James' pedigree (Was:Re: Some discrepancies)

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 86733


> Carol said:
>  
> Having not only Phineas but a definite maternal relative, Araminta
> Melliflua, on the tapestry pretty much destroys my theory that the
> Potter and Snape families don't show up because they're on Sirius's
> mother's side of the family, but it's still possible that the Potter
> or Snape connections were so far back that their presence on the
> tapestry they would require some diligent searching to discover
> (assuming that the names had not been removed).
<snip>
> 
>  Cristina:
> I'd think that Sirius would have looked up his friend James' family in
> the tapestry, before leaving his parents' house for good.
<snip>

Annemehr:
Cristina has a good point.  It doesn't seem possible that the name
"Potter" could have been on the tapestry without Sirius knowing it.  I
would go even further and say that I seriously doubt it could have
been there without Sirius pointing it out to Harry.  I would think
even a scorch-mark that *used* to be a Potter would have been pointed
out if Sirius had ever known what it was.  I think it's safe to say
that Sirius never knew the name "Potter" to be on the tapestry.

Can we take a step back for a moment?  I am wondering if we haven't
been making an unsupported assumption  to think that James was
pure-blooded.  I am defining "pure-blood" as Mrs. Black would: a
wizard who could trace his ancestry through many generations with not
a trace of muggle blood anywhere.

"Full-blooded" is a term I would use, and have seen used on this list,
to describe someone of predominantly wizard blood.  Perhaps someone
who is not more than one-sixteenth, or even one eighth, muggle would
qualify.  It seems to me there would be a lot of witches and wizards
like this in the WW, which would be why the pure-bloods see themselves
as so elite.

>From the way that Lily is so often described as "muggle-born" or
"mudblood," and Harry and Voldemort are described as "half-blood," and
yet James' wizard blood is never questioned, it seems clear that James
was at least a full-blooded wizard.  What I'm not sure of is whether
that implies he had the absolute purity of blood that would have
qualified him for appearing on the tapestry.

I think we have to allow for the possibility of a muggle or half-blood
or two in the Potter family tree.  They'd have to be far enough back
not to engender notice by Voldemort and his ilk (say, a half-blood
great-grandparent somewhere), but that would still be quite enough to
keep the Potters off a fanatic's tapestry, or blasted off before
Sirius ever knew who they were.  The Potter name itself could have
come from the muggle world, but it could just as easily been from a
long line of "blood-traitors" like the Weasleys.

How might this be important?  I have no real theories for that; I'm
not sure whether or not, for the story, James needs to be the first in
his family to marry into muggle bloodlines.  I'd just hate to see us
limiting our speculations to "James the Pure-Blood" unnecessarily.

Does anyone know of any canon or interview statement that relates to
this?  Is James' pure-bloodedness just a myth?

Annemehr