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Polyjuice Potion

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Polyjuice Potion
Potion information
Effect

Allows a human drinker to assume the form of another person

Side effects

Attempts to transform into animals or part-humans will not reverse automatically

Characteristics

Before addition of final ingredient:

  • Thick and mud-like
  • Bubbles slowly

After addition of final ingredient:

  • Taste and colour vary depending on the person being turned into
Brewing time

One month

Difficulty level

Advanced

Known ingredients
  • Lacewing flies (stewed 21 days)
  • Leeches
  • Powdered bicorn horn
  • Knotgrass
  • Fluxweed (picked at full moon)
  • Shredded Boomslang skin
  • A bit of the person one wants to turn into (typically hair)
Behind the scenes
First appearance

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Last appearance

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Remus Lupin: "I'm sorry Harry, but I had to check. We've been betrayed. Voldemort knew that you were being moved tonight and the only people who could have told him were directly involved in the plan. You might have been an impostor."
Rubeus Hagrid: "So why aren't you checkin' me?"
Remus Lupin: "You're half-giant, Hagrid. The Polyjuice Potion is designed for human use only."
— Remus Lupin while checking Harry Potter after the Battle over Little Whinging[src]

Polyjuice Potion is a very complicated potion that allows the drinker to assume the form of someone else. While it can account for both age and gender, Polyjuice Potion cannot be used for a human to take an animal form or for a half-breed to assume human form. It was used many times in the events leading up to, and during, the Second Wizarding War (and possibly the First Wizarding War, although there are no documented instances of it). The potion also played a crucial role in Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley's investigation of the Chamber of Secrets in their second year, in Draco Malfoy's plot to smuggle Death Eaters into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1997, in the Battle over Little Whinging, and in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's break-in of Gringotts Wizarding Bank in 1998.

Contents

[edit] Ingredients

  1. 12 lacewing flies that have been stewed for 21 days[1][2]
  2. 1 ounce of crude Antimony[2]
  3. 4 leeches that have been "unsucculated"[1][2] (which presumably means their suckers have been removed)
  4. 16 scruples of fluxweed that was picked at full moon[1][2]
  5. 3 drachms of pulverised Sal Ammoniac[2]
  6. Pulverised blades of knotgrass[1][2]
  7. 1 pinch of powdered horn of a Bicorn that has been "lunar extracted"[1][2] (which presumably means that, like the fluxweed, its collection time coincided with certain lunar conditions)
  8. Filings and rasplings of Salpeter, Mercury and Mars[2] ("filings of Mars" may mean iron filings, as the symbol for the planet Mars, ♂, is also used to signify the element of iron[3] )
  9. Shredded dried skin of a Boomslang[1][2]
  10. Extract of The-Transfigured-Being-To-Be [1][2] (which means a piece of the person one wants to change into, typically hair)

Most of the ingredients are available in the students' cupboard at Hogwarts, although some of them are only available in Severus Snape's private stores.[1] It takes at least two to three months to brew properly.

[edit] Appearance

A piece of the person who is to be imitated — usually hair — is needed for the transformation. Before this final ingredient is added, Polyjuice looks like thick, dark mud that bubbles slowly. When the piece of the person to be imitated is added, however, the potion changes colour; it seems to react according to the nature of the person to be imitated, once even described as the 'essence' of the person.[1] Good-hearted people result in more attractive colours and tastes, while mean people cause the opposite effect. Harry Potter's was a pure golden colour[4], whereas Gregory Goyle's tasted like "overcooked cabbage"[1], Bellatrix Lestrange's tasted "disgusting, worse than Gurdyroots" and Mafalda Hopkirk's was a pleasant heliotrope colour[4]. It is likely that the taste differs from potion to potion, though everyone doubles over in pain when they drink it.

[edit] Effects

"“Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry,” said Hermione, before catching sight of Ron’s raised eyebrows, blushing slightly, and saying, “Oh, you know what I mean – Goyle’s Potion looked like bogies.”"
—Before Hermione Granger took on Harry's appearance for the Battle over Little Whinging[src]
Instructions on how to make the Polyjuice Potion seen in Moste Potente Potions.
The effect lasts for an hour, but as Barty Crouch, Jr. proved when he kidnapped and impersonated Alastor Moody for an entire Hogwarts school year[5], continual dosing can draw out the effects indefinitely. If a person dies while under Polyjuice Potion, as Mrs. Crouch did, then they will retain the form of whoever they have transformed into, rather than reverting back to their original shape.[5]
Hermione partially transformed into a cat.

Polyjuice can be used by a person to transform into someone of the opposite gender.[4] It appears to adapt to account for the age of the person being turned into, as well as any injuries they have acquired, as Barty Crouch, Jr. needed a magical eye and wooden leg when he used the potion to turn into Alastor Moody.[5] In addition, congenital conditions the person being turned into has will apparently be replicated, as Hermione Granger required spectacles to see clearly after turning into Harry Potter.[4]

The potion is complicated and can go awry. For example, when Hermione brewed Polyjuice in her second year, she intended to take the form of Millicent Bulstrode, but she mistook a cat's hair for Millicent's hair. The resulting potion caused Hermione to partially transform into a cat. As the Polyjuice Potion cannot be used to successfully transform into an animal, Hermione's change did not reverse after an hour. She went to the Hospital Wing and did not recover until after the winter holidays.[1]

Likewise, the potion cannot be used by a non-human or half-breed individual to turn into a human, as Remus Lupin informed the half-giant Rubeus Hagrid.[6] However, it seems that individuals whose non-human ancestry is less than half can successfully use Polyjuice, as quarter-Veela witch Fleur Delacour transformed into Harry Potter in 1997.[4] Either that or Lupin meant that a person cannot transform into a half-breed using Polyjuice Potion, but half-breeds themselves can.

