Harry Porter, Potter, something. The English kid who sat in cube 21, back there by the Fiery printer. Somebody said they saw him in one of those tragically hip Soho bars, but he never seemed the type. Sucking face with that skinny blonde sissy homeboy of his. He didn’t seem the type for that either.

Well, but Millie from Payroll used to look at him like she wanted to eat him up with a spoon; he did have those pretty green eyes behind those stupid welfare glasses. Apparently, however, he wasn’t having that sultry Latina thang, and whatever he said to her must have pissed her off, because everybody heard her tell him he needed to get over himself. He had to get his check from the supervisor’s office for like three weeks until Patrick from the front desk figured out that he was just being paranoid about this mark he had on his face. Somebody gave him some aloe vera and Vitamin E, cleared it up in a week.

There’s a lotta, lotta money in this world, a whole lot of rich people, which becomes obvious to anyone who works in investment banking support. The banks people put their paychecks in -- that’s not banking. Guys who make their money doing stuff are not rich people. Private banks like Gringott’s with clients who don’t realize that it is possible to walk into a store and walk out with a shirt that is already made: that’s banking, those are rich people, and they’re surprisingly benign employers once they figure out there’s a difference between employees and servants.

Harry had come over from the London office. He was quick on the keyboard, and better with the software than most European operators. Patrick the front desk guy gave him all the express jobs, because the bankers didn’t seem to irritate Harry as much as they did the American operators. He’d just look up at them, brushing his hair off his smooth forehead; somehow, that seemed to intimidate them.

Harry wasn’t shy, which is what everyone assumed at first since he was so quiet. He never got personal calls and he never joined in conversations, although he would sometimes put his head down and laugh at something he had overheard. Naturally, as seldom as he spoke, whenever he did speak, everyone listened.

That blond thing, now. The moment he appeared at the desk with the inevitable ream of chicken scratch Linear B, an impossible deadline and a list of ludicrous demands delivered in his whiny, drawly, queeny British voice, every operator suddenly remembered it was time for mandatory ergonomic breaks. Harry’s eyes narrowed the first time he saw him, and his lips got very thin. But Blondie went into shock, literally clutching his chest. By the time he recovered enough to paste that simpering smirk back onto his face, it was obvious to everyone that there was a History here. Harry stared right past Blondie to Patrick the front desk guy. "Put it in the box," Harry said. "I’ll pick it up--" ostentatiously consulting his watch "--after lunch."

Sometime after that, Patrick issued one of his "Conference Room O" summonses, which meant that the first round was on him at O’Malley’s for everyone on the day shift. Harry had never been known to socialize, but that evening he was sitting in a booth in O’Malley’s glaring stonily at Blondie across the table. As soon as Patrick’s noisy entourage swarmed the bar, Harry jumped up smiling and greeted Patrick like a favorite uncle. He must have downed four Coors Lites before Blondie finally gave up and left.

(Oddly, there was very little screaming. Yelling, cursing, spasmodic weeping. Somebody had gotten through on his cell phone. "Yeah," he was saying. "Looks like the helicopters can’t get through. We’re going to die. Right. Love ya, bye... Yo! Dial tone here!" He tossed the phone to someone else. A rough hulk of a man, incongruously elegant in a suit and tie, had been sitting on the floor, shaking; he stood up suddenly. "Fuck this shit. I’m gonna blow this pop stand." He strode over to the shattered window, shoved a few people aside and jumped. Cell phone guy looked over at Harry and Draco. "How about it? You two fairies think you can fly?" He was smiling grimly and holding out his hand.)

The little park was full of dust-covered refugees headed uptown, stopping to rest, but not for too long. It was necessary to keep going. It was too weird back there. People were still headed downtown. The trains had stopped running, but the hourly workers continued on foot. The ones covered in dust told them they might as well go back, nothing was left, the towers had fallen, everything was burning; but that made no sense. If they could just clock in, they’d have to get paid for the day, whatever had happened.

A woman was preaching. These are the Last Days, she said, and she had seen it, running barefoot through a hellscape of dust and smoke and flaming body parts. Slightly off to the side of her tiny congregation sat two young men, one dark and one fair under the gray dust. They held onto each other for dear life, smiling dopily and nodding at the preaching woman.

Apparently Harry and Blondie have been together since The Day. Blondie still works for Gringott’s, even though they bailed to New Jersey, but Harry says he refuses to be of any use to the world whatsoever and is training to be a professional skateboarder. Which sounds like sarcasm, but somebody saw him in that big skate park. Said he kicks butt in vert.

He can really fly.