Potter and Black Vaults

[RandomPasserby]

It's a common trope in a large proportion of HP fic that Harry finds out something interesting about his vault in Gringotts. Whether it's that Sirius left him another one in his will or somebody has been stealing from him or his parents left him their belongings in the vaults or that the one Hagrid had the key too was his trust fund or that he's heir of a lot of people. Hell the fact that I've referred to them as the Potter and Black vaults is a trope since they're never actually called that in the books, just by their numbers.

I digress.

Harry's vault in his first year we're told contains 'mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts'. We also know that James came from a wealthy family.
Sirius' vault had enough to buy a Firebolt and, according to Dumbledore, a 'reasonable amount of gold'.

This sort of ties into The Value of a Galleon since we don't know how much a 'reasonable' amount is.

At what point, for you, does the contents of the vault/s transition from vaguely plausible to absolutely laughable?

[teflonbilly]

I think it really depends on certain aspects of how you want to interpret wizarding cost of living.

If you use the analysis that I performed at the bottom of that thread, I would say that the transition point would be in the $500,000 through $150,000,000 range. Less than that and you aren't really talking about "Wealthy" social class levels of wealth, more than this range and you start getting into wealth levels not shown in the books at all.

So, if you use the grossly undervalued 1 Galleon to 5 Pounds Stirling then extremely wealthy wizarding vaults would have tens of millions of Galleons in them.

If you go with 1 Galleon is 235 Pounds Stirling then wizarding vaults would probably never have more than hundreds of thousands worth of Galleons, which would shift more wizarding financial transactions into the Sickle and Knut denominations.

Owing to the Potters being a wealthy family, and the Blacks being an extremely wealthy wizarding family, I'd say Harry inherited $30 - 80 million equivalent in hard currency, and who knows how much other treasure (gems, Goblin metal work, etc...) or real estate (Grimmauld Place, and Godric's Hollow house bare minimum). On the issue of real estate, it's more likely that Grimmauld Place was just the Black family "city" house and the family lands and grand house are somewhere else, same for a Potter family great house as well.

TB

[Kitty279]

Another question is if the galleons are just lying around, or if some of it is being invested and, if so, who does that? Have the goblins order to take care of it? Did Dumbledore it as Harry's 'guardian' for the Potter money? Who cared for the Black money? With no one to spend the money, the interest would then pile up additionally.

Oh yes, I suspect there has to be another house for the Blacks because it never sounded as if Arcturus lived at Grimmauld, and I can't see the Head of the Black family not having his own house - and probably a bigger one.

[teflonbilly]

So as to not have to delve too deeply (and have to bother making it consistent) into how the Wizarding macro-economics would work, I would just say that what is in a Gringott's vault is just the Black and Potter family "petty cash" and not really the sum total of their wealth. I'd just consider Gringott handles the estates and investments in addition to the vaults.

Keep in mind some of the behaviors of the characters for you to see cues on how they were raised and what they considered truly valuable or extraordinarily valuable. For example that Sirius had no issue with just letting Mondungus just take an entire set of stirling silver goblets for free, to just give you an idea of the kind of wealth that Sirius is used to being around that stirling silver is considered the equivalent of giving away out of fashion clothing.

TB

[teflonbilly]

So as to not have to delve too deeply (and have to bother making it consistent) into how the Wizarding macro-economics would work, I would just say that what is in a Gringott's vault is just the Black and Potter family "petty cash" and not really the sum total of their wealth. I'd just consider Gringott handles the estates and investments in addition to the vaults.

Keep in mind some of the behaviors of the characters for you to see cues on how they were raised and what they considered truly valuable or extraordinarily valuable. For example that Sirius had no issue with just letting Mondungus just take an entire set of stirling silver goblets for free, to just give you an idea of the kind of wealth that Sirius is used to being around that stirling silver is considered the equivalent of giving away out of fashion clothing.