[edit] Known Uses

[edit] Search for the Heir of Slytherin

Hermione brews Polyjuice Potion in the second-floor girls' lavatory in 1992.
Harry: "Look at his family. The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin, he’s always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin’s descendants… But how do we prove it?"
Hermione: "There might be a way. Of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We’d be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect… What we’d need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realizing it’s us."
Harry: "But that’s impossible."
Hermione: "No, it’s not. All we’d need would be some Polyjuice Potion..."
— Harry, Hermione and Ron planning[src]
Harry Potter turning into Gregory Goyle.

In their second year, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger came to suspect that Draco Malfoy was the Heir of Slytherin. To investigate this, they planned on taking on the form of Slytherin students and questioning Malfoy. Hermione used an autograph of Professor Gilderoy Lockhart to enter the library's Restricted Section so as to find the potion's ingredients, then stole them from Professor Snape's cupboards, and brewed the advanced potion. While Harry and Ron successfully transformed into Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe respectively, Hermione's potion went wrong, as previously mentioned.[1]

[edit] Barty Crouch Jr.

Between September of 1994 and June of 1995, Barty Crouch Jr. used Polyjuice Potion to take on the appearance of Alastor Moody, Hogwarts' new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, in order to enter Harry Potter into the Triwizard Tournament as part of Lord Voldemort's plot to return to power. Throughout the year, Crouch stole the potion's ingredients from Severus Snape's cupboards, leading Snape to suspect that Harry himself was behind the theft. Crouch was eventually exposed.

[edit] Plot Against Dumbledore

After Horace Slughorn showed a cauldron of the Polyjuice Potion to his first N.E.W.T. Potions class, Draco Malfoy stole some, and forced Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe to use it continuously throughout the 1996–1997 school year. They would stand watch outside the Room of Requirement disguised as young girls, while Malfoy repaired a Vanishing Cabinet inside, as part of his assignment to assassinate Albus Dumbledore and let Death Eaters into Hogwarts.[7]

[edit] Battle of the Seven Potters

Harry and his six decoys before the Battle over Little Whinging.
"Fourteen of us won’t be flying to Tonks’s parents. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house."
—Alastor Moody on the plan to move Harry to safety in 1997[src]

The Order of the Phoenix made use of Polyjuice in 1997 in order to safely remove Harry Potter from 4 Privet Drive before his seventeenth birthday. Six people — Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Fleur Delacour, Fred and George Weasley, and Mundungus Fletcher — impersonated Harry in order to act as diversions when they were ambushed by Death Eaters. Soon after, Harry himself used it to disguise himself as "Barny Weasley" at Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's wedding.[4]

[edit] Infiltration of the Ministry and Gringotts Break-In

The trio used Polyjuice that they stole from Moody to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic to search for Salazar Slytherin's Locket in September of 1997. Harry, Ron and Hermione disguised themselves as Albert Runcorn, Reginald Cattermole, and Mafalda Hopkirk, respectively.

The following year, Hermione used the remaining Polyjuice Potion again as part of the trio's plan to break in to Gringotts in order to retrieve Helga Hufflepuff's Cup from the Lestrange Vault. Using a strand of Bellatrix Lestrange's hair that had fallen on her sweater while Bellatrix interrogated her at Malfoy Manor, Hermione assumed her form.[4] However, there wasn't enough, so Ron had to simply use cosmetic design to disguise himself.

The lack of suspicion in anyone in all these incidents leads one to the understanding that Polyjuice Potion is very uncommon. Granted, Severus Snape knew someone was stealing the ingredients from his cupboards and suspected Harry Potter, but that is more indicative of Snape's eagerness to blame Harry for anything than any actual guilt.

[edit] List of Polyjuice Transformations

Hermione: "Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine. I don't want to break rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion. But if you don't want to find out..."
Ron: "I never thought I'd see the day when you'd be persuading us to break rules."
— Hermione convincing Harry and Ron of her plan to use Polyjuice Potion[src]
Disguised Individual Assumed Identity Date Notes
Barty Crouch Jr. Mrs Crouch 1982
Mrs Crouch Barty Crouch Jr. 1982
Harry Potter Gregory Goyle 1992 The potion tasted like "overcooked cabbage" to Harry[1] and looked like "bogies", according to Hermione[4].
Ron Weasley Vincent Crabbe 1992[1] The potion was the colour of murky brown.
Hermione Granger Humanoid cat 1992 The hair sample Hermione obtained was believed to belong to Millicent Bulstrode. It turned a sick sort of yellow.[1]
Barty Crouch Jr. Alastor Moody 1994-1995[5]
Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle Numerous disguises 1996-1997[7]
Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Mundungus Fletcher, Fleur Delacour, Fred Weasley and George Weasley Harry Potter July 27, 1997 The potion was a "clear, bright gold" in colour and "much tastier" than Gregory's Goyle's[4].
Harry Potter A red-haired Muggle boy August 1, 1997 As a disguise at the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour[4].
Harry Potter Albert Runcorn September 2, 1997[4]
Hermione Granger Mafalda Hopkirk September 2, 1997 The potion was a "pleasant heliotrope colour"[4].
Ron Weasley Reginald Cattermole September 2, 1997[4]
Hermione Granger Muggle woman December 24th, 1997[4]
Harry Potter Muggle man December 24th, 1997[4]
Hermione Granger Bellatrix Lestrange Spring of 1998 The potion tasted "disgusting, worse than Gurdyroots"[4].

[edit] Behind the scenes

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
  3. ↑ "Mars symbol" on Wikipedia
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  6. ↑ Deathly Hallows, Chapter 5
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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