After school, life was going good for Harry. He was able to take his time deciding on his future path with the large inheritance that his parents left him. He proposed to his girlfriend, Ginny. They spent months planning their wedding or rather, Ginny had spent months planning the wedding. Harry had attempted to help in the beginning, but she never liked any of his choices. He had finally left her to it. When the bills came due, he was astonished at how much she had spent. In retrospect, that should have been his first clue. At the time, he had simply paid the bills, attributing her expensive decisions to never having anything as a child. He hadn't minded spoiling her all that much. It wasn't as if he couldn't afford it. His second clue should have been her spending habits after they were married. He rarely checked his balance since he rarely spent much money. He hadn't realized until two months into their marriage that Ginny was spending more in a month than he spent in a year. They had a huge fight over that. Ginny told Harry that he was being selfish by not wanting to share his money with her, his wife. He rebutted with the argument that she didn't need even half of the items she bought. He had enough money for them to live a good life without either of them ever working, but she was blowing through the money as if it were nothing. He wanted something to leave to whatever children they had. Ginny had agreed to slow down on her spending even if she hadn't been happy about it. A month later, Harry had found out she was pregnant. He had been overjoyed. He had been ready to start a family from the moment they said, 'I do'. He had been heartbroken when Ginny ended up in the hospital a month and a half later after having a miscarriage. Then came the day that Ginny didn't come home after having lunch with her friends.
Harry firecalled all of Ginny's friends to find out where she was and to make sure she was okay. He hadn't known exactly who she was having lunch with. She had never mentioned a name. No one had heard from her, not even her family. She never came home that day or the next. Harry had been frantic. It was when he was went to pay the bills that he realized that his vault was empty. It took several hours, a lot of frustration, and random bouts of yelling for Harry to find out that all of his money had been transferred to another vault, not a knut left. The goblins had not been able to tell him whose account it was transferred to due to privacy laws, but they had told him that his wife was the one who authorized the transfer. Harry immediately went to Ron and Hermione's house. Hermione admitted that she had been having concerns about Ginny since before the wedding and that she had worried that something like this might happen. Harry had been furious that Hermione hadn't mentioned it before. Two days later, Harry had received divorce parchments by owl.
Harry had fought against it. He wasn't willing to divorce her until he got his money back. However, a solicitor had informed him that since they were married, it was legally Ginny's money, too. There was nothing he could do. He could either get her completely out of his life, or he could stay married to her. There was no other option. While he didn't get to see or talk to her at all during the divorce process, he had been told that she refused to give the money back. He found out a few months later that she had left him for another man. She married him within a month of their divorce. Eventually, with the help of Ron and Hermione, he realized that she had planned this from the start. Maybe not in the very beginning of their relationship but certainly before the wedding. To try to make ends meet, Harry was forced to take a low-level Ministry job where he was essentially treated as a house elf, forced to run errands that magic could have easily taken care of. The money he made was nowhere near enough to cover his living expenses even as thrifty as he had always been. He often went a day or two without eating to try to save his money for bills. He took care of any injuries at home to avoid paying a large bill to the hospital. He really wanted to further his education to get a good job, but he couldn't afford tuition. As far he knew, the wizarding world didn't offer student loans like the muggle world did.
Then came the day that he had finally had enough of his crappy job. It was five years after his divorce. He was sick of being a slave to those in powerful positions at the Ministry when he couldn't even afford to eat on a regular basis. He had gone off on his boss for being 'asked' to clean the man's clothing. That didn't fall anywhere under his duties, and it was the final straw. He was immediately fired. It didn't sink in right away what kind of position he was in. He went to Ron and Hermione's, but only Hermione was there. She listened to him rant and rave until he began to panic as he realized that he had nothing anymore. She offered to loan him money until he could find a new job, but his pride wouldn't allow him to accept. Instead, he accepted the Firewhiskey that she offered him and got blind drunk. After Ron got home, he sighed and helped Harry through the floo. He got Harry settled on the couch since he was too drunk to make it up the stairs. Harry was dozing off when an owl flew through the open window.
He struggled to get the envelope off the owl's leg before taking a good look at it. The envelope was cream-colored and obviously expensive. It only had his name written on the front of it, and he was curious to see who it was from. He attempted to open it carefully, but his fingers wouldn't cooperate. The envelope ripped open, a single sheet of parchment flying into the air and fluttering down to land on the floor. He gazed dolefully at it before reaching out to get it. Had he a clear mind, he would have just used his wand. However, he couldn't reach it or make it come to him with the power of his mind, so he gave up. He decided to find out what it was in the morning. He fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of living on the streets while a million Ginny's laughed as they walked by.