If a Muggle was born of a wizard/witch and a Muggle, is that person a Squib, or is that reserved to people born from pure-blood families?
(Related: Is a Squib a Muggle?)
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Also related: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9254/is-it-genetically-possible-for-a-squib-to-produce-magical-offspring – Rand al'Thor Feb 07 '16 at 15:07
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Reopening because this asks what types of families can produce Squibs, which isn’t covered in if Squibs are basically Muggles. – Obsidia Aug 16 '18 at 03:48
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Squibs aren’t only pure-blood - they can have a Muggle parent.
If a wizard and Muggle have a nonmagical child, it’s a Squib. In the Pottermore writing on Dolores Umbridge, it’s mentioned that her parents (a wizard father and Muggle mother) have two children together - Dolores, a witch, and her brother, who was a Squib.
Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard, and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had a Squib son.
- Dolores Umbridge (Pottermore)
This shows that Squibs can be born to a wizard/Muggle couple - in that case the nonmagical child would still be considered a Squib, not a Muggle, despite having one Muggle parent. It also shows by extension that Squibs don’t have to be pure-blood, as any child with a Muggle parent isn’t.
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No I don't think so. Kendra Dumbledore was definitely a Muggle-born witch:
'Dumbledore's mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifying. Muggle-born, though I heard she pretended otherwise -'
'She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman,' whispered Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him.
And yet nobody has any problem speculating that Arianna was a Squib:
'- proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified to produce a Squib -'
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - p.129 - Bloomsbury - Chapter 8, The Wedding
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@Alex ? Muriel thought Ariana was a Squib? And her mother was Muggle born so she's not Pure blood she's half blood – Au101 Aug 16 '18 at 11:35
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But the question wasn't about (all) half-bloods; it was specifically about people with a muggle parent. – Alex Aug 16 '18 at 11:41
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@Alex The question body also says "or is that reserved to people born from pure-blood families?" and the titular question is "Do Squibs have to be pure-blood?" I'm assuming 2+ years ago I didn't take "If a Muggle was born of a wizard/witch and a Muggle" to be deliberately and carefully restricting the type of non-pure-blooded person the question was about, I probably understood it as a simple attempt to quickly restate the titular question so as to provide an actual question body. I think this info remains interesting and relevant, but Bella's answer is really good, if not book canon – Au101 Aug 16 '18 at 12:09
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In any case, since in the Harry Potter universe, people only distinguish pure blood, half blood and Muggle-born, if a Squib can be one type of half blood, surely it can be another type of half blood – Au101 Aug 16 '18 at 12:17
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But there is a reasonable difference between a half-blood that has two magical parents and a half-blood that has a muggle parent. The former is expected to be magical; hence, if not magical he/she is an anomaly and called a squib. If one parent is a muggle, though, maybe the kid is just a muggle like the parent. – Alex Aug 16 '18 at 12:51
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@Alex Perhaps to us, but nowhere in Harry Potter canon are there subdivisions of half-blood. To the people who care about such things in universe, a half-blood has a Muggle ancestor in their reasonably traceable family tree. And the people who don't care about such things don't care about such things. If Ariana can be called a Squib then any half blood can – Au101 Aug 16 '18 at 13:04
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@SiriusBlack ? I don't think it's very likely Ariana was a Squib, I said "And yet nobody has any problem speculating that Arianna was a Squib:" My reasoning was, if Squibs had to be Pure-Blood then people would of course realise that Arianna couldn't have been a Squib, but everyone thought that it was quite possible for her to be a Squib even though she was not Pure-Blood. Therefore it seems that the general understanding in the Harry Potter universe is that it's quite possible for half-bloods to be Squibs, therefore they don't have to be Pure Blood... – Au101 May 26 '20 at 21:48
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I mean it's possible that the general understanding, or Auntie Muriel's understanding, was false, but you're not gonna get perfect, mathematical truth in answering a question like this, you can only make reasonable deductions. It's also possible that nobody put 2 and 2 together, especially if they were actively looking for conspiracy theories, but really these two facts are so close together in Muriel's line of reasoning I don't think one can just say Muriel overlooked the fact that only Pure-Bloods can be Squibs when she suggested Arianna was one. I think Squibs don't have to be pure-blood – Au101 May 26 '20 at 21:51
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A Muggle wouldn't be born of a wizard/witch and Muggle, instead a Squib would be born. That's because since the child contains traits of a Muggle and a magical person, he/she wouldn't be purely non-magical, and he/she would have some magical characteristics inherited from the magical parent. Hence the child would become a Half-Blood Squib...
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