Harry Potter Blood Purity Extended

Harry Potter Blood Purity Extended

In the original post, I talked about magic being a recessive gene, which is true, but I did talked about the topic as if there was only a "magic" and a "not-magic" gene, or a rather basic discontinuous monohybrid cross, or there is no 0-100% magic, and there is no other genes that can influence magic.

Which was rather like this.

I hope that if you remember anything from your 9th grade Biology class, you'd remember good ol' Punnet Squares. In this case, both of the parents - the Mm on the top and left side - are descendants of someone who had magic "m" but were un-magical "M" themselves, like a Squib. Percentage-wise, if they had four children, one would have magic: the lucky "mm" child. One child, the "MM" one is pure Muggle, and none of their children could have magic at all.

I'm not going to get into the details of genetic science for you, at least not until the complex stuff.

"But wait!" You cry, remembering the first Blood Purity post. "Voldemort's parents were a witch and a Muggle!"

Yes, yes indeed. This means that for Tom Riddle Jr. to be magical, his father either had to be an "Mm" guy himself, or the magical inheritance is more complicated than this. While it is possible for Tom Riddle Sr. to be descended from a Squib, we are going to explore the possibilities of if he isn't, instead he's solid Muggle, "MM".

I'm not going to make another square, but if magic worked like the above square, Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. children would all be unmagical, but would also all carry the magical gene. We all know that Voldemort isn't a Muggle, obviously, so how would magical inheritance have to work instead?

Technically, it could still work like this, with an "mM" or "Mm" being a Muggleborn, but not only would that mean far, far more witches and wizards than obviously exist (re: the 40 to 50 student graduating class at Hogwarts versus the many thousand Muggle graduating class in Britain), but also that Muggleborns have less magic than Pureblood "mm" witches and wizards, which I've already established isn't a thing, at least on a diagram like this.

If you need a recap, just remember that Harry, Hermione, and Voldie would all have less magic if that was the way it worked, yet clearly, they all three are very powerful.

We also should know its more complex than that anyways, since Neville is a weak wizard while Dumbledore is a very strong one, but both are Purebloods.

One way to account for differences in magical power is with a system similar to how blood types are inherited.

Blood Types have three alleles, an Ia, Ib, and i, for A-type, B-type, and O-type, respectively.

Magic could work like Ma, Mb, and m.

This is still a discontinuous monohybrid cross, as in there's a 100%, a 75%, a 50%, and a 0% and it's still one gene.

Rather like this.

"MaMa" would be a pure Muggle, or the A-Type, while "MbMb" is, I don't know, and "mm" is a pure-magical, like, presumably, Dumbledore.

Perhaps an "Mam" is someone like Voldemort, who inherited one full-Muggle and one full-witch, making him a Half-Blood, but, maybe a strong one, while "Mbm" would be someone like Neville who is still a wizard but a weak one - rather like Ron or Seamus Finnigan.

The issue here is what "MbMb" would be. And where would the parents of Muggleborn's go? Or Squibs? To pass on the gene, they'd have to magical themselves, and then Muggleborns wouldn't exist, since they would have to have a magical parents. Half-Bloods could exist, and would explain why they seem to be stronger, rather a pure Muggle with a pure wizard makes an "Mam", but in the case of a Muggle who carries "Mb" would lead to weak Half-Bloods, that so happen to be minor characters.

One idea for the "MbMb" is just a different kind of Muggle, but there still isn't a place for Squibs or Magic-carrying people.

A different idea on the magical inheritance thing is a dihybrid cross.

A Dihybrid Cross involves two different genes that affect one sort of thing. The internet examples like to use, say...

A	White Hair
a	Black Hair
B	Coarse Hair
b	Fine Hair

...but in this case...

N	Non-Magic
n	Magic
W	Weak Magic
w	Strong Magic

Look, another chart! It's almost like they're cool or something.
Anyways, "NN" or "Nn" means that they are non-magical. "nn" means they have magic. Easy, right?

"WW" means that if they have magic, it's weak magic. "Ww" means if they have magic, it's average power magic. "ww" means if they have magic, it's strong magic. Rather, magic power uses incomplete dominance, in this case.

You can get some interesting combinations out of this as well. Say that a non-magical who carries the "ww" combination for strong magic can be/is a gypsy or a fortune teller or one of those medium that connect to ghosts. A "Ww" combination on a non-magical might mean you would be naturally more empathetic or better with animals or plants or that you have some natural talent in something.

Would that mean that I carry the strong magic gene for natural talent at over-analyzing?

The good thing about this chart is that it becomes very easy for there to be Squibs and magic-carriers. In fact, I marked the chart for you. A red dot means non-magical, a purple dot means a magic-carrier - like Squibs or those mysterious parents of Hermione or Lily we never learn about -, a green dot means weak magic, and a blue dot means a strong magic carrier.

Look, I'll make another table for you, because I love you.

In a minute, because there is empty space here.

I like this idea far better than either the second one or the first one, back on the original page. The reason for this is that it accounts for natural skill levels between, say, Draco, who grew up with magic and likewise knew spells that weren't part of the curriculum, and his (probably) second cousin Harry Potter who didn't grow up with magic, was an average student, yet could scare of a horde of Dementors by 14 or defeat one of the strongest wizards in Britain by 18.

Also, here's that table.

NNWW	Weak Non-Magical	People with poor immune systems or blood diseases?
NNWw	Average Non-Magical	Average Joe, Vernon and Dudley Dursley
NnWW	Weak Non-Magical Carrier	Probably not nearly as weak as NNWW, Filch?
NnWw	Average Non-Magical Carrier	empathetics?, vets, florists; Petunia Dursley?
NNww	Strong Non-Magical	mystics, gypsies, mediums
Nnww	Strong Non-Magical Carrier	Same as NNww, some Squibs, Hermione's parents, naturally talented?
nnWW	Weak Magical	Ministry Workers
nnWw	Average Magical	Ministry Workers, Minister, some Aurors
nnww	Strong Magical	Voldemort, Harry, Dumbledore, Hermione, good Seers, some Aurors

While magic could be far simpler than the Punnet Square - the chart - makes it seem, the facts don't add up as well.

There are, of course, other ways magic could be inherited, like with multiple genes, as it it is with hair color or height, and that's probably how it is, but the dihybrid cross is fairly close to how multiple genes would work in reality.

