Muggleborns
What would be the potential magical consequences of muggleborn children swearing oaths/making promises (i.e. becoming part of girl/boy scouts, prayer, promising that no, of course I didn't take the last cookie, pledge of allegiance for the US kids etc.)? Would magic consider it as legitimate oaths? And how would disobedience be punished/prevented? Would the children get any potential perks (a la The Ghost of Privet Drive [by AndrewWolfe here on ao3, go read it])
Could muggleborns make weird potions in the kitchen during break without setting off the trace?
Cyllene (Skyeraven 12)do we know if there are any poor muggleborns at Hogwarts? Justin's family is rich (or is that just fanon) and Hermione's parents are dentists, so they could afford it.
[keeping in mind that tuition is free according to Rowling and supplies suppsoedly cost around 800£/year]
Justin Finch-Flecthley
Pumpkin pie ramen || little sisI just saw this:
[this is a copy-paste from a quora response here: https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-was-the-biggest-plot-twist-in-Harry-Potter]
What unrealistic thing in Harry Potter is never talked about? Justin Finch-Fletchley. Justin tells Harry in Chamber of Secrets that his name was down for Eton, but that he’s glad he ended up at Hogwarts instead. This establishes him both as a muggle-born and as a toff (as if the surname wasn’t a big enough clue on that front). A boy in that position should not be a calm kid placidly accepting and wondering at the magical world he finds himself in. A boy in that position should be a roiling ball of conflicting emotions. His name was down for Eton. That’s a big deal. That means that from the year of his birth, his parents have been planning for him to go to Eton. His name implies that they’re Old Money, which means decent odds that they’re asset-rich but not necessarily cash-rich. They will have been budgeting their cash-flow from the day Justin was born with male genitalia for him to go to Eton (had he been born with female genitalia, they’d probably have been looking at Wycombe Abbey or Cheltenham Ladies’ College, where the costs and time-frame would have been different, so only once they knew gender could the true budgeting start). Those parents will have been planning the future realisation of investments to meet the payment dates and amounts for Eton, payable from the year after Justin turned thirteen (not eleven, thirteen). Before that, they will have been paying smaller but still exorbitant amounts for him to attend a decent prep school from the age of 7; either as a day boy if there was a good school locally or, more likely in preparation for Eton, as a boarder.
Justin is then, at almost no notice, torn from this at the age of 11 and thrust into an entirely unexpected environment. His old friends will wonder what happened to him; though not all boys from his prep school will go on to Eton, they’ll mostly go to the big Public Schools. Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Marlborough, Radley, Abingdon, etc. They would all build up their school networks, then meet again at Oxford, Cambridge, the Royal Agricultural College (now University, but College for Justin’s age-group) and various other universities to create wider networks before going on to have major influence in whatever sphere they choose to work in, be it the public sector or the private sector. Their Old School Tie and the College Scarf would open the necessary doors for them. Justin’s disappearance will be a mystery to his friends, and they’ll lose touch with him. Their parents will talk about the Finch-Fletchleys in hushed tones, assuming they’ve suffered some major financial disaster and that Justin’s not bright enough to make up for it by getting into Eton as a King’s Scholar. That will cause a massive strain on Justin’s parents, potentially ruining them socially and damaging their financial credit. Justin will notice that, and become cut off from his friends and family at a time when he should have been one of his parents’ biggest social assets. That will cause Justin guilt, however much he enjoys Hogwarts.
And why, exactly, does he enjoy Hogwarts more than he thinks he would have enjoyed Eton, and more than he enjoyed his prep school? For all JKR tells us magic is amazing, we don’t see it be particularly amazing; we see it as hard work and pointless danger in a world run by incompetents. Justin will have been accustomed to at least a facsimile of pastoral care at prep school, and most of them take sports quite seriously because they “build character”. Hogwarts’ pastoral care is shocking, and there’s no sport apart from quidditch, which is only played competitively by a tiny minority. And at the end of it, and he must have had a sense of this by his second year, Justin’s just going to be another muggle-born, with no connections to wizarding high society and no clear route into an influential or rewarding role. Hogwarts never shows itself to be better than Eton, and definitely not enough to justify the complete destruction of Justin’s family life and his chances for the future. Justin’s attitude to Hogwarts makes no sense
Mia 💖Shit aight Poor Justin huh
nmckl (nateyeh)That’s an essay and a half
All that Eton means is that his parents have money, and he’s relatively smart since he passed the 11+s. He could say he’s going for year 8, and staying in a grammar school, or he got into a specialist school. Less people know about them than the Big Boys Schools but they’re equally as “good”
But yeah the bit about ruining his chances yeah. They probably didn’t tell his parents about the prejudices he’ll face in the adult wizarding world… that’s peak. For a proud family, which we assume they are, can’t be fun
KimmmmThis is one of those where you're not wrong, but I think you're making a lot of assumptions. Like, let's assume you're right about the money situation, his parents wouldn't necessarily tell him about any financial stress they're dealing with. Plenty of "rich" kids have no idea about their parents' actual finances, especially if their parents are in debt
There's also possibilities like, he didn't get along with the Eton kids, or he didn't have the kind of ambitions that would make Eton really stand out. Canon just doesn't say one way or but I think the summary you've written could make a good character background
it does make a lot of sense that a kid would feel that way
nmckl (nateyeh)Yeah. Put yourself in an 11 year old’s shoes. Eton, which yeah would be sick it’s the most well known public school…. Or magic school lol
I think I know which I’d pick
How do muggleborns even come about
1st of March 2022
I Live In Seven CloudsKatie Mosher: How exactly do muggleborns receive magical ability? J.K. Rowling: Muggleborns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places.
