[HPforGrownups] Slytherin Purebloods?

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 88155

At 17:03 06-01-04 +0000, you wrote:
>Many people who theorise about the Harry Potter universe and who
>write fan fictions seem to assume that students who get sorted into
>Slytherin must necessarily be purebloods; likewise they assume that
>Snape must be a pureblood, too. But can they be? It seems Slytherin
>House would have to be the smallest of all houses - as far as we know
>from the books, there are less than ten pureblood families left in
>all. I would guess that most wizarding families have Muggles
>somewhere in their ancestry, and that being against 'Mudbloods' does
>not necessarily preclude one's being a pureblood oneself. In the days
>of Salazar Slytherin it might still have been possible to select
>Slytherins on blood basis only, but surely it cannot be the case
>anymore now?

A: There are, and has been, several half-blood wizards in Slytherin.
    Tom Riddle, Millicent Bulstrode and Tracey Davis.

B: In Harry's year alone there are at least 11 students /known/ to
    have two magical parents. Of these we know with certainty that
    Ernie Macmillan and Ron Weasley are pure-bloods, and it seems
    to me a safe bet that most, if not all, of Vincent Crabbe,
    Gregory Goyle, Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott are pure-bloods
    as well. The ten pure-blood families must either be quite extended
    or there are more than that, in order to produce that many
    pure-blood children in a single year.

Bellatrix's reaction to Harry exposing Voldemort as a half-blood might
(with at least some justification) be taken to imply that the Death
Eaters did not know of this, which again, IMO, would imply that the
Death Eaters themselves are all pure-blood (those for whom we know
their 'blood' are indeed pure-blood; Rabastan, Rodolphus and Bellatrix
Lestrange, Regulus Black and Lucius Malfoy).