As for where the Squibs get a non-magic gene if they are supposed entirely pureblood? It's very likely that there is a Muggle somewhere in the line, but that means that the Muggle gene carried, right? And if you carry a non-magic gene, you must be non-magic, right? So that would mean that Squibs can't technically exist, unless magic is dominant or co-dominant, or, well, magic explain why Squibs exist.

That's the easy way out, but it is amusing to answer aimless questions like that. Magic. Hah!

So if magic was dominant, the numbers wouldn't work out at all, which is my primary reason for making it recessive in the first place. Numbers almost always suggest whether genes are dominant or recessive, but in the case that it is actually dominant and some form of complex circumstance leads magic to be just uncommon - this is supported by how Colin and Dennis Creevy are both Muggleborns, but also brothers, and are very unlikely to both be magic according to the above chart - I will humor you with even more delectable tables.

NNWW	Weak Magical
NNWw	Average Magical
NnWW	Weak Magical Carrier
NnWw	Average Magical Carrier
NNww	Strong Magical
Nnww	Strong Magical Carrier
nnWW	Weak Non-Magical
nnWw	Average Non-Magical
nnww	Strong Non-Magical

It's virtually identical to the previous one, but flipped, where most people are magical, and where wizards can "carry" Muggle, which would sort of put Voldemort's agenda into a new perspective, since he wants to kill a sort of byproduct of magic, or that being non-magical is a disease, of a sort. It still makes sense, except, again, for where do Muggleborns come from? If they are descended from Squibs, they must get a magic gene, somewhere, and since Muggle's can't carry magic by this table, it's a bust as well.

What about co-dominance?

Co-dominance is where two genes that are both Dominance will give and take if someone happens to have both of them. Incomplete dominance is similar, but they combine and share, in this case. An example of this is if a hamster has a black hair gene and a white hair gene, and they are both dominant, then that hamster would have white and black fur, likely in splotches, according to co-dominance, and grey fur according to incomplete dominance.

If magic worked that way..., and, back to where magic is recessive.

NNWW	Weak Non-Magical
NNWw	Average Non-Magical
NnWW	Muggleborn Parents (Weak Co/In Dominance)
NnWw	Squibs (Average Co/In Dominance)
NNww	Strong Non-Magical
Nnww	Strong Magical Carrier (Strong Co/In Dominance)
nnWW	Weak Magical
nnWw	Average Magical
nnww	Strong Magical

I'm under the assumption that if a non-magic and a magic gene collide, then the result is a Squib or a magic carrier. But due to how obviously un-magical Squibs are, there has to be something that is magical about them.

For one, they seem to be able to see magical places, since Filch works at Hogwarts, as a Squib. Perhaps Squibs themselves have a strong connection to animals, or at least cats, because both Filch and Arabella Figg have cats, and Filch talks to his cat, who can seemingly understand him.

Other theories are that they might have some sort of magical resistance or maybe they do have magic but they just can't use it, which explains the seeing-magic thing.

In other words, magic would share an incomplete dominance with non-magic, resulting in the inability to use the magic they have.

I put Squibs as magically average-ish, since there isn't indication of Squib descendants being able to see the likely obviously magical places, and also because it's more believable to say that the closer related you are to a magic family, the stronger you are magically. As for the "Strong Magical Carrier", if someone inherits enough magic, magic would probably show over the non-magic-ness allowing access to magic, but resulting in a weak witch or wizard, which would likely have a Squib as a kid.

So yeah.

Complicated.

The way magic inheritance probably works is actually similar to how canon likely shows it, rather, with, well, a bunch of gene combinations that determine magic, rather than the still singular one I've been dealing with the rest of this post.

Let's say that there is... six genes that determine whether someone does or does not have magic, still an M and an m.

MMMMMM (6 Large M's)	100% Non-Magical
MMMMMm (5 Large/1 Small M's)	-
MMMMmm (4 Large/2 Small M's)	-
MMMmmm (3 Large and Small M's)	Squibs and Similar, most likely
MMmmmm (2 Large/4 Small M's)	Weak Magical/Commonly Muggleborns
Mmmmmm (1 Large/ 5 Small M's)	Average Magical
mmmmmm (6 Small M's)	100% Magical; Strong Magical; Often Pureblood and some Half-bloods

This table, is, of course, not that complex, but I'll explain it anyways. A "typical" Muggle would likely have no, one, or two Magic genes, but more inclined towards none or a single gene. If say a fully magical person and a fully non-magical person had children, more likely, those children would be non-magical themselves, as being non-magical is still dominant, or rather, they'd be the same in strength as a Squib.

If someone's grandparents and parents were all magical, that is generally enough pure magic for that someone to be considered a pureblood, even if they aren't, technically. While this isn't directly stated, because there aren't "three-quarters bloods" just hanging around, and because there are pureblood families that aren't very "pureblood-y" - i.e. Ancient and Noble - like Crabbe and Goyle, most likely, there is reasonable support for this statement. This obviously doesn't apply to Squibs.

Of course, that's not something anyone can tell just by looking at you, but the strength of their magic is a strong indicator towards how much magical blood they have, like how Hermione is probably the same magical strength as an ideal pureblood, as is Voldemort and Harry (re: the third year Patronus, anyone?). It's very likely that those who knew often forgot about Voldemort's blood status, which makes him widely considered a pureblood, especially considering his hatred for Muggles. Snape is similar in that regard, because, remember, he joined them freely before becoming a spy.

Still skirting around the whole Snape thing.

While in this table-example, for a "Pureblood" family to have a non-magical kid, they'd have to have enough Non-Magical genes for that to work. Now, in the case of people like Dolores Umbridge who has a Squib brother, Muggle father, and full witch mother (it's on Pottermore), that non-magic that appeared in her brother is easy to find in her father.

Her mother would presumably be "mmmmmm" and her father with only one (MMMMMm) or two (MMMMmm) magical genes, enough to make Dolores Umbridge a weak witch magically and a Squib/Non-Magical brother.

While the Squibs we all know in the story - Figg and Filch don't seem to come from any notable wizarding families, Squibs would inevitably end up as an offspring to some higher status families, like someone with a mental disorder in Muggles. It likely works the same as well, with just 3 genes out of the 12 between two people being non-magical, and thus capable of a non-magical child. More likely, the total gene count that determines magic is more than 6, possibly even as much as 2- or 300, requiring maybe 150 to 250 of those genes being magical to inherit magic.

Since magic would be recessive.

This is more likely (being way more genes), since there is a scale to strength, there isn't, say, 50%, 75%, and 100% magic, that's too definitive.

