Harry Potter - wizard breeding

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-09-15 08:48pm

Having finally read all of the Harry Potter books (in 3 weeks only) the best answer I can think of regarding the nature of magic inheritance is that the magic phenotype is a quantitative trait, like height. As with height, part of how tall a person is is partly determined by genetics but a part of it is also determined by one's environment: medicine, nutrition, stress, etc. Its the only way possible to explain how some witches/wizards are just more powerful than others. Additionally, it also nicely explains why two pure bloods who are competent at magic can have an offspring who is a squib.

As for the magic gene, I would think that it would actually be genes. Something as complicated as magic could not possibly be controlled by one single gene, there has to be several genes expressed.