I know a lot of people don’t particularly like the idea of rich Harry (me included) but when you think about it, it makes sense. J.K Rowling has said that James “Inherited plenty of money, so he didn’t need a well-paid profession”. I always took that to mean he had some income from investments. I would imagine at the very least that would mean 70,000 a year in USD which converts 6,951 Galleons. Take that over 10 years and you get 69,510 Galleons or 699,965 USD.

That’s certainly rich but not nearly so bad as most fanfictions make Harry out to be. However I was thinking yesterday what about reward money from Voldemort’s first fall. Well I based the prize money off of Osama Bin Laden which is at current 50,000,000 USD from the state department and 2,000,000 USD from private sources. That would come out to 5,163,853 Galleons. So all in all Harry would be worth 5,233,363 Galleons converted to USD would be 52,699,965 converted to pounds that would be 31,977,917.

This is still pretty light compared to most fanfictions that make Harry out to be richer then Bill Gates. Does anyone else Have an opinion on this or am I just a nerd.

I used this calculator to come up with the Galleon to dollar conversions.
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/galleons.html

 

You'll be banned in 13 days.

Hey, if you can pull numbers out of your ass, so can I.

 

What's the population of the coalition established by the US to combat Osama Bin Laden?

Compare that to JKR's estimation of the magical population of Britain (didn't she say 1000?). Why would those two disparate amounts of people be able to come up with the same reward money?

If you like, just use the population of the US. Or the population of the UK. Or even the population of the Congo, which is still WAY bigger than HP's magical UK.

So no, I don't think he gets the 50 million bonus.

 

I'm pretty sure all that's said is that he has enough to last all 7 years of Hogwarts if he doesn't blow it all, not rich. I personally think a poor!Harry could be a pretty cool plot point. He could perform many crazy schemes in order to get rich.

 

Harry's rich; just think about it.

First of all, his trust fund has more money than the entire Weasley vault has, and that's just his trust fund. The Potters obviously have a great deal of money.

Second, he's heir to the Black fortune, and I'm pretty sure that family has even more money than the Potters.

Third, Harry's a hero; people are going to be throwing money at him. Certainly, he's going to be getting money from all sort of endorsements whether he wants it or not.

Finally, he's the reason Fred and George were able to start their joke shop - a joke shop that has expanded and become very successful.

 

You were doing fine up until the reward money part. As kmfrank said, it's unlikely that the magical population of Britain could afford that. Furthermore, there's nothing in canon to indicate that he got ANY sort of reward beyond the thanks of a grateful nation.

Also, the money accumulated from his father would likely be more. "Inherited" means that he got money from his parents when they died, so he wasn't starting from scratch with any investments he may or may not have had. JKR said it was enough that he didn't need a regular job, so that means that he inherited a lot of money. Some of it was likely in investments, so that money would have grown while Harry was growing up with the Dursleys.

I'm not going to get into numbers because I can't find an average cost of living for the UK in the '80s, but suffice to say, Harry is at least well-off, if not rich. Since his father died only a couple years after coming into his inheritance, I think it's safe to say that Harry won't need a well-paying job either. However, I doubt that he is on the Bill Gates level of rich that many authors put him at.

 

I don't think Harry has any investments or income. I don't think the wizarding world even has a stock market or shares.

I'd say that he's comfortably rich but not fuck off rich. Maybe something around 50,000 galleons (still ~£250k).

As for Black fortune, there's no evidence that they're rich, and Dumbledore didn't mention it. I mean, they have a London house, so that's pretty valuable, but there's no evidence of liquid assets.

 

The wizarding world may not have official stocks or shares, but businesses still need funding. Something like what Harry did with the twins would probably be common seeing as they suggested it so readily. That still counts as an investment in my books.

 

Okay, lets straighten up a couple of fanon misconceptions here:

1) There is never any mention of wizarding investments. No mention of shares or stocks or anything that would imply that any company in the wizarding world is a public company.

2) There is never any indication that Hogwarts is a fee based institution.

3) James Potter had enough money to live comfortably whilst chasing down Death Eaters and Voldemort, this does not mean that he owned millions of galleons in properties or cash.

4) Harry Potter has one vault, it is not a trust fund, it is his parent's vault that he inherited.

5) There is never any mention of interest from Gringotts, meaning Harry's trust vault will not get bigger.

Harry is not rich, nor is he poor. He's pretty comfortable whilst studying at Hogwarts, but it's likely, as in canon, that he'll need a job when he leaves.

 

For once you're wrong about canon, Taure.

