wizard education/birth dearth, baby boom/inheriting magic

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 41509

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "bluesqueak" <pipdowns at e...> wrote:

> My personal preference is the 'normal times' theory, which I've
> seen referred to on the list. Hogwarts has 1000 or so students *in
> normal times*. Harry's year and the years immediately above and 
> below him are not normal - they were affected by the fact that the 
> WW by and large, simply didn't want to risk having children during
> the Voldemort wars; and also by the fact that a large number of 
> people died, so the number of people available to *have* children
> also dropped.

I agree with you that the wizarding world had a 'birth dearth' during 
the Voldemort Reign of Terror (which I like to call The Bad Years) 
but not that that caused Hogwarts to have fewer students born in 
those years. In fact, the classes born in those years might have 
been LARGER than usual This is because of a theory of inheritance of 
magic which I came up with in a thread on that subject. 

In my theory, the inheritance of magic is partly genetic and partly 
magical. I suggest that in general, there are a whole bunch of pairs 
of recessive genes that usually combine to make a person magical. How 
many of these pairs a person is double-recessive for, and which ones, 
would influence or control how strong their magic power is, and what 
forms of magic they are most talented at. 

But I also suggest that there is also a Magic that keeps the total 
number of wizarding people constant. When a wizard or witch dies, 
their magic goes to the next suitable child born in their area. 
Suitability would be a combination of the genes and of being 
surrounded by magic at the time. (A fetus in a witch's womb is the 
most possible surrounded by magic! So the child of a witch and a 
Muggle is almost as likely to be magic as the child of a witch and a 
wizard) The longer the magic goes searching for a suitable host, the 
geographically wider an area it searches, and also it becomes less 
picky about suitabilty, such as choosing Muggle-born children who at 
least have SOME of the right genes, even tho' there is no magic 
around them at all. 

This theory also explains Squibs, as children of a wizard and a witch 
who were born at a moment when more wizarding babies were being born 
than wizarding folk were dying. THEREFORE, if two Squibs marry, their 
children would have the right genes, and if the Squib couple lived 
(unhappily and in poverty) in the wizarding world, their children 
would have been somewhat surrounded by magic, and therefore children 
of Squibs who remain in the wizarding world are likely to be 
non-Squib. Squibs who move to the Muggle world, make a life there and 
marry a Muggle, would probably have children who were Muggles, but 
with the genes to be very attractive to magic looking for a 
Muggle-born person to reside in.

This theory also implies that there would be more Muggle-borns than 
usual during The Bad Years. That would be an ironic result of 
Voldemort's attempt to eliminate Muggle-borns! But, as you said, more 
wizarding folk than usual were dying during The Bad Years, because of 
all the murders, and fewer were being born than usual, because of 
parents reluctant to bring children into such a dreadful world. Thus, 
quite a number of witches and wizards died with no wizarding child 
being born at their death-time, so their magic went looking for a 
Muggle-born host. Thus, more 'Mudbloods'. That could explain why 
wizarding folk from Bill Weasley's age on down are more familiar 
with Muggle things than their parents are, and take it for granted to 
wear Muggle-style clothes: they learned it from their classmates.

A further implication is that a post-Harry Potter Day wizarding 
baby boom may have resulted in an epidemic of Squibs.