TB

[RandomPasserby]

Jul 16, 2014 12:33:47 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

Another question is if the galleons are just lying around, or if some of it is being invested and, if so, who does that? Have the goblins order to take care of it? Did Dumbledore it as Harry's 'guardian' for the Potter money? Who cared for the Black money? With no one to spend the money, the interest would then pile up additionally.

Oh yes, I suspect there has to be another house for the Blacks because it never sounded as if Arcturus lived at Grimmauld, and I can't see the Head of the Black family not having his own house - and probably a bigger one.

I also think there's more than one other house for the Blacks. For one thing I can't see Grimmauld as being quite so dilapidated if it had been inhabited up until only four years prior (Arcturus Black II didn't die until 1991) and Kreacher doesn't mention Arcturus II as his former master, only Walburga & Regulus. It would make sense for Arcturus II to give Orion the house as a wedding present.

I also think there's a Potter family house somewhere. James' parents didn't die until he was out of school but before he went into hiding so somewhere between 1977-1980. I refuse to believe that the Godric's Hollow house had much, if anything, to do with the Potter family otherwise that would be a fairly crap hiding place.

---

The way I like to see it is that there's six Black Houses in England (the following is my headcanon and is thus totally made up - Sirius refers to Harry's godfather, while Sirius II refers to the Sirius who died in 1952).

The main one which would have passed along with the bulk of the money from Phineas Nigellus through Sirius II to Arcturus II.

Grimmauld Place, which Phineas Nigellus gave to Sirius II as a family home, Sirius II then gave it to Lycoris and Regulus as a bachelor pad until they decided to move out and it went to Orion and Walburga.

House #3 which was given by Phineas Nigellus to Cygnus as a family home. It passed to Pollux after Cygnus' death and is currently abandoned-ish since Pollux's death in 1990.

House #4 which was given to Elladora Black by her parents and left to Cassiopeia in 1931. Also abandoned-ish since Cassiopeia died in 1992.

House #5 given by Phineas Nigellus to Pollux as a family home and then by Pollux and Arcturus II to Cygnus II as a family home.

House #6 given by Phineas Nigellus to Arcturus I as a family home.

Now people like Phineas, Lycoris, Regulus and Alphard (disowned and/or bachelors) may have bought their own places but they don't count since these six Black Houses were all entailed. Which means that they couldn't be sold and were tied to the bulk of the money. The Black women were generally expected to marry into other pureblood houses. They could inherit but generally only did if they were single/married to somebody who was willing to take the Black name since those who married into other pureblood families (like Narcissa) had the heirs of those families and were ineligable to inherit so the Black name stayed around.

Phineas Nigellus issued life estates to Sirius II, Cygnus and Arcturus I for their houses. Sirius II would have gotten the main house when Phineas Nigellus died but the life estates would have meant that Cygnus and Arcturus I were fine. Once Cygnus died Sirius II would have had to reissues the life estate to Pollux Black but by the time Cygnus died all his children were either married with children, single but settled or disowned so Pollux and his family moved into House #3 while House #5 was kept for Cygnus II as a family home.

Sirius II died and everything went to Arcturus II who moved into the main house. Arcturus I died and since all his children were married and settled or disowned House #6 reverted to Arcturus II. Cygnus II died and House #5 reverted to Arcturus II since his children were married and settled or disowned.

I can also use this to justify Sirius being disowned but still being able to access Grimmauld Place. He actually was disowned in 1976 - which was fine by Arcturus II because Orion was still alive and there was another male heir in Regulus II - but by the end of 1979 Orion, Regulus II and Cygnus II were all dead and Grimmauld Place had reverted to Arcturus II. Still OK because Arcturus II's daughter was still alive.

Only by the end of 1982 Sirius was in prison for supposedly being a Death Eater/mass murder and Lucretia was dead. So I figure somewhere between 1982 and 1991 Arcturus II went 'eh, screw it' and re-inherited Sirius.

Sirius had no clue (since he wasn't alive for/in prison for/didn't know 99% of this) so he just arrived at Grimmauld Place and expected to still be able to access it, which he could because he was Arcturus II's heir. Since he couldn't actually go to Gringotts he didn't find out about any of this.

