Harry's looks

[Milz]

No: HPFGUIDX 18721

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "mlmnb" <mlmnb at m...> wrote:
> My first time making a comment, although I faithfully read all 
others daily.
> 
> Regarding Harry's family in the mirror--Lily has green eyes and 
auburn hair,
> but other members of the family in the mirror had green eyes too.
> 
> When I read this passage, I just assumed that Harry had his 
mother's eyes
> and the black hair coloring of James. I don't remember anywhere 
that Aunt
> Petunia or Dudley are described as having green eyes.
> 
> For anyone who has polygenic features (a mix of both sides of the 
family)
> who's to say that both sides of Harry's family didn't have a 
predominant
> strain of green eyes?  Green eyes, like blue, are a recessive gene, 
brown is
> normally the dominant eye color, unless the recessive gene is 
present in
> both parents' genes.  Just a thought.   Maybe JKR didn't give this 
a lot of
> thought, or maybe she did and we just have to wait for later books.
> 
> In the meantime, must start reading SS again!
> Dane, Ravenclaw

Aunt Petunia was described as having blonde hair in SS/PS. It's 
possible that Lily had auburn hair while Petunia is a blonde because 
of gene expression. Another possibility is that Petunia is a bottle 
blonde. I don't have the books with me, but for some reason I have a 
feeling that I read Petunia as having blue eyes...If I'm wrong, 
someone will correct me.

Harry's green eyes could also be explained by gene expression. For 
Lily to have green eyes, she would have to have had both recessive 
genes for green eyes (homozygous recessive). James would have had to 
have the dominant gene and the recessive gene (heterozygous). If 
James were homozygous dominant, Harry would have had dark eyes.

B= dominant gene eye color
b= recessive gene

     B   B (James)
b   Bb   Bb          If James has genes BB and Lily has genes bb,
b   Bb   Bb          then all their offspring will be Bb and will    
(Lily)               have the dominant eye color (brown or some 
                     variation of it)

     B   b           If James has genes Bb and Lily has genes bb,
b    Bb  bb          then each child they have will have a 50% chance
b    Bb  bb          of having green eyes like Lily or the dominant
(Lily)               eye color.

Same goes for hair color. Black or brown is the dominant hair color. 
Blonde is recessive. However, the genes can vary in their expression, 
thus resulting in the varying shades of "brown" hair and the varying 
shades of blonde and the varying shades of red. Sort of off-topic, 
but the March sisters in Little Women had different hair color: Meg 
had light brown hair, Jo had "chestnut" brown hair, Beth was red-
haired (rosy) and Amy was blond (fair-haired)

Milz (who believes she just totally confused everyone who read this, 
so just disregard)