The Daily Prophet
The Daily Prophet
Monday, March 20, 2006
Billionaire Pledges His Fortune to the Fearless
By Lavender Brown, freelance journalist.
What would you do for an overflowing vault at Gringotts? Eccentric entrepreneur and businessman Ernest Opulentum is looking for heirs to his multi-billion galleon fortune. You might not be interested after hearing what he’s going to put the potential successors through. “The persons worthy of my vast amount of wealth, can’t be just any witch or wizard. They must be intelligent, brave, savvy, and cunning!”
As you may know, Mr. Opulentum earned his fortune shortly after the end of the Second Wizarding War, by inventing the revolutionary means of instantaneous communication, “Quirky Qwerty.” The ability to send and receive messages to and from multiple individuals in the blink of an eye by means of a charmed notebook has transformed communication in the Wizarding Community worldwide. Much to the dismay of Owl breeders across the nation, his company has taken the Wizarding community by storm, the number of Quirky Qwertys sold numbers in the millions.
Opulentum, a life-long dedicated bachelor, has decided now is the time to give away his fortune. The 75-year-old stated, “I have more money than Merlin, and the time has come to pass it on to people more deserving, who will make good use of it.” Though Opulentum has no heirs apparent, he has designed a multi-stage competition to find the deserving witch(es) and/or wizard(s). When asked what the competition would consist of he stated, “What would be the point of revealing my challenge to the newspapers! What an idiotic question.” To the obvious follow-up question —if the test would be mortally dangerous —he responded, “Well, I’m no murderer! I will say my tests will bring the participants in the way of danger, but the tests designed by me will not kill anyone, I’m almost sure of it.”
While that may be enough to frighten off the majority of eager competitors, Opulentum is certain that his successors will rise to the occasion. “What’s not to love? Adventure! Fortune! Mystery!” Opulentum did advise potential participants that in order to pass, they must form a team of two players. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of galleons to go around!” He stated that if they were to fail any one task in the challenge, the team would be eliminated. Interested parties must submit their names, proof of age, a vow of secrecy, and a liability waiver by Saturday, April 1, 2006. Perhaps an aptly chosen date for those who sign up? Only time will tell. The competition will begin shortly after that, and those participating will receive information confidentially directly from Mr. Opulentum. “If you don’t play, you won’t know.”
One cannot help but wonder why this self-made businessman would design challenges for a potential heir, rather than just give his vast fortune away to a smattering of charities that interest him. In his own words, “Life is meant to be lived , too often we get comfortable and stay comfortable, this is designed to shake the cobwebs from our brains and to get the blood pumping in our veins once more. Plus it seemed like a fun idea.”
For more details concerning this competition, including a full transcript of the interview, see page 2.