Who pays Frank Bryce?

[sunnyskywalker]

I somehow forgot that the omniscient narrator in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire explicitly tells us that the mysterious rich man who now owns the Riddle House pays Frank Bryce to stay on as gardener. Why bother with the gardening, if Voldemort is otherwise happy to let the house fall to ruins? Does he want Frank around just in case he needs a scapegoat again someday? Seems like he could find one easily enough without paying for decades of unappreciated gardening.

And what funds is he using, exactly? Did he open a Muggle bank account and use it to launder money from stuff he's stolen over the decades, and Frank's wages are peanuts compared to how much Voldemort has accrued by now? Or does he make one of his followers do it?

Hey, maybe that's how Lucius really made the connection between Tom Riddle and Voldemort. What Dobby overheard was Lucius telling Narcissa that he finally figured out how to look up Muggle property records and he's got this horrible suspicion all of a sudden... I was coming around to the idea that Lucius actually didn't know until Dumbledore told him, and Dobby overheard that years ago when Lucius's father-in-law Cygnus was talking about it to one of Narcissa's other relatives, the elder Rosier, while everyone was over for a house party. (Separately from the conversation about "terrible things" he overheard the summer of 1992.) Dobby would have loved knowing that, and knowing that Lucius didn't know. But Voldemort underestimating a Malfoy's practical skills once again works too.

But back to the original question: why? Is Voldemort just obsessed with having the perfect lawn?

Comments

Harry's Vault

[nx74defiant]

The only information we get in the books is the one visit.
Piles of gold - from the view of an 11 year old. So what is to a small child a large pile, how would an adult see it?
Harry has never had an allowance, the Dursley's don't give him spending money. His school shopping trip is probably his first experience with managing his own money.

Re: Harry's Vault

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh yeah, it is definitely vague in the books. There was just this one weird interview where Rowling said something about how James wouldn't have had to work for a living but Harry will. I'll have to track that down. It makes you wonder whether this was one of those ghost plots she meant to write but cut. Because that is weirdly specific. How could James have gone through that much money in three years? Was that part of the whole "what the Potters did was super-important" angle that she ended up not really putting in the books after all?

There was this weird bit in one of the books where Harry reflects that the Dursleys hadn't given him pocket money since he was about six. Which is also weird. Why did they ever give him an allowance in the first place? Were they less bad in earlier years, and degenerated over time? Maybe they thought his magic really was accidental when he was that young, but blamed him by the time he was nine or so because Petunia said Lily could control it by that age so Harry must be doing it on purpose now? So many questions.

Re: Harry's Vault

[oryx_leucoryx]

Harry accesses his vault again at the beginning of COS, and it visibly has a lot more money than the Weasley vault, that gets emptied entirely in order to pay for the expenses of 5 kids (and whatever other shopping the adults were planning). In POA he lives for several weeks at the Leaky Cauldron in addition to buying his school supplies (though a significant part of his nutrition those days was in the form of free ice cream). In GOF Molly does his shopping for him with his money and finds it OK to buy him nice dress robes (though I wouldn't trust Molly's business sense). In OOTP again Molly does the shopping. In HBP Bill gets Harry's money for his shopping, and at this point Harry's vault also includes whatever was left in Sirius' (was it the entire Black inheritance or just what was left of the money Sirius had inherited from his uncle?).

Oh, in GOF he doesn't notice when the leprechaun gold in his pocket disappears, implying he was carrying a lot of pocket money.

Re: Harry's Vault

[sunnyskywalker]

The money might last longer if Harry's expenses stayed at the same level as when he's in school, but they probably won't, even given that he's now inherited a house and won't have to pay rent or a mortgage. We don't know how much food usually costs wizards, though it might be on the low side since it can be magically extended somewhat. He'll probably need more clothing than three sets of plain black robes every couple of years, especially if he needs separate work and not-work wardrobes. There might be an annual fee for Floo Network connection in addition to the Floo powder itself. And so on. Those three kids will incur more costs. And he has no experience budgeting, so at least for the first few years out of school, he'll probably buy expensive Quidditch equipment and a fabulous honeymoon and whatever strikes his fancy in Diagon Alley without a thought, and maybe regret it later. So I could see it running down faster than he expects. But how quickly depends on exactly how much he has, and what his actual expenses will be, what investment opportunities are available, etc.

We do know that the Lestrange vault is crammed floor to ceiling with gold coins, goblins, armor, a skull with a crown, etc., while Harry has "heaps" and "mounds" of coins (and apparently nothing else). I would guess that the Lestranges don't need to work for a living. But we don't know exactly how great the difference is between Harry's mounds and Lestranges' stacks to the ceilings, or how that translates into years' worth of living expenses (plus the whole investments and dividends question).

Sirius doesn't seem to have had any trouble inheriting the house, but it might have been possible for his family to will the money away separately--or they might have spent it, for that matter. Maybe Arcturus needed expensive medical care in his last years, or had an expensive recreational potions habit. I'm not sure whether we can make any guesses about personal vs. family vault based on the vault locations. Sirius (or the Black family's) vault is deeper than the Potter family vault, I think, but maybe all that means is that they paid for a higher-security vault.