If there is upwards 200 magic-determining genes, at, say, 100, you'd be a Squib, and 101 would be an extremely weak magical, so weak they likely wouldn't even go to Hogwarts, or a "1% Magical" with 200 genes being magic and 0 genes being non-magic, that would be Merlin-strength, or a "100% magical".

But doesn't this mean the Purebloods are right? That interbreeding with Muggles really is making them weaker?

Perhaps. I didn't even know this would be the result when I started writing it, not until I wrote the paragraph 2 up from here did I see where I was going.

Yes, though, it isn't right to be derogatory and prejudiced about the more-likely-to-be-weaker Muggleborns, so Draco isn't suddenly the man with all the answers or anything, but no one just makes up all the Pureblood vs. Half-blood vs. Muggleborn thing for it to become immensely widespread supposedly everywhere if the TriWizard Tournament Year is any indication if the idea didn't make sense. I know that's a bit of stretch for the trust in people's judgement, but we believe that Napoleon was short today because Napolean was 5' 6" which is short today, but he wasn't when he was alive.

It makes sense, but it might not be fully true, keep that in mind.

But this is all just a theory. A Harry Potter theory. Thanks for reading.

Shiizumi Valé, otherwise WillowEye10329 on Pottermore, giving you a lovely dose of over-analyzing. Signing off.

A Bunch of Numbers on House Population and Points

I wouldn't really know all the details of this to some obscure degree, I'm not Rowling. But Hogwarts Houses are generally evenly split, at least by the movies and by, in some degree, the books, with the first Sorting in the series, where we learn the names of Harry's fellow first years.

For the record, there are not too many of them.
Among the Hufflepuff for that year is Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot, and Ernie Macmillan.
For the Ravenclaws, Lisa Turpin, Mandy Brocklehurst, Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, Kevin Entwhistle, Michael Corner, Isobel MacDougal, Stephen Cornfoot, and Padma Patil.
For the Slytherins, Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, Daphne Greengrass, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Tracey Davis, and Millicent Bullstrode.
And, of course, for the Gryffindors, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil.

For the sake of saving you some effort, that's 5 Hufflepuffs, 9 Ravenclaws, 9 Slytherins, and 8 Gryffindors in Harry's year.

I guess it's hard to find nice people?

That's a total of 31 students in Harry's year. Now, Harry was born right at the end of the war, and Voldemort fell suddenly, so there would be less people in his year and very likely an influx the year after his - Luna, Colin Creevey, and Ginny's year. We don't know any of the other years well enough to analyze the difference, but I'm going to assume that the average student population is 40 in a year, or 280 students in all of Hogwarts. Yes, 280.

That's stupid tiny. And if in 1 year, there are 40 new magical humans in Britain, then in 100 years, there are 4,000. That's um...rather pathetic. Now, there are immigrants (and emigrants), mixed in with the numbers, as well as deaths from the odd circumstance (like Basilisks, wars, accidents, disease, the TriWizard Tournament, etc. etc.) which means this number is lower than the magical people born, but the population is, hopefully, increasing.

But with only 10 people in a House...well...let's use some Slytherin student as an example. That student is likely one of five people of that sex in their year in their House. If they want to find someone near their age with similar interests, let's say two years older or younger, leaving 20 possible students in their House that they could potentially date. 80 across the four houses. If a 7 year age gap isn't a huge issue to witches and wizards, which it probably isn't, then that's 140 students of the opposite sex in all of Hogwarts to pick from, and very reasonably, that student would dislike about 3 quarters of them. Or half, if they're Hufflepuff.

While, yes, students don't have to be confined to other people who use magic, leaving them with the absurd number of people in the British Isles, which seems to be somewhere in the 50 millions - or 25 million again, for opposite gender, and then a much smaller number for people near their age.

But with this all into consideration, it's not much a wonder why magicals would marry so soon after they graduate, and why people who aren't married soon after said graduation likely won't be married period.

Really. We don't know the marriage ages for most of the characters in canon, but Harry's parents married straight out of school, while we know Neville's parents were well acquainted at least at the same time. Snape's parents married fairly young from what I can recall, and Draco's were also very likely married younger as well.

I say this to give a sort of gravity to life at Hogwarts, but also to exemplify my text topic, House Points.

I'll keep the entire house population of 7 years to an average of 80 people, just to be liberal about it.

At the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's Stone), the Houses were at about...
"In fourth place, Gryffindor with 312 points, Third place, Hufflepuff with 352 points. Second place Ravenclaw with 426 points. And in first place, with 472 points, Slytherin House."

Hold back the rant. Hold back the rant. HOLD BACK THE RANT.
Dumbledore is for another time.

But I'm going to assume those numbers are fairly on par with what they should be, which means between the 250-500 points range for each house, with a difference of about 160 points between first and last, although I'll shrink that a bit to 120, due to Snape's Slytherin favoritism and subsequent Gryffindor hatred.

I'll also assume each House starts the year with some positive number of points, because I doubt the hourglasses that count and display points would be able to display negative objects, and Snape was, jokingly or not, saying he would give Gryffindor -70 points at some point. That would be 70 points below the baseline number, like, if they start the year with 100 points by default, then loosing 70 points would still be like being -70.

I guess.

If the default is 100 points, then throughout the year, the average point gain is 290.5 for each House. If the people in a House numbers 80...each student only earns 3~4 points in a year. Hmm...

The points system would be tremendously flawed if points started at zero and you couldn't, in fact, go into negative points - negative matter again -, and it seems this is the case, as Gryffindor had 0 points in Harry's 5th year, and I'm certain Gryffindor would have gone into the negatives if they could have been.

If Snape had really been joking when he said Gryffindor would go into the negative 70 points, and he probably was, vindictive as he is, then the average points would be 390.5 points per House, with a 4~5 points per student over a year number.

But, imagine that, at the very beginning of the year, you could do whatever and suffer no drawbacks in house points for your actions, if there isn't a default point value.

We know that, aside from Dumbledore's weird sudden point awarding, most points are only gained in small numbers: 1, 5, 10 points, but infractions of the rule take out more points, with 30 and 50 points being fairly stable for the rule-breaking that Harry and Co. do all the time. This all leads out to mean that, for one, Gryffindor students are probably getting points all the time for odd things to make up for all those "negative points" that are happening.

Ultimately, that means that, especially in Gryffindor, students are earning more than their 3~5 points a year, with some students earning none, and some, like Hermione, likely earning the bulk of those.

