Hermione's Friends; genes

[Tandy, Heidi]

No: HPFGUIDX 26731

> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., Catherine wrote:
 
> Firstly, where do you get the other two girls from?  Is this the 
> debate as to whether there are other Gryffindors in Harry's year 
> besides the ones actually named?  I don't believe it.   I think that 
> there are only 8 students in Gryffindor in their year.

A close reading of PoA implies that there are two other students in the
class, because the Boggart changes for two people more than the kids we
*know* are in the class. I don't think there are 2 other girls simply
because of the balance of 5 in each dorm; I think it because of that. For
the other houses, don't we know only 2 Hufflepuff boys and 4 Slytherin boys
(if you believe that Blaise is a girl) - clearly we don't know everyone in
the other houses...but I wonder if we know everyone in Harry's year in his
own house.

re: wizarding genetics
For various reasons, this has been discussed often on the Paradigm of
Uncertainty HP Fanfic Mailing List, and I've always thought that wizarding
ability likely isn't tagged to just one gene, but rather a number of them -
some dominant and some recessive. That could explain the interplay between
muggle and magical genetics, if even some muggles had some of the genes that
would turn on magic, but not enough to actually make that individual
magical. Magic, I agree, has to be a dominant trait - otherwise, it's true,
you could never have muggle-born witches & wizards because the Magic traits
would be over- ridden by the Muggle traits. 
However, if it was only one gene, there would be *no* squibs (absent genetic
mutations), because all Magic parents would pass their genes onto their
ofspring. But if it is more than one gene, and if you have to have, say 3 of
the 5 to NOT be a squib, then the absence of one of those genes in each
parent would result in a Squib offspring BUT would allow the Squib to be a
parent of a Magic baby.

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