Due to an idea proposed by Liam in the location of hogwarts thread ive come up with this quite plausible theory of how magic is passed on through generations and why muggleborns even exist.

Placing magical inheritance into genetic theory like color blindness (although that is sex-linked, which would make everything not work out and i'm not going to go into that because its to complicated) is completely feasible.

infact im almost 100% sure that its a simple dominant recessive allele relationship. lets refer to the "magical gene" as m recessive and the "non-magical gene" as M dominant as the wizarding/muggle population ratio indicates. (the wizarding gene would have to be recessive because if it were dominant, magic would not be able to skip a generation). Meaning all wizards would have the genotype mm. and all muggles would be expressed by genotypes of MM or Mm.

which would create these crosses

mm(wizard)xmm = all wizard children (Weasleys)

for a wizard to have one wizarding parent and one muggle parent (like tonks)
the genotypes would have to be mmxMm(carrier for the magic gene but still a muggle *not squib, which would be mutation*) not mmxMM in which all children would be heterozygous (Mm) showing muggle phenotypes

muggleborns would be accounted for by two heterozygous parents
MmxMm which could yeild mm children

for families who have never heard of magic but have a wizarding child (dennis creevey, hermione, lily) that just indicates long lines of heterozygous linaeges

MmxMM=Mm who goes on to marry MM so they have kids, on of which who could be Mm who goes on to marry MM etc.... until that Mm marries another Mm.

meaning that hermione granger is most probably related in some way to draco malfoy and all the other death eaters (OH THE IRORNYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

people like aunt petunia and uncle vernon would be MM

so MMxMM means that, for all those people who wish it, there is no possible way that dudley is in any way magical (THATS FOR ALL THE DUDLEY TURNED WIZARD/HERMIONE shippers!! ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...)

elementary my dear watson (AKA my parents are both geneticists and talk about nothing except their work at dinner)

actually all this is sorta reinforced by what ron said and dracos whole lifestyle, making draco a total idiot because the people he hates so much are most likely his cousins or something or other

"wizards had to start marrying muggles or else they would have died out" (from inbreeding....yuck.... because the same genetic information would have been shared and isolated to a small population, which usually creates serious imbalances in body formation, mental structure...yeah ill stop right there)

Instead of closely following your explanation, which I will later, I will simply ask does this explain why Squibs are such an embarassment? Would it that there is muggle blood in there somewhere?

Liam

"muggle blood" as you say would be coded for by an M alelle meaning that one of the squibs parents would have to be a muggle and one a wizard (either mmxMM or mmxMm) which wouldn't follow genetic trends because the M alelle completely masks the m alelle, making a child with Mm exactly the same as a child with MM but with the ability to produce wizards.

a squib, as you remember, "is someone who is born into a wizarding family but can't do magic" nullifying the possibility of a muggle parent

so a squib is not a muggle in any way, its just a wizard (mm) whos magic is either extremely weak or something else is inhibiting them from doing it.
this is reinforced by what neville says "everyone knows i'm almost a squib" so a squib is in definition just a waizard of so little raw magical power that they cant produce even the most simple of spells. even the most powerful wizards could still produce a squib for a child. (think of iq levels. its not really passed on) this is why filch was taking a quickspell course, to try to boost his magical power

i think the shame of having squibs is just either prejudice because they are different from wizards of ordinary power (although not really) or because they are angry with themselves for producing a child so weak.

Alex, must be cool having your parents talking about genetics during meals! I have two members of my family in medicine so our conversations sometimes are about the 'case of the day.' Not usually appetising!.

I like the idea of Squibs being from a more complex part of our genetic makeup than just a mutation. I really savour the idea that there is Muggle blood lurking somewhere in those veins....


I'm sure we had a discussion like this before, too :blink:

Liam

I know we talked a lot about the whole gene thing in my 7th grade class and what would be "produced" if like for example, a person with blue eyes and a person with brown eyes. We also did a sort of chart to see the possible outcomes, but I would never though of the whole gene thing with wizards, muggle, and squibs. I thought at the general things, but never to take it into so much work as you did, it's awsome! (and it acutally makes sense ;) )

~*Mari*~

Mmm, genetics. I loved it when we discussed genetics in biology last year. I was fascinated the whole time.

I also love your theory about Hermione being related to Malfoy. That would kill all of the D/Hr shippers hopes. I should share that with them... :)

Elizabeth

oh please do. im sorry anything with draco malfoy's character repulses me

Woah, right over me Alex, Liam!! :eyeroll: Reminds me of an old Biology lesson!

It did the same for me, but I do believe we used plants as our examples, not humans. :)

Elizabeth

That's certainly a feasable (sp?) explaination... But it could also be part of the DNA... (The idea's in my head, it's just not coming out right :P ) You know how one parent could be the carrier of the DNA strain, and when paired with other bits of DNA it triggers the "magical abbility"... and when one or more magical people "create" and offspring (meaning magicalxmagical or magicalxmuggle pairings), those offsrping are more likely to be magical than not, but entirely non-magical pairings would have a far smaller chance of the magical DNA strain manifesting itself... I'm not sure if that makes sense... My brain isn't really working properly right now...