This just further proves that the points-earning shenanigans by Dumbledore in first year was horribly unfair, and I'm not going to argue the logistics of that entire situation, so shush.

But if a student only has to earn 3 to 5 points a year, then awarding points should be a much more legitimate affair than it normally is, even considering over half the students earning none of those points - forcing the rest to earn 6 to 10 points. Well, if just a right answer or some correctly done homework or something earns points, as we see in the books and movies, than some serious point loss is happening. In Gryffindor, assuming they don't earn very many points because, well, do you really expect them to, on average, get homework points?...but assuming that, they likely are where they should be with all the points with not only what Harry and Crew loose, but Neville's potion accidents, among other things.


But we know what sort of mischief Gryffindor is up to in order to lose enough points to end up at 312 while earning enough through the occasional academic and Quiddich game...what about the other houses, especially Hufflepuff, who is in 3rd place?

It doesn't really make any sense to me that Hufflepuff, earning probably more points than Gryffindor and committing less punishable acts in general could really end up at third by a decent margin. It could be that there just seems to be less Hufflepuffs, but even if there are on average, say, 50 less 'Puffs, that's well, that's less trouble they can get into.

So House Point numbers are a bit inaccurate, I'd say, but I don't really care enough to go count all the gains-losses in the books. That, and I don't actually own all the books. So sue me.

But I did read all of them, no worries.

Back to House Population for a moment.

We have seen Diagon and Knockturn Alley, so we know that a good number of magicals are employed there. Added to this are the large number of doctors - excuse me, Mediwitches and Mediwizards - at St. Mungos, the shop-owners at Hogsmeade, the British wizards and witches working abroad, whether in curse-breaking for Goblins, or on dragon reservations in Romania. Even farther are the teachers at Hogwarts, authors and writers like Lockheart or Bagshot, and the hordes and hordes of Ministry employees as Aurors, Unspeakables, shuffling paperwork, secretaries, and Department Heads, as well as the professional Quiddich players, students, housewives like Molly Weasley, and the people who don't even have jobs like Lupin likely did for quite a while...

So there are a lot of people, an awful lot more than the 4,000 I came up with earlier. Heck, even 40,000 seems too small for this, and that's 100 times more magicals flying out of Hogwarts in 100 years.

This means that I'm wrong, I'm right and magicals just do like a trillion things at once, or there are a lot, lot more witches and wizards than I thought there was in a single year.

But if there are way, way, way more witches and wizards, that lowers the point threshold per student even farther, meaning that there must be some serious trouble-making at Hogwarts or...

Or, I don't know.

I don't even know.

But think what you want to think, I just gave you the numbers.

- Shiizumi Valé; WillowEye10329, signing off.

Hogwarts House Stereotypes

I watched a video by The Carlin Brothers, and in it, one of the brothers stated that he was Sorted into Slytherin, and that he, among other things, gets people to look at him like he's evil or bad or malicious or something, despite him clearly not being so.

The point of that statement is to bring up the point of the stereotypes on the Hogwarts houses. I'll list each house, what it stands for, and what other people think of it, generally:

House	Positive Qualities (Stereotype)	Negative Qualities (Stereotype)
Gryffindor	"Daring, Nerve, and Chivalry"; bravery, strength, will	N/A
Hufflepuff	"Just, Loyal, Patient"; hardworking, kindness	Considered boring, lame, uninteresting, and/or talent-less; the left-overs
Ravenclaw	"Wise, Ready of Mind, Wit"; smart	Considered boring or know-it-all-like, friendless,
Slytherin	"Cunning"	Dark, evil, bullies, mean, unkind, selfish, etc.

This just doesn't seem equal, does it? Gryffindor is considered the "best" house by many, and while most of this is because it is the house of the main character, but also because the only characters who really share any negatives about the house are the characters we disliked for all/most of the series, like Draco or Snape. We tend to avoid negatives about the Gryffindor house, even when the flaws are glaringly obvious.

Every house has good and bad, and remember, not every person in, say, Slytherin acts the same way. Hermione, for example, is very much like a Ravenclaw, or how Neville is very much a Hufflepuff, while Harry was, supposedly, a good Slytherin, at least for a while. Therefore, even if the stereotypes were fully true, there are people who are a mix, which, by the way, would prove the stereotypes wrong by themselves.

Gryffindors are arrogant and impulsive and prideful, as Snape and Draco say. An expanded list of the positive qualities of the house would include loyalty as well, but not only does that seem entirely untrue, as Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor and betrayed his friends (while Sirius, a Slytherin raised Gryffindor, did not) and Ron didn't believe Harry hadn't entered himself into the Triwizard Tournament for most of the fourth book, despite having known each other for years by that point.

Stereotypes, by their nature, are often incorrect.

Now, of course, not to say that all stereotypes are always incorrect, obviously,

A better table for the general house qualities would look like this:

House	Positive Qualities	Negative Qualities
Gryffindor	Courage, Willful, Fun, Loyal, Chivalrous, Quick-Thinking	Impulsive, Arrogant, Prideful, Stubborn AND Gullible (Intolerance)
Hufflepuff	Fair, Kind, Friendly, Dedication, Helpful, Honest, Accepting, Forgiving	...Gullible, Easy to Take Advantage Of?
Ravenclaw	Wise, Knowledgeable, Quick-Thinking AND Strategic, Accepting, Curious	Passive, Unfriendly (?), Overly Blunt
Slytherin	Clever, Ambitious, Perceptive, Determined, Focused, Strategic	Manipulative, Dishonest, Arrogant, Prideful, Unfair, Stubborn

It's about as close as I can get. After all, we don't really know any non-Luna (who is just exceptional in all ways, really) Ravenclaws or just, like, any Hufflepuffs at all. Or not-horribly-disliked Slytherins.

For the record, by "Stubborn and Gullible" for Gryffindor, I mean that they easily fall into a set thought or belief and won't budge from that thought no matter how unreasonable it is. By "Quick-Thinking and Strategic" in Ravenclaw, I mean that they are ready to tackle a problem, and can often answer things quickly, but they are far better at planning before-hand, like they will have a battle strategy before they fight, but if it goes wrong, they often won't be able to come up with another plan quick enough, contrary to Gryffindors, who can think far faster and make short-term plans and goals.

Like levitating the troll's club in Harry's first year.

I might be biased. I am Slytherin after all, a Slytherin that is a hair's breath away from a Hat-stall as a Ravenclaw. But believing that all Slytherins are bullies like Draco (and Snape, too, who is far too aggressive a teacher, despite his "good" intentions) and that Gryffindors are all just fun-loving heroes with positive goals is stupid, honestly.

