Polyjuice: how the fuck does it work?

[pica_scribit]

My brain comes up with weird stuff when I'm tired:

If a wizard used Polyjuice potion to disguise himself as a Muggle, would he still be able to do magic, or would he be temporarily powerless? Inquiring minds want to know.

Comments

[rewrites24]

I think they would still have their powers. In DH Harry and Hermione polyjuice as Muggles when they visit Godric's Hollow and they're still able to use their magic.

[superl99]

And Polyjuice only makes them take on the appearance and voice right? They don't take on personality attributes or skills of the person.

[pica_scribit]

It's not clear. Harry no longer needed glasses the first time he used Polyjuice.

[pica_scribit]

You're right of course. I'll have to go back and re-read that scene. It's been a really long time since I read DH, and it's the one I remember the least amount of detail about.

[davidbrider]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think that they'd be able to use magic - I think there is at least one instance of that happening in the books.

[chiv]

I get the impression it's more of a flesh moulding effect rather than something which goes deeper into either the genes or the metaphysical aspect of the subject, and it seems to have a limit on the size that a subject can increase or decrease by - did Hermione actually turn into a cat the first time she took the potion or did she just take on aspects?
On that train of thought, maybe if you combined the polyjuice potion with the floppy bone/disappearing bone spell Lockhart cast you might get further with true shape changing (werewolves etc.)

[pica_scribit]

Harry no longer needed his glasses the first time he used it, so it's not *just* appearance that changes. It does actually seem like they temporarily take on the DNA of the person into whom they transform. No, Hermione did not fully turn into a cat, but I think the explanation there was that Polyjuice is designed for human-to-human use only, so she got a wonky result.

[rissabby]

Hermione and Harry definitely did magic while polyjuiced as muggles in DH. Hermione made roses appear for the Potter's grave -- and then they did quite a bit of magic while fighting Matilda/Nagini. We know they were still transformed because Voldemort saw them as a middle-aged couple when they were escaping.

Nearsightedness is usually caused by the shape of the eyes, so that probably would change with polyjuice use. When they used polyjuice to make six (?) Harry Potter decoys in DH, the transformed Hermione commented on how bad Harry's eyesight was.