Harry Potter, Wall Street Banker.
His scar was hurting again. It must be those pills, Harry thought. What good did they do if they cured his insomnia but made his scar hurt so much he couldn't sleep a wink? Harry cursed his doctor, therapist and the moron who invented such lousy medicine as he slammed his fist down onto the dashboard.
Harry was tired, angry and running late as usual. Ten years of driving had not made him any more patient with Muggle traffic. He hated it, even more than he hated Voldemort. Voldemort had, at least, been considerate enough to give him the chance to complete the year at Hogwarts before attacking him. This traffic wasn't even giving him the opportunity to be early for work for the first time in a month.
It had been a decade since Harry had left the wizarding world for the equally magical world of Muggle stockbroking. Who could have imagined? Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived turned Wall Street Banker. Just the thought of it alone made Harry want to snort with laughter. Even he himself could not have imagined it, if not for the fact that he was stuck in a jam in the streets of New York, going nowhere despite having the fastest Ferrari in the world.
As expected, Harry arrived fashionably late at his office in downtown New York.
"Hallo, Mister Potter! Would you like a cup of coffee to kickstart this lovely day?" Brenda, his over-enthusiastic secretary was already holding a steaming cup in her hand as she leaned against his office door in an unsuccessful attempt to look seductive.
"Oh, right. Thanks." Harry mumbled as he tore his eyes away from her and blushed as he tried to search for his cigar case. Said cigar case found, Harry drew out a cigar and stuck it in his mouth before lighting it with a well-practised flick of his lighter. Inhaling deeply, Harry leaned back into his chair and shut his eyes, sighing in contentment.
"How's the cigar, Mister Potter?"
Harry almost fell off his chair as he opened his eyes to reveal Brenda smiling widely at him, not two inches from his face.
"What in the name of...!? I thought you left! Why are you still here!?"
"I just wanted to remind you that you have a date later..."
"A date?!" The cigar fell out of Harry's mouth as he gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. "What date?!"
"I mean, a date with your doctor! He called this morning but you weren't here, so i took a message for you. Remember to go for the appointment later! Love you, sweetie!" Brenda blew Harry a kiss before sashaying out of the room in a slightly disturbing manner.
Harry wondered if he should get a new secretary.
"Have you been taking your pills, Mr Potter?" Dr. Possible looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between concern and pity.
"Pills, oh right, pills! Yeah I guess I have..." Harry tried desperately to remember what pills he was talking about. Were they the red ones or the blue ones or the pink ones? There were the insomnia pills, and the depression pills...which ones were they?
" I hope you've been staying off the alcohol, Mr Potter. Your liver isn't getting any better, in fact, I was going to suggest you start looking very hard for a donor now. The national list is extremely long, and at the rate your body is failing you, I don't think you'll last to the end of the two years it'll take for you to get a donor from the list. In fact, I think two months is the most you've got if you don't get a transplant. This is a grave matter, Mr. Potter, you have to understand that it concerns your life..." Dr Possible's voice went on and on as Harry's eyelids got heavier and heavier.
"Mr. Potter, are you listening to me? MR. POTTER!"
"Don't do that! This is the only sleep I've had in the last two days!" Harry snapped as he jerked out of his slumber. "Right, so I'm going to die. Let me die then, what do you care as long as I pay you? Just leave me alone!" Harry stormed out of the room.
"That poor man….personality changes, irritability, fatigue, he's already showing all the symptoms of liver failure but he doesn't seem to care at all. I guess I won't be seeing much of him in the future. Not that I would care to see him again. " Dr Possible remarked to his assistant after Harry had slammed the door behind him.
Harry sat down at the bar table and asked for a glass of whisky. He couldn't help but feel sorry for himself. He had tried so hard all these years to make a name for himself and this was where all it had gotten him.
"Whassup, m'boy? Don't look so glum, here, have a rock cake." The bearded bartender plonked his whisky and a plate of rock cakes down onto the table and looked at Harry through his rose tinted (literally) glasses. The bartender reminded Harry of a smaller version of Hagrid – both were bearded, burly men with a passion for rock cakes that tasted exactly like rocks.
"I'm going to die in two months," Harry took a swig of his whisky, feeling it burn his throat as it made its way down to his broken and failing liver.
"That's not too bad, at least yer got two months left! Enjoy life while it lasts, m' boy, and yer won't die in regret."
The bartender smiled kindly at Harry, giving him a reassuring pat on the head. He had known this man for almost ten years now, and had never figured out what made a high-flying stockbroker like him keep coming back to his dingy, cramped pub. He did, however, hope fervently that it was his delicious rock cakes that did it.
Just then, Harry spotted Rob, the pub's resident drug dealer sitting alone in the corner. Great, he knew exactly what he needed to put himself out of this misery now.
"Hey Rob, got any weed to spare?"
Four hours later, Harry stumbled out of the pub smelling like a marijuana field and feeling on top of the world. Rob was his lifesaver. There wasn't any problem weed couldn't solve, was there? Harry smiled half heartedly to himself as the world swam around him in a myriad of colours and blurry shapes.
Harry staggered along the pavement, oblivious to the stares of curious passers-by around him. He couldn't, for the life of him, remember where he had parked his car.
"TAXI!" Harry hollered as he stood at the curb, sticking out his right arm and flailing it like a drowning man. "KNIGHTBUS! WHERE IS THE F****** KNIGHTBUS!"