The reason Harry got to inherit everything was that after Sirius was named Harry's godfather he made a rather slapdash will (fully expecting to surivive the war and not end up in prison) giving his entire estate to his godson (worded exactly like that) - because of his fugitive status he couldn't change it (and didn't really want to). Vault 711 isn't actually the Black Vault, it's the vault bequeathed to him by Alphard Black.

[Kitty279]

Interesting. With that system, all save Grimmauld Place - which belonged to 'our' Sirius - would probably end up in the greedy Malfoy claws? Or how do you believe that went after Sirius' death? Personally, the idea of the little Death Eater inheriting everything annoys me, to be honest.

We don't know if Sirius was really disinherited, though. Sure, his mother blasted him from the family tapestry, but is that a legal way? Particularly as I don't see the woman making the decisions? And if Orion agreed with her on this, while they might have disinherited him personally, in my eyes that doesn't mean automatically that Sirius was disinherited as the Black heir. We don't know if Arcturus - who was Head of House - disinherited him from the Black family at all. In that generation, there were only five children, one was dead (Regulus) and three female (Andromeda, Bellatrix and Narcissa). That would have left Sirius as the only male Black heir.

Walburga disowning Sirius, but Orion never making it official would be another reason why Sirius could access Grimmauld Place. As the only surviving son, he would automatically inherit anyway.

[RandomPasserby]

Jul 19, 2014 0:20:37 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

Interesting. With that system, all save Grimmauld Place - which belonged to 'our' Sirius - would probably end up in the greedy Malfoy claws? Or how do you believe that went after Sirius' death? Personally, the idea of the little Death Eater inheriting everything annoys me, to be honest.

We don't know if Sirius was really disinherited, though. Sure, his mother blasted him from the family tapestry, but is that a legal way? Particularly as I don't see the woman making the decisions? And if Orion agreed with her on this, while they might have disinherited him personally, in my eyes that doesn't mean automatically that Sirius was disinherited as the Black heir. We don't know if Arcturus - who was Head of House - disinherited him from the Black family at all. In that generation, there were only five children, one was dead (Regulus) and three female (Andromeda, Bellatrix and Narcissa). That would have left Sirius as the only male Black heir.

It wouldn't end up with Malfoy - not right then anyway.

We don't know when Harry ended up in Sirius' will but my headcanon for that is that Sirius's will was made very shortly after he became Harry's godfather and said 'everything I own goes to my godson, Harry James Potter' - at that point everything he owned was the contents of vault 711 and his personal belongings. So he gets re-inherited (and hey, if Dumbledore can be at the will reading for Harry without Harry's consent then Sirius can inherit in absentia while in prison) and everything he owns now includes all of the Black properties and stuff. So Harry gets everything.

I also have a minor headcanon that Lucius Malfoy tried to pull an Ozai and got a similar result (for those of you who didn't watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ozai is the second in line to the throne. After his older brother screws up a siege and older brother's only child dies, Ozai goes to his father - the king - and says 'hey, can you disinherit Older Brother so I'm heir first'. His father is not very happy about that), trying to get Arcturus to make Draco his heir. Partially because Draco doesn't have the Black surname but also because Lucius had the presumption to do that, Arcturus went 'well your kid can inherit, but only after my grandson and any heir he might have'.

Also Sirius was blasted off the tapestry when he ran away at 16. Regulus was still alive then.

[Kitty279]

You know, saying that to Lucy would paint a huge target on Sirius' back. But I have to agree, I love to imagine that Lucy tried his utmost to get his hands on the Black money. These bribes he kept paying had to cost a pretty knut, after all

[randompasserby-on public wifi]

Jul 21, 2014 0:42:13 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

You know, saying that to Lucy would paint a huge target on Sirius' back. But I have to agree, I love to imagine that Lucy tried his utmost to get his hands on the Black money. These bribes he kept paying had to cost a pretty knut, after all

Yeah it would. Depends on when he made the case to Arcturus though - Lucius could have just assumed Sirius either wouldn't survive long in Azkaban or that he'd 'accidentally' get kissed by a dementor. Although I can't remember if the dementor's kiss actually kills them and we don't know what a kissed person's legal state is in terms of if they can inherit.

