Pure-Blood

A pure-blood is a witch or wizard with a family tree devoid of any known Muggle or Muggle-born ancestry. The term is central to a supremacist ideology held by a segment of the wizarding community, which posits that magical ability is diluted or tainted by non-magical heritage. Adherents to this belief system advocate for the dominance of pure-bloods in wizarding society and the subjugation or exclusion of Muggle-borns, whom they derogatorily call “Mudbloods.” This ideology has deep historical roots, most famously championed by Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Slytherin believed that magical education should be reserved for those of entirely magical lineage, a belief that led to his conflict with the other founders and the creation of the Chamber of Secrets. This prejudice was later adopted and weaponized by Dark Arts practitioners, most notably Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Historically, many of the oldest and wealthiest wizarding families were pure-blood, and they often wielded considerable influence within the Ministry of Magic and broader society. Families such as the Malfoys, the Blacks, and the Lestranges used their lineage and wealth to maintain a high social standing and promote their prejudiced views. During Lord Voldemort's second rise to power, this ideology became state policy, leading to the creation of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission and the systematic persecution of Muggle-borns. However, not all pure-blood families subscribed to this supremacist doctrine. Families like the Weasleys and the Longbottoms were pure-blood but did not hold any prejudice against Muggles or Muggle-borns. For this reason, they were labeled as “blood traitors” by extremists. Sirius Black noted that most pure-blood families were interrelated because their refusal to marry Muggles or Muggle-borns had severely limited their pool of potential partners over the centuries. Ron Weasley speculates that the wizarding race would have died out without intermarriage with Muggles.

The following are some of the prominent families identified as pure-blood in the novels:

• Abbott
• Avery
• Black
• Carrow
• Crouch
• Gaunt
• Greengrass
• Lestrange
• Longbottom
• Malfoy
• Nott
• Rosier
• Selwyn
• Shacklebolt
• Slughorn
• Travers
• Weasley
• Yaxley

The concept of blood purity is fraught with hypocrisy and internal contradictions. The most significant of these is that its most powerful champion, Lord Voldemort, was himself a half-blood, the son of a pure-blood witch (Merope Gaunt) and a Muggle (Tom Riddle Sr.). Furthermore, the obsessive inbreeding among some fanatical families, such as the Gaunts, did not lead to enhanced power but rather to poverty, mental instability, and a decline in their family line. The existence of Squibs—non-magical individuals born into wizarding families—also serves as a constant embarrassment to pure-blood supremacists, as it proves that magical heritage does not guarantee magical ability. Many families, like the Blacks, would disown Squib relatives and remove them from family records.

• Half-blood: A witch or wizard with both magical and Muggle or Muggle-born parents or grandparents.
• Muggle-born: A witch or wizard born to two non-magical parents.
• Blood traitor: A pejorative term for a pure-blood or half-blood who socializes with or is sympathetic towards Muggles and Muggle-borns.
• Squib: A person born into a wizarding family but who has no magical ability.
• Mudblood: A highly offensive and vulgar slur used to denigrate a Muggle-born witch or wizard.

J.K. Rowling has stated that the pure-blood ideology and the Death Eaters' campaign were directly inspired by Nazi Germany's concept of an “Aryan master race” and the accompanying racial purity laws. The persecution of Muggle-borns thematically mirrors the Holocaust. (J.K. Rowling interview) On the Pottermore website, an article was published about the “Sacred Twenty-Eight,” a list of supposedly “truly” pure-blood British families from the 1930s, published in an anonymous Pure-Blood Directory. The list was controversial; the Potter family was excluded because their common surname suggested possible Muggle origins, and the Weasleys publicly decried their inclusion, proudly stating they had Muggle ancestors and were related to “most of the Muggles in England.” (Pottermore)