I wonder if resurrection via transfiguration is possible? It’s probably too simple a solution narrative-wise, but it seems like something a reductionist should at least try.
Harry and Hermione’s failed attempt to transfigure a lost book is evidence against this working, since that also involved transfiguring something specific that contains information. But magic has enough strange rules that there are plausible reasons why that could fail but transfiguring a specific person could succeed—maybe you can’t transfigure a specific thing while the original still exists, or something like that.
Harry would probably want to start with some less ethically risky experiments, to avoid making a doomed conscious that doesn’t want to die. He could check whether transfiguring a copy of a brain works by having someone else train an animal to do something unusual, and then trying to transfigure an object into that animal. He’d know it worked if the trainer observed the animal doing the thing it was trained to do. (The person doing the transfiguration shouldn’t know what knowledge the animal has that makes it unusual, so that they have to transfigure that specific animal, not just an animal with the same appearance that knows the same trick.) For good measure, he should try doing this after killing the original.
If that worked, he’d have to find someone extremely good at sustaining transfigurations to transfigure Hermione, since he wouldn’t want her to keep re-dying each time the transfiguration wore off. For it to be a permanent solution, Hermione would have to learn how to transfigure herself like a troll, which could take a while.
Now that I think about it, it should at least be possible to transfigure an inanimate object into a non-specific muggle, if it’s possible to transfigure an object into a non-specific animal. If anyone ever did that, it’s a really, really good thing they kept it a secret. (No one sees a problem with killing a pig by turning it back into a desk, or burning a transfigured chicken inside a bubblehead charm, and muggles already have less-than-human legal status. Someone might transfigure very short-lived servants, or worse.)
I wonder if resurrection via transfiguration is possible? It’s probably too simple a solution narrative-wise, but it seems like something a reductionist should at least try.
Harry and Hermione’s failed attempt to transfigure a lost book is evidence against this working, since that also involved transfiguring something specific that contains information. But magic has enough strange rules that there are plausible reasons why that could fail but transfiguring a specific person could succeed—maybe you can’t transfigure a specific thing while the original still exists, or something like that.
Harry would probably want to start with some less ethically risky experiments, to avoid making a doomed conscious that doesn’t want to die. He could check whether transfiguring a copy of a brain works by having someone else train an animal to do something unusual, and then trying to transfigure an object into that animal. He’d know it worked if the trainer observed the animal doing the thing it was trained to do. (The person doing the transfiguration shouldn’t know what knowledge the animal has that makes it unusual, so that they have to transfigure that specific animal, not just an animal with the same appearance that knows the same trick.) For good measure, he should try doing this after killing the original.
If that worked, he’d have to find someone extremely good at sustaining transfigurations to transfigure Hermione, since he wouldn’t want her to keep re-dying each time the transfiguration wore off. For it to be a permanent solution, Hermione would have to learn how to transfigure herself like a troll, which could take a while.
Now that I think about it, it should at least be possible to transfigure an inanimate object into a non-specific muggle, if it’s possible to transfigure an object into a non-specific animal. If anyone ever did that, it’s a really, really good thing they kept it a secret. (No one sees a problem with killing a pig by turning it back into a desk, or burning a transfigured chicken inside a bubblehead charm, and muggles already have less-than-human legal status. Someone might transfigure very short-lived servants, or worse.)