The Polyjuice Incident and House Identification

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 84771

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Eric Oppen" <oppen at m...> wrote:
> One possible explanation for Ron and Harry's mistake with the Ravenclaw girl
> when they, having Polyjuiced themselves into the image of the
> Stones-that-Speak to gain entry into the Slytherins' sanctum, was that they
> saw her from the back...and whatever House badges, emblems, and so on
> Hogwarts may have are on the _front_ of the robes.

<snip>

> So-o-o, I think it's perfectly possible for there to be House emblems (as
> there were in the Celluloid Thingy That Must Not Be Mentioned On This List)
> and for Harry and Ron to not have been able to tell a Ravenclaw they didn't
> know from a Slytherin, when she was seen from the back.

Or perhaps a simpler solution is that the Ravenclaw girl is Penelope 
Clearwater - remember, Harry and Ron meet Percy only a few minutes 
later, and Ron is startled enough to ask him why he's in that part of 
the castle.  As I understand it, Percy's supposed to be the red herring 
in CoS, and I suppose his presence in an area he wouldn't normally be 
frequenting might cause suspicion (I never caught that bit with Percy 
myself) but what's really going on is that he's had an assignation with 
his girlfriend.  I think that's why JKR went to the trouble of placing the 
girl there and of mentioning to us that she's a Ravenclaw - just her 
way of making sure all the pieces are in place once the truth about 
Percy is revealed.  Possibly the presence of Ravenclaws in that corridor 
would have been as unusual as that of Gryffindors, which is why the 
boys expected her to be a Slytherin.

Also, it's funny.

Abigail
Who wonders whatever happened to Penelope Clearwater