Remember how at some point, someone remarks that there wasn't a Dark Wizard (from Hogwarts) that wasn't in Slytherin? Yeah well, sorry, but uh, Peter Pettigrew was pretty bad. We don't know what House Barty Crouch Jr. was in (although probably Slytherin, judging by his determination to get out of Azkaban and then again to help Voldemort). Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco all defected from the Death Eaters as Slytherins, and Snape himself (I will write a whole debate around him) was very likely a "good guy" in terms of the war, for being a spy. On the reverse side, Dumbledore was originally a believer in Grindelwald's mantra (he still uses the man's phrase "for the greater good"), which although doesn't make him a Dark Wizard, the ideas would have been considered dark.

This is similar to the "Is Voldemort Good?" debate I put up and the one about what makes Dark Magic "Dark". I'm saying as well that a Dark Wizard was likely originally defined by a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff, perhaps, which already lends that statement (also probably said by a Gryffindor) towards the bias side of the scale.

But, please don't judge so bad, whether Hogwarts houses or ethnicity or whatever, just...don't.

--Shiizumi Valé; WillowEye10329; signing off.

The Penny Problem

And now for something completely different!

Pennies.

Currently, America suffers under a debt that we owe to China that is something even Kratos can't shake a stick at - and he's Kratos, guys, from God of War - and this country is floundering awkwardly around insurance rates, inflation, a lack of money in X, Y, and Z, and trying to actually get anything done by what Congress is allowing the government to spend. Sounds gross.

It's not like getting rid of the one-cent piece will spontaneously create money, it actually seems the reverse to that, because, you know, removing a currency seems like removing money.

If economics was that simple...

I'll call this "The Penny Problem", because yeah.

I wrote an essay about this topic for English class at some point, and I still have it on my computer, so it's nice to have all the facts presently displayed in my face as I re-write it to be infinitely more appealing than some un-empathetic third-person thing that looks gross. But regrettably I discovered that some of my reference material is gone, and I needed that reference material!

In particular is a page from the U.S. Mint itself that actually states the production price of individual coins.

But anyways, I'll get to actually making my point.

     - In 2006, a penny cost 1.4 cents to make, and a nickel cost 6.4 cents to make.
     - In 2011, a penny cost 2.41 cents to make, and a nickel cost 11.18 cents to make. (Wing)

Ouch. I used the school database to get a Scholastic article-thing for that first point, but I, and thus, you, can't access that from home.

The Huffington Post page by Nick Wing is actually very useful towards a culmination of facts, if you want to read something you can trust better than a blog page.

Wing continues from the penny-and-nickel cost: "That means the government spent nearly $169 million in 2013 to put $70 million of currency into circulation."

Since 2000, 92 billion pennies have been minted, with 7 billion in 2013 alone, and some plain math means that those 7 billion pennies (70 million dollars) cost almost 14.5 billion cents (145 million dollars) to make, and this is only maybe including the cost of shipping those pennies around.

And honestly, what do most of us do with pennies? Put them into jars, toss them into fountains, loose them between couch cushions...they rarely get spent, and even then, we just tell cashiers to keep the change simply due to the hassle carting that many coins around can be.

The cost of pennies (and nickels) comes from what the coins are made out of: zinc and copper. While the penny is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, which are both tiny amounts of metal alone, and are expensive. Copper is used in electrical wires, and while zinc itself isn't really used for anything, the simple fact that zinc is needed in pennies is making its price rise. Heck, the copper in pennies alone is worth enough that people melt the coins down in droves to sell copper for more than the coin itself costs!

Seriously, people do that, they really do. It's right here.

But just production prices aren't the only source of the waste-of-space that is a penny. Opportunity costs, the money spent/wasted doing something when work could be done instead, are a huge additional source of mysteriously missing funds.

According to an MIT scientist, Jeff Gore, an average American spends 2.4 hours a year searching for coins or waiting for people searching for coins. The original source for this I also found through a database, sadly, but I've seen it in more than one place otherwise, including Wing's article. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average American wage as being 22.4$ an hour, and additionally, the US population is recorded as 320 million people with an unemployment rate of 6.7% at the end of 2013. With 298,560,000 working people (298.6 million) and the 22.4$ average wage, then roughly $6,688,000,000 dollars - 6.688 billion - is made an hour, and thus the wasted 2.4 hours a year handling coins wastes $16,050,000,000 dollars - 16.05 billion - a year from coin handling.

That's just math, folks. I honestly doubt my own skills in the subject, so call me out if it's wrong.

Now I know that you are statistically unlikely to pay for cash in everything, so you probably don't have this problem of waiting around for people or yourself to count money, but Jeff Gore is an MIT scientist, he very probably took that into account.

With similar math, an average American can make a penny in 1.8 seconds. If you or some other hapless fellow sees a glinting Abe Lincoln on the sidewalk, and you or they take longer than 1.8 seconds to pick him up, then money has officially been lost, because you could have worked 2 seconds longer and made more than what you just did by picking up a face from the sidewalk.

Which just makes my point really, since pennies end up on the sidewalk all the time.

I actually saw one on the floor in school once, and I skirted around it, while glaring, even though I wouldn't have lost anything, since I didn't have a job.

But yeah. You lost money by picking up money.

That sounds really messed up.

Most of the reason for the penny's continued existence is because of the historical significance and also because of an argument that getting rid of the penny rockets prices up a few cents to the closest highest nickel, where something that previously cost $2.02 cents now becomes $2.05 rather than $2.00, due to "corporate greed" or whatever. While yes this will happen in some places, guess what,  here's a secret: because of capitalism, prices will round down so that there are more sales. If a soda at McDonalds cost a $2.05 and right next door it's $2.00, than the cheaper one will sell more.

Even if opportunity costs mean that the cheaper one would cost more due to the time spent, but its unrealistic to assume other people will know that, and then acknowledge it.

For most of us who pay in credit, prices don't even HAVE to round, since digitally, there aren't production costs for pennies; they'll still exist in credit card payments.

But, wait, what about those people who do pay in cash? Typically poorer, they can't afford rounded prices, right?

A study in 2006 found that rounding actually gave consumers money, although not by much, it's not a loss for those people who can't deal with a loss. Furthermore, even without the study, on average, they'll just loose less money, only 19$ annually compared to the $50 due to opportunity costs from pennies. Even with a rounding tax to the nickel claimed, sales taxes are already rounded up, and no one seems to care, so that argument is a bust.

