Why is Harry considered half-blood?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143207

scamjunk22 wrote:
<snip> I have been wondering for a very long time as to why HP is said
to be half-blood!!! He is not a half-blood ... just because his mom is
a muggle-born, does not make him half-blood....  both IS parents are
magic .. so he is a pure blood! Whereas LV's father was a muggle, so
LV is half-blood!! no?

> 
> bboyminn responded:
> 
> You have to remember that 'half-blood' is in the eye of the
beholder. Technically Harry is a full-blood, but not a pureblood;
though admittedly that term is never actually used in the books.
> 
> Context plays a big part here. Purebloods, or those with a pureblood
mania, would consider Harry a half-blood because they want to
emphasize the IMpurity of Harry's blood. The only other person I know
of who has referred to Harry as a half-blood was Dumbledore, and that
was in the context of making a point about Harry's heritage as
compared to Neville's. 
<snip>
> 
> The correct definitions are -
> 
> Muggle - not magical and no magical ancestors.
> 
> Half-Blood - person of mixed parentage.
> 
> Full-Blood - person of magical parents, but having direct-line
muggle ancestors
> 
> Pureblood - a person who is magical, and allegedly with no muggle
> blood anywhere in their direct-line of ancestors. <snip>

Carol responds:
Although Steve's definitions make sense, the problem is that JKR (as
he concedes) never uses the term "full-blood." 

The reason that Harry is considered a half-blood by the WW (including
even DD, who clearly does not approve of the ideology behind the
classifications) is that Harry's mother has no wizarding blood. She
is, in the eyes of the Slytherins and anyone else who subscribes to
the pure-blood superiority ethic, nothing but a Muggle who is somehow
able to perform magic but is not one of *them*, not a true witch or
wizard but an outsider. ("The other kind," as Draco puts it in SS/PS;
"a girl of no wizard family," as Lucius Malfoy says of Hermione in
CoS). Lily is a "Mudblood" (in their view) because her "blood" is
Muggle blood; her parents are Muggles. The Muggle concept of genetics
has no place here. Neither does the ability of the Muggleborn parent
to perform magic. For someone like Draco Malfoy and his parents, who a
person is depends on his blood and his family. ("What's your surname?"
Draco asks Harry in SS/PS.) *Within* their circle, power and ability
matter. Malfoy is the leader; Crabbe and Goyle are the followers.
Outside their circle, they do not. A Half-blood like Snape or Harry
can gain admission to the circle if he wants it because he has Wizard
blood; a Muggleborn can't--and most likely wouldn't want to.

To return to why Harry is a Half-blood despite having two magical
parents: If Lily's father is a Muggle, a nonmagical person with no
known magical ancestors (MM), and her mother is also a Muggle (MM),
their child is a Muggle (MM) in terms of her "blood" heritage
regardless of her ability to perform magic. James, in contrast, is a
pureblood (WW) with wizarding blood on both sides and no known Muggle
ancestors. The child of a WW and an MM is, and has to be, a WM, a
half-blood, just as the child of a Muggle and a Witch or Wizard is a
WM. The Wizard blood dominates and the child is usually but not always
a Witch or Wizard.

I personally wonder is the chances of a half-blood (the child of a
pureblood and Muggle or Muggleborn) being a Squib really are greater
than the chances of two purebloods producing a Squib--or would be if
the number of purebloods weren't so limited, forcing a limited number
of families to marry each other. I'm pretty sure that fear of
producing Squibs, along with a general fear and loathing of Muggles,
produced the pureblood ideology in the first place. Otherwise, the
term "Mudblood" makes no sense. How could a Muggleborn's blood be
contaminated by the *absence* of a trait, the *absence* of magical
heritage? The purebloods must have feared that marrying such a person
would contaminate their bloodline, making it "impure" through the
introduction of nonmagical blood that might result in the production
of nonmagical children (Squibs) if they were foolish enough to marry a
Muggle or Muggleborn. (I'm not saying that they're right; I'm only
trying to account for the concept.)

At any rate, the WW is, as far as I can see, unacquainted with Muggle
concepts of genetics and operates more nearly along the lines of
European royalty, who until recently would not marry "commoners." If
you didn't have royal or at least "noble" blood, you weren't a fit
marriage partner no matter how rich or attractive or gifted you
happened to be. (The dangers of inbreeding among a limited gene pool
are obvious to *us.* I'm not so sure that they're obvious to the WW,
where the likes of the Gaunts keep to themselves.)

Carol, who is *not* arguing for pureblood supremacy, just trying to
explain the concept as it appears to be viewed by its advocates