It’s the beginning of 6th year after Almira’s hatching and she’s sitting on the living room’s sofa doing math homework, which feels kind of pointless as they are only simple multiplication problems. Her mother had decided on her third year after hatching, that she would be attending a muggle school, and she really couldn’t say no with her mother looking at her like a lost puppy, while holding a school uniform and a backpack in her hands.
While doing that, the doorbell rang. Her mother came out of the kitchen and gave Almira a look, indicating she should prepare to look normal, before heading to open the door. Almira gave herself a onceover, checking that her arms and legs looked normal and that she didn’t have cat ears on top of her head, the ears were easy to forget sometimes, before hiding her tail between the sofa’s pillows.
Her mother opened the door, and outside stood a stern looking witch dressed in emerald green robes.
“Good evening Mrs. Marlson. I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the person in charge of the Book of Admittance. May I come in?”
A shock flashes by her mother’s eyes as she watches McGonagall warily, before letting her in their house.
“Thank you. This shouldn’t take long.”
She leads McGonagall into the living room, where Almira is still doing her homework. McGonagall walks in front of Almira and asks.
“Almira Marlson I presume.”
“Yes.”
Almira looks up in McGonagall’s eyes and replies.
“How old are you?”
“I’m 7.”
“Date of birth.”
“8th of November.”
Almira answers McGonagall’s questions, wondering where this witch is going with this.
“May I know what this is about?”
Her mother takes this change to ask.
“As I mentioned earlier, I’m the person in charge of the Book of Admittance. It is a magical artifact of our school, where the name, address and the date to send the letter of acceptance gets written by the Quill of Acceptance when a child uses magic for the first time.”
McGonagall explains.
“Yes, I know. I went to Hogwarts myself.”
McGonagall turns towards Almira’s mother with a little bit of surprise on her face.
“Oh? When was that?”
“I graduated in 1952.”
“Hmm, then we just missed each other as that was the same year I started as a teacher. Anyway, the reason I’m here today is that I usually check the names in the book 4 years before the children start their studies and when my gaze fell on the name of Almira Marlson, I became puzzled as she had two dates for sending her letter. This has not happened before, so I took it upon myself to come in person to ask for the right date.”
Both Almira’s and her mother’s faces make a stony transformation as they hear McGonagall’s reason for her visit. McGonagall luckily doesn’t seem to notice this as she turns back towards Almira and continues.
“As I already got the answers I came here for, I don’t see any reason for me to interrupt your evening any longer than I already have. I hope we see each other again in 4 years, Ms. Marlson.”
“I’ll see you out.”
McGonagall turns around and starts walking towards the door and Almira’s mother follows behind her. After a while her mother returns and slumps on the sofa, and Almira, seeing her mothers clearly distressed face, asks.
“Mom, are you alright?”
Her mother opens her mouth, but no voice comes out. After a moment of silence, her mouth closes and she turns her face towards Almira, still clearly not sure on what she should say to this daughter of hers. Finally she starts.
“Wizarding world is not a happy place darling. It’s a place where money and power comes first, and others can make what you know to be right, into wrong.”
Her mother lifts Almira onto her lap and rests her chin atop Almira’s head, while continuing.
“Even attending Hogwarts isn’t as simple as they make it sound: You’re accepted so come here to learn. It has a yearly tuition costing 400Galleons, and you have to pay for all 7 years even if you graduate after the 6th. That’s nearly £240 000 in muggle money all together, without including other expenses.”
“Then I just won’t go.”
Almira says.
“You have to, if you want to live in the magical world. The Ministry has made it their mission to make the life of those that don’t have completed their academical studies as hard as possible.”
Her mother lifts her chin off her head and ruffles Almira’s hair.
“Don’t worry, I will just have to make some cheap potions to raise money until I can buy ingredients for some of the better paying ones.”
Almira lowers her head and tries to think of something that she could do to help her mom. She clenches her hands as she can’t come up with anything, when suddenly an idea pops into her head.
“Um, mom. How much does ground hooves of chimaera go for?”
“Well it’s a very good ingredient for protective runes and potions against magic, so it’s usually priced around 15Galleons per pound. Why do you ask?”
Almira doesn’t say anything and just turns around with a wide grin on her face, to show her mom her hands, which both now have five long claws on full display.
The money-system in HP is really not explained in detail, other than author saying a Galleon is £5, though this doesn't add up as it changes from book to book with buying value from £50 to £500. So I decided to give the Sickle a value of 5£ and from there going with 29Knuts in a Sickle and 17 Sickles in a Galleon coming out as
Knut = £0.17
Sickle = £5
Galleon = £85
from my memory there were alot of things that weren't explained very well, and it doesn't really help that the author keeps changing or adding things years affter the books were finished and the movies were done. though good job, and I hope that selling her claws and hooves doesn't end badly for either of them.
@Megamink Maybe the economy is just in a perpetual state of flux among the wizarding world? Or the economy was just shitty in the muggle world and reflected poorly upon the wizarding world?
@DemonLordShadowheart maybe, who knows?
Dealing with a realistic economy is really hard, so mantaining it a bit vague is a good strategy. Like, one of the techniques is mentioning that a thing is expensive, but not give it's value in numbers.