Harry's Big Money Gift.... & more on money

Mon Mar 3 21:55:18 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 53103

> > <Snip> 
> Pip:
> > Cedric still touched the Triwizard cup at the same 
> > time as Harry; Harry should *never* have been given the full 
> > thousand. The prize should have been split.
> > 
> 
> bboy_MN:
> Agreed, officially they tied so they share the Cup and the prize
> money, but Cedric is no longer around. So that leaves Harry.
> -end this part-

No it doesn't. If someone wins, and then drops dead (effectively 
what happens to Cedric), they don't award the prize to the runner 
up. This has occasionally happened in the UK; what generally happens 
is that it's announced that the winner of the competition has died 
and their prize is awarded posthumously. A member of the family or a 
close friend will then accept it on their behalf.

Prizes are only given to the person who placed second if the person 
who placed first is disqualified. Death is not a disqualification (I 
concede that this may be different in other countries).

> 
> Pip:
> > I doubt the Diggory's would ever have wanted the money, 
> > ...edited...
> > the only people he's tried to give the money away to are the 
> >people  who have a moral claim to it, *or* the people who he's 
> > just found out were cheated out of their savings. 
> > 
> 
> bboy_mn:
> I also doubt that the Diggory's would want the money, they would be
> just as uncomfortable as Harry at gaining something from Cedric's 
death.
> 
> As someone else pointed out, Harry offerred to return the money to 
> the Ministry; he tried to refuse to take it. Then he offerred it 
to anyone
> in the room who wanted it. Then he offerred it to the Diggory's who
> refused, and finally to Fred and George.
> -end this part-

I'm getting lost here [grin]. The way I read it is - Fudge drops the 
money on Harry's bed and then stomps out without Harry having a 
chance to say anything.[GoF Ch. 36, p616 UK paperback]

Molly Weasley tries to cheer Harry up by telling him to think what 
he can do with his prize money. Harry replies by saying miserably 'I 
don't want that gold. You have it. Anyone can have it. I shouldn't 
have won it. It should have been Cedric's.' [GoF Ch36, p. 619]

I don't 'read' this as Harry genuinely telling Molly to take the 
money. It's a rhetorical statement; Harry's saying that he really, 
really, *really* doesn't want this money. It isn't his money. It's 
Cedric's money.

Then the next mention is when Harry tries to give the money to the 
Diggorys [GoF Ch. 37, p. 621] and then the final mention of the 
money is when he gives it to the Twins [GoF Ch. 37 p. 635]

> > Pip:
> > Yup. I'd be hesitant if a fourteen year old offered me a  
> > thousand quid as a gift. One thousand galleons is probably more 
> > like, say, fifteen thousand quid? 20,000 dollars? 
> > 
> 
> bboy_mn:
> Sorry to be a nit picking jerk but G1,000 = £5,000 = $8,100 (at
> current exchange rates). Generally to estimate conversion between
> currency, I use 1:5:7. The G1:£5 was given by JKR in an interview. 
> The £5:$7 constantly fluctuates with currencies exchange rates. As 
> anadditional reference point, 1 Sickle is about 47 cents (US at 
> current rates), and 1 Knut is about 1.6 cents. (1G=17S=493K)

I thought I was exaggerating rather wildly [grin]. OK, the thousand 
Galleons is about 5000 GBP, which is still a lot of money.

> 
> The twins originally bet about G38 (37G.15S.3K) on th World Cup, or
> £190 or $308 (multiply £ x 1.62). Bagman said he would give them 
> good odds, but even at 10:1 they wouldn't have come close to the 
> amount Harry gave them. To Fred and George Weasley, $308 IS a 
> small fortune. By the same token, $8,100 is a big fortune.

Ummm... we don't get told the exact odds Bagman gives the boys, but 
he does say that he thinks they haven't a chance, which to me sounds 
like the equivalent of at least a fifty to one outsider. Ten to one 
bets come in all the time (about once in every ten times :-) ), and 
you wouldn't normally say 'no chance' if you were offering odds of 
10 to 1. 

A fifty to one bet would give them about 1700 Galleons. Even odds of 
20 to 1 would still net them 800 Galleons (when their original stake 
is included).

> 
> Also, Bagman gave Fred and George G5 for the trick wand; 
> G5=£25=$40;pretty generous I would say, although, he only added 
> that G5 to their bet, so it's likely that he thought he would 
> never have to pay. 

Agreed. He's a lousy bookie. A good one would have promptly tried to 
offset that bet with someone else, just in case it did come in.

<Snip Firebolt costs> 
> 
> I do not think the sanction has been officially lifted and Hagrid 
> hasn't been officially allowed to work toward his GOED (General Owl
> Equivalancy Diploma).

My own nitpick - the exams taken in muggle Britain, which seem 
pretty equivalent to the OWLs and NEWTs taken at Hogwarts, are 
public exams administered at a national level. That is to say, the 
OWLs or NEWTs would not be graded by Hogwarts teachers but by 
outside examiners. They are assessed against a national base.

Since wherever you take the exam it's likely to be graded by the 
same set of examiners, there is no Graduate Equivalency Diploma in 
the UK. A muggle 'A' level is a muggle 'A' level whether you take it 
at school, from a night class, from correspondence courses or from 
the deck of a navy ship on active service (with an officer 
certifying that you took it under exam conditions). 

There's no canon to say whether or not OWLs and NEWTs can be taken 
only at Hogwarts, but JKR *seems* to be considering them as 
equivalent in their importance to jobs, future prospects etcetera. 
If they are equivalent, Hagrid (or any other wizard) should be able 
to take them outside Hogwarts if they wanted to. 

Hagrid may not want to. He is, after all, eminently qualified for 
and very good at his job as Keeper of the Keys and Grounds. There 
doesn't seem to be a Wizarding College of Education, so the only way 
he's going to learn to teach is by actually doing it. At 60 odd 
years old, well regarded by both staff and former pupils, he may not 
actually *need* NEWTs and OWLs.

Pip