A question on Sirius and his vault - Hagrid, Molly, Harry, Goblins

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 126830


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "tonihollifield" <tonisan9 at h...>
wrote:
> 
> 
>  
> > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, laurie goudge 
> <parisfan_ca at y...>
> > wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hello everyone:
> > > 
> > > ...edited...
> > > 
> > > ... At the end when Sirius sends Harry the note confirming it was 
> > > him who sent the new broom and Crookshanks was the one who did 
> the 
> > > ordering I wondered--how did Crookshanks get the money from
> > > Sirius's vault without raising alarm bells? 
> > > ...
> > > 
> > > ... it's been nagging me as to how Sirius was able to pay for 
> > > Harry's new broom and not get caught the instant his vault was 
> > > accessed....


> Toni:
> 
> It had occurred to me that Gringotts might work something like a 
> Swiss bank, where accounts can be accessed only by account number. 
> ...and not by name.  Since in SS, Hagrid asked to withdraw from 
> Harry's vault, there must be names ...(or) an option to just use 
> numbers... If that's the case,  then Sirius' vault could have been 
> accessed without his name having to come up at all.
> 
> Just a thought,
> 
> Toni

bboyminn:

I think you are generally on the right track, Gringotts is somewhat
like Swiss Banks, but it's not so much the numbers themselves as the
fact the Swiss Bankers recognise that individual financial matters are
Private business. One way of handling /private/ financial matters is
with numbered accounts.

As to Hagrid, remember that Harry was with Hagrid at the time, and
Hagrid also had the key to the vault, these factors surely carried
some weight with the Goblin banker.

More significant is the fact the Molly Weasley has accessed Harry's
bank vault several times, most of those times with Harry's implied
permission, but none that I can recall in which Harry gave his direct
expressed or written permission. 

External to the story, that was simply a way for the author to speed
things up, and keep the plot moving by avoiding a side-track trip to
Diagon Alley. Must simpler from a writer's perspective to have Molly
do it off-page.

Internal to the story, I have always speculated that one of the
reasons the Goblins are so successfull as bankers is because they have
 a kind of magical sixth sense that allows them to detect the validity
of a request to accesss a bank vault. So, they could sense that both
Sirius's and Molly's request were valid authorized request to access
and remove gold from a given bank vault. 

For the record, here is what Sirius actually said-
- - - PoA, Am Ed, Pb, pg 433 - - -
Crookshanks took the order to the Owl Office for me. I used /your
name/ but told them to take the gold from my own Gringotts vault.
- - - end quote - - - 

'I used your name...', that could mean that the order said, send the
order to Harry Potter, but I'm paying (vault 711). The same as if you
credit-card mail-ordered a birthday present for someone and had it
sent directly to their house; ordered by one person, delivered to
another. 

Alternately, it could imply some financial association between Harry
and Sirius. It could imply that Harry's /name/ somehow has the
authority to access Sirius's bank vault; perhaps by virtue of Sirius
being his Godfather. Again, we could be faced with the Goblin's
magical /validation/ that confirmed that Harry was indeed authorized
to transfer gold from that numbered vault.

There could be some significants in this last possiblility regarding
the disposition of the Black Estate. It might imply that long ago,
some connection had been made between Harry and Sirius. Perhaps, Harry
is already authorized to control or at least gain access to the Black
Family money, or perhaps just Sirius's personal money.

Last note, if Sirius signed the mail-order form, then his signature
could have been sufficient verification to authorize the transfer of
money to the Quidditch supply company. But wouldn't that mean that
whoever processed the order at the Quidditch supply company would have
seen Sirius Black's signature? 

I guess it's possible that they get so many orders that they don't
really look at the names, they simply place the order, and send the
order form off to the bank to get the gold transferred. Once they have
verification of transfer, they ship the broom off to the specified
delivery address. When you process a lot of paperwork like that
sometimes you can see without really seeing.

Just a thought.

Steve/bboyminn