Ughh not a fan
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWdoes that not inevitably require wixen to be almost a different species? i mean if we must specify it being a genetic thing, then I see only two ways the magical population came about. Either they split from homo sapiens through some sort of magical accident/breeding with magical beings and remain just close enough to produce fertile offspring, or there was some type of mutation in the genome that gave them magic. if it were a mutation, there would be no reason it couldn't happen again
Chaos Coordinator - she/herI like the spontaneous eruption of magic approach personally
I also like the tinkerbell approach…those children who believe are magical
I Live In Seven CloudsImo, you only get to join magic club if you don't talk about the magic club
Pumpkin pie ramen || little sisI think it both ways. Step of guys its time for biology. So every cell has DNA. The dna is basically a chain of nucleotide acids and the orfer they are is what makes ur DNA different from mine. With time cells die obviously. But b4 they die they divide themselves until the og cell (mother cell) gives origin to daughter cells. Sometimes when the cell is dividing there can happen mistakes when copying the order of the Acids. This gives origin to mutations. It can take a physical shape or not and it can be benign or malign. Cancer is an example of a mutation. Now, I literally remembered this 3 mins ago but goddamit its what I believe in now. The mutation can happen at any point during your life. But later when you have kids you will give them part of your DNA to make their own. Now, the mutation can be passed from parents to kids, like cancer. Or it can also be spontaneous. This is why my mom is going to do genetic analysis to see if her cancer was genetic or if it was spontaneous. If it was genetic there is a change my sister and I have the mutation in our DNA. Magic is like this. Its a mutation. It can be passed from parents to kids or it can be spontaneous. Muggleborns have a spontaneous mutation while pure bloods and halfbloods have a genetic mutation. Squibs dont have the mutation.
wizard war criminal (she/they)how do squibs lose it?
if you're born to two parents with the mutation
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EhoW they're still vaguely magical, so it's not gone, it's just not working properly
wizard war criminal (she/they) huhseems more likely that magical ability is the result of several genes then
like one to determine if you have magic one to determine if you can use it
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWwell it's pretty much always more complicated than just one gene
Serious Scribble In any case, the "magic race" thing sounds like the thing the Malfoys would love. A perfect ideology -- Muggles are a different species, and wizards are the better race, because they have magic.
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EhoW read a fic where magic had pathways in the body, much like nerves. and in squib the pathways were nonfunctional. so they had magic but couldn't access it (seems like a missed opportunity for a wholte lot of dark rituals but w/ever)
Pumpkin pie ramen || little sisIt's genetic. Dad has gene A and b Mom has A and B A is the predominant gene. So if even one of them passes the gene the kid will have magic. But if they both pass the gene b the kid will be a squib (we r considering gene A the magic gene). With time the gene b just became rarer and rarer.
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWwell, depending on how long the malfoys have been inbreeding, they might be in the process of deviating from the surviving human species in any case
I Live In Seven CloudsIs the Inbreeding thing as prominent in. Canon
I thought gaunts were the worst of it
And other wizards recognised how fucked up it is
wizard war criminal (she/they)then there should be a hell of a lot more wizards having kids with muggles if the chance if getting a magical kid is one in two
I Live In Seven CloudsThere's still a fair bit of cousin x cousin thing probably iirc
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoW@I Live In Seven Clouds they were definitely the worst, but the wizarding population is tiny and malfoy's sacred 28 so his pool of potential mates is even smaller
I Live In Seven CloudsWhat's that Lucius fic of exposition where Harry takes all muggleborns to another place and makes a deal with voldemort to never bother Britain
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWand it would explain why nobody from the purebloods outside of the weasleys seems to be able to have more than two kids
I Live In Seven CloudsIt ends with the purebloods nearly ending themselves
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWinbreeding depression
wizard war criminal (she/they) and all the mental issues tbh
Serious Scribble Really depends on what your idea of the magical world is. I usually take some 15k (Rowling's first number), and of those 20% qualify as purebloods. That's enough to not inbreed, but if it's much smaller, it's kinda inevitable.
Pumpkin pie ramen || little sisI think that probably ties to their policy to keep muggles away. But we dont know if the chance is 1 in 2. Im using the example of a simulation I did on a school project to explain. Maybe its necessary to have A-A and only a few muggles are A-b. And maybe muggle borns are the ones who recieve the gene A from both side. Idk enough about genetics to be sure
8th of March 2022
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWI know it's been a week or so since we talked about how genetics play into people being muggleborn, but I just remembered that rowling decided not to give Dudley a magical kid because she couldn't imagine someone with Vernons DNA being magical. So that, to me, implies that 1) we are well on our way to have two distinct humanoid species, one with magic and one without and 2) presumably, disdain for anything abnormal is a genetic characteristic of the second species.
Official Oldest Brother👱If we’re going genetics I view it through a punnet square. For wizards and witches, magic is dominant, some muggles have magic as recessive (squib descendants), and squib is just some mutation that is more common when inbreeding is a factor or it’s just a rare mutation
Queen of the Cards, Lady of EHoWbut if that's the case, then we should differentiate between people with the magic gene and those without it. It would mean that a "true" muggle is never (or absurdly rarely) going to have magical offspring, and "muggleborn" kids would have a squib somewhere (presumably not extremely distant) in their ancestry That would be hugely important for the wixen world, specifically the pureblood weirdos since they're breeding themselves into extinction - keeping tracks of squibs would make it possible to reintegrate magical offspring into wixen society at an early age, rather than at 11.