More Polydoubts (was Arabella Figg)

[errolowl <nithya_rachel@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 53141




Morgan D. wrote,:
>Honestly, I don't see why Barty Jr has to keep Moody around and 
>alive. Moody's hair is used for the potion, but hair is a dead 
>tissue. It shouldn't lose its "properties" even if cut from the 
>subject years before the making of the potion. 

David replied:
>One possibility is that Polyjuice only works as long as the person 
>being mimicked is alive. I think there must be some sort of magical 
>connection to the person: for example, how does Moody's hair contain 
>the information that he has a missing leg? We can speculate under 
>this possibility what would happen to a Polyjuice disguise if the 
>original suffers injury or death while the disguise is in force.

Me:
Moody is in a pretty bad way when they find him – thin, starved
and freezing. None of this affected Barty Jr. did it? So the original 
suffering injury likely had no effect on the pretender. Harry and Ron 
feel no effect from the drugging of Crabe and Goyle either. If 
instead of a sleeping draught they had simply hit them over the head, 
cartoon style, would Polyjuiced!Harry & Ron have bumps on their heads 
too? <grin>....the victims of polyjuice we know to date have been 
disabled in a non-physical way. I tend to think you get a version of 
the person as of the moment you "stole" some of their
essence. Which is why Barty would have had to set aside his supply of 
MoodyHair before Moody became thin & starved

Death might be a different thing all together – if the original
no longer exists, you can't imitate it can you? If the person you
stole the hair from was dead, you'd be attempting to turn into a
dead body – not a good idea. But if you stole it from them
*before* they died, would it work? Or does death terminate the whole 
thing? However, Barty Jr. doesn't imply that killing Moody would
have made the Polyjuice untenable. 

GoF US paperback Pg 598:
"... I kept him alive, under the Imperius curse. I wanted to be
able to question him. To find out about his past, learn his habits so 
I could fool even Dumbledore. I also needed his hair for the 
polyjuice portion..."

That's the reason Barty gives for keeping Moody around. Maybe
using truth potions to learn about the past, and Pensieve like 
investigations to study his Habits...needing the hair was an add-on. 
If the original had to be alive for PJ Barty didn't need to
explain to Dumbledore why he kept him alive.

If polyjuice works with dead subjects, this looks like a handy tool 
to study what a Historical figure looked like..just dig up the grave, 
add essence to polyjuice..and you can have an hour long photo session 
with the inventor of the golden snitch!

Errol

P.S- Ever notice that Dumbledore takes it for granted that Harry 
knows the nuances of Polyjuice? Harry had no reason to tell him 
about their experiment in CoS...