Pure-Blood

> The term 'pure-blood' refers to a family or individual without Muggle (non-magic) blood. The concept is generally associated with Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, whose aversion to teaching anybody of Muggle parentage eventually led to a breach with his three fellow founders, and his resignation from the school.
>
> Where the term 'pure-blood' originated from, Pottermore

 File:DH1 The Malfoy Family.png
**Pure-blood** was the term for wizarding families who claimed to have no ***Muggles***, ***Squibs***, Muggle-borns, or half-bloods in their family tree; however, when traced back far enough, nearly every family tree had a few non-magical ancestors. Most wizards and witches considered an individual to be a pure-blood if his or her parents and grandparents were not Muggles.

## Overview

> The pure-blood families are all interrelated. If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry pure-bloods, your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left.
>
> Sirius Black's overview of blood purity, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Pure-blood individuals were people who had no ***Muggles*** or Muggle-borns as parents or grandparents. Traditionalist pure-bloods liked to keep the generations "pure" by breeding with other pure-bloods and were generally the ones who used the term "Mudblood", a term considered highly derogatory by the wizarding world. Families of pure-blood status often avoided marrying their heirs off to Muggles, Squibs, Muggle-borns, and half-bloods, believing that the next generation could lose their capability to perform magic. Mudblood itself was a term suggesting that Muggle-borns had “dirty” blood and were a big disgrace to the wizarding world and thus had no right to be a witch/wizard. Pure-bloods who did not share these prejudices were considered "blood traitors" by the ones that do.

## Maintaining "purity"

> So-called pure-blood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing, or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. Then they attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles...
>
> Pure-blood wizards are not so pure, The Tales of Beedle the Bard (real)

Some pure-blood families could trace their pure-blood status through many generations of magical ancestors and deny ever having any nonmagical ancestors within the family, such as the ***House of Black***, the motto of which is "Toujours pur", meaning "Always (or Still) Pure". However, the truth is that if they ever did exist in the past, true pure-blood wizards and witches did not exist in the present day, as Squibs and Muggle-borns were too common. These pure-blood families simply erased all ***Muggles***, ***Squibs***, and Muggle-borns from their family trees.

Half-bloods who considered blood purity very important also hid their Muggle ancestry, clinging to the magical heritage they did have. Many ***Death Eaters*** were believed to have done this, and their leader himself took on the name Lord Voldemort out of a desire to not keep the name of his "*filthy Muggle father*". It is likely that Voldemort told his followers he was a pure-blood, or that most of the Death Eaters knew better than to question his blood status, given the reaction of ***Bellatrix Lestrange*** to Harry's "accusation" that he was in fact a half-blood.

Many pure-blood families, such as the ***Blacks*** and ***Gaunts***, practised marrying cousins in order to maintain their pure-blood status, and disowned any members who married someone who was not a pure-blood. This practice had been known to cause problems as families often became inbred because of this; for example, the Gaunts showed signs of violent tendencies, mental instability, and being enfeebled. The number of pure-bloods had diminished over time because of said ***inbreeding***.

## Attitude

> I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families.
>
> Draco Malfoy's prejudice concerning Muggle-borns, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

 File:Salazar Slytherin WWHP.jpg
Some pure-bloods regarded themselves as superior to those witches and wizards who were born to ***Muggles*** and half-bloods. They believed that Muggles were just little more than animals and that Muggle-borns, whom they derisively called "Mudbloods", were second-class citizens, inferior and unworthy of being allowed to practise magic. Many also discriminated against half-breeds, giants, ***werewolves*** and magical creatures.

Salazar Slytherin believed that only pure-bloods should be allowed to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and be educated in magic; this was the cause of his conflict with the other Founders and his leaving the school. However, he left behind the Chamber of Secrets in the hope that one day his heir would open the Chamber and release the basilisk within to target Muggle-born students. Tom Riddle was this heir, and the basilisk petrified several Muggle-born students in 1943 and the 1992–1993 school year and managed to kill one student, Myrtle Warren, in 1943.

