Polyjuice Cat Challenge From Whitetigerwolf

Written by Rpgaff2

Polyjuice potion is a tightly controlled potion for a reason. It is one of the few potions that changes the human body on its most basic level. You see, every "Homo Sapiens" has 46 chromosomes, or 23 pairs. What some joking muggleborns who were into taxonomy called "Homo Magikus," actually has 48, or 24 pairs of chromosomes. Of course, nobody actually knows this, and it cannot proven (yet) that the extra two chromosomes is actually what gives them the ability to use magic. Especially since squibs also have 48/24.

Anyway, getting back to the point, Polyjuice Potion uses the chromosomes from the cell sample its given. Wizards use hair since it is the least messy to obtain, but anything from the body would work. Because they don't often use it for muggles, the effects are not well known. However, during the potion's invention and subsequent experimentation, they discovered the often horrible and disgusting side effects of animal transformations. The problem comes in with the fact that the potion tries to change the body using the chromosomes given, but since only a few are changed, human characteristic either merge or stay the same, creating an abomination.

See, the problem with polyjuice is that it is meant to temporarily change individual chromosomes. When it goes across species with varying amounts of chromosomes, it is unable to change the form completely and causes interference with the body's natural magic and structure. Basically, as it tries to change and actually merges portions of the chromosomes, it looses parts of each individual genetic makeup and parts of the magic.

This is because another aspect of polyjuice is that the effect is not temporary because it runs out of magic, but rather because of an added part of the potion. The time effect is causes by the second stage of the product, and directly related to the time it brews (some astrological magical connection). However, when the potion, body, and chromosomes merge rather than simply change, the potions magic is too busy focusing on making the change as painless and allowing the subject to change yet survive. (If your body had to undergo a complete makeover, it would normally be painful and quite possibly kill you.)

But since in these cases, the potion is so focused on merging and making the subject survive with the changes, the magic of the second part is used up, causing the change to become permanent in most, if not all cases. This is not recorded in "Moste Potente Potions" because the first few experiments with animal samples went so badly that the Ministry forbade any more research, and the scientific background was not developed enough to understand what happened.

However, had they published the findings rather than have hundred-year-old drawings with vague warnings next to the instructions, a certain bushy haired witch and her messy haired friend may have been more careful with the hair samples they obtained.

A/N: Hi Guys! Sorry it's been so long, I've been really busy. I know that's no excuse, but the problem is my muse also left me. I just can't seem to get the urge to write. So to try and counter that, I did a challenge of sorts with Whitetigerwolf. I am taking one of his challenges, in hopes of starting fresh and refinding my muse. If I do, I might come back to some of my other stories later.

A/N2: Whitetigerwolf, this is just the prolouge, I'm not calling it a chapter, so I still owe you two! :)