A clue nobody has brought up AFAIK...

[ravenclaw001]

No: HPFGUIDX 122183


I was watching the second (medium-that-must-not-be-named) and I 
suddenly had a thought.  

When Tom Riddle shopped Hagrid, and got him expelled, he had to have 
gone into the Gryffindor dorms.  Herself has said that Hagrid was a 
Gryff (I'd like it if some of the characters she obviously likes were 
put into _some_ other house...Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and, dare I 
mention, Slytherin, but that's another rant) and I'm quite sure that 
even someone as lacking in the common-sense department as Our Hagrid 
wouldn't have had an illegal-and-dangerous acromantula hidden outside 
of his own dorm.  If it were hidden outside, in some other part of 
the castle, there would always be the risk that someone could come 
across Young Aragog and either AK it (not a bad idea, that) or report 
it to the authorities.  

We know that Young TR, at this time, was only sixteen.  Therefore, he 
couldn't have been a Head Boy.  However, he _was_ a Prefect.  Does 
this mean that prefects are able to enter the dormitories and 
other "private" areas of Houses other than their own?  So far, we've 
only ever seen one instance of anybody entering a House other than 
their own, and that was with the help of Polyjuice Potion.  But, as 
has been pointed out here, there's a lot we just don't know about 
prefects and their powers.  Can they or can't they take points from 
members of other Houses?

Will we see Hermione and Ron pulling raids on the Slytherin Common 
Room in the next two books?  Or---another thought---have we all been 
barking up the wrong tree, led astray by Herself?  Was Young Tom 
Riddle a Gryffindor?  

--Eric Oppen, who still likes the idea of "the force the Dark Lord 
knows not" being Love...and having Harry suffused with it, and 
chasing Voldy around the MoM like Pepe le Pew with the cat.  "Ah, my 
passionate little Dark Lord, at last you are in my arms! *smooch 
smooch smooch* Your lips say no-no-no, but your pretty red eyes say 
yes-yes-yes!"  Meanwhile the DEs, Aurors and Order are all staring 
wide-eyed, laughing so hard as to render them helpless to interfere...