Harry and the $20,000 Galleons

Harry Potter was in a fugue state, wandering the streets of Diagon Alley in a daze, when he suddenly realized he needed to buy some stuff for school. Harry had taken his last galleon to buy his textbooks back home, and was suddenly penniless. After wondering aimlessly for a few minutes, he realized that he had now been awake for two days and was starving. Hungry and exhausted, Harry found himself in front of a giant T-shirt store with no money to buy food. He would have given some hungry child his new textbooks for some food if he hadn't lost them too. Harry was so hungry it hurt. He had wandlessly picked up some change from a passerby's pocket earlier in the day, but it was now long gone. In his desperation, Harry noticed that there was a black moleskin notebook sitting on top of the cash register at the T-shirt store.

Harry grabbed the notebook and ran out of the store, hoping he hadn't just stolen it without realizing. He ran as fast as he could back to his house and collapsed on the front porch steps. He opened the notebook and found that there were several spells within - one in particular caught his eye: "patronus charm." Harry had heard this spell mentioned by Hermione once before and thought it looked easy enough. He shut his eyes tight and pictured all of his friends having a good time with him at Hogwarts if only he had more money to pay for school. His wandless magic latched onto the thoughts in his head, and he cast the spell -

Suddenly there were $20,000 galleons sitting in front of him! Harry laughed out loud and shouted "I did it!" Harry's mother suddenly came out of the house, laughing too.

"I did it! I did the charm, and look what happened! I've got so much money now!"

Mrs. Potter laughed and said "It looks like you did, dear. I take it you figured out how to do a Patronus Charm?"

Mrs. Potter helped Harry fill up a suitcase with potions and other supplies for his first year of school. She also bought him some new clothes with the $10,000 galleons they were able to keep after paying for his school supplies.

After arriving in Diagon Alley again the next summer, Harry spent a few weeks shopping for his other books before running out of money once more. He remembered that there was a notebook full of spells at the T-shirt store so he took them again. This time he charmed his loafers to make him taller and faster on foot. The $20,000 galleons were long, long gone, as he spent all of them over the course of seven years. The situation worsened when he decided to try his hand at accioing notes from Hermione instead of paying for them. Accio was a tricky spell, especially if you didn't have any experience. He had tried it while standing by a door that had a note taped to it. He spelled it wrong and caused the paper to slam into him, sending him flying through the door into the hallway and breaking his wand in the process.

Harry spent a few weeks sulking around the house, with his mother trying to cheer him up day in and day out. She bought him a few books but her meager savings was soon gone. Harry was dreading returning to Diagon Alley that summer a few weeks before his eighth year. But he had no more tricks up his sleeve. Both he and his mother were penniless, and he was no longer a runaway from the Dursleys. Harry's parents refused to pay his tuition. He decided that he would have to come up with an ingenious idea to pay his tuition or he would have to drop out of school. Not the most ambitious work, but Harry was at his wit's end. He was taking a break from sulking and was lying on the living room couch, contemplating how he could possibly come up with any money. He sighed as he hopped up off the couch. His mother walked into the room with two books in hand and set them down on the coffee table in front of Harry.

"Harry, I bought you some books that you may find useful."

She handed him the books - one was a book on advanced transfiguration and the other was a book on advanced charms. He flipped through the charms book and saw a spell called "Amplius Abscondio." He read the description out loud: "Instead of making your belongings appear, this spell sends them to another dimension. The idea is to store them in another part of the room, which would be difficult to access for a non-wizard, though a wizard may be able to dismantle the wall if he or she wanted to access your treasure trove."

Harry set the book down and starred in disbelief. He looked up at his mother with a look of amazement - she just smiled at him and motioned for him to continue reading.

Harry turned back to the book and read the description of "Amplius Abscondio" again, "A wizard may cast a spell on a specific object, causing it to disappear and reappear at any time. This is useful for places that are thought to be never-ending, like a broom closet, or for hiding in plain sight when your enemy is searching for you in your house."

Harry thought about what his mother had said. He closed the book and hopped off the couch, grabbed his wand and ran out of the room. His mother watched panicked as he ran down the hall and collapsed to the ground next to the wall to his room. He took a deep breath and uttered the incantation -

The wall behind his bed opened up slowly, revealing a room full of gold galleons.

"I don't believe it," Harry said to himself. He had filled the wall behind his bed with a magically expandable door that extended underneath his bed and into the next room. It was rigged with a locking charm so that only he could open it. His mother looked into the room and gasped.

Harry latched the door under the bed back into place. He walked back to the couch, where he had left the two books, and handed them to his mother.

"I learned these charms in my fifth year. I never had to use them and I didn't want them to make me feel like a lazy wizard so I never practiced them."

Mrs. Potter looked through the two books in disbelief. Before, Harry was a delinquent that never paid attention in class. Now she was looking at a wizard who, in his fifth year, had learned how to protect his belongings so that no one else could access them. He had also learned how to hide his room in plain sight.

Harry looked at his mother and smiled. He spent the next few hours doing his summer homework and laughing with his mother. The happiness lasted until the morning, when his mother woke him up early to pack for his year at Hogwarts. She paid for all of his school supplies and clothes, but wouldn't give him any money to buy his books. Harry smiled and didn't fight her on it - he knew that she was right. If he wasn't able to access that room he would not be able to pay for his schooling, no matter how much he begged or pleaded.

Harry was finally done running away, and ready to run towards becoming the great wizard that he would be destined to be.