Pure-blood

The final members of the Gaunt family

Pure-bloods are witches and wizards who supposedly have no Muggle or Muggle-born blood in their family tree. Their numbers have declined and every lineage has at least a few non-wizard ancestors. Many people in the wizarding world are proud to say they do not have any non-wizard blood. A few support a stance that they are superior to other witches and wizards. They appear throughout the Harry Potter book series.

About

The "blood traitor" Weasley family

The term pure-blood is given to a family or a new generation of children if they havr no Muggle or Muggle-born parents or grandparents. Many pure-bloods will only marry others of the same blood status in order to keep their bloodline "pure", and consider people who are Muggle-born to have no right to call themselves a witch or wizard. Pure-bloods who do not care about blood purity are labelled "blood traitors" because they do not appear to value their blood status enough.

The number of pure-bloods has declined because wizarding families are inter-related and married their cousins, which caused limited choices for marriage. Pure-bloods who do not want to marry cousins or lose their blood status will instead marry a half-blood but they hide their ancestry. They will erase any non-wizards off their family tree. Any pure-bloods who says they have no Muggle or Muggle-born blood are not telling the truth.

Half-blood witches and wizards who support pure-blood superiority thought higher of the wizarding side of their family. For example, Tom Riddle was a half-blood but took on a new name to hide having a Muggle father. He wouldn't speak of their connection but Voldemort advised people to "prune" their family tree of anyone who was a Muggle, Muggle-born, Squib or blood traitor, which the Noble House of Black was known to do.

History

The Malfoy family who supported blood superiority

Salazar Slytherin was a supporter of pure-blood superority. He wanted the other founders of Hogwarts to accept only pure-bloods are worthy of learning magic but they refused and it eventually led to an argument. Salazar left the school but built a Chamber of Secrets in the hope the Basilisk within would one day purge the school of Muggle-borns. It was opened twice. One student was killed while others were Petrified but the Serpent of Slytherin was stopped when Harry Potter killed it. Students in Slytherin are usually pure-bloods with the same core values of its founder. Very rarely, if ever, will a Muggle-born be placed in Slytherin.

In the 1940s, Tom Riddle founded the Death Eaters who were mainly pure-bloods who wanted a world in which they were in control and Muggle-borns were eliminated. During the Second Wizarding War, they distributed propaganda that Muggle-borns had stolen their magic. However, pure-bloods including the Weasley family opposed it and contributed to the eventual defeat of Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Known pure-bloods

Family	Notes
Black	In 1996, the final member of the Black family by name was killed, but their bloodline continued through the female line.
Bulstrode
Burke
Crouch	The two final known Crouches were killed in 1995.
Flint
Gamp
Gaunt	The final known member died by the 1990s, and the final known member through a female line (the half-blood Tom Riddle) was killed in 1998.
Lestrange	Rodolphus and Bellatrix were childless when she died in 1998. It's unknown whether the surviving members had any children.
Longbottom	It's unknown whether Neville Longbottom and wife Hannah Abbott had any children.
Macmillan
Malfoy
Nott
Peverell
Potter	Later half-blood through Harry Potter.
Prewett	Gideon and Fabian Prewett were killed and it's unknown whether they had any children. The bloodline continues in the female line through their sister, Molly Weasley, who married Arthur Weasley of the pure-blood Weasley family.
Rosier
Selwyn
Slytherin
Weasley	Later branches of the family were known to be half-blood.
Yaxley

Possible pure-bloods

These characters have connections to the Death Eaters or a particular behaviour towards blood status, meaning these could be pure-blood or at the very least, half-bloods.

• Avery
• Brown
• Carrow
• Crabbe
• Fudge
• Gibbon
• Goyle
• Greengrass
• Macnair
• Mulciber
• Parkinson
• Prince
• Rowle