 File:Weasley family.png
Riddle, later known as Lord Voldemort, continued his persecution of those who were not pure-bloods (ironically being a half-blood himself) with his followers, the ***Death Eaters***. They strove to place pure-bloods in control of the wizarding world and to eventually rid it of Muggle-borns entirely. When Voldemort succeeded in taking over the ***Ministry of Magic*** during the height of the Second Wizarding War, his followers created the ***Muggle-Born Registration Commission*** in order to weed Muggle-borns out of the population and send them to ***Azkaban*** for allegedly stealing magic. Pure-bloods were also blatantly favoured within the Ministry and, to a lesser extent, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, although half-blood was sufficient to avoid prosecution.

However, there were pure-bloods who did not have these beliefs, and instead treated all magical people and Muggles as equals. These pure-blood folk were often labelled "blood traitors" by the more bigoted pure-bloods. There were also a few pure-bloods who were still fanatical, but were more lax about marriages and allowed their family members to marry Half-Bloods, for example the ***Malfoys***.

## Known pure-blood families

### Possible pure-bloods

Due to their affiliation to Slytherin and Lord Voldemort, many wizards and witches might be considered pure-bloods. Others had openly expressed their prejudice toward half-bloods and Muggle-borns, which is another reason to believe they were pure-blood supremacists. Some even became ***Death Eaters***.

## See also

* Blood purity
* ***Death Eaters***

## Behind the scenes

* On ***J. K. Rowling***'s draft list of students in Harry Potter's class, the following students were mentioned as pure-bloods:
	+ ***Lavender Brown***
	+ ***Stephen Cornfoot***
	+ ***Isobel MacDougal*** Template:Comment
	+ ***Morag MacDougal***
* Coincidentally, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley are each of the three distinct types of wizards; Harry being a half-blood, Hermione being Muggle-born, and Ron being a pure-blood.
* Many characters mention throughout the series that blood purity doesn't matter, often using Hermione Granger in comparison to Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom as an example. Ron had long struggled with living in the shadows of how much better students his older brothers were, and often would not try if he felt the situation was out of his control or too difficult, preferring to goof off or play with Chocolate Frog cards (though he did ultimately emerge as a capable student and wizard in his own right). Similarly, despite Neville's pure-blood heritage, he was not initially an extremely talented wizard and also suffered from a lack of confidence, two things which made him a target for ridicule and difficulty, particularly from Professor Snape (but like Ron in his later life he better grasped his full potential). However, Hermione, by contrast, is a supremely gifted witch despite her Muggle-born status and, unlike Ron and Neville, performed very well right from the beginning.
	+ Likewise, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were both often thuggishly stupid and gave poor academic performances in spite of their Pure-Blood status, and Harry's mother Lily was one of her teachers', Horace Slughorn's, all-time favourite students, performing exceptionally well in his and other classes.
* The *Harry Potter* Glossary at ***Scholastic***'s official website lists the term "Trueblood" as "Someone born to pure magical parents." This term, however, is not known to have appeared in any official *Harry Potter* media. The nuance with "pureblood" may be that while the child of a half-blood and a pureblood counts as a pureblood, a trueblood can only be the child of two purebloods. That is however unconfirmed.
* The concept of pure-blood is also similar to the real-life situation of nearly all European royal families being related, especially the British and (now extinct) German monarchies. Royals were only allowed to marry another member of the aristocracy, so most of the families were interrelated through marriage. Similarly, the issue of in-breeding is something that ravaged many real life European royal lines.
	+ Likewise, the concept of blood purity, and how if one goes back far enough it is clear there is no such thing, is strongly analogous to real life racial purity attitudes such as those held by White Supremacists and the Nazis (the latter of whom J.K. Rowling explicitly compared to the Death Eaters, as seen below), but also how it is theorised all human being's ancestry can be traced back to Africa (and specifically Ethiopia), thus precluding the idea that "wholly white" lineages could have ever existed.