A second argument is that with less pennies, there will be more nickels, which, if you recall, cost 11 cents to make in 2011, and even more now, but the possible loss offset from this isn't even close to enough to overthrow the savings from abolishing pennies. Even a loss here is debatable, since 5 pennies cost 12 cents versus the 11 for a nickel. Penny drives wouldn't be, well, penny drives, but in this case, there will be a gradual reduction of pennies and not, like, a sudden disappearance of them, so donations will still be given.

You could also just donate actual sums of money too.

But...but Lincoln!

Yeah, uh, he's on the $5 bill, some dollar coins, and he has an entire statue of him in D.C., and I was there, it was pretty impressive.

Vending machines don't take pennies, tollways don't take pennies, we keep them so that we don't get change in the first place...out-of-U.S. military bases gave up pennies because shipping the coins over is not worth the price. Even a senator tries to get rid of the penny in the COIN Act in 2006, but failed, obviously, but a senator was trying to do something!

America has discontinued a coin before too, the half-penny in 1857, and at the time, it was nearly worth today's quarter, and yet we have dimes, nickels, and pennies still, and they are worth a fraction of that.

Stop fishing for coins, and fish for a solution.

--Shiizumi Valé/WillowEye10329

Voldemort's Motives: Is He Right?

The answer to this question is "No".

But it's not a solid, definite, unarguable "No".

Anyone who has read the books knows about what Voldemort wants, on a basic level. Exterminate the Muggles, rule at least Britain, subjugate not-Purebloods.

I've already talked about how pure the Purebloods are, but in the future, I'll probably prove myself wrong, or not-as-right, so we'll talk under the basis that Purebloods are generally stronger than those who aren't, but only generally, with lots of room to wiggle around in power levels.

*totally not foreshadowing something*

As I spend unhealthy amounts of time exploring the depths of internet fanfiction, I find this:
[About the old habit of burning those accused of witchcraft in the 1600s and earlier, from the viewpoint of Voldemort.]

"Do you know how to cast a fireproofing charm?
Neither did most of the magical children in the middle ages. Neither do many adult wizards. There have always been many, many more Muggles than magical folk, and it can be dangerous for us if they find out - and it also scares them to know how much more powerful we are...."

While, yes, witches in particular were burned at the stake, as the story of Salem goes - although, apparently, they were actually stoned, but the same idea rather applies here - real magical people might be able to make themselves fire/stone proof, but the children wouldn't, which is perhaps the reason why the Statute of Secrecy was even made, so as protect magical children and magical adults from the perceived despicable Muggles.

But that was over 3 centuries prior to the events in Harry Potter. With the induction of many Muggleborns into the Wizarding society, the mindset of Muggles themselves being entirely bad and prenatally prone to evil or whatever should be gone.

I'm not going to argue my personal beliefs about human nature here, or anywhere, generally.

But it's a safe assumption to gather that initial dislike towards Muggles came from witch-burning practices in the 15-1600s.

In terms of newer ideas about the dislike towards Muggles particularly by Voldemort and Death Eaters...Riddle was raised in a paltry and fairly horrid orphanage, and knew from a young age that he was special among the Muggle orphans, so that's where his hatred came from as a personal opinion.

But other Death Eaters very undoubtedly had such concrete reasons for their dislike.

Or do they?

From the same source:
"[The Ministry of Magic] makes Muggles seem childish and harmless, and they ban useful magic from witches and wizards. And when Muggles do learn of our world, when they don't bother to learn about our traditions or our culture - when they make demands - when they complain that our rituals seem strange to them - when they say this is immoral or that seems wrong - the Ministry races to abase itself before them. They enforce their insanity against our people. They can't give in fast enough...because any one of those Muggles could expose us. So the Ministry scampers like frightened rats under the floorboards, cowers for their approval - and slights the very people it should protect. We, who are the naturally superior beings!" (From Here, close to the very bottom)

If you don't know, Yule, or Yuletide, is a Pagan holiday in the wintertime. We openly know that witches and wizards used to celebrate this holiday due to how there is a Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire which is an obvious nod towards that holiday. Similar holidays are Samhain, the equivalent of Halloween, and celebrating the Winter and Summer Solstices and the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes, with the Spring Equinox perhaps becoming Easter, as the modern holiday is the Sunday after the equinox.

Heck, a few internet sources say that the old Christian Church made Christmas the time it did because it would overlap with other Pagan celebrations:
"December 25th might have also been chosen because the Winter Solstice and the ancient pagan Roman midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti' took place in December around this date - so it was a time when people already celebrated things." (From Here)

Whether this is true or not is debatable, but the time did match up with other Pagan celebrations, and if that is true, it was likely so as hopefully get converts from the Pagans themselves, for having similar holidays. For the record, Yuletide did happen on or near the Winter Solstice, which nicely lines up to right by Christmas; in 2015, the Solstice is December 21st. Samhain is actually on October 31st, and lasts through the night, which fits exactly to modern Halloween. And, for the record, how do we get from the birth of Jesus - Christmas - to, like, trees and lights and presents and fat old guys earning figurative awards for breaking into people's houses? To steal Pagan followers, obviously.

Merry Christmas?

But admittedly Voldemort makes an excellent point here. Muggleborns would be very likely to get confused about the Yule/Christams distinction, especially earlier on, when people were more naturally religious. The cultural difference between those who did and did not grow up with magic, too, would cause complaints, because the entire legal system is different, as is the government, currency, technology, and even lifestyle. Part of the reason people tend to avoid moving out of the country is because of changes in all these things, except the difference here is that suddenly everyone can use magic.

That's like going from America to Britain, and then realizing that they have entirely different words for essentially every word in the dictionary, or that they just don't have computers, like at all.

The former is true, actually. There's some funny comedy videos about the confusion over the word 'sausage'.

So, yes, there's going to be complaints.

Disliking the Muggle culture isn't entirely confounding either. We don't exactly have much enviable when the witches and wizards can Levitate while we are only just starting to be able to do that, with Electro-Hydrodynamic Thrust. (and like, magnets, but that doesn't work very well for hover-boards. A SciShow video about that here!)

Comparatively, yes, Muggle technology still can't completely outshine wizard magic, although, hey, we have electricity, so we can be lazy. And also we've seen the surface of other planets and have stood on the Moon, and I'm pretty sure you can't Apparate to the Moon, just saying. And even if you could, there's no oxygen there, and they don't have space suits, nor any foreknowledge about the lack of oxygen in space...so wizards would explode on the Moon.

