Death Eaters and Bloodline Theory

A month had passed since Manus experienced his Magical Outburst.

Clearly, this unexpected incident had disrupted Griffin and Aivina's plans for raising him, though in a good way.

To Griffin and Aivina, a Magical Outburst seemed to be a more important sign than age that Manus had "grown up," or rather, that he could be introduced to more knowledge about the Wizarding World.

Many topics that they would not have explained much even when Manus had asked about them in the past were now brought up by them voluntarily.

Over the past month or so, Manus had learned more about the wizarding world than he had in the previous four years combined, and many concepts he had previously misunderstood or only understood superficially had been redefined.

For example, their family was clearly wealthy, so why did they live in Cokeworth?

It was not that he disliked the place where he had lived for five years. The center of a major industrial town could not be that bad. The problem was that Muggles were everywhere around them, even right next door.

Since the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy prohibited them from revealing the existence of magic to Muggles, why live among a group of Muggles in the first place?

Even going out or casting a spell outside their own door required them to sneak around.

Even if they did not live with other wizards, could they not find somewhere scenic and remote to settle down?

As it turned out, they really could not.

"Living where Muggles gather is safer."

From Griffin's explanation, Manus learned more about the Death Eaters, whom he had only caught a passing mention of a month ago.

Speaking of the Death Eaters, one had to mention another concept: Pure-blood. The Death Eaters were a fanatical organization that followed a man calling himself Voldemort under the slogan of Pure-blood Supremacy.

Manus had originally thought the term Pure-blood described families that had produced wizards for generations.

After all, at the time, he had not known that magical ability was so likely to be inherited through bloodlines. He did not see anything wrong with such families feeling superior and flaunting their status.

Even if there was something wrong with it, he had only wondered why they used the term "Pure-blood."

However, once he learned the term's true definition, Manus's view of it changed completely.

The original definition of a Pure-blood was a wizard whose ancestors, generation after generation, had all been wizards.

And if a Pure-blood was to continue, they could only marry and have children with another Pure-blood whose ancestors had likewise all been wizards. Families containing such Pure-blood wizards were called Pure-blood Families.

Simply put, if one opened up the family tree and traced upward from oneself in any direction, every single person had to be a Pure-blood for one to count as a Pure-blood.

If even one person was not a Pure-blood, then from that person onward, that entire branch would never again be Pure-blood.

Of course, for various reasons, if such a harsh definition were strictly followed, there would be hardly any Pure-bloods left in Britain's Wizarding World. Thus, long ago, some families that did not wish to abide by it yet still wanted to call themselves Pure-bloods greatly relaxed the standard.

After the revision, being a Pure-blood no longer required marrying a Pure-blood wizard. As long as the parents of one's spouse were both wizards, that branch of the family could still be considered Pure-blood.

Yet whether before or after the standard was relaxed, its true definition made Manus feel deeply uncomfortable.

The last time he had seen a standard that checked whether one's bloodline was pure for several generations was at slave markets and bloodline conditioning shops.

A good bloodline could indeed raise the lower limit of one's talent, but it only guaranteed that lower limit.

Compared to others of the same kind with no talent, bloodline talent was indeed an advantage. But compared to those who possessed talent, talent derived from bloodlines was instead a disadvantage. Those who benefited from their bloodline were also constrained by it.

For those blessed with bloodline talent, surpassing the source of that bloodline meant overcoming one more obstacle than others of their kind. And when facing a superior bloodline of the same kind, they would be subjected to an additional layer of suppression for no reason at all.

Therefore, for positions such as recruiting disciples or students, where there were high expectations for future achievements, bloodline would generally never be deliberately made a criterion. It might even be a small but real drawback.

Only for roles such as slaves, deathsworn guards, and bodyguards—roles that would not receive much training and carried no great expectations for future achievement—would individuals with superior bloodlines be chosen, lowering selection costs and improving the value of training.

And that was only when bloodlines genuinely could grant talent...

So the question was, what additional talent did Pure-blood wizards possess compared with non-Pure-blood wizards?

Lacking samples, Manus could not draw a conclusion for now. After all, according to Griffin, their family was also a Pure-blood Family that no longer followed the original definition of Pure-blood.

Therefore, Manus could not declare that Pure-bloods definitely could not grant any bloodline talent simply because he had not discovered any special bloodline talent in this body.

But judging by the fact that so many Pure-blood Families had already abandoned the original definition while still firmly retaining the title of Pure-blood, Manus felt that being Pure-blood probably had little to do with strength.

Pure-blood was most likely like royal blood or noble blood: merely an unchangeable standard, favorable to themselves, drawn up by Pure-bloods to divide up benefits when they had no genuine substance to show.

One only had to look at what the Death Eaters were doing now. They shouted slogans of Pure-blood Supremacy while taking pleasure in torturing and slaughtering Muggles and Mudbloods—the Pure-blood slur for wizards whose parents were both Muggles...

And they did not even dare to do so openly. At present, the Death Eaters did not dare to engage the Ministry of Magic in large-scale frontal conflict. When they encountered Aurors, the Ministry's law enforcement division, they could only fight while fleeing, and they did not dare massacre people openly in the centers of Muggle towns.

If Pure-bloods truly were superior, the situation would certainly not look like this.

At least in Manus's experience, if a Pure-blood dragon faced provocation from a mixed-blood drake, it simply crushed the offender outright.

Returning to Manus's own family, the King Family had been a Pure-blood Family that gave up on the original definition early on. Under such circumstances, the King Family had split into two factions. One supported the Death Eaters' view that non-Pure-bloods should be purged and enslaved, while the other did not. Griffin was clearly part of the latter faction.

That was why Griffin had moved out to live alone with Aivina, to prevent retaliation from the Death Eaters. Though they were not opposed to Pure-bloodism, merely unsupportive of it, there were plenty of lunatics among the Death Eaters. Who could be sure they would not set their sights on them?

Although the Death Eaters currently looked like a ramshackle outfit, their leader, Voldemort, was indeed formidable. Moreover, there were quite a few wizards who supported Pure-bloodism. They might not be able to completely suppress the wizards opposed to Pure-bloodism and seize the upper hand in the Wizarding World, but they still posed a great threat to individual wizarding households.