Genes/Wizard life/"Super" Harry

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24175

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Jennifer <nausicaa at a...> wrote:
> Alfredo Ramírez wrote:
> > 
> > Of course, if everyone comes from a limited stock of original 
wizards, then having wizards breed purely with wizards would end up 
causing a whole lot of genetic anomalies. Wizards have to breed with 
muggles. I can't really explain mudbloods (pardon the term) or squibs.
> 
> One word -- throwbacks.  The same way someone with bright red hair 
can be born to a family that for several generations only had brown 
hair, someone with/without magical ability can be born.  I don't know 
how that would work as far as recessive/dominant...possibly something 
like height (where many genes control it, and only the right 
combination results in particular strengths of magical ability).
 

I've heard this called a biological sport: a person born with 
characteristics seemingly absent in the parents, but the parents have 
the potential to give the characteristic to their offspring 
nonetheless.

And as far as wizards living only in the wizard world, Hogsmeade is 
described as the only all-wizarding community in Great Britain, so 
one must assume by extension that anyone who doesn't live in 
Hogsmeade lives in the "real" world with a variety of protections in 
place to prevent Muggles detecting their wizard status.  Many 
wizarding children in this sort of situation may very well grow up 
with electricity and telephones and computers and so on (the Weasleys 
are depicted as being old-fashioned in many ways).  The only reason 
these things aren't used at Hogwarts is because there is too much 
magic in the air there for them to work.  There should be nothing 
preventing a wizard family from moving into a nice flat in London and 
getting their electricity and phone and water and gas hooked up and 
still using magic for a number of things as well.

And I don't believe Harry is "super," but I do believe that he is 
special, as does Voldemort, or he wouldn't have been after him to 
begin with.  That's still the missing piece of the puzzle: 
Voldemort's motivation.

--Barb