A/N: First story, lets goooo.
Harry Potter had an eye for money. He loved all kinds of money. Whenever he was on the street, his eyes were glued to the ground in hopes for a few pence or if he was especially lucky, a pound. This obsession started when Harry snuck out of his cupboard one night in search of food. While this was a common occurrence, what Harry saw that night was completely out of the norm. He watched with curiosity from behind the living room couch as a tall black man wearing flowing robes and carrying a small sack conversed with his 'uncle' in the kitchen in hushed tones. He saw the black man glance warily at the stairs before gesturing towards the living room table, dangerously close to where Harry was behind the couch. Harry weighed his options carefully before deciding that he would wait for them to conclude this business before sneaking ahead to his goal. His ears perked up as he realized they were talking about some kind of 'payment' for 'services' the Dursley patriarch was performing for this man.
"Look," Uncle Vernon hissed under his breath. "I don't like your kind and I never will, but caring for a child is rough work, especially since he cant provide for himself. We need more."
The black man gazed carefully at Vernon before nodding once.
"We are monitoring everything that goes on in this house." Vernon paled instantly. "We are willing to provide more funds if you are willing to step up the level of the mistreatment you are performing on your charge." Harry had never seen someone change expression so fast.
Vernon got the look in his eye Harry had only seen him get once a month when he came home with gifts for his little Dudders and Petunia. That look, Harry knew, was greed. The two men shook hands and the black man passed the sack to Vernon. He opened it and Harry caught his first glance of a golden coin, seemingly shining from an inner light. Harry then got a feeling he couldn't describe, one he would later discover was a mixture of greed and jealousy. The robed man rose to leave, muttering under his breath "Giraudoux was right after all; Money is power."
Having gotten sight of what the two men were discussing and getting a tingly feeling in his belly, telling him he'd better run before he gets caught, Harry left as quickly as he could, hunger all but forgotten. However for the next few years of Harry's already pitiful existence, Vernon Dursley did his utmost to make it worse.
A few years later
Harry Potter, first year, only had one thought running through his head, as he watching the nurse and his professors run around the bloody hospital bed.
He was too late.
"Where is the distilled Nundu breath!" the nurse cried as she swept through her cabinets in search of something. The black robed Potions professor could only shake his head in the negative as the bloody female figure twitched on the white cot. The nurse abruptly stopped her desperate searching at the touch of the Headmaster of the school on her shoulder. "Its too late Pomfrey; Hogwarts hasn't been able to afford distilled Nundu breath ever since the Department of Magical Education cut funding." The genteel Headmaster said quietly with a sad look in his twinkling eyes.
As the 3 professors gazed upon the now-still form, Harry stumbled out of the oppressive room, with Dumbledore's words fresh on his mind.
Harry changed course for the library, realizing he wasn't prepared for the barrage of the questions awaiting him in the dorm room. He had made the correct deductions in his mind, realizing the golden rule as he remembered the event from his childhood.
Money is power.