It’s literally only dangerous if you eat it or breath it. A bubble head charm and enough self control not to eat anything that looks tasty and transfiguration reversion is no danger.
Counterpoint: sulfuric acid to bathwater. You’ve been soaking in the tub for half an hour when the transfiguration wears off.
Hmm, good point, there are other potential dangers. They are of the type that are pretty much only dangerous if you don’t know about them. So if your enemy spikes your water supply, you would be in trouble, but that’s not an unintended danger.
Okay, how about: you Transfigure a suit of armor to wear, and your enemy, all unknowing, casts a blasting hex or corrosion curse or something resulting in pieces of your own armor ending up inside you.
Good point: you should treat your own transfigurations like toxin—particularly if you are transfiguring from a toxic material or to a non solid. If the armor was imbedded in you and turned back to a non-toxic solid (wood, stone) that wouldn’t be much worse than steel. I guess you might as well transfigure it out of ice if possible. In this example I think that not transfiguring the armor because you are afraid of transfiguration (a reasonable fear to instill in children, but not adults), and therefore taking a blasting curse to your unarmored chest is worse.
Partially it depends on the difference in size between the base materials and the target form. Things can be Transfigured smaller (Harry’s father’s rock to tiny diamond) or bigger (ice cube to rocket). The rock reverting could tear Harry’s hand off, conceivably- shards of metal (or rust) getting significantly bigger or smaller once inside your body seems likely to be uncomfortable.
That would make for a pretty nasty situation. I had considered throwing a large rock that was transfigured to be smaller, then dropping the transfiguration in the air. This would be even nastier (though maybe not as effective): transfigure a large rock into a needle and throw it at them, then when it’s inside them reverse the transfiguration.
Counterpoint: sulfuric acid to bathwater. You’ve been soaking in the tub for half an hour when the transfiguration wears off.
Hmm, good point, there are other potential dangers. They are of the type that are pretty much only dangerous if you don’t know about them. So if your enemy spikes your water supply, you would be in trouble, but that’s not an unintended danger.
Okay, how about: you Transfigure a suit of armor to wear, and your enemy, all unknowing, casts a blasting hex or corrosion curse or something resulting in pieces of your own armor ending up inside you.
Good point: you should treat your own transfigurations like toxin—particularly if you are transfiguring from a toxic material or to a non solid. If the armor was imbedded in you and turned back to a non-toxic solid (wood, stone) that wouldn’t be much worse than steel. I guess you might as well transfigure it out of ice if possible. In this example I think that not transfiguring the armor because you are afraid of transfiguration (a reasonable fear to instill in children, but not adults), and therefore taking a blasting curse to your unarmored chest is worse.
Partially it depends on the difference in size between the base materials and the target form. Things can be Transfigured smaller (Harry’s father’s rock to tiny diamond) or bigger (ice cube to rocket). The rock reverting could tear Harry’s hand off, conceivably- shards of metal (or rust) getting significantly bigger or smaller once inside your body seems likely to be uncomfortable.
That would make for a pretty nasty situation. I had considered throwing a large rock that was transfigured to be smaller, then dropping the transfiguration in the air. This would be even nastier (though maybe not as effective): transfigure a large rock into a needle and throw it at them, then when it’s inside them reverse the transfiguration.
Huh. I wonder how that interacts with conservation of momentum. (Or if it does.)
I think if you can Transfigure an ice cube into a solid-fuel rocket conservation of momentum is the least of your concerns.
Which is easier: “Become a solid-fuel rocket, which is shaped like this and this and has these parts...”, or “Smaller, please.”
Probably cheerfully ignore them, considering magic’s general relationship with physics.
I wonder if there any charms to protect or clean up radiation damage . . . . .
I imagine healing charms would be at least somewhat effective. If shield charms don’t work this would also be a great dueling technique.