But the lack of attention by wizards on that sort of thing doesn't explain it either, since, again, Hermione would know about the lunar landing, as would other Muggleborns.

The facts just don't add up, really. Why isn't there a more warm disposition towards the majority population of the Earth? And no, I don't me to be talking about the majority v. minority power struggles, it's just that the hatred is unfounded, like really unfounded.

While, yes, ideas of Blood Purity rather point towards Muggles being inferior, and that those with magic are in fact, naturally superior, perhaps just this idea itself is just the cause? Wizards do have a history of mis-treatment of non-humans.

Whatever reasons Voldemort and those who support him and even those who don't for the anti-Muggle dogma, I'd hope it's singularly based on the fact that the Muggleborns have modified their traditions. In the end, though, perhaps if they were informed in the first place, or if there was, you know, a Wizarding Studies class for those Muggleborns, rather like there is a Muggle Studies class, then perhaps there wouldn't be complaints in the first place! In the end, it's the wizards' negligence that seems to be the culprit, and it's wizards' negligence that has never fixed the problem.

Or it's just something that we don't know about.

It's alright to dislike them on principle of them forcibly changing your and your life, but Voldemort takes this hatred to a new level. Murder isn't going to fix this problem.

That is all.

--Shiizumi Valé, or WillowEye10329, now signing off.

Harry Potter: Light and Dark Magic: What is the Difference?

What is the difference between Light and Dark magic in Harry Potter? In fact, what IS Light and Dark magic?

This topic isn't explored in the books or the movies or any of the supplementary material, but Dark magic can be defined simply as magic that is used exclusively to harm.

Okay, right, that makes sense. It's the difference between a kitchen knife and a weapon, after all. The regular knife that is used to cut onions can suddenly become the murder weapon in a court case. But wait, hold on, if that's how Light and Dark magic is , with Light magic being the onion-suppressor knife and Dark being that same knife but given prominence in a murder case...aren't they the same thing? If magic in general is a knife, as in, in can kill or can help, then Dark versus Light is how its used.

Alright, but any decent person already knew that, rather like how guns aren't inherently bad or how people aren't just straight up good or evil, and I'm looking at you, Voldemort, you're next.

What do I have to bring to the table, so to speak?

Well, I said that Dark magic is used exclusively to harm, under basic definitions, but according to the books, the Dark Arts include things like Necromancy, Horcruxes, Petrification, and the Imperius Curse (yes, yes, I know). None of those are strictly and directly harmful, except perhaps Necromancy which creates creatures that attack in defense of something. Horcruxes by themselves never hurt anyone, just Voldemort's, whose soul is the sort of soul that would love to kill you.

Although considering that you have to kill someone to make one, that is perhaps why.

Petrification doesn't harm anyone, as evidenced in Chamber of Secrets, and the Imperius Curse can do positive things, like commanding someone to go do half an hour of exercise or to eat their vegetables, even if it is morally dubious.

Also, does it bother anyone else that Necromancy and Voldemort are words, but Petrification and Teleportation aren't?

Alright, so the definition of Dark magic/the Dark Arts is more than a little inflexible, so what?

Time to get into the grit of the non-Dark magic, AKA, Light magic, like the Cheering Charm, the Levitation Charm, and even some lesser known spells like Partis Temporis, which temporarily divides something.

I have one thing to say about the Cheering Charm, and that is that it makes you feel happy, despite how that is similar to the Imperius in that it modifies your emotions or your brain activity, forcibly. It's not Dark simply because it doesn't have any seemingly negative effects, although it, like anything else, can under certain circumstances. You don't see wizards just casting on it on each other all the time, do you? I'm not going to bother with writing out a circumstance for it to harm you, which, hint, would be someone who is suffering from Depression - anti-Depressants not, like, a "be happy" pill - or under shock or something. Actually, I just wrote a situation. Huh.

Onwards!

The Levitation Charm, the Stunning Charm, the Body-Binding Jinx, and other charms and jinxes similar like Tarantallegra - the Dancing Jinx - or the Jelly-Legs Jinx stop, control, or change how the body moves, in this case. All of these can and will forcibly control your movements. You can be levitated off a cliff or a roof, you can be stunned and unmoved to be at the mercy of someone else or animals or the like, you could dance yourself into exhaustion, or be unable to dodge or protect yourself under the effects of these charms and jinxes.

Partis Temporis, despite a lack of information, could likely be aimed at someone, suddenly finding the target divided in half and most certainly dead. If it doesn't affect anything living, or at least sentient, then it can certainly divide houses, broomsticks, or Floo fireplaces, quite easily harming someone, whether dropping debris onto them, causing them to fall from the air, or leave someone stuck in the Floo system for who-knows-how-long, and it's not that hard to aim, so, yeah.

While there are spells that are nearly impossible to harm someone with, like the Patronus Charm, there are also spells that are nearly impossible to help someone with, like the Cruciatus Curse.

Spells that would be considered Dark, like the Bone-Breaking Curse, can be used to save people or harm people. You can break an arm so that someone will have their arm loosened so they can move it from the jaws of danger, or break it to re-heal it if it wasn't healed properly, and so on.

So while the definitions are really inflexible, Dark and Light magic still exist, like with the examples I just gave, Patronus and Cruciatus.

I've read more than a few stories where witches and wizards can be born with an inclination toward Lighter or Darker magic, rather like Dumbledore and Riddle are, we can assume, since people are more inclined to be better at math or art or music than others. Just like how mathematical calculations can make an atomic bomb, they can find the cures for disease or program life-support.

I mostly want to point out how, by the books, what is called Dark Magic is not necessarily "evil", either. While magic can be dark, like the Force can be Dark, from Star Wars, technically speaking, using those spells doesn't make you a bad person.

Snape is very very likely to use Dark magic, because, remember, he became a Death Eater willingly before he became a spy, yet we know he, well, I won't say good, but not really bad intentions. Conversely, James Potter was Light, used Light spells, but was a bully for no reason as a teenager, and suspected Remus of being Voldemort's spy, not Peter although why he would think that when Peter is a rat is a mystery. Maybe idiocy is in the genes or something, because Harry makes some pretty piss-poor choices himself.

While I'm not going to deny that most Dark magic is primarily harmful, strait-out banning it because of that isn't a good idea, nor does it really stop anyone from using them, and forbidding them makes people more curious about it, so banning the Dark Arts probably made the whole issue worse.

