Muggles/Muggle-born: what's the difference?

[dowen331]

No: HPFGUIDX 44601

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "bugaloo37" <crussell at a...> wrote:
>...Even Tom Riddle aka Voldemort seems to interchange the two 
> phrases at will.  <snip> In CoS, Tom Riddle refers to Lily Potter 
>as being "muggle-born"- a witch (most definitely!) with no magical 
>ancestry.  In GoF, Voldemort compares Lily to his own hated father- 
>a muggle.  

I've been quickly scanning my digests to see if anyone else had 
responded to this.  I just have one (minor) point to make that I 
think clarifies Voldemort's comment in GoF, and may aid the 
discussion of definitions of these terms.

At the graveyard in GoF, as bugaloo stated above, V'mort compares 
Lily to his father.  Paraphrasing, he says "My father was a muggle 
and a fool--much like your mother."  I always took that to mean 
Harry's mother was a *fool* like Tom Riddle, not that she was a 
muggle.  He considers her a fool because she sacrificed her life 
needlessly for her child.  I don't think this particular scene can be 
used to define what V'mort considers "muggle" vs "muggle-born."

That's all.  Hope that helps someone!

deb331, going back to lurking