But it was a ordinary yellow taxi, not the glaring purple Knight Bus that drove up to Harry and stopped in front of him. He managed to get all his limbs into the taxi safely into the taxi before shutting the door, mumbling his address to the driver and drifting off into unconsciousness.
Harry had no idea how he got home, but when he woke up, he was lying on his own doorstep in a crumpled heap. He tried, and failed to locate his keys (which were in his briefcase still lying on the bar table) and had to resort to climbing into his house through a side window, which made for a very painful and sobering experience. At moments like these, Harry regretted deeply his decision to snap his wand and stay off magic forever.
He retracted those thoughts in a while after a long soak in his whirlpool Jacuzzi to the background music of a certain Johann Sebastian Bach, his favourite Muggle musician. One simply could not get the same luxury having a dip in the Weasleys' bathtub to the heart wrenching and ear splitting tunes of Celestina Warbeck.
With a glass of champagne in one hand, Harry toasted himself silently he watched the numbers on the stock market change on his laptop. Yet another windfall, he thought, I must be really good at this. He always felt good about being talented at something else other than Quidditch and defeating Voldemort (which depended on luck and a good deal of Felix Felicis, as he used to tell everyone).
His imminent death could wait. For a moment, Harry believed he wasn't really going to die. He had been the only survivor of a Killing Curse, for Merlin's sake, a LIVER wasn't going to bring him down that easily. He brushed off all of death and started up the music. He was going to party his night away, and no one would stop him. Not that anyone wanted to, anyway.
Harry went to retrieve his car the next day after recalling that he had (illegally) parked it two blocks away from the pub. Crossing his fingers and praying that it had not been towed away, he set out on a mission to locate his beloved Ferrari.
It was a miracle that the car was still there, given that it was bright red and extremely noticeable. Jogging up to his car, Harry ran his fingers down the bonnet, sighing in relief. Just as he was about to get in, he realised something incredibly, incredibly stupid.
He had forgotten to bring his car keys.
Harry felt like stamping his foot in a fit of childish anger, but restrained himself just in time. It would not do for a wealthy stockbroker to be seen throwing a tantrum on the streets. But he wanted to throw more than just a tantrum, he felt like he could hurl the Incredible Hulk over half of New York City in his anger.
"HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID!" He howled silently.
"Harry? Ohmygosh, Harry it's you!"
Harry spun around.
"Ginny?"
It had to be her – it couldn't be anyone else. There wasn't a single person in New York who could make his heartbeat accelerate faster than his Ferrari – nobody except for Ginny Weasley. Harry wondered how she had managed to look exactly the same all these years, and was suddenly painfully conscious of his expanding waistline and crow's feet.
"I haven't seen you in such a long time! Where did you go all these years?"
"I, uh, I've been hanging around," Harry said, somewhat lamely, as a fleeting desire to grab her and kiss her as passionately as he could took over his mind before he could come up with something better.
"That's …interesting! Oh, I am SO sorry but I've to meet someone now! We'll catch up some other time, alright!" Ginny turned to leave and Harry's heart sank all the way to his toes.
"Why don't I give you a lift? I've got loads of time to spare! Oh wait…but I don't have my car keys…." Harry felt like the biggest fool in the world. What kind of man offered a lady (or the girl of his dreams) a ride in a car he didn't have the keys to?
"Why don't you just summon them? Accio car keys!" The car keys came zooming around the corner, over the heads of a few oblivious Muggles and landed neatly in Ginny's outstretched hand. She handed them to him with a heartbreakingly beautiful smile that made his heart flutter in delight.
"Actually, I've sworn off magic. The whole 'Chosen One' thing was getting to me, you see and I….I...wait! You're in a car! Don't witches use Apparition to get around?"
"Don't use 'witches' like you're not a wizard yourself, Harry! Apparition gets boring after a while, and it's not every day I get to ride in a Ferrari, you know! Could you drive me to Rockefeller, please? I'm meeting Dean there to discuss our wedding plans," Ginny said brightly, unaware of the devastation she had just caused Harry's heart.
Harry slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt.
"Wedding plans!? You're getting married?" He spluttered in disbelief as he turned to look at her.
"Dean and I are getting married in October. You remember Dean, right? Your roommate?"
"Right…RIGHT. Congratulations, then, and….." His voice trailed off as he started up the car again.
And if I told you I loved you, would you accept me again? Harry didn't know what to feel. A thousand emotions seemed to be running through him at the same time – a horrible mixture of regret, guilt, anger and frustration, and it didn't help that merely seeing her reflection on the rear-view mirror made him crazy with love and desire.
The journey to Rockefeller had never seemed so short.
Pulling up at the car park opposite Rockefeller, Harry heard the purring of the car's engine stop, and felt as if a part of his heart had died along with the engine. This was the end. But he couldn't let it all end here, he had to try. One last time.
"I'm going to die, Ginny." He whispered, leaning in closer to her. " The doctors say I only have two months left. Stay with me till the end, will you?"
Before she could react, he had pulled her into his embrace, wrapping his arms forcefully around her, willing her to melt into him as she had done so many years ago at Hogwarts.
Hogwarts. The word sounded so strange, unfamiliar, even bitter. But it was the place he had met her and loved her and he would never be able to forget it.
Harry buried his face into her hair, inhaling her scent deeply as if it were a life sustaining. He had never known how much he needed her till now.
" I love you," he breathed. She was here with him now, and everything would be fine. Everything would be just fine.
To Be Continued...