Wizardkind

**Wizardkind** were humans that were born with the ability to perform magic. An individual male human with magical ability was known as a **wizard** (plural: **wizards**), and an individual female human with magical ability was known as a **witch** (plural: **witches**), though "wizard" was sometimes used as a gender-neutral singular noun like "man". There were three statues of wizardkind, Pure-blood, half-blood and Muggle-borns, and they were relative to Squibs and Muggles.

It was said that most of the greatest wizards did not have an ounce of logic, suggesting their complete reliance of powerful magic led them to neglect other aspects of their mind.

## Origins

The origins of wizardkind is unknown. Whether, in ancient times, some humans randomly discovered they had magic, or there was some sort of ritual or potion or pact, their origins remain a mystery. However, if it was the first, then some Muggle-borns may not be the descendants of Squibs (as is most often theorised) but entirely new wizards, like the very first members of wizardkind.

## Performing magic

In childhood, wizards and witches may have exhibited random bursts of magic, called accidental magic, which were honed and controlled as they progress to maturity.

To perform controlled magic, almost all wizards/witches needed to use a wand, although the advanced skill of wandless magic may have been mastered in later life. A few highly advanced wizards could do controlled magical feats without a wand, such as Albus Dumbledore, who demonstrated the ability at the close of Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Lord Voldemort, who once demonstrated this ability during the Battle of the Seven Potters in 1997.

## Heredity

*Main article: Blood status*
"*Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn’t married Muggles we’d’ve died out.*"
— Ron Weasley discussing blood purity

Magical ability was an inherited trait usually passed from parent to child. Wizards and witches are classified by blood status.

Pure-bloods were born of two wizarding parents and at the very least, four wizarding grandparents. However, many believed a pure-blood family tree should have no Muggle ancestors despite the fact that every family tree had at least one Muggle ancestor by the 1990s.

Half-bloods were mainly born of one wizard and one Muggle or Muggle-born parent.

Muggle-born wizards and witches were distantly descended from a Squib who had married into a Muggle family. The magical gene resurfaced many years later in a Muggle-born descendant when that branch of the wizarding family had usually lost all traces of its wizarding legacy.

However one inherited their magic made no difference whatsoever - a pure-blood's, half-blood's, and Muggle-born's abilities and physiologies were indistinguishable.

## Physiology

The physiology of wizards was subtly different from that of non-wizards. As such, wizards would react differently to the effects of contact with a magical creature, such as being attacked by a murtlap. Wizards also by nature could not be fooled by certain types of magic or magical barriers. It was, for example, possible to hide certain magic from Muggles via Muggle-Repelling Charms, which naturally would have no effect on wizards.

Wizards had the power to cure 'mundane' illnesses and injuries, and contact with non-magical creatures that Muggles could not. However, they could struggle to repair any damage caused by magical means such as the Memory Charm and Unforgivable Curses.