I could probably make an argument for being a squib over having $10bn in this universe...

 

Meh, only Squibs we see in the series are Filch (Whose life doesn't seem so great) and Mrs Figg (Who is the quintessential "Crazy Cat Lady"). There's also Molly's Cousin or Uncle that Ron mentioned who has the glamorous job of being an accountant.

 

There's absolutely no reason to think in canon that there aren't a lot of wizards living pretty much fully independent lives, using magic to fulfil pretty much all their needs. Their only interaction with society would need to be to get the various bits and pieces they can't provide for themselves - potions ingredients and food stuffs that they wanted but couldn't raise or forage. It'd be a far easier life as a wizard than trying to live similarly near self-sufficiently as a muggle.

 

Haha, kids. Pfffft.

Peggy Sue or not, magic>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(...)>>>>>>>>money

 

If I had magic, there are a lot of people I'd cheerfully murder, and I'd be doing good deeds doing it.

 

Lots of politicians would suddenly drop dead...

 

Jumper powers alone would make me choose magic (Apparition). You could easily make more than 10 billion with magic if you truly wanted to. I'm willing to chalk the mundane nature of some canon wizard's lives to more shoddy world building from JKR.

I also assume this question doesn't include like a Voldemort led Ministry of Magic trying to kill me for being muggleborn or something similar.

I don't see how anyone could even remotely choose the money. After all, I'd just use my magic to steal your 10 billion and make you forget it ever existed.

 

It's shoddy world building but we have to accept it.

Clearly there are reasons why the Weasleys and other families aren't swimming in it. Might be the Ministry tracks things like that, might be they're a lot more Big Brother than they let on.

Whatever the reason, you clearly can't profit off of the Muggle World. So you're stuck making whatever money you want through legal means.

 

It was simply a matter of theme and aesthetic. She had no interest in making Lords of Magic, so she didn't. That doesn't mean it's not possible.

 

Surely it's less than feasible if the Ministry goes out of its way to prevent wizards from enriching themselves like that. Which makes some sense considering the likelihood of compromising the Statute of Secrecy if thousands and thousands of wizards all tried doing that.

 

Or, more likely, a wizard has no interest in enriching themselves in the muggle world. Julius Caesar notwithstanding, few people dream of being the greatest man in a lesser civilization. Any one of the people on this forum could move to some village in the developing world and be the richest person for hundreds of miles, yet people don't do it. Wizards don't become gods of the muggle world because they don't care about the muggle world.

 

Magic over money, but not magic over my girlfriend, little brother, entire friend circle and added difficulty of making friendships once I am 11. If I'm peggy sue-ing it to when I was 11, I'd be on the opposite side of the world and never meet my girlfriend, my little brother wouldn't be born (I was 12), and the idea of spending all day every day with 11 year olds who are my only realistic friend option is close to torturous.

Honestly, the Peggy Sue stuff is what gives money the edge for me. You couldn't pay me $10 billion to become 11 again and have none of my existing relationships exist, most especially if it would mean my little brother would be unborn.

 

If the choice was money or joining the HP world as a fairly standard 11 year old with a bit of potential, I'd take the money.

If it was money, or becoming the only person with HP magic in the real world, I'd take the magic. In that situation, if you can't gain as much wealth as you want, you don't deserve either wealth or magic so there's no downside. Plus you'd actually be unique in your abilities, so the magic would retain more of its wonder than it does in a formalised teching environment as just one wizard amongst many.

On that topic, I reckon if you were joining the HP word as an 11 year old, even as a muggleborn, HP magic would rapidly lose its novelty. We se this in the books where by the end of the first term Harry is just as blase as Ron, complaining about homework and having to learn spells. Hermione is by that point just viewing it as another academic subject, whilst all the other muggleborns seem to have internalised the new reality and kinda normalised it. Even the adults seem to view magic as just a tool, something to help them get around or do the dishes quicker as opposed to this amazing thing to be appreciated and explored. I'd like to say that I'd be different and retain the genuine love of magic as a thing that Dumbledore has, but peer pressure is powerful and in fairness, my academics at school never really enthused me that much either.

There's a signiicant risk that you'd join that world, be able to do magic, and yet by the time you graduate from Hogwarts be just another mediocre wizard taking his powers for granted and looking for job at the ministry working on cauldron bottom thickness. At that point you have all the same problems to overcome in terms of career, finances, relationships that you face as a relatively average person in the real world now. Given the choice of that, or the money, I think the cash solves more of the average persons problems.

 

Well that's cause while your money goes a lot further in providing basic resources and shelter, you can't exactly buy a Ferrari for the tenth of the cost or something like that.

Unlike the Wizarding World, it's not like Bangladesh is hidden behind a brick wall in a mosque in Birmingham.

The average person can't (In a large and efficient way) go to a Third World country, use your resources from your First World Country to make money in that Third World and then bring that improved money back to your First World Country and see a large improvement.

Whereas, if we're assuming no Ministry Oversight for whatever reason, anyone can go into London, use their resources (Doubling Charm, Transfiguration, Conjuration) to make money in the Wizarding World and then walk back into Gringotts and exchange their Pounds for Galleons and become a millionaire in the span of an afternoon.

At that point, we're just stepping dangerously close to Indy!Harry territory.

 

I'm not going to let the fact that it's a cliche stop me from doing it if this was real life

 

I always thought that there's probably reasonably strict limits on what magical interaction you're allowed to have with muggles, in order to reduce the risk of discovery and also to prevent the wizarding economy getting shafted. None of these restrictions would likely impact someone who had decent familiarity with the muggle world and who was both careful and reasonable in what they did. Playing poker in a muggle casino and using a little bit of legilimency to increase your "luck" for example, or playing paparazzi with the benefit of a disillusionment charm and and a broom. Either of those would get a reasonable amount of money in a regular basis without attracting too much attention - unless you went too far with it. Similarly probably using a little magic to facilitate breaking and entering wouldn't ever be picked up on unless you went vastly overboard.

Someone buying moderate amounts of a valuable commodity, and then using magic to increase the quantity of it before selling it again, would likely get cracked down on by the Ministry unless it was a random one off. And even then, they might make an example because that sort of thing could destabilise the muggle economy and could also lead to an unfortunate amount of attention being directed towards where the wizarding world was hiding.

 

@Mordecai One possible solution are currency controls. If the Goblins/Ministry refuse to exchange muggle currency then it becomes effectively worthless to most wizards and reduces the incentive to commit any of these schemes involving the muggle world.

Obviously it isn't a perfect explanation. There would have to be exceptions for small amounts so that muggleborns can enter society.

Presumably there might also be a small subset who would be happy to scheme/scam huge amounts of muggle wealth purely to enjoy it in the muggle world as well.

 

If the 10 billion allowed you to actually become batman or ironman, then I'd at least think about it. Since that's not the case, I'd have to go with magic.

 

I never liked the explanation that the ministry/gringotts would restrict the amount of money you can exchange, since it could be very easily circumvented by just buying valuable metals/gems with the muggle money and them selling them to wizards.

 

Yeah, more likely the control would be from the Ministry. A small society like wizarding Britain, it'd be reasonably obvious if someone suddenly came into a lot more money than they used to have. That could be the natural trigger for a light touch investigation to identify the source of their sudden wealth, simply to identify whether there was a risk posed to the Statute of Secrecy. And similarly, they may well monitor the muggle news media looking for stories about things that could indicate magic is involved.

I know that latter concept goes against the idea that all wizards are idiots and ignorant of the muggle world - but canon is that they've managed to maintain their secrecy for 300 years by the time the books are set. That proves they must be capable of doing something right.