### Author's comments

On the subject of blood purity, ***J. K. Rowling*** has said the following:

> *The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood', and 'Muggle-born' have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators' prejudice. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of his maternal grandparents. If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted 'Aryan' or 'Jewish' blood...the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent 'polluted' the blood, according to their propaganda.*
>
>

This statement indicates that all of a wizard or witch's grandparents must have magical heritage — i.e. that he or she cannot have a single ***Muggle*** grandparent — in order for him or her to be considered pure-blood. The detailed and lengthy family trees maintained by pure-blood families such as the ***House of Black*** maintained a record of all the pure-bloods born and married into the family (as well documenting those who were blasted off to maintain the family's sense of purity).

## Appearances

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* *Harry Potter: The Wand Collection*
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## Notes and references

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1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 F.A.Q. Section: "Are all the pure-blood families going to die out?" at Template:JKRS - "Don't forget that, as Sirius revealed in 'Order of the Phoenix', none of these families is really 'pure' – in other words, they merely cross Muggles and Squibs off the family tree and pretend that they didn't exist. But yes, the number of families claiming to be pure is diminishing. By refusing to marry Muggles or Muggle-borns, they are finding it increasingly difficult to perpetuate themselves."
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Template:WW - "From the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy onwards, no Malfoy has married a Muggle or Muggle-born. The family has, however, eschewed the somewhat dangerous practice of inter-marrying within such a small pool of pure-bloods that they become enfeebled or unstable, unlike a small minority of fanatic families such as the Gaunts and Lestranges, and many a half-blood appears on the Malfoy family tree."
3. ↑ Template:TBB - "Albus Dumbledore on “The Fountain of Fair Fortune”" - "So-called pure-blood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles, and I should there-fore consider it both illogical and immoral to remove works dealing with the subject from our students’ store of knowledge."
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 FAQ at Template:JKRS - "The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators' prejudices. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of his mother's grandparents.
If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted 'Aryan' or 'Jewish' blood. I saw one in the Holocaust Museum in Washington when I had already devised the 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' definitions, and was chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent 'polluted' the blood, according to their propaganda."
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 ***Black Family Tree*** by ***J. K. Rowling*** Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "JKRtree" defined multiple times with different content
6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.27 6.28 6.29 6.30 6.31 6.32 6.33 6.34 6.35 6.36 6.37 ***House of Black*** Template:See image
7. ↑ Template:HBP - "“The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left,” said Hermione stubbornly. “I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It’s only Muggle-borns they hate, they’d be quite happy to let you and Ron join up.”"
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Template:OOTP - "“Shut your mouth!” Bellatrix shrieked. “You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare —” “Did you know he’s a half-blood too?” said Harry recklessly."
9. ↑ ***Black Family Tree Tapestry*** - Anyone on the tree by birth or marriage, and not disowned, is a pure-blood.
10. ↑ Template:OOTP
11. ↑ Template:DH
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Template:WW
13. ↑ ***Black Family Tree*** by ***J. K. Rowling*** - Cedrella Black was disowned for marrying blood traitor Septimus Weasley
14. ↑ File:Black family tapestry complete.jpg - Disowned for an unknown reason
15. ↑ ***Black Family Tree*** by ***J. K. Rowling*** - Iola Black was disowned for marrying Muggle Bob Hitchens
16. ↑ ***Black Family Tree*** by ***J. K. Rowling*** - Phineas was disowned for supporting Muggle Rights
17. ↑ ***Vincent Crabbe*** died in ***1998***; it is unknown if he had any siblings or if they had issue.
18. ↑ Through Irma's descendants.
19. ↑ Template:WW - "In childhood, Draco associated mainly with the pure-blood children of his father’s ex-Death Eater cronies, and therefore arrived at Hogwarts with a small gang of friends already made, including Theodore Nott and Vincent Crabbe."
20. ↑ It is unknown if the "Grandad" Neville once mentioned was his paternal or maternal grandfather.
21. ↑ Harry Potter's children are half-bloods as their grandmother Lily was Muggle-born
22. ↑ The only known member of the Prince family was ***Eileen Prince***, who had only one child, Severus Snape. Snape died in ***1998*** without having any children.
23. ↑ Slytherin’s only known descendants died with the Gaunts and Tom Riddle.
24. ↑ Bilius is a relative of the Weasleys, though it is unknown if he is arelation of Arthur of Molly.
25. ↑ Template:HPM