At the beginning of HBP, when D'dore comes to Privet Drive to get Harry, they talk about Sirius' will and how a "reasonable amount of gold" was transferred to Harry's vault. However, given D'dore's sardonic wit and flair for understatement, we have no idea if that was 3 galleons or 3 trillion.

 

Sirius buys Harry a firebolt pretty casually. It's fair to say they're decently well off.

 

You know that Harry doesn't own a share of their business right?

What Harry did with Fred and George wasn't an investment, it was a gift.

True that. Which is exactly why we can't take that statement to mean the Black's have any kind of substantial liquid assets - it's so vague that it's useless.

That's better evidence. Yeah, accepted. Though we don't know if Sirius left it to other people as well as Harry.

 

You're right; I shouldn't have used the Weasleys as a measuring stick.

However, I never said there was some sort of reward. Certainly, I don't think that the Ministry is going to give Harry a large amount of money for the defeat of Voldemort; especially, since they spent so long denying his existance. Oh, and they would probably use that money to repair any damage the death eaters caused.

As the young, handsome defeater of Voldemort, I think it's plausible that Harry's face appeared on posters, clothing, etc. I realize Harry hates the publicity, but there's a chance he endorsed products which would earn him money.

The reason I mentioned Harry's contribution to the Weasleys, was the fact that as a partner, he'd earn a portion of the WWW's profits.

It's safe to assume that the Blacks and the Potters had a lot of money, because they, like the Malfoys, were an old pureblooded family. This is important, because canon shows the purebloods as being rich and influential.

This is totally off-subject, but it bugs me that Harry became an auror after graduation and not a professional Quidditch player. He loves to fly! Why would he become an auror after seven years of fighting 'bad guys'; wouldn't he be sick of it?

EDIT: Okay, disregard the bit about the Weasleys, then.

 

No.

filler

 

I over estimated the award money fair enough, but to say there was no reward money is ridicules.

Also stock isn't a modern invention variations on the theme goes back all the way to ancient rome. It's entirely possible that the wizarding world has some form of stock market. Admittedly there's no cannon evidence, but how interested in the stock market were you at 11. Harry wouldn't care and therefore we don't see it.

Even if the Potters and the Blacks owned no stocks they had to make money somehow. My guess would be that they owned properties that they rented to buisnesses and farms.

 

For some reason I thought F&G asked Harry to be a business partner, but perhaps I'm confusing fanon with canon. It's been a while since I read canon, so these things start to blend together after a while.

On the other hand, it's one of those things that makes sense. I find it hard to believe that every single business in the wizarding world started up completely out of the owner's pocket. It's something that many muggleborns and halfbloods would be at least aware of since it's such an integral part of muggle society, and it would be an easy system to bring into wizarding society. Plus, there's already Gringotts. Banks make their money off of investments. That's really the only way they can profit, so some investment is necessary at least for the goblins. Now we have two possible conduits for an investment system. Again, it doesn't have to be like the stock market, but I can definitely see loans and business partnerships being big things.

Edit:

Why? I'm pretty sure Harry didn't get a reward the second time, so why would he have gotten one the first?

 

Again, point to you. However, I think I remember one of the (dark) characters from the books making a remark about the Noble House of Potter. I may be entirely wrong, but I vaguely remember Draco mentioning the Noble House of Potter.... Anyway, if it was Draco who said that (assuming it was said), then obviously the Potters are wealthy enough to be respected by the Malfoys - who are wealthy themselves.

Growls. You would think Potter would get over his goddamn hero complex after it got Sirius killed.

Canon showed again and again how faulty the Ministry is. Besides, a government recovering from a war isn't just going to hand out free money... unless I hope so.

I thought the Weasleys made Harry a partner, too. It'd been a long time since I've read Goblet, though, so I may be wrong.

Wizards or not, having stock and interest is one of those business aspects that simply must exist. Having a bank like Gringotts that is able to give out loans reinstates that. If there wasn't any form of stock then it would be hard for simple people to form any sort of business. Banks wouldn't be able to give out loans, because the risk would be too great and there wouldn't be a way for them to earn the money back.

I suppose one could argue that Harry didn't get a reward the second time because the Ministry was completely incompetent. By the time they finally admitted Voldemort was back, the death eaters had infiltrated it, and they certainly weren't going to establish a reward fund. However, I don't think the Ministry gave out any rewards to Harry or the other wizards who helped in the wars; that's what the Orders of Merlin were/are for.

 

Ministry under Voldemort's control offered 10 000 Galleons for Harry. Even if they paid him for removing Voldemort, I think it's safe to assume that it would be at most the same amount.