[RandomPasserby]

Apologies for that. The above post was me, I was on my tablet, which apparently decided to make the font huuuuge.

[Kitty279]

No need to apologise, it's not as if it changed to font size 40 or so.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder why Malfoy didn't arrange an accident. But then, he probably wanted to wait until he could make sure that Draco would be the sole Black heir. If he had managed that, what do you bet Sirius would have had an 'accident'?

Never was entirely sure about that, either. The books don't say that clearly, I think, and my impression is that people interpret it differently, too. Some fanfics use it as death sentence, which means the Dementor's Kiss is killing people straight away. Others have the victim turn into a mindless vegetable. Personally, I'd like to know the truth, too.

[RandomPasserby]

Also assuming women can inherit it wouldn't mean anything if Sirius did have an 'accident', because Bellatrix was still older than Narcissa and everthing would go to her first.

Besides it'd be awfully suspicious for Lucius to enquire about Draco being the Black Heir only to be told that it's Sirius first and then Sirius has an 'accident'.

Also, maybe Lucius did try. He wouldn't have known Sirius was an animagus and none of the Azkaban guards did. So if they 'accidentally' let a Dementor too close then Sirius could just transform and he'd be fine.

[Kitty279]

Though Bellatrix was in Azkaban for life, as was her husband and brother-in-law, and no chance of her ever having children, so they might have tried to leave her conveniently out.

Sure it would be suspicious, but I am sure whoever knew would be bribed to 'forget' it or obliviated. Lucius wasn't above using the Imperius, either. Besides, there were enough Voldemort supporters in the Ministry, like Yaxley. Malfoy would know, I suspect, so he might use them to investigate this in secret.

Ha, that would have been so much fun, Lucius bribing the guards to let a Dementor loose around there and then nothing happened ...

[RandomPasserby]

I don't mean suspicious for the Ministry - I mean suspicious for Arcturus (who would have to be informed that his grandson/heir was either dead or a vegetable).

But yeah, that would be pretty funny. Everybody surprised to see Sirius still alive and ensouled. That would be a hell of a prank.

[Kitty279]

Ah, right, in case of Arcturus that might have been a bit too suspicious. Hm, Arcturus died in 1992, and then it wasn't too long until Sirius broke out. Of course, before that, Lucius was busy planting the diary and all that, so he might have waited a bit too long. Serves him right. It's such a pity JKR killed Sirius in the end; she should have sent Bellatrix through the Veil, or Lucius.

And imagine, if that happened more than once, how Lucius would react? Saying they didn't what they took money for, while they are all offended because they did and the Dementors just didn't their job ... ;D Well, it would be a way to reduce his wealth a bit. That and trying to get around Bellatrix.

[RandomPasserby]

One thing I completely forgot which impacts on the conversation above.

Pollux Black, Draco's maternal great grandfather, is alive until 1990. He'd be blocking Draco's inheritance until literally right before Arcturus died (though we don't know when in '90 and '91 they died) regardless of whether Sirius was inherited or not.

Because without a specific directive to ignore it the Black inheritance with Sirius disinherited would go right back up to Cygnus Black I's line which, in terms of male heirs, has one in Pollux (also for some reason some of the Black Family trees have Cygnus II surviving until 1992, but I'm fairly sure he dies in '79) before we even get to his great-grandson.

Now assuming that what JK Rowling said about wizards having longer lifespans is actually true, Pollux could have had another 50 something years in him (he's 78 at the time of death) during the 80's. That's if neither of them had another kid (hey, we have no idea about wizarding fertility treatments and/or when their wives died) since the oldest fathers have been in their 90's it's not impossible and that's without magic.

Offing a prisoner in Azkaban on the sly is one thing. Offing a prominent (one of Sirius' grandfathers had an Order of Merlin, we don't know which) citizen is a different one.

