PJP (WARNING: adult themes)

[Neri]

Ginger wrote:
> Throwing the ball up in the air to see who catches it and what they
> do with it:
> 

Neri:
Attempting a serious answer here. The mechanism of the Ployjuice
potion is obviously to magically change parts of oneself into a copy
of the genetic information contained in the hair (or whatever) taken
from another person. I'm writing "parts" because the brain, for
example, clearly doesn't change (or the changed Harry would be as
stupid as Goyle and the changed Hermione would start chasing mice).
Clearly, the new copy is chemically unstable and thus returns to its
original composition within an hour. Knowing this I think we can
easily answer the questions below.

> 
> If you Polyjuice yourself into someone, you only need one hair or
> toenail or whatever.  What is to stop you from changing into, say,
> Bob, giving yourself (with Bob's hair) a haircut, and staying Bob for
> as long as you keep drinking the potion?  Would that have worked for
> Crouch?
> 

The new hair would only be an unstable copy. We may assume that it
still retains parts of the original genetic information. However, even
if this copy would be able to withstand the recopying procedure of the
potion, some information is likely to be lost in every copying, and
thus the similarity of the new body to the original hair donor will
exponentially deteriorate with each additional haircut and drinking.

> If you are a woman and change yourself into a man, and <blush> spend
> a bit of quality private time with yourself, and change back to a
> woman, can you use the <blush> results of the private action to
> impregnate yourself?
> 

Assuming that the potion is able to create a haploid sperm cell using
the genetic information in a diploid hair cell, this would still be an
unstable copy DNA that would return to its original composition
(probably a female ovum) within an hour, just as the man is also
changing back into the original woman. Hence the woman would never
have the chance to use the sperm.  

> Would the resulting child of the above action be the child of the man
> into whom you had changed?  (Talking geneticly here, not morally or
> legally.)
> 

N/A (see previous answer).

> If you had an arm amputated and the arm was too damaged to be
> repaired, could you change yourself into a previous version of
> yourself using old hair from when you were fully armed, and then
> amputate the arm and reattatch it once you reverted back to your
> current self?  Or would the arm disappear after an hour as well?
> 

The new self will have two hands, since this genetic information (or
most of it, anyway) is contained in the hair. However, the new copy
and hence its new hand, attached or unattached, would only be an
unstable copy and will return to its original state (i.e., no hand)
within an hour, just as the original body is ready for the transplant.

> Along the same lines, if you had a disease where you needed a tissue
> donor, could change back to a pre-diseased self, donate healthy
> tissue, and have it cloned within the hour?  Would the healthy cloned
> cells still exist so you could grow your own donor tissue?
> 

For the same reason, the healthy tissue will change back to the
original damaged tissue after an hour.

> If a middle-aged, rotund woman who wasn't much to look at and whose 
> biological clock was ticking like a sledgehammer, but was only hit on 
> by ugly drunks, and, knowing that both alcoholism and uglyism are 
> hereditary, decided not to let one of them impregnate her, could she 
> change herself into a beautiful young woman and bag a hot guy?  Given 
> that conception doesn't take place immediately, wouldn't the <blush> 
> offering of the male just be swimming along towards its goal?  The 
> highway stays the same, only the scenery has changed, right?
> 

Assuming the offering had made it to the destination within the time
limit, the DNA from the woman would still change back to the original
rotund DNA after an hour. Even if the new zygote would survive this
drastic change, it would continue developing with the original DNA.

> Or should I just Imperious some poor bastard and Obliviate him?
> I know, I came up with a better idea above, but this one sounds like 
> so much more fun!

Now *this* plan seems actually workable. Can't see any problem with it.

> How much would Alan Rickman's hair clippings go for on E-Bay? How
> much would his GF's clippings go for? <beg>
> 

Sorry, not my department.

> What would Kneasy do with Madam W's clippings and an adventurous
> friend?
> 

Most certainly not my department.


Neri