Prompt: Much like the DADA post, the Potter wealth has a curse on it; those who spend galleons from it swiftly find their lives endangered.
Petty expenditures make for petty mishaps, great investments bring great suffering before they come to fruition. But the curse truly manifests itself against gluttons and wasteful spenders...

"Yes, minister. You are, as always, a fount of wisdom in these dark times – I dare say that they shall be writing of you in the annals of history before you know it!"

Writing about how inbreeding, incompetence, and intellectual inferiority combined to make the most gormless man on the planet, Lucius Malfoy thought, smirking to himself. He was not a modest man, but even so, it was still difficult to feel smug about manipulating somebody as brainless as Cornelius Fudge, even if the man had just given him full access to any account at Gringotts he cared to name.

Gloating aside, time was of the essence, and so Lucius quickly apparated to Gringotts, mounted the bank's steps, and strode imperiously up to the chief teller.

"I have," he announced, "a missive from the minister himself, demanding-"

"In line, wizard." The goblin directed, rolling his eyes and gesturing at the irritated queue of wizards and witches that Lucius had ignored as customary.

Infuriated, the wizard strode to the back of the line, and spent the next fifteen minutes alternating between furious seething and grooming his luxuriant hair. Ever since Lockhart had tragically lost his memory and been confined to St. Mungo's, Lucius had won the annual 'SleekEasy Hair of the Year award', aided by the brewing skills of an enormously reluctant Severus Snape – but competition was extremely tight, and he was worried that Magnus Thunderfoot's perfectly coiffed beard was a serious contender this year. He knew exactly what he was going to do with the Potter fortune as soon as he got his delicately manicured hands on it.

At length, he came to the front of the line, and was – at last! - called to the teller. Time to try this again, he thought.

"I have a missive from the minister himself, requiring access to the Legacy vaults." he announced. "He has introduced the Heritage initiative, in which the old families will contribute-"

"You'll have to talk to my manager about that, if it's official ministry business." The goblin smirked, peering over his glasses at Lucius. "That's room seven, second corridor on the left."

Another hour of waiting at the goblin's supervisor office led to another referral, and then another, and it was only after a tortuous meeting late that afternoon with Grimclaw, chief manager in charge of Human Resources (Goblins have a very particular view of the place which humans take in the banking food chain), that Lucius' warrant was finally pronounced sufficient.

"Well, sir." the goblin pronounced, one final investigation of the document later. "which vault will you be st- sorry, making a withdrawal from?"

"Well, who better to make a small financial sacrifice in these troubled times than the noble boy-who-lived?" Lucius asked, doing his unimpressive best to hide his smirk. He was not expecting the goblin to choke at the pronouncement, or to excuse himself from the room – even less the sound of – was that laughter?! to echo down the corridor he'd scurried down. Goblins were terribly strange creatures.

Nevertheless, Lucius was eventually conveyed to the Potter vaults, and was gobsmacked at the amount of money there. He'd always wondered why the Potters had never built a mansion, but they clearly hadn't been lacking for funds – were they simply the most miserly family in Wizarding Britain?

The issue quickly left his mind, and he emptied half of the vault into a bottomless purse with a single summoning charm. He could always come back for the rest later, he reasoned.

That evening found Lucius in his mansion, preparing to take the bath which he'd conveyed one of his house-elves to make with the expensive bath-salts he'd purchased in Diagon Alley. Even more excitingly, he'd finally felt able to indulge in the MagiGlosser Deluxe, a device which, when attached to the back of one's hair, worked to straighten and to polish every single strand to a perfect sheen. Carefully, hands trembling in excitement, he clipped it on to the tip of his hair, and activated it with a tap of his wand.

Lucius sighed, utterly contented, and lowered himself into his bath. For a few blissful minutes, he luxuriated in the feeling of indescribable relaxation which fell over him, reflecting on the fact that any luxury is just that much better when it comes at the expense of one of your enemies. The MagiGlosser quietly whirred away, intent on making him the shiniest, sheeniest wizard in the country.

Slowly, however, Lucius became aware of a tingling feeling in his feet, which quickly rose up his legs. He looked down, and squealed in horror.

"My beautiful skin!" He wailed, shocked at the multicoloured pustules which were now erupting across his body. "It must be the soap!"

Flailing desperately, Lucius leapt from the bath, only to immediately slip on the immaculate marble floor and to collapse onto the table he had laid his wand on, which immediately snapped and let out an enormous magical discharge that threw him across the room. Dazed, he lay there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened, when he became aware of an insistent snapping sound, and, light as air, the gentlest shower of platinum-blond hair hitting the floor.

He peeked over his shoulder, and screamed again: the MagiGlosser must have been affected by the wand's eruption, because it had apparently been switched onto the most aggressive system and was eating his beautiful hair!

"Noooo!" Lucius shrieked again, and, squirming on the soap-slick floor for purchase, did his level best to wrestle the device from his hair before he was left bereft of the thing he loved most in the world. All he succeeded in doing, though, was getting his fingers caught in the machine for his efforts, and he screamed again in pain and horror as they were torn to ribbons before his terrified eyes.

A house-elf peeked into the bathroom, decided that she wasn't getting involved in… whatever that was, and promptly disappeared to do some urgent dusting on the far side of the mansion, as Lucius's arms, head, and body were devoured by the faulty device, leaving nothing but a pool of dark-wizard spaghetti and a last fervent hope that the dark lord wouldn't resurrect him to kill him again for this embarrassment.

It took several confusing weeks for the Malfoys to sort out Lucius' estate, in which Narcissa found that she quite liked not having to care for her preening husband and left for a long, recuperative holiday in the Pyrenees, giving Draco the run of the house. After all, she reasoned, he had a whole team of house-elves devoted to his care – what was the worst that could happen?

Of course, Narcissa had not reckoned on Draco finding the ministerial warrant and – proving that miniscule, bigoted wizarding minds seldom differ – having the exact same idea that his father had...

AN: A fun little trifle, courtesy of Avaday_Daydream and the fine folks of the /r/HPFanfiction subreddit. Many thanks for the inspiration!