hair, as fake-Moody shows. Knowledge and skill do 
not - Crouch Jr. had to ask all these things from Moody, learn to 
operate wooden leg etc.

I presume that *death* would also transform. If you take dead 
person's hair and use it in Polyjuice potion, you'll be just as dead 
as the donor, with a corpse having no difference.
 
Don't know - did Mrs Crouch's disease heal due to the potion, because 
her son didn't have it? So she certainly would keep taking it to the 
end. And then, she died in Barty's body, her body didn't work out the 
Potion, so she _remained_ in that body... (as Sirius witnessed)

-- Finwitch