Question: There is something about wizards I don't understand. Why do they keep their magic a secret?
Answer: One reason is that Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon Dursley absorbed his hatred of wizards from his wife, Aunt Petunia Dursley. As the Harry Potter books progress, we find out that Vernon's wife, Petunia, was a "muggle" (not a wizard) but her sister, Lily, Harry's mother, had magical powers. Petunia was jealous and resentful of Lily, and, because of this, Harry Potter and the whole wizarding world. For all his faults, Vernon loves Petunia, and so he shares her hatred of wizards. It appears that Vernon and Petunia know a lot more about the wizarding world than they would admit. They cannot tolerate the thought that Harry Potter is a wizard with powers and abilities greater than theirs, so they put Harry Potter (and the wizarding world) down at every opportunity.
Answer: He is someone who has a certain belief system and is intolerant of anything or anyone that violates that belief. He particularly does not like or trust something like wizards that are so different from himself. He also fears them.
Question: Why didn't Draco get in trouble for making that snake appear at the dueling club?
Question: How did Riddle know that the people the Basilisk was petrifying were muggle born? It sounds to me like Ginny was his best shot at knowing, but how could she know?
Answer: It's easy to tell which students are Muggle-born. They have little knowledge of the wizarding world and need special training, their parents are not wizards, and Hogwarts, being a small community, makes it easy to know everyone's background. Ginny would have little problem identifying which students Riddle should target.
Answer: Many reasons. Muggles (non-magic people) would have a variety of reactions to them. Many would fear their power, others would want wizards to solve all their problems with magic, others would want to eradicate them. From the wizards' point of view, they live a certain way, and that would be disrupted by humans knowing about them.
raywest
I thought the reason wizards kept their magic a secret was fear of discrimination.
That is one additional reason among the variety of others listed.
raywest
In the first book Hagrid explains that muggles would want magical solutions to all their problems and that the wizards are best left alone.
Ssiscool