So Lucius may have had one eye on the Black inheritance but I'm not sure how much he'd have planned for Draco to actually get it until 1990/91 when suddenly both of the obstacles died.

[Kitty279]

Ah right, I hadn't really thought about Pollux in connection with that particular problem. I knew Arcturus was still alive until 1992 (at least that's what the family tree says I have), but forgot about Pollux not dying much earlier. With Orion, Cygnus and Regulus all dying in 1979, but us not having a concrete date, it's hard to say what the order of inheritance would have been if Sirius was actually disinherited.

Hm, and what about Orions sister Lucretia, who married Ignatius Prewett? She died in 1992, too, and would have been closer in line than Pollux's side of the family. Assumed females can inherit while a male still lives, that is, and her being childless wouldn't be a hindrance, of course.

Yeah, she said they have longer lifespans, and then look at the Black family tree and tell me what she means with that. Arcturus died with about 90, his sister Lycoris with 61, his brother Regulus with 53. Pollux was 78, his sisters Cassiopeia and Dorea 77 and 57 respectively. Arcturus and Pollux' cousin Charis was 54. Orion died with 50, Walburga with 60, Cygnus with 50, Sirius with 36, Regulus with 18, Bellatrix with 47 ... So, most of them weren't even that old in non-magical terms. Leaves you wondering, doesn't it?

Somehow I always thought it was Arcturus who had the Order of Merlin. He was the Head of family, after all, from what we can tell. But yes, him having an accident would be rather suspicious. In some fanfic Sirius made after being freed a new will that made sure if he died in any other way than of natural cause, his dear family wouldn't get one knut, and I sometimes think with how most of the Blacks are, Arcturus might have had a similar clause in his will to protect himself. Probably just a nice fantasy, but I still like it.

[RandomPasserby]

There are various conflicts in family trees. The one I prefer is this one but it says that Cygnus died in 1992

It's actually fairly easy to say what the order of inheritance would have been.

Orion
Regulus
Pollux
Cygnus

In that order. No matter who dies first, that's the order and you just need to take them out of it.

One thing I have to wonder with these supposed extended lifespans. Why oh why do witches and wizards seem to have kids so damn early?

Muggle women in the UK right now have 20-30 ish years of time to get pregnant and contraception which is good but not perfect.

Andromeda has Nymphadora at about 20.
Molly has Bill at 21
Alice has Neville at possibly about 23 ish.
Lily has Harry at 20
Narcissa has Draco at 25

In fact the oldest we have are Walburga Black who was 35 when she had Sirius and Dorea Potter who may have been 40 when she had James.

Giving aside the fact we have no birthdates on the wives of the Black men we still have some pretty young fathers.
Sirius II is 24 when Arcturus II is born
Arcturus II is 24 when Lucretia is born
Cygnus is 23 when Pollux is born
Pollux is 13 when Walburga is born
Cygnus II is 22 when Bellatrix is born

If you have 40-60 years of reproducing time, why the hell would you get pregnant so quickly. I mean, you can afford to take ten years to have a career before having a kid. Off the top of my head I can think of three characters who have a job and a kid at the same time (Alice Longbottom, Hermione and Ginny - although the last two aren't actually mentioned in the text). Everyone else either seems to have kids but no mentioned job (Andromeda, Molly, Lily, Narcissa, Augusta, hell even Walburga) or job but no kids (Amelia Bones, Minerva).

Also we have no evidence as to Lycoris' gender. It's a fairly gender neutral name and their gender isn't mentioned in canon or on the tree at all.

[Kitty279]

Didn't even know until now that there were different ones. I couldn't enlarge your link enough to be readable, but I went searching and found one that has the dates you mentioned. Funnily enough, in the footnotes they reference notes posted on the HPL, which has a different family tree, the one I use. Either one of these is wrong, or JKR spread different versions of it.

The order of inheritance only would be right if Sirius was actually disowned by Arcturus - which I still doubt, seeing as he in the end inherited anyway and over Bellatrix.

