In Chapter Twenty-Five of Deathly Hallows Bill explains the goblin notion of ownership:
“You don’t understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.”
“But if it was bought —”
“— then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. You saw Griphook’s face when the tiara passed under his eyes. He disapproves. I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.”
In Chapter Nineteen of Order of the Phoenix we are told that Galleons are cast by goblins:
“You see the numerals around the edge of the coins?” Hermione said, holding one up for examination at the end of their fourth meeting. The coin gleamed fat and yellow in the light from the torches. “On real Galleons that’s just a serial number referring to the goblin who cast the coin.
Thus, according to the goblin notion of ownership, goblins should own the money as well. Yet while we find goblins complaining about wizard “theft” of their other objects, we do not ever find them complaining about the theft of money itself. Indeed, back in Chapter Twenty-Five of Deathly Hallows, when Griphook mentions that the tiara was goblin-made, Bill immediately counters that it was wizard-paid, as if that settles the matter:
“Moonstones and diamonds,” said Griphook, who had sidled into the room without Harry noticing. “Made by goblins, I think?”
“And paid for by wizards,” said Bill quietly, and the goblin shot him a look that was both furtive and challenging.
But if goblins think that they own things that they made, the fact that it was paid for would just be adding insult to injury — not only is the object “stolen”, it was stolen by using something else that was “stolen”.
How are we do understand this apparent discrepancy within the goblin notion of ownership?
