While we’re at it, the wizard bank seems to have pretty lax rules about who can get into whose vault. I seem to recall (don’t remember which book it was in) when Mrs. Weasley went to Diagon Alley to get school supplies for her kids and Harry, and she mentioned something about “taking the money [for Harry’s stuff] out of your vault.” Never was any mention made of Harry giving the okay for her to access his vault.
Also, when Sirius bought the Firebolt for Harry–he mentioned that he purchased it in Harry’s name, but took the money out of his own vault. Neat trick! This would be the equivalent of Public Enemy Number One traipsing (to use one of JKR’s favorite words) into the First National Bank and making a withdrawal. Even if he did it by owl post, you can bet there should have been a tracer on that return owl.
Where do you get that she got them from before she received her Hogwarts letter?
Once she and her family were informed of her witch-hood, they could exchange their Muggle money for Wizard money through their Hogwarts contact. But that doesn’t mean that Galleons, etc are traded in any Muggle forum.
I agree it’s unfair, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic. The same kind of thing has been happening recently with high school swim teams and those new high-tech swimsuits. (Here’s a Wisconsin State Journal article on the subject.)
You misunderstood me. She doesn’t have access to galleons prior to her acceptance to Hogwarts, but once she’s in Diagon Alley, the goblins take her Muggle money in exchange for wizard money.
So, what do the goblins DO with it? They must have somewhere/somehow to use this money, so therefore some type of market must exist for it (and for the exchange itself). Therefore, Muggles somewhere know about wizard money.
Other points:
To be an Auror, more education is mentioned, it is just not specified where or how. I imagine there is a Merlin Uni or similar somewhere OR that wizards sort of apprentice themselves to a mentor/tutor and learn that way.
Time turners: the kids do indeed change events–they spare Buckbeak, allowing Sirius a means of escape.
My daughter’s varsity field hockey team–ALL the members had to provide their own sticks. Balls and the goalie equipment and the uniforms were provided by the school (as were the buses and the fields and refs etc). It’s a common practice.
tommy-boy was also knocked kettle over tea cup by his wee piece of soul being killed by his killing curse. he was still recovering while cissy was checking on harry. tommy hadn’t rebooted all of his applications yet and cissy’s hair covered her face when she wispered to harry.
winterhawk–I agree. At some point, Bill Weasley tells Harry that he went ahead and withdrew money from Harry’s account to spare Harry the inconvenience of having to get there himself. :eek:
I don’t mind the bit about the quills. Rowling said early on that modern technology doesn’t work at Hogwarts due to “all the magic in the air” making the machines and circuits go haywire. Which makes the stupid radio in the film and in the last book ridiculous.
I never did get the whole AD is distancing himself from HP to prevent Voldy from doing what, exactly? As was said–send him a letter. Send him a message. How about you tell Harry WHY he needs to learn Occulemency and maybe give him a different teacher to start out? :rolleyes:
Wizards need to exchange for Muggle money at times. I remember a scene where Mr. Weasley has Harry handle the money(subway, I think) because he doesn’t understand pounds and shillings.
Yep, Buckbeak was never killed, the kids only thought he was. So technically, they didn’t *change *anything. They used the time-turner to help them make things happen the way they did, but it always happened the same way.
But if Buckbeak is not executed, there is no reason for the kids to go to that point in time. Remember what AD says: “more than one innocent life may be saved tonight.” I thought they didn’t show a headless hippogryff because of the kiddies. Surely he is well and truly dead in the book? I don’t recall.
The rest of it-I agree. It’s Harry producing the patronus, Hermione throwing the pebble etc. But they do save Buckbeak (and then Sirius, of course) etc.
I don’t believe that the goblins just sit on that Muggle money. They aren’t dwarves, interested in gold for gold’s sake. They use those pounds and shillings for something–so there must be some part of the Muggle financial industry that is in contact with goblins (if we take this to it’s logical conclusion, of course).
Nope. In fact, I’m pretty sure they even mention in the book that the sound they heard was the sound of McNair thunking the axe into one of Hagrid’s giant pumpkins in frustration.
Ah, but Buckbeak only escapes execution because Future Harry and Hermione traveled back in time to save him. If they hadn’t gone back to that point in time then he would not have been saved, but they did so he was. It’s a bit confusing, but this type of time travel does avoid problems like the Grandfather Paradox.
*Harry and Hermione believe he’s dead, but they don’t see the body and no one tells them that he’s actually dead. If Buckbeak had really been killed, the mechanics of time travel in the book would not have allowed them to save him. It’s like a less depressing version of 12 Monkeys – they don’t have the ability to change the past.
I agree with most of these quibbles, even though I did like the books too. The curriculum is one of the most annoying things - no maths, no English, no geography, nothing about the theory behind the magic, no modern languages, only one sport that seems to be dropped but for the team members after the first year - no wonder it never occurs to the wizards that they should take some hints from Muggle science and technology - they wouldn’t have the first clue how to work them anyway, let alone adapt them for a magic world!
It’s plausible that Harry has no wizarding relations, though. They could all have been killed in the war. Oh, perhaps there’s a fourth cousin out there, but that’s not close enough to meet up and compare noses.
Yup - it’s not hard to imagine where the Goblins would get Muggle money and what they’d do with it. It doesn’t mean any Muggls have to hand over money to Goblins knowing that it’s going be used for exchange purposes (or, at least, not with any memory of doing so). Bill withdrawing money from Harry’s account isn’t all that surprising, either - he is a Gringott’s employee.
The UK of the real world and HP’s world hasn’t had shillings for quite some time, though.
That’s true. The Room of Requirement is, plotwise, an extremely dangerous thing to have lying around in your story. The less said about it on this thread, the better.
Actually that explanation doesn’t work for the quills. It works for electronics like computers and CD players, but anything that would stop pens and mechanical pencils working would also stop quills working, and probably make everyone die of gangrene into the bargain.
But the wizarding world’s “magic in the air” doesn’t interfere with mechanical objects–just electronic ones, per Rowling, which makes the radio ridiculous.
I suspect they use quills because it’s tradition and it also helps differentiate the wizard world from our modern day one. Afterall, if they have Bic pens, then there must a be a factory that produces the plastic and the ink etc–quills and ink are homemade (like in olden times). Quills etc just seem to fit in with the candles and fires of a pre-industrial age.
Would it have been interesting to see the wizard world superimposed on ours–wizards with the internet etc? Sure–but that’s a different story and different world. (I would hope a more talented writer than Rowling would explore the possiblities of that world–I’d like to read about it.)
