Explain This Passage

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 180519

> Carol responds:
> Steve's term isn't new. He's been proposing it for years.
> Unfortunately, however sensible and logical "full-blood" may be, 
it's
> not canonical. Neither is "3/4 blood" or any similar term. Wizards,
> not being, for the most part, particularly logical (as Hermione 
points
> out when she solves Snape's logic puzzle in SS/PS), don't think in
> those terms. Slughorn's reference to chromosomes to the contrary, 
they
> don't think in terms of genes, either. It's all "blood." So people
> either have Wizard blood or they don't.
> 
> So here's what we know we have, per canon:
> 
> A Muggle (no Wizarding blood)
> 
> A Squib (Wizarding blood through at least one parent but no magical
> powers other than being able to communicate with cats and see 
Hogwarts)
> 
> A Muggle-born (a Witch or Wizard with two Muggle parents and, by
> implication, four Muggle grandparents, IOW, no Wizard blood and
> therefore, the same as a Muggle to pure-blood supremacists)
> 
> A Pure-blood (a Witch or Wizard with no known, or at least no
> acknowledged, Muggle ancestors)
> 
> A Half-Blood (a Witch or Wizard with one Muggle or Muggle-born 
parent
> and one Pure-blood parent)
> 
> That, of course, raises the question you raised, what to call the
> child of a Pure-blood and a Half-blood, as well as the child of a
> Muggle-born and a Half-blood.

Magpie:
Ernie Macmillan once counts himself a "Pureblood back 9 generations" 
or some such, so the impression I get is that as usual, it's fuzzy. 
You're Muggleborn if both your parents are Muggles. You're Halfblood 
if you have one Muggle or Muggleborn parent.

But with Pure/Half it's also trickier. You're Pureblood if you've 
got no Muggle grandparents, but "Pureblood" sometimes seems to mean 
a class as well as a blood status. So it seems like the way it works 
out practically speaking is that there are Muggleborns, whose blood 
is an issue. Then there's Half-bloods who have an actual Muggle 
parent or grandparent who know what they are too. Then there are 
Purebloods who go back generations of all Wizards. 

And then there's everyone else, which makes up most Wizards. Wizards 
who aren't "Pureblood" in the way the Blacks might use the term 
(iow, belonging to one of the Old Pureblood families blah blah) and 
are therefore vaguely aware of themselves as being relatively Jonny-
come-lately or at least "not special" without any specific Muggles 
to speak of. Iow, there's a big grey area between actual Half-blood 
with a Muggle parent or even grandparent and Pureblood in the 
Weasley sense.

-m