Harry Potter Books Tried to Explain This Sirius Black Plot Hole but Made It Worse

Summary:

• Sirius Black bought the most expensive broom for Harry while being on the run and living in terrible conditions.
• As the unfortunate godfather later explains, he used Hermione’s cat to deliver the order to avoid recognition.
• This doesn’t explain why Sirius could bypass the limitations to buy a gift but couldn’t do it to get some money for himself.

At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban, but his happiness doesn’t last long. Since he’s considered a dangerous Death Eater, Harry’s godfather has to live on the run. For the next two years, he lives in caves, eats rats, and travels as a dog — but at the same time, he buys some ridiculously pricey presents for his godson.

Was Sirius Black’s unlikely generosity a plot hole, or did he find a way to bamboozle the Ministry of Magic and access his bank account… For the one and only purpose?

Sirius Gifted Harry Firebolt While on the Run

In the Wizarding World, the best brooms are a lot like sports cars for Muggles: they’re extremely fast, fancy, and expensive, and while everyone wants one, the vast majority of the population can’t afford them. During the events of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Firebolt is the latest and fastest broom available on the market, and Harry receives it as a present from an anonymous benefactor.

As we learn later into the story, it was Sirius Black who sent the gift as a way to compensate for the thirteen years he’d left his godson without birthday presents. But at the time, Black was on the run, and he lived in terrifying conditions: the man didn’t even have a place to stay, let alone a hefty budget to buy such expensive gifts.

Sirius Used the Dumbest Gringotts Loophole

While it’s never addressed in the Harry Potter movies, the books do a better job at explaining the origin of Sirius’ gift. As his godfather explains to Harry later, he used Hermione’s half-Kneazle cat Crookshanks as his unlikely personal assistant, abusing Gringotts’ general indifference toward their clients’ criminal charges and the fact that Harry was officially registered as his godson.

“Crookshanks took the order to the Owl Office for me. I used your name but told them to take the gold from my own Gringotts vault,” Sirius tells Harry. One more point to the House “Gringotts’ security is terrible” for being right yet again and ten points to Gryffindor for Sirius’ successful exploitation of said security.

The Firebolt Story Is Still a Plothole

Despite Sirius providing a somewhat satisfying explanation to his purchase, the case is not closed, because his explanation raises another question — and this one we can’t answer no matter how hard we try.

How come Sirius could use Crookshanks to buy a present for Harry but didn’t even think of using the same method to get some money out of his family vault for himself? Surely, he could have ordered something that he could later sell on the black (pun unintended) market and make some quick galleons to help himself?

He totally could, but he didn’t. So even though Sirius explained how he managed to purchase Firebolt, this entire story still has a gaping plot hole right in the middle.