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It's kind of implied by us never seeing an example otherwise, but is there a definitive word that children of two individuals gifted with magic will always result in a gifted kid? Rowling's point would be strengthened if it wasn't the case, though it would be hard to explain magical society as a hidden counterpart to normal society if either the wizarding world or normal society was filled with the ungifted scions of witches and wizards (ie: wouldn't the ungifted seek out the technological tools of muggles to not live like they're handicapped in the wizarding world? and if they were exiled to the muggle world, there would be too many of them walking around, with no particular reason not to reveal what they know).
There are two named characters who are squibs, at least according to my memories. I haven't read it in a while, but I can remember both the neighbor crazy cat lady and the janitor being born to wizard parents and not having powers.
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https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Squib
It's rare.
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The dynamics of the genetic inheritance of magic are acknowledged by Rowling but not actually fleshed out anywhere. It's a catch-22 for the story. If ancestry doesn't matter in determining the likelihood of a child inheriting magic, that would go farthest in discrediting the Slytherin ethos: it actually doesn't matter what your ancestry is, and those people are obsessed with their ancestry for no reason. Classic late twentieth century take on the Race Question.
On the other hand, if it does matter then it lends justification to Slytherin's class structure and arguably adds more ambiguity to the story.
Or maybe they are like us, and they ignore all the Ministry studies saying it matters and instead the conventional wisdom is that ancestry does not matter when it actually does. And Slytherins are the only ones who (rightfully) believe it does. And if you believe it matters then you must be a follower of you-know-who.
So there we get Malfoid, the high-class racist girl, a much different interpretation than Voldemort.
The way the books lay it out, you need someone in the family line to be a witch/wizard in order to produce one yourself. But once you are born with magical talent then you have it to the same degree as everyone else. Hermione being the series' example of this. Diluted blood does not mean diluted magical ability, just that the odds of being born with it are less.
The Slytherin's worldview can still be unjustified on the basis that treating people poorly is bad. They bully those they perceive ass lesser and abuse institutional power for their own ends. They are clearly not worthy leaders regardless of their noble blood.
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Ancestry obviously matters (squibs are very rare, and muggleborns even rarer considering the large denominator, to the point that "infidelity" and "genetic mutation" might explain them all) but it might matter in a mostly trinary way. If there's something like a simple Punnett square for wizardry, with WW wizards and ww muggles and Ww squibs, then obsession with ancestry in the "don't marry a squib unless you're fine with half your kids being squibs!" sense would be descriptively correct, but obsession in the "Our purebred W alleles are better than their muggleborn W alleles" sense wouldn't be.
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