Squib!!!

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 180902

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jayne" <jaynesmith62 at ...> wrote:
>
> Please can someone sort out a query for me. What exactly is the 
> difference between a squib and a witch/ Wizard??
> I have wanted to know that all the way through the series and have 
> never found a good explanation

Magical ability is presented in the series as something which is
passed on genetically, like having brown eyes.

Just like with brown eyes, if one parent has magical ability, there is
a good chance that the child will have it.  Magical ability can also
appear in children whose parents don't display it (Hermione's an
example); there are two possible reasons for this: either a distant
ancestor had it, and the gene was passed on, or a random genetic
mutation can give rise to it, so you get a magical child with no
magical ancestors (this is actually how Hermione's presented - there's
no suggestion, as far as I know, that she had a great great great
grandmother who was a witch).

But since we inherit only half of each parent's genes, it's possible
that a child will inherit that half of the parent's genes which
*doesn't" contain the "magic" gene.  If this happens, you get a child
born to magical parents who has no magical ability - that child is a
squib.  An analogy would be a child born to two red-haired parents,
neither of whom passes on the red-haired gene, resulting in the child
not having red hair.  

In cultural terms, squibs aren't like muggles, because they have been
raised in wizarding homes and know about the magical world, while much
of wizarding society hinges on the Statute of Secrecy, which prevents
non-magical people from knowing about the wizarding world.  They're
then condemned to a sort of neither-one-thing-nor-the-other existence
- the only place for them is living on the fringes of wizarding
society but unable to play much of a role in it, like Argus Filch and
Arabella Figg.  It's a sad sort of life, I think.