And why on earth would the Weasleys, at any point in their lives, need to learn how to smelt and craft? And, how would they pay for it.

And you shouldn't say how much, just that he has a substantial amount. And everybody makes Harry's vault very large through interest. But they all forgot taxes.

And to answer what Lorelei of the Sea raised, brooms are very expensive.

 

I doubt that Gringotts pays much interest, if any. After all, there is no competition, so they don't have to convince the people to put their money into their bank.
If anything, they probably demand a fee for keeping your money save.

 

I want to see a Harry that isn't wealthy at all, he's in debt.

That would make a good humor story, EvadingDebtCollector!Harry. Imagine them trampling Death Eaters and Voldemort, and hunting Harry down...

 

I would put it at 100,000 Galleons.

That seems like enough to be comfortable, but not enough that he can maintain his lifestlye without working (ala Lucius Malfoy). Its also enough that he doesn't have to be frugal, but he does have to be careful and spend wisely (He'd be hard-pressed to buy a new house let alone a mansion.)

YOu could also make it so that the Potter Vault has everything locked up under a long-term contract with Gringotts (i.e. none of its readily available without a steep penalty fee). THis way he's forced to live using the trust vault's 10,000 galleons.

For me 100,000 is the lowest amount you could reasonably go to.

 

I like stories were harry is rich enough to be able to buy most things as long as he needs a job to bring in new money as well.

For me would 500 000 be the lower limit as long as he does not own any other houses then his parents house and the black family home. He would then need to spend quite a bit of money to fix either of the homes to be able to live in them.

 

And yet by the end of fourth year, 1000 galleons still isn't enough to turn his head.

So just have his trust account as his cash reserves. Have all the 'family' wealth tied up in various ventures and investments/property he can't touch. That's the way I went with JP; as the only heir of two big families, he's definitely wealthy, but he sure as hell can't withdraw enough cash to buy a ferrari unless he borrows from the Goblins.

Take a look at Bill Gates. A while ago he was the richest man in the world, but that was only because he owned a hefty chunk of the biggest company in the world. If he tried to liquidate it into 'cash' he'd be lucky to get a tenth of it after dumping that many shares onto the market at once.

Draco

 

In cannon harry must be rich, his parent's were well off ( far as i know ), then they die. Harry collect's his money on his 17th birthday, that's 16 years worth of interest he's earned while starving in a cupboard, then he got some gold from Sirius ( book 6 ) add 1 year of interest plus black manor/house he must be loaded.

my guess would be about 2-3 millon galleons.

no wonder the slut is after him she's a gold digger.

 

So long as it is under a few million it is reasonable. That way he can spend with out worrying but can't go and fund the entire war like he does in some fic's.

 

Umm, my guess is somewhere around 500,000. He doesn't buy the fanciest outfits or other expensive items. So 500,000 should be good enough, and if he needs more for the future, he could always get a job.

 

Gold is expensive. There's no doubt in my mind that even the poorest of wizards could just destroy or melt off the identifying marks on galleons and sell them to muggles for a huge profit.

 

Regarding the 1,000 galleon prize from GoF, note that all that fit in a small sack Fudge handed to Harry. Harry's vault is described as having mountains.

In the realm of property owned, we have to ask ourself about wizarding culture. Assuming that the Black Family is a typical pureblooded family (may not be fair, but bear with me), when a family dies off like the Potters, there ought to be a few pieces of real estate floating around. Unless people remain living with their parents as they start a new family, there is going to be a house here or there waiting for him. Let's assume that they aren't too different from muggles and alot of wizards rent. Would upper crust old money/influence families rent when they could buy? The Potters and the Blacks are both old Pureblooded families. Both families probably lost a lot of members in the wars against Grindewald and Volde such that one man controlled the life savings, properties, and investments of not only himself and his parents, but his siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Did all the Blacks live at 12 Grimmauld? Or all the Potters in a cottage at Godric's Hollow?

While I am not a fan of the "Why you are our largest depositor Mr. Potter..." style of wealth, I can understand a comfortably rich Harry with a few houses.

 

Inside bigger then outside .

 

You all have to remember that when it is described as a mountian of gold, Harry is a malnourished 11 year old. IMO that means he is no more than 4' to 4 1/2'. That means that, if the platform of the vault is raised a bit, and a few feet away, it may only be about the same height as him, maybe only slightly taller.

In GoF, galleons are described by a muggle as being the size of a cartwheel, to me that shows that they are rather large, even if it is an exageration. So, a 4ish foot high pile of gold coins maybe 3-4 inches in diameter, and maybe an inch or so think, doesn't amount to all that much IMO.

 

Was it ever actually confirmed that galleons were real gold? The only time I think it was really mentioned was when Harry first saw his vault and was told "the gold ones and galleons" they could just be gold plated of some such crap and we'd never know.

As for how rich Harry is, I think it's usually for the best if a figure's never given, just say he's relatively well off and leave it at that.

 

Something else I just thought of, is that we are never told exactly how much something costs. This means that we don't know, even if Harry has millions of galleons if he is well off enough to never work.

 

His wand was 7 galleons, and I know in one of the books is says how much a butterbeer is but I'm not taking the time to look it up. Not really much to work from is it...

 

A wand is an important, undowithoutable item, so by definition it cannot be too expensive. It might be out of the price range of the Wealeys, but they support 2 adults and 5 children, or 4 or 3, whenever in the series you choose to look at, and they do so on quite possibly one of the lowest paid jobs in the Ministry of Magic, which, if its anything like muggle government, pays the upper echelons far too much, and the lower echelons, or the people who actually do anything, far too little.

Some fics make a big deal about Arthur being a department head. Even he says something about his office not being important enough for a window. He is incharge of 1 person. A supervisor in the Department of Familial Registration (making that up off the top of my head, just imagine, busy but unimportant) probably is in charge of more people than Arthur is, and probably gets paid more.

I would imagine that Arthurs job is the sort that a relative, or the relative of a close friend of the Minister would get given so they could say they work for the Ministry of Magic. Sounds good on paper, but really, I can see it being the sort of position, where you could do absolutely no work, or very nearly no work and get away with it. Sure, decharm the occassional key or toilet, which with practice is probably about 2 minutes work. Spend a couple of hours at work each day and you can keep the job, but do no work really. But of course, when Arthur got the job, he actually took it seriously.

About butterbeer, it is probably the equivalent of coke, so is exorbitantly priced for what it is, but is also not actually that expensive.

 

I think the thing that we have to remember is the common worker's wage. I don't know if it was ever said anything about what a person make's, If the average person make's very little then the value is worth more. If the average person brings home more than the value is worth less than before. than you also have to consider what the average cost of something is from the least costly thing to the average cost of a home for example. But we have to keep in mind that according to JKR is that Harry's family was for the most part well off in the money part and they left it to the last heir to the Potter family wich was Harry.

 

The HP ecomony is strange. Mrs. Weasley can produce gravy out of her wand, but cannot tranfigure second hand clothes?? It is a shame JKR didn't explain more about the limits of magic and it's relation to money/wealth.

 

JKR used the sauce making spell to subtly inform us of yet another thing magic can do, but its entirely possible that Mrs Weasley can't transfigure worth a damn, or maybe its just a kind of convention, that you just don't transfigure clothing for yoursle funless its an emergency. YOu know,like you just don't say you love hot HP/SS slash on this forum, you just don't make your own clothes with transfiguration.

And how may i ask would you transifugre second hand clothes. Second hand means they have been owned before.