Hogwarts Hierarchy?

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 13437

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., wings909 at a... wrote:
> This has been bugging me for quite a while in regards to Prefects
> and Head Boys and Girls.
> 
> How many Prefects can each house have?
> Was Percy the only one for Gryffindor?
> How are the Prefects chosen? Good grades, teachers vote?
> According to my best guess, Percy was a Prefect in his fifth year,
> so is year 5 the year that you can be chosen to be Prefect?

I hope John Walton is writing the FAQ on prefects, because last year 
he wrote a detailed and extremely funny description of prefects at 
his boarding school.

John indicated that his school's opinion of how many Prefects each 
House should have is the more prefects there are, the more can 
share the work. 

However, discussion on this list has often sounded to me like most of 
the people on this list think Hogwarts has six prefects per House -- 
one boy and one girl from each of fifth, sixth, and seventh year. The 
prefects are chosen by the faculty and list people seem to believe 
that good grades must have something to do with it. I say, it CANNOT 
be limited to students of good behavior and obedience to the rules, 
or James Potter, well known to the Head of his House as a big-time 
troublemaker and rulebreaker, would not have a prefect. I think John 
said that one well-known troublemaker at his school was made a 
prefect as an effort to correct his behaviour.

I'm inclined to think that Hogwarts faculty, when choosing prefects, 
would take into consideration which kids were already leaders in 
their Houses -- which could possibly result into making Neville a 
prefect in order to force him to grow a spine.

There is only ONE Head Boy and ONE Head Girl for the entire school. 
Where does it say that Penelope was Head Girl?