Worth it's weight in gold
"Wait," He said, "Can you repeat that?"
"What, everyone knows that a galleon is pure gold." Ron replied.
"A galleon is pure gold? How could a galleon possibly be pure gold, it's like half an ounce!" Harry said, "It has to be gold plated or a spell or something…"
"C'mon mate, everyone knows gold is worth a bit, but it's not worth that much." Ron said, a little confused with Harry.
"Ron, gold is really expensive; it's a rare metal."
"Rare, not hardly! Bloody hell mate, with Flamel pumping out gold for the last 600 years its most definitely not rare," Ron explained with a touch of exasperation.
"Nicholas Flamel?" Harry asked, genuinely confused, "What does he have to do with anything?"
"Blimey Harry, you have a bad memory. Remember first year? The stone? It makes you live forever or whatever, but it also turns things into gold." Ron replied, with an air of importance, "Bloody hell harry, the old guy's the richest man in the world for a reason you know."
Harry thought on this for a while. Isn't gold really expensive? Why would it be cheap here, but expensive in the muggle world?
"So wizards still follow the gold standard?" he finally asked.
"The gold what?"
"The gold standard Ron, you know, the worth of currency is directly proportional to its worth in gold?" Harry asked, "There's no international market or paper currency or any of that stuff?"
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about Harry?"
"I mean, a galleon is really gold? A sickle is really silver?"
"Well yeah, everyone knows that Harry, common sense." He replied, "Who would make a coin that's worth more than its metal? And paper? Where do you come up with this stuff mate?"
Harry just sat there for a while.
Shit.
Fuck.
Jesus.
When he heard that his parents left him with a hundred thousand galleons in a vault he thought he was rich, but if that's real gold… Bloody hell, that's probably millions in sterling! That gold has to be worth more melted down than as a fucking coin!
"Uh, I gotta talk to Hermione, know where she is?"
"Where else mate, she's in the library. Mental that one is."
Harry grabbed his bag and sprinted out the portrait hole.
"He must be mental too." Ron laughed, "Paper money? What's next, walking on the moon?"
He made his way to the library in record time. Catching his breath for a moment, he noticed that he was shaking. How has no-one noticed this before? After walking inside, he took a quick look around the room and spotted just the person he was looking for sitting not ten feet from him.
"Hey," he said, "Can we talk for a second?"
"I'm busy at the moment Harry; did you know that no new runes have been invented in over four hundred years? Ancient Runes indeed…" she replied, trailing off.
Sitting down next to her, he placed a hand over her book. "Hermione, this is very, VERY, important," He said quietly, "This might just be the most important thing I've ever heard."
Instantly sobered she replied, "What Harry? Is it about You-Know-Who?"
"No, I just discovered something about the wizarding world that is just so crazy that I just had to get a second opinion." He said, "What's gold worth?"
"What?"
"Just humor me for a moment. What's gold worth? It's sold by the ounce right?"
"I don't know how this is important, but it's about £200 or £300 an ounce. It changes every day."
"Did you know that a Galleon is pure gold?" Harry asked.
"What? No, it must be plated Harry, gold's worth much more than that."
"That's the thing, galleons are pure gold. Sickles are pure silver, and knuts are pure… who cares! Galleons are gold!" he said, while pulling out a single coin. Placing the coin in his mouth, he took a quick bite out of it. "It's gold, Hermione, I wouldn't have been able to do that with a plated coin!" he said.
"But… but… how?" she asked, "How can they possibly have enough gold that a coin that large could be made of gold?"
"Flamel," he answered, "He's the richest man in the world. The philosopher's stone turns things into gold, and he's been doing that for over half a millennium!"
"So a hunk of gold that would cost hundreds of pounds in the muggle world is only worth the equivalent of five pounds?" she said, standing up and starting to pace.
"Yes, and by the count on my last visit to Gringotts I had over a hundred thousand galleons. With the cost of gold in the muggle world, that must be worth millions right?"
"Jesus Christ… forgive my French and the bad pun, but you're sitting on a fucking gold mine Harry." She said, then after a few moments she came to a dead stop, "Merlin… What's to stop you from emptying your vault, melting it down, selling it in the muggle world, and then going back to Gringotts and buying more galleons with your newly acquired muggle money?"
"What?" Harry asked, not quite following.
"You can exchange muggle money for galleons Harry, how else do you think muggle-born's get their school supplies?"
"Huh, never thought of that…"
"Anyways you take your hundred thousand galleons, sell it to muggles, and take your muggle money and turn the muggle money back into galleons, and what's stopping you from doing it again?!"
"Eh?"
"Harry, you could quite literally have ten to twenty million pounds sterling worth of gold sitting in your vault. Then repeat that process and turn that into hundreds of millions… Jesus…"
"Hermione, how could no one have ever thought of this? Why has no one ever used wizarding gold in the muggle world?"
"I guess no one ever thought about it Harry…"
Waiting a moment while weighing his options, he turned to Hermione. "Hey, want to buy an island or two?" Harry asked, "Wait, fuck an island, how about a country?"
After a busy summer where harry made himself into a billionaire, he and his good friend Hermione disappeared from Britain and the war never to be seen again.
The Order looked for them everywhere.
The just didn't look on the island nation of Montserrat; a nice quiet English speaking country in the Caribbean Sea. The country is recently under new management. They're thinking of changing the name of the island to 'Potter Island'.
Maybe a bit too obvious.
But then again, wizards are stupid.
AN: From one fic to another, or by even going with JKR's math (which she admitted she is bad at.) the wizard economy is seriously fscked up. This was the only thing I could think of that made it all work.
Well, unless you go by the fact that in GOF someone had hubcap sized coins. If that's the size of a galleon, then there is billions of pounds sterling worth of gold in potter's vault.
…Why must JKR be bad at math?
