Does anyone have any idea how muggle borns actually happen? I got thinking about it in relation to Lily Vs Petunia... how was one born as a witch and the other not? Is there anythin in the canon about how wizards come to be, and where muggle-borns come from in a family of muggles?

I know I would be SO frustrated if one of my siblings was born a wizrd or witch and I was born a muggle (I can empathise with Petunia in this situation, and am in a way not surprised that she dealt withit by using a "sour grapes" approach to her feelings about Liuly as a witch)

Would love to hear some theories..

I think it happens when the parents are both squibs or maybe the grandparents were squibs or wizards and witches so the parents are "carrying" magic with them and they pass it on to their children, kind of like some diseases that come from the parents who are carrying the disease and they pass it on to their children who get the disease.

well, i think they are born like normal people but they have special powers but their parents mustn't be squibs nor anybody in their family.
take hermione for an example it was never mentioned that any one in her family was a wizard nor a squib.

I think it's just a freak thing like a squib being born to a family of all wizards. What I don't get is how muggle-born wizards don't pass their blood line onto their children, like in Harry's situation. His dad and mom were both wizards, but since his mom was muggle-born he is only a half-blood? Any thoughts?

Pure Bloods have family lineage on both sides as pure-blood relatives. Most Wizards are Half-Blood "nowadays", which is why Pure-bloods tend to intertwine with each other's families (like on the Black family's wall-chart, which showed links to the Malfoy's among others).

My take as far as Muggle-born's go is that some are simply born with the gift, like a talented footballer or Doctor. Look at certain families, a footballer's son will stand a good chance of becoming a good footballer himself, a Doctor's son will stand a good chance of becoming a Doctor, because it's in the genes. Now the original Footballer or Doctor, they were born to non-footballing, non-Doctor parents, at some point. Both Hermione's parents are Dentists, but she was born with the Magical gift.

What we do know is that there is a magic quill at Hogwarts that records the birth of a magical child, and Professor McGonagall checks it every year and sends owls to those magical children who are turning 11. The Ministry of Magic do not know of this before Hogwarts. That does kinda point towards the "born with a gift" theory.

I agree with the "freak of nature" take. Muggle's can have magical children...Magical folk can have squibs. However, squibs do have a form of magic. It is said that Muggles can't see Hogwarts for what it really is, they'll see a ruin of sorts. We already know Filch can see it and interact with it. Therefore, they must have some sort of magic (and a connection to cats). I suppose Muggle-borns have something similar, but since Muggles don't exert something that sets themselves apart...it doesn't come through like it does for squibs.

The "freak of nature" explanation is most fitting I think. It's like being really good at math or languages or whatever! The awakiening of a sixth sense? or a seventh?
It must be hard though for muggle-borns to find out they're a witch or a wizard. Because if this happened to you? Would you believe or your parents?

I think its natural that they are born with the gift of magic,like some people are really good in some subjects because it's natural. I think it's the same deal that even if your parents are good at something you might be really good at the entirely opposite thing,same with magic,that a muggle-born is born with the ability of magic. Or they are probably chosen as a wizard/witch because they have some interests in magic.(sorry if I don't make sense here )

I've actually thought about this one before.

I guess your just born with magic or your not. But even squids have some trace of magic in them. I'm not really sure how Muggle-born wizards came to be so couldn't it be possibly that a wizard and a normal person had a magical child back in the way old days? Then every muggle would relate to a wizard, but they would all just be squibs. Does that make any sense at all?

Also, I would think it would be easier for Muggles to have magical children then wizards to have squibs.

I believed it was sort of a born gifted kind of thing. Like, how some people are born really really academically gifted (in other words, super douper smart). They were just born magically. Or maybe if two un-magical genes fuse, it will create a magical gene (Never Studied DNA, so...).

personally i beleive that muggle-borns arent truly muggle born
i think they have some witches or wizard relatives in there family even if they are very distant and it sort of back throws
i also like some people squib theorys would work if a squib married a muggle and lived as a muggle and never told about his wizard ancestors because they were born as an outcast to that world

I sort of agree with you on that point. I don't think that to be a muggle-born you have some sort of distant relative that was a wizard. It would just be more likely for you to have the gift. I think that some people are just naturally magical, like the opposite of squibs.




I am pretty sure you are correct on this point. Based on the fact that there are many, many muggle-born wizards and you only see like 3 squibs in the whole series. People say that squibs go live as muggles or something, but you never hear a kid say, yeah my brother is a squib so he doesn't go to hogwarts; and if it were just as common as muggle-borns than i think you would hear that more often.

Of course, there are way more muggles than wizards, so the percentage of squibs/wizards to muggle-borns/muggles may be close...any thoughts??

If I remember correctly JK said in a Web chat that for muggle borns somewhere (even distantly) there would be a magic family member. It could be like 7 generations back, you never know.

Yeah, It's like say your parents, siblings, grandparents etc. all have brown eyes say, and then you have blue eyes. We know that this is obviously because someone down the line in your family have blue eyes. I think it's the same kind of thing with muggle borns. Although the rest of your immediate family are muggles, there has to have been someone along the way who was a wizard or witch.

However, I don't believe fully in this theory. I think it could be to do with genetics, but not in the way mentioned above. For any of you who have seen the TV show Heroes, this will make more sense as I'm using it as an example.

So in Heroes, they all have abilities, some have them because their parents also had abilites. Claire can regenerate, but she isn't like a muggle born, her parents, Meredith (pyrokenesis) and Nathan (flying) also had powers or abilities too. However, there are also some who are like muggle borns. Hiro Nakamura can bend time and space, yet we never know whether anyone else in his family has any abilities, and it appears that it is more than likely they don't. So where did his power come from? His DNA mutated. That's how all of these heroes got their powers, their DNA is mutating, giving them these special abilities.

I think it's the same with muggle borns. Like there's a magic gene or something... their DNA mutates in a way that they can do magic, they are given abilities, and therefore, they can do magic whilst their parents can't

Hope that makes sense

Kelly
x

For a muggle born to have magical abilities there is someone down the line that was a witch or a wizard. It could be a distant ancestor. But the ability comes from having it run in family at some point. The reason why some siblings have magical abilities and others don't is because they do or do not posses that gene. Like what PottyHead said about the eye color...same principal.

Dawn

I think it has to do with genes. JKR said somewhere that all muggle-borns have a witch or wzard somewhere in their ansestory. Both of the Creevy brothers are wizards. If being a muggle-born was some random thing, then it would be very rare that are two muggle-born brothers. It is probably genetics, because this situation is more common, than say squib brothers. Which I think maybe just a "freak of nature" and not genetics.

I'm in agreement with those who say it's genetic. I believe it's kind of like how people can be carriers for certain diseases without having the disease.

For example, say you have to have 2 magic genes to be magical, and if you only have 1 you're a carrier. If you don't have any, you're a muggle.

So, two magical parents have children. The children each receive one magic gene from each parent, so they end up with 2 genes each and are magical.

So, if two carriers have children, there's a chance the child will receive one magic gene from each parent, resulting in a child with 2 magic genes.

I apologize if that didn't make sense, it did in my head, lol.

I'm thinking, which is very rare mind you, that there's a gene pool and at one point the muggle born intercepted the ability to use magic.