Although he was born in England, Wright spent the first ten years of his life in Edinburgh and had never been to London. As the largest city and largest economic center in Europe, London is far smaller than Edinburgh in terms of city size.
When Professor McGonagall was about to leave the orphanage yesterday, she left a certain amount of student aid to Wright. Many people may not know that Hogwarts provides some financial aid to students from poor families. And in addition to requiring students to purchase their own school supplies, Hogwarts will not charge any tuition fees to students. Food and accommodation are included, and water and electricity are free for seven years. Hogwarts can be regarded as one of the most conscientious schools in the multiverse!
However, this free student aid provided by the school is not much, even based on the consumption level of the wizarding world. There is only enough for those students to buy second-hand robes and second-hand old textbooks, and sometimes they have to bargain for the price themselves. But for Wright, he still saved a small coffer of more than 10,000 pounds during his years of fighting crime. If converted into gold galleons at a ratio of 1:5, that would be two thousand gold coins. A little frugality would be enough for Wright to survive seven school years.
After getting off the train at London Railway Station, with a rich mentality, Wright took a taxi to Charing Cross Road. Not long after, Wright got out of the car on a seemingly ordinary street.
After paying his taciturn driver the fare, Wright found his target, a dingy little pub on Charing Cross Road between a large bookstore and a record shop.
The sign on the bar reads: The Leaky Cauldron has been established since 1500.
Wright adjusted his backpack and walked into the Leaky Cauldron. As in the impression, as the entrance connecting the wizarding world and the Muggle world, the Leaky Cauldron is too dark and dirty! The bar owner, who was about to lose his hair, was standing behind the bar chatting with a customer. There were two witches drinking in the corner.
Seeing Wright entering the door, the bar owner stopped talking to the guest and asked Wright: "Welcome! This unfamiliar little guest! I am Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron Bar. Do you want something?" "
Wright leaned towards the bar and responded to Tom: "Sorry, there is no need to order anything yet, Mr. Tom. I am a new student at Hogwarts this year. I come from the Muggle world. I need to go to the opposite corner first. lane."
"Okay, the entrance to Diagon Alley is in the backyard of the bar. Do you want me to take you there?" Tom nodded.
Diagon Alley is Britain's only wizarding shopping alley. Tom has been the owner of the Leaky Cauldron for decades. He was already here when the other Tom first came to Diagon Alley. Because of this, Tom is familiar with almost all the wizards in the British wizarding world, and now he can still see a new face, either a new Muggle student or a foreign wizard.
"Of course, thank you very much!" Wright nodded gratefully.
The boss, Tom, came out from behind the bar and took Wright with him to the backyard. Then he took out a wand and tapped it three times on a brick wall. A hole appeared in the wall, and the opening slowly turned into an archway, and the shouting sound reached Wright's ears from the other end of the archway.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Tom turned his head and smiled at Wright.
After accepting Wright's thanks, the boss Tom immediately returned to the bar in front, while Wright continued forward and entered Diagon Alley along the archway. Not paying attention to the shops on the roadside, Wright walked straight to a majestic snow-white building. On the shiny bronze door was a line of words: Gringotts Wizards Bank.
Following a silver door and walking into the hall of Gringotts, Wright stood in the middle of the hall and looked at the scenery for a while, then walked towards the counter where the goblins were standing.
"Hello, I want to exchange pounds for some wizard currency." Wright said to a idle goblin. For this kind of highly intelligent non-human race, just treat them with an equal and natural attitude.
"What do you want to exchange for? Galleons? Sickle or Nat?" The goblin pointed its pointed nose at Wright.
"Just Galleons, I would like to ask what the exchange rate of pounds is today?" Wright recalled the twisted and illogical exchange ratio of coins in the wizarding world. He didn't know which genius invented it. Seventeen silver coins, one silver coin can be exchanged for twenty-nine copper nats.
The goblin's eyes lit up and her voice immediately became more enthusiastic: "Today's pound exchange rate is exactly 5. Distinguished guest, do you need to exchange it immediately?"
"Yes," Wright nodded, "but before redeeming, I still have a few questions I would like to ask."
"Please tell me," the goblin said without hesitation.
"First question, is there a limit to converting pounds into galleons?" Wright asked.
"Of course, new students from the Muggle world come in every year. For this reason, we have specially opened a channel to exchange pounds for Galleons." The goblin nodded, "Generally speaking, the annual pound exchange limit for each wizard is one thousand."
A thousand pounds? Wright frowned, which means it's only about two hundred galleons? This seems a bit missing, right
As if sensing Wright's doubts, the goblin explained: "The pound sterling is of little use to us. Every time a Muggle student comes to exchange the pound sterling, we still need to use some means to get the pounds back to the Muggle world." , so the amount of galleons each person can redeem will not be too large.”
Wright nodded, accepting this statement, and then asked his second question: "Are these Galleons, Sickles, and Nats all made of pure metal?"
"What?" The goblin made an obviously angry expression, "Are you questioning the integrity of our goblins?"
"Of course not." Wright shook his head calmly, "I just want to know the answer to this question."
"Each currency is made of pure metal by our goblin coin craftsmen!" The goblin glared at Wright and said angrily, "Can you exchange it for pounds now?"
"No problem!" Wright readily took out a thousand pounds and exchanged them for two hundred galleons. He originally thought he could exchange for more galleons today, so he took all the money in the small vault with him. But I didn't expect that Gringotts' annual pound exchange limit was only one thousand, so the remaining money could only be used later.
The goblin took the banknotes handed over by Wright, carefully counted out two hundred galleons from the drawer on the counter, and then placed the gold galleons neatly on the counter.
"Time is Galleons! My friend," said the goblin.
Wright took off the backpack behind him and swept all the Galleons on the counter into it.
After picking up his backpack, Wright turned around and walked outside, silently saying in his heart:
The financial system in the wizarding world is quite backward!