Wizards' wealth, work, taxes, tuition, education, Squibs, HUFFLEPUFF

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 44028

Brenda W wrote:

<< What did the parents of James Potter do to leave him so much 
money? It's fine to say he inherited money, but where did it come 
from originally? (snip) what do wizards like Lucius Malfoy, or the 
families of other Hogwarts students, do to earn wizard money? >>

It is pure unfounded speculation, but perhaps the Potters were 
descended from Bowman Wright, of Godric's Hollow, who according to 
QTTA was 'a skilled metal-charmer' who invented the Golden Snitch. 
Perhaps Wright made a fortune from all those Snitches he sold.

I feel certain that Lucius Malfoy inherited his wealth, and he 
doesn't have to do any work except to manage his money. I fantasize 
that the ancestors of the Malfoys were already sitting pretty when 
the Romans came to Britain, but continued to increase their fortune 
since then. Early sources would include charging Muggle villages a 
large annual tax not to destroy them, conquering other wizards and 
confiscating their property, selling spells to rich Muggles, finding 
desposits of metal ore and other valuables and mining and processing 
them with slave or House Elf labor or by spells. 

Medieval sources would include owning large amounts of land and 
either farming it by slave or sharecropper labor and selling the 
produce, or renting it to non-slave farmers, and selling exotic 
foreign luxury goods (e.g. spices, silk, Oriental carpets) that could 
be imported much more easily by magic than by Muggle means. Modern 
sources would include being a venture capitalist or loan shark. 

I can easily imagine that Lucius Malfoy owned a broomstick company 
(owned it, not managed it) and offered to his competitors to buy them 
out at a ridiculously low price, and when they refused, somehow their 
factory, family home, and family members were all laid to waste with 
the Dark Mark glowing over the ruins...  

The broomstick factory, incidentally, could employ a number of 
parents of Hogwarts students, such the careful, hardworking 
Hufflepuff who individually hand-ties and charms each twig, and the 
obsessed Ravenclaw who invents the improved versions of the charms, 
and the inventory manager who notes how fast the wood, twigs, 
feathers, string, polish, sandpaper, and all are being used, and 
orders more in time that the store room won't run out.

Some of those early sources of wizarding wealth would account for the 
hostility of Muggles toward wizarding folk, such as Binns mentioned 
during the Founding of Hogwarts: "it was an age when magic was feared 
by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."

I think it is possible that part of the current-day interaction of 
the wizarding and Muggle governments is that our Muggle governments 
pay the local wizarding governments annual fees. These fees could be 
simple blackmail (pay us not to sic dragons on you), or payments for 
magical services -- for example, the wizards might have a shield up 
to guard Earth from being struck by asteroids. That would be both a 
source of income for the wizarding government, so that it wouldn't 
need to tax its own people, and a source of jobs for wizards and 
witches working on the asteroid shield or whatever.

Melody wrote:

<< Do Hogwarts students pay tuition? And if not, then how can 
Hogwarts afford to stay running? Do you think the Wizard world is 
taxed? Do these taxes pay for more than just the school system? Is 
Hogwarts then a state school? >>

The wizarding world might not need taxes. The wizarding governments 
might be funded by fees from Muggle governments as above, or I like 
to think that they have tight control of a grove of trees on which 
money *does* grow, Galleons and Sickles and Knuts that cannot be 
counterfeited because each one grew with a unique 'fingerprint' of 
growth rings. (If only Sickles were equally prime 13 rather than 17 
to the Galleon, it would be SO calendrical: 29 bronze Knuts/days to 
the silver Sickle/moon, 13 moons to the gold Galleon/year...)

The wizarding government might get SO MUCH money from its sources 
that it does the opposite of collecting taxes: it pays a stipend to 
every adult wizard and witch. Presumably not a stipend to every 
child, or the prolific Weasleys wouldn't be so poor.

On the other hand, it just *feels* so plausible to me that many 
'Death Eaters who walked free' would get jobs in the Department of 
Taxation!

As for Hogwarts, I can't find any canon, but I am convinced that it 
does not charge tuition and does not charge for room and board (that 
would be another reason why Hermione's parents were so pleased when 
she was accepted there). As BBOY_MN said, they probably have a huge 
endowment. However, having to buy books and supplies and uniforms and 
broomsticks, not to mention toothpaste and Dungbombs, is still an 
expense for the students' families. I must imagine that there is some 
charity to help impoverished students with these needs (maybe giving 
them worn-out old uniforms and books discarded by older students) but 
the Weasleys are too proud to take charity.

