Heirs of Hogwarts. Was Dorcas Medows Heir of Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff?

[ghinghapuss]

No: HPFGUIDX 84812

> Jen wrote:
> <snip> My belief is that Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor and before 
Harry, so was James.  
 <snip> LV wanted to eliminate any threat to him, I think being 
> heir to one of the most powerful wizards of the age has some 
> advantage and LV wanted to get rid of that. 

Now me:
I have to question whether it is possible for the Potters to be the 
*only* true heirs of Gryffindor.  Why, because Hogwarts was founded 
1000 years ago and there would be 1000s of descendants of the four 
founders alive today.  And while it is possible to believe the title 
has moved down through the generations from eldest child to eldest 
child, so only one person (male or female) holds the tile at any one 
time, it is an enormous task to hold on to a title like that and not 
have *everybody* know it.

The family must guard the title with their lives, literally, as their 
existence as the Heir of 'whatever' depends on them owning that 
title.  It seems to me they would hold on to the name proudly and 
proclaim it at every opportunity. Lord Voldemort Heir of Slytherin or 
James Potter, Lord of Gryffindor.  Or some such thing.

Look at Britain's royal family for a good example. Do you realize how 
many wars, murders, coups and inter-marrying had to take place to 
hold on to the royal line? And how many times has it has changed 
families?  Most recently the crown should have skipped from the 
Windsor family to the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderbert-Glucksburn family 
when the Queen married Prince Phillip (who was a Prince of Greece and 
Denmark and took on his mothers name Mountbattern because it was 
thought to be more English, read: pureblood than Philippos Schleswig-
Holstein-Sonderbert-Glucksburn). But because of the war it was deemed 
prudent to have Prince Phillip take his wife's family name and keep 
the crown in the Windsor family. An event, which was very unusual and 
took and act of parliament to make it happen.  Confusing eh? ;-)

What I'm saying is it is hard for me to believe that if James was the 
sole heir to Gryffindor why has the WW has kept it quiet? And why 
don't we, as well has Harry know of it?  A title as big as one of the 
Heirs of Hogwarts is a huge deal, right?  The entire WW would be 
aware of who is who.  Also, didn't Harry have plenty of opportunities 
to find this out in the CoS, as his title as potential Heir of 
Slytherin was in question. Any of the students could have mentioned 
the small issue of him also being the Heir of Gryffindor if any of 
them knew.

However, that said, we are dealing with fantasy literature so I 
concede it could be possible and an intriguing idea for there to be a 
sole heir to each of the 4 founders of Hogwarts and how that might 
come in to play in the next books. So we have:

The Heir of Slytherin-  Lord Voldemort, 
The Heir of Gryffindor- Harry Potter 
Who are the Heir's of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?
Was Dorcas Meadows one of them.  It might explain why Voldmort killed 
gave her the special touch of killing her personally?

One last note, a title doesn't have to necessarily have to pass to 
the offspring of the title holder.  The reigning title holder can 
sometimes dictate just whom the title passes on to, naming that 
person as heir.  The Roman emperors did it that way.  Occasionally 
British monarchs in the middle ages did it.  

Now this is pure speculation but Lord Voldemort, although he wants 
immortality, still needs an Heir and some of his Death Eaters have 
kids coming of age soon.  Wouldn't that be another notch in Lucius 
Malfoy's belt to have his son names as Heir of Slytherin. :-)

Mandy