Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
Never Forget
50 reviewsHannah explains, Hermione confesses, Daphne decides, Rita overhears, Molly believes and Ginny gloats
5Funny
Reviews
Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) grim_kos 2008-04-02
This was great i cant wait for the next chapter.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) BenRG 2008-04-02
What can I say except: XD
Neville, old son, you should have been in Slytherin. Ol' Salazar himself would have approved of that revenge. Now, Ginny has nothing and no-one to blame (except her mother's credulty and her impatience) for losing everything that she coveted. What was particularly delicious about this was Harry's ignorance of Neville's prank. It all made for such a wonderful conculsion. Enough of the Weasleys now (although I bet Harry will see some of the echoes of the repurcussions in his immediate vicinity).
I liked Hannah's heart-to-heart with Daphne. It just shows how feelings creep up on you and how very, very uncomfortable some comparisons can be.
Now... what are you going to do with Hermione? Will you follow the White Knight, Grey Queen pattern and have her form an alliance of best friends with Tracey?
BenRG's Rating: 8/10
Oh, BTW - I think that comment about Galleons being 'the size of hubcaps' is probably an exaggeration. I imagine that the Galleon is about the size of the Sovereign, which is about one and a half inches in diameter and a meaty three tenths of an inch thick.
Remember that currency exchange rates are set by government and banking fiat rather than actual value these days. The Galleon's value against the pound is based on the relative strength of the Muggle and Wizarding economies, not its weight in gold.Author's response
- Yeah, Nev has come into his own...
- Truth be told, I haven't decided what Hermione is going to do... She's not really the story.
- Yes, in a modern economy, the value of the metals in the coin have little to do with the value of the coin.
- The Wizarding economy is NOT a modern one. They keep their money in a bank that isn't really a bank by a modern definition. They have piles of cash sitting in personal vaults, instead of being invested earning interest.
- In as much as the Goblins haven't started the concept of paper money (at least no examples of it in canon) I find it highly unlikely that the Goblins are using alloy coins
- If they do in fact value their coins at substantially less than the value of the metal in the coin, then they are fools, and so is each and every Wizard who isn't melting the coins down and selling the metal for a profit.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) BJH 2008-04-02
"I'm here all week folks, tip your elves." I loved that line; totally in character with the Harry you are portraying. His life is a comedy show anyway, so why not act the part of a vaudevillian?
I'm honored and flattered that you liked my idea enough to use it, although I am curious as to what you had planned. Keeping Harry out of it was very well played, it preserves his moral high ground as well as sets the stage for his friends to protect him. And his clueless, "I don't care about your money either" to Daphne was priceless.
I can't wait to see what an honorable Slytherin and a driven Gryffindor can come up with in terms of payback for Ron. That should be something to see!
As to your conversion rate, I concur that it should somehow be higher than 5 pounds to the Galleon. Here are a couple more examples from canon. Harry buys his wand for 7 Galleons from Ollivander, supposedly one of the best wandmakers in the world. At 5 pounds or about 10 dollars US to the pound that's only $70 for such a powerful instrument, about the cost of a decent calculator for a student. Given that there are only 50 or so new students each year how could Ollivander stay in business? How many wizards break there wands each year? Multiply that by a factor of 15, or 75 pounds per Galleon, the cost of the wands are about $1000 or the price of an inexpensive laptop computer. That seems more realistic, don't you think?
The second example is Arthur Weasley won 700 Galleons at the beginning of PoA and used to to take his kids on a trip overseas. It sounded like a pretty full blown holiday, and they were gone long enough that Harry couldn't visit them that summer, so several weeks at least. How much would it cost to send seven people on a top notch vacation to a foreign country for three weeks? Plus there was a bit left over to put in Gringotts as I recall.
All in all a significant amount of support in the books that a Galleon is worth more than the common 5 pounds.
Thanks again;
BJHAuthor's response
- I almost went with 'try the veel' instead of 'tip your elves' but that would just show how old I am...
- My original idea was just a simple decline which she forced him to do publicly (thinking he was crawling back) Yours was much better.
- I'm not sure that Hermione will abuse Ron 'On Camera'
- Unfortunately, there are also examples of things that would make even the 5 pound galleon a bit pricey, the hot chocolate on the Knight Bus for example...Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) mathiasgranger 2008-04-02
"Daphne shuttered at his touch"
I presume you mean shuddered here.
Good chapter, although the continuing gullibility of the wizarding populace galls me.
~MattAuthor's response
- No, seriously, when he touched her she closed her shutters... Fixed.
- It it wasn't demonstrated so clearly in canon, fanon wouldn't get away with it.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) pfeil 2008-04-02
Kudos to BJH for a brilliant plot bunny =)
BenRG said:
"Remember that currency exchange rates are set by government and banking fiat rather than actual value these days. The Galleon's value against the pound is based on the relative strength of the Muggle and Wizarding economies, not its weight in gold."
But that value cannot be less than the value of the gold or else you end up with people pulling the Witches Secret trick of selling galleons as gold for pounds, then converting the pounds back into galleons and repeating, to get free money.
Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) oximoron 2008-04-02
I agree completely on your abandoning the canon 1 to 5 ratio of Galleons, I would however like to point out that there is an actual gold coin in existence called a krugerrand. It is exactly one ounce of gold and at today's exchange value is around 455 GBP (454.873).
JKR has stated repeatedly that she has little mathematical ability and has admitted that this is one of those errors.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) lycus 2008-04-02
HA HA HA that was incredable, and neville,hannah and hermione came up with a brilliant plan to get rid of the hardest working girl, in the oldest profession. but I was wondering why there wasn't more detail on what happened between daphne and ginny. But now I'm waiting to see what is going to happen between harry and daphne you might be digging yourself into a hole with them, as they just seem to get closer to each other, but now that daphne is now in the public eye the stress could be a cause for them to seperate for a while and then harry can have his dates with susan and or padma. oh and what ever happened to luna?Author's response
- I think that I've pretty much given up on the multiple dates idea. Blame Daphne, she doesn't share.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) Terdwilicker 2008-04-02
Good chapter. It feels a little rushed, but pacing necessitates that.
I liked the explanation of the conversion rate at the end. Even at 75:1 its still very undervalued assuming its gold, and it probably is at least 14K (58% Gold, 42% Silver) and more likely 18K (75% gold, 25% silver) though pure 24K is certainly possible, though it lacks the inherent durability of the 18K coins. Even so, assuming the coin is the size of a quarter and 3mm thick gets you a volume of around 0.61 cc volume/coin, which with a 75% gold content gets you .45 cc of gold per coin, that's still around $200 in gold. Melting it down for gold and selling it to muggles would be a winning proposition. Again, math failures by Rowling. There are so many errors in canon you may as well correct them as you go.
You are one of the few authors I'm still reading in HP fanfic as I transition back into writing original fiction once more. Hope to see more chapters for this and Distaff Side. Cheers.Author's response
Thanks.Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts
(#) irishfighter 2008-04-02
Awesome chapter, can't wait for the next chapter.
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