Even tho' I believe that Hogwarts is not funded by the wizarding 
government, I do think it is a state school IN A WAY: It admits all 
students, like a state school. Fudge seems to believe that he is in 
control of Hogwarts (telling Dumbledore something about: not many 
people would let you get away with what I let you get away with, 
hiring a werewolf and a half-giant) and this MIGHT be true, if he 
controls the Board of Governors ... But Hogwarts existed long before 
the Ministry of Magic did, so it almost makes more sense to me that 
Hogwarts Headmaster or Board of Governors invented the Ministry of 
Magic and still selects the Minister ... 

sym_2_one wrote:

<< What in the world to wizard children do before they attend 
Hogwarts, if they are able to attend at all? What happens to kids 
under the age of eleven if both parents have to work? How do they 
learn to read, write, and do simple math? 

I believe that the wizarding parents are responsible for their 
children's elementary education. They can home-school, hire tutors, 
send the child to a Muggle school (if they can do so without breaking 
the law of Wizarding Secrecy), or send the child to small, local, 
private, wizarding elementary school. I believe that MoM never checks 
on whether the children are going to school and has no rules for 
credentialling elementary schools, but if the children don't have 
enough basic skills when they enter Hogwarts, the parents are fined 
and are disgraced by having their names listed in the DAILY PROPHET 
as "parents of stupid children". 

The wizarding world doesn't have the same problem of 'both parents 
have to work' as our Muggle world does. To some extent, just because 
they're old-fashioned: many fewer mothers of schoolchildren had paid 
jobs when I was a schoolchild (high school class of '74) than
nowdays. 

But also because wizarding folk have a lower cost of living: this 
may be because doing stuff with magic is cheaper than doing stuff 
with technology (e.g. does Apparation require car payments, auto 
insurance, repairs, oil, petrol?) What with the lower cost of living, 
the stipends or dividends that I fantasised that MoM pays to all 
adult wizards and witches, and inherited money, many wizards as well 
as witches don't have to have regular full-time jobs. They can be 
employed part-time, temp, free-lance, or not at all.

Also, we have seen many small-business owners in the wizarding world, 
few giant corporations. Many artisans and few big factories. I like 
to imagine that the Qualities have run Quality Quidditch Supplies for 
500 years, and each generation of children was raised in the shop and 
the warehouse, hanging around with their parents, sometimes going 
with the parents on visits to suppliers, sometimes working math 
problems or writing essays in the corner that a parent will review 
after closing time. 
 
sym_2_one wrote:

<< What if a wizard child is not offered to attend of School of 
Magic? >>

I believe that EVERY child in Britain and Ireland with ANY wizarding 
power is invited to attend a school of magic. (There may be other 
countries in which Muggle-born students are not invited, no matter 
how powerful.) If all the students go to Hogwarts as JKR said, then 
Hogwarts has 1000 students as JKR said, that would be all the 
wizarding children, based on many previous threads about the size of 
wizarding population. 

I believe that Hogwarts has several campus, the Castle that we see in 
canon is the main campus, has approx 280 students as shown in canon, 
and the children of less aptitude (and/or less family connections) 
are sent to other campus. Some listees believe that Hogwarts has only 
one campus, 280 students as depicted, and is the only School of 
Witchcraft and Wizardry, but all the lesser students are sent to a 
School of Magic instead. 

Either of those ideas would go along with Neville's statement that 
his family, even after they were reassured that he wasn't a Squib, 
doubted that he was magic enough to get in 'here': that is, to 
Hogwarts Main Campus rather than another campus, or to School of 
Witchcraft and Wizardry rather than to School of Magic.

If all 1000 students are at the one Hogwarts campus at Hogwarts 
Castle, then Tom from the Leaky Cauldron and Stan Shunpike and Ernie 
Prang and Madam Rosmerta went to school at Hogwarts Castle. 

(Btw why do people assume that Madam Rosmerta has a poor education or 
a low degree of magical talent just because she owns a restaurant 
with a bar?)  

I get the impression that JKR thinks all these people were in 
Hufflepuff, which is why she has such a low opinion of Hufflepuff. 
While we have seen nothing in canon to suggest that Stan and Ern and 
Tom are exceptionally loyal or hard-working by nature, perhaps JKR 
and the Sorting Hat believe that people who don't have enough talent 
or charisma to get by in life by talent or charisma had better LEARN 
to work hard even if it isn't in their nature.