I'll bring up another weapon analogy. Magic is a multi-use tool, it can be good or bad. Undeniably Light magic - the Patronus Charm - is simply just the can opener, with the near impossible ability to harm, while regular "Light" magic is more the screwdriver, probably helpful, but can still become a weapon. Regular "Dark" Magic would be more akin to a small knife, while easy to harm, there is plenty of good potential, while undeniably Dark Magic - the Cruciatus, because you can save a life by killing a bear attempting to maul your friend, so even the Killing Curse isn't fully dark - is more akin the rat-poison in the cupboard, made to harm, but can still do good, but never often directly.

A final note: Dark Magic seems to also include old rituals, and many people write stories where other magic forms, like Blood or Ritual magic, are counted as Dark, and while not officially canonical, it falls in line with how the book characters think in respect to the Dark Arts. Often included in these too is celebrating old holidays, like Yule or Samhain, with bonfires and fruit sacrifices, although whether those would legitimately count under the current wizarding mindset is unknown the better question is why, exactly, aren't these old holidays celebrated by Magical Britain anymore?

Shiizumi Valé, or WillowEye10329 on Pottermore, has given her word, now signing off.

Harry Potter and Blood Purity

I'm the sort of awkward teenager that both loves and despises the Harry Potter series. I love the depth and the world and the complex systems and some of the characters (that's actually a lie) and the mythology and story. I hate the decisions that the characters make, the characters in general, and some of the rigid ideas that shouldn't be so rigid.

Like the idea of Purebloods versus Half-Bloods versus Muggleborns, Squibs, and Muggles.

Spoilers are a given.

For the record, both Harry and Voldemort/Tom Riddle Jr. are Half-Bloods. Voldemort/Riddle through his Pureblood almost-Squib mother Merope Gaunt and his Muggle father Tom Riddle Sr. Harry is one through his Muggleborn witch mother Lily Potter neé Evans and his Pureblood father, James Potter.

I'd hope you already know that.

What's interesting is that Riddle - because I hate writing Voldemort every time I'm talking about him - is a Half-Blood for being the descendant of the ruined line of Gaunt/Slytherin, living in poverty, bad inbreeding, shame, and disgust by what few wizards or witches remember them. Merope Gaunt herself is almost a Squib, and believed to be one by her father and brother. Yet, she's still considered a Pureblood, despite not being a "worthy" one, because she loved and had a child with a Muggle, Tom Riddle Senior.
Riddle Junior is a Half-Blood, the son of a ruined witch's ruined family and of a rich Muggle who hated him.
Harry Potter on the other hand, is the son of a well-liked fairly powerful Muggleborn witch and the (presumed) heir to the respected Potter family.

I don't know about anyone else, but that sounds rather unequal.

So what gives?

Actually, the whole magical inheritance thing is an interesting topic.

Magic would be genetic, since magic him/her/itself doesn't choose who can use him/her/it (or else the morally decrepit probably wouldn't have magic). This is obvious considering that there are magical families rather than scattered magicians.

Muggleborns are very likely descended from Squibs who were cast off from their mostly-Pureblood families for a lack of magic. While Squibs aren't magic, they would carry the gene for it, assuming that magic is recessive. The whole understanding for this concept is that magic would be recessive since Muggles outnumber those with magic. Think for a moment, Hogwarts is the ONLY magical school in all of Britain - Harry never got other invitations to other schools, and others are never mentioned, if they exist- and the graduating class is about 50 students, maybe 60 in Harry's second year, since people would be, um celebrating after Voldemort's fall. And that's being liberal.

Anyways, that's a tiny number for populous country/commonwealth/whatever like Britain, and the number of Muggles that would be graduating in a year...I don't know, take a guess. It's likely gigantic.

So magic is recessive, like blue eyes or blonde hair or double-jointedness or heterochromia.

The chances are fairly likely that someone - Squib or a descendant of one who carried the gene, like Hermione's parents, if this is all true - will meet and have children with another who has the gene and thus have a magic child to a non-magic parent.

For the record, I'm a Slytherin, and I've taken the Sorting Test three times - only once on Pottermore, so don't get cranky, the others were just copied over from PM onto the internet. Once I tied at 88% between Slytherin and Ravenclaw. My reasoning for some of the answers were complicated.

Anyways.

If magic is recessive, then every witch or wizard is just as magically pure as any other witch or wizard, which makes blood purity entirely redundant.

Well, not completely, due to inbreeding that undoubtedly happened by Purebloods to remain Purebloods, having children with like second cousins or something. coughcoughSirius'sparentscoughcough.

But doesn't that make Purebloods less pure than the Half-Bloods and Muggleborns they belittle? Perhaps that's why Harry and Hermione are so powerful, despite not having cast a single spell once in the first 11 years of their lives, while Draco Malfoy likely knew how to cast a Levitation by the time he was 6.

Seriously, if you were raising a magical kid, you'd be hard pressed NOT to teach them magic, if you were magical yourself.

But anyways...BUM BUM BUUUUMMMM. I have officially blown your mind. See that stain over there? That's your brain.

Riddle, Harry, Snape, Nymphadora Tonks are all Half-Bloods, yet are either feared, possess a very rare family skill (Metamorphmagi are genetically Blacks), or can scare away a horde of Dementors by the time they're thirteen under immense pressure and without too much practice, and by being a terrible student.

Because Harry is a terrible student.>

Dumbledore and Bellatrix are about the only two Purebloods that we know are intimidating magically. While Alastor Moody, McGonagall, or Shacklebolt are also all good magically, do we know for certain their blood status? Even if they are all three Purebloods, they just might not have the issue with inbreeding or perhaps they do, and we just can't tell because, remember, we don't see them perform super amazing acts of magic.

Hermione Granger is a very strong witch, not only in knowing things that those magically-raised don't know - remember the Basilisk? - but also in casting them. Levitation Charms are the obvious example. Lily Potter was praised for her skill in Charms, but what about her Pureblood husband?

Just some food for thought.

But I'd like to point out, finally, that because most Muggleborns are descended from Pureblood Squibs, they themselves could be heir to an otherwise heirless family line. Or, even better, could reasonably be related to Draco himself. The irony here should be illegal. It probably is.

This is Shiizumi Valé, otherwise known as WillowEye10329 on Pottermore, or just Shiizumi on many various webpages. Go, be sarcastic, and fly free! Spaaaaaaaccceee!