Not sure about the UK, but here, the age when women get babies has gone up over the last few decades, that may make a difference. Maybe it has to do with that obsession to have an heir for their pureblood lines. But that still doesn't explain cases like Pollux, no. JKR really needs to let someone check on her numbers before publishing anything. Besides, *if* Dorea was James' mother, then she wasn't really that old in wizard terms. God, I hate these contradictions.

Remember that the magical world is stuck in earlier times, when women usually stayed at home to take care of the kids, and only few worked - usually the unmarried ones. I always assumed it was some sort of tradition. Though I wondered what they are going to do all the time when the kids are of age and out of the house.

Really? To me Lycoris sounds female, but I admit I have never heard that name before and can't tell for sure. HPL has her as female, too, so I seem not to be the only one who feels like it's female. But I know that some names are applied to different genders in different countries, so you can never be certain.

[RandomPasserby]

Huh, that's weird. img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130315010850/harrypotter/images/8/83/Black_Family_Tree.png

This is a well thought out essay on the subject - www.redhen-publications.com/blackhouse.html

My theory about the Black family tree is that she started with the bottom row (Sirius, Regulus II, Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa) and Phineus Nigellus and then had to work between the dates while also trying to get a reasonable number of generations in so the family tree felt old and pureblooded (I also feel like she was trying to cram as many recognisable pureblood names in there as well). Which, as a system of creating a family tree goes, is stupid and sucks.

Fiction wise (and geneology wise too) you work up from the most recent generation.

If Dorea was James's mother then she might not have been that old in wizarding terms but in terms of age at having first baby, she's the oldest we know of.

That's true only of upper-class women. Ones who could afford to stay home. Which accounts for Narcissa, Walburga and possibly Dorea and Lily. Poor women worked and they worked hard. You just don't hear about it because it's ignored, erased and devalued.

Then again I have no idea how the Weasleys managed to have a home capable of housing nine people with apparently individual (or near enough) rooms on a single salary. I mean, you can't just create a building from magic - you have to have stuff to build with which costs money and quite possibly requires actual expertise. I have no idea how they manage to live in Devon which is not an inexpensive county to live in, let alone have a pond and enough land for a makeshift Quidditch pitch.

The word Lycoris is Greek and means 'twilight' so it's fairly gender neutral. It's a species of flower as well and a possible name for a mistress of Marc Anthony.

Personally I always read it as male but there is literally no indication. Lycoris Black shows up only on the Black family tree.

[Kitty279]

When I click on that link, I get a screen-sized window, but the family tree is about 4,5 to 2 centimeters big ... weird indeed.

Thanks for the link to the essay. Interesting read, though I admit, I tend to blame the inconsistencies in the timeline generally on JKR's absolute, total inability to handle anything to do with numbers, and her tendency to disregard anything she has written earlier even if it contradicts some new idea. It's not just the Black family where she keeps contradicting herself, after all. It's not Sirius' fault that JKR can't think that through. And her timeline was screwed from the first chapter of PS onwards already. Have you ever wondered why the editor never insisted on removing all these contradictions?

That's what I felt, too many familiar names crammed in. Particularly with a number of light-side names marrying into a family that was supposedly oh-so-dark. In any case, your theory about how that family tree was made might explain some of the questionable dates.

Didn't JKR say somewhere that James' parents died of old age? Barely 60 isn't old age, and even less for a wizard/witch.

Yes, low-class women would have worked, but as you said yourself, save the Weasleys, I don't see any of these lack for money. And with the Weasleys, that's something that doesn't make much sense, either. They have only a few coins in their vault, but can buy that many Lockhart books (why on earth couldn't the kids share one or two sets??) and send so many to Hogwarts and all that. Another thing that doesn't seem too well thought through, does it?

Didn't know that, but I suspect it's the ending that sounds so female to me. Iris is female, too, after all. But I guess we all have different associations, depending on knowledge of the name or associations with other names or things. And some names are used for different genders in different countries anyway, or even in the same country. You can never be certain nowadays