The only children of wizarding parents who wouldn't get invited to 
ANY school of magic are the Squibs, the ones who have no magical 
power at all. Ron told us they are very rare ... very rare might 
mean one in a lifetime! If Squibs can be identified at birth (and the 
Lombottomi just didn't trust the results of the test on baby Neville) 
that might be the origin of changelings: medieval wizarding parents 
who didn't want a 'defective' child dumped it in the cradle of a 
Muggle child who had died (high level of infant mortality in medieval 
period). Later, when Muggles invented orphanages, those would have 
been used instead. Filch's parents probably deserve some credit for 
KEEPING their 'defective' child, altho' they'd probably deserve even 
more credit if they'd kept him AND had him educated to make a living 
in the Muggle world, where being a Squib doesn't matter.  

I have a totally non-canonical theory that Petunia was Narcissa's 
sister who was rejected by her parents for being a Squib. She was 
given to the Evanses rather than to an orphanage because, in this 
theory, the Evans already had some relationship with the wizarding 
In this theory, Petunia's hatred of magic comes from her too young 
to remember knowledge that it was MAGIC that caused her to be 
expelled from her first home and family. The biggest problem I see 
with this theory is Dumbledore's statement that the Dursleys are the 
only family that baby Harry has left: I'm sure he must have meant 
blood kin, not adopted, because it had something to do with Ancient 
Magic.

ABOUT THOSE HUFFLEPUFFS!!

Fyre Wood wrote:

<< Could Neville have been thinking the following which sitting under 
the hat? Neville: "Oh gosh, everyone hates me already because I'm an 
incompetant moron who can't keep my toad near me... don't put me in 
that wretched Hufflepuff house where you're considered to be the 
'Hogwarts Hippies' and care about nothing... but just being loyal." 
(Okay, that was totally sarcastic and inappropriate, but you get the 
point. Please don't flame me for that^_~). >>

Finwitch wrote:
<< Neville-- the hat might have tryed to convince him that he does 
belong in Gryffindor. How many times Neville says he's not brave  
enough to be Gryffindor and that he should have been Hufflepuff for 
being so lousy. >>

I AGREE WITH FINWITCH!!!!

Gail B wrote:

<< Could somebody please tell me where Hufflepuff got this bad rap? 
And, in general, why are the qualities which Hufflepuffs are said to 
possess not valued like the others? >>

I think it was Grey Wolf who gave the Book 1 (PS/SS) canon for 
Hufflepuff having a bad rep. Here's tej Book 4 (GoF) canon: page 257 
of UK hardcover, chapter 18 The Weighing of the Wands: "It was plain 
that the Hufflepuffs thought Harry had stolen their champion's glory; 
a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff house 
very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who 
had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once in Quidditch." 
and page 550, where they play Robert Alphonse and Gaston with the 
Triwizard Cup: "Cedric was serious. He was walking away from the sort 
of glory that Hufflepuff house hadnt had in centuries." 

Poo-ie on JKR. 1) Being a hard-working person doesn't mean the person 
doesn't ALSO have talent, intelligence, and/or physical strength: 
Helga Hufflepuff valued hard work most, but SHE must have had talent 
to spare or how could she have been one of the greatest wizards and 
witches of her day? 2) Hard work should occasionally be enough to win 
some glory in the school, for sports or for high marks, in a year 
when the other houses don't happen to have anyone else of *extreme* 
natural talent. 3) Loyalty, if not hard work, should be enough to 
OCCASIONALLY earn some glory in the adult world: Leonidias's 
Spartans who died to a man holding the pass at Thermopylae, the Light 
Brigade in Crimea, every soldier who threw himself on a grenade to 
save his comrades ...

Marina wrote:

<< most adolescents haven't learned to value "non-glamorous" virtues 
like diligence, loyalty and fairness. >> << Courage, intelligence or 
ambition won't necessarily prevent you from being a sadistic, power- 
grubbing bastard, but a strong sense of justice probably will. >>

I think the ADULTS of the wizarding world, with their 'warrior 
culture', have not yet learned to value non-glamourous virtues 
either. 

However, I can see loyalty leading some Hufflepuffs to join the DEs 
and diligently torture Muggle-lovers ... Loyalty to a person who 
turns out to be morally unworthy of that loyalty. Loyalty to the 
ideal of Pure Wizarding Blood. Loyalty to one's family threatened by 
the DE recruiter ...