Harry hopped off of his broom on the northern coast of Scotland, out of sight of any prying Muggle eyes, and began to trudge his way through the deep sand of the beach up to the town proper. After some time wandering he eventually asked a woman in the street for directions to the local inn, and after following them he found himself in the alley facing the wall with its irregular brick pattern that was described in the letter he'd received.
After a quick glance at the letter in question, he took a deep breath and spoke the included passphrase, "Eccentric Englishwomen enjoy enticingly embarrassing euphemisms."
The image of the wall wobbled slightly as he stared at it and the bricks rearranged themselves to form the pattern of an archway in the wall. Harry took another deep breath, reminded himself that he would be perfectly fine, checked for his wand anyway, and took a step through the wall. Mid-stride, there was a brief sensation of rushing forward at a great speed and he felt a twinge of annoyance as his hair, which had almost been wrangled into submission through much vigorous combing, was thoroughly tousled by the a sudden rush of air with an accompanying faint smell of sweet smoke.
After Harry gave a halfhearted attempt at taming his hair, mostly out of habit, he took stock of his surroundings. He seemed to have landed in some sort of lobby built entire of marble with sapphire-blue inlays, and as he turned on the spot he could see the faint outline of a Gothic archway in silver filigree on the wall he had entered through. Harry brushed the wall experimentally with his fingertips; it was cool to the touch, and felt like ordinary polished stone, a far cry from the rough brick of the alleyway, but as he traced over the slightly raised edges of the archway itself he could feel a very faint vibration in his fingertips.
He took a hurried step to the side as the silver lines that made up the archway began to glow a pale blue before a slight breeze could be felt. The archway's glow flashed brightly and then a young woman with long dark hair secured in a braid dressed in practical-looking robes covered with small pockets and zippers appeared, checked her pocket watch - which, despite her surplus of pockets, hung in the open, secured by a leather strap around her neck - and glanced at him in passing on her way towards a nearby bench. She then paused and turned slowly on the spot to look at him again, her eyes flickering between meeting his gaze and looking at his forehead before checking the time once more.
"Ah, it's really you!"
This was not an uncommon reaction to seeing him. "Yup."
She glanced over her shoulder, back at his forehead, and then met his gaze once more. "Here for the-"
"Sure am. Were you expecting someone else?" He accompanied the question with a gesture at their surroundings, which were completely free of additional people.
"No, it's just… well, we thought it was a prank when we saw your application." The woman shrugged. "It's happened before. I take it you don't remember me?" She thrust a gloved hand forward. "Rose Zeller. Hufflepuff, though a few years behind you."
He gave the hand enough of a shake to be polite before a tactical retreat to the safety of his pockets was carried out. "Harry Potter, formerly of Gryffindor, but" he felt his lips rising in a slight smile "you already knew that. You do look a bit familiar, though, now that you mention it." He glanced over her shoulder at the ornate clock on the wall, mindful of his appointment. "Guessing you work here?"
She dipped into a curtsy, the heavy leather boots revealed by the motion striking an incongruous note. "Field Enchanter Rose Zeller, at your service, sir!"
Harry, playing along for reasons he couldn't fully explain, returned her curtsy with one of his own.
She grinned at him once more as she began patting down her assorted pockets for an extended period of time before triumphantly producing a small silver key.
"Gotcha! Well, since you're really you, let's get you properly inside, shall we? It's time for you to meet The Boss!"
Before Harry could object, instead of leading him further into the building as he'd expected, Rose pressed the key directly in the center of the filigree archway which caused the outline to once again glow that same pale blue. As before, Harry could feel a faint breeze coming from what still appeared to be a rather solid wall.
She looked at him over her shoulder, "Come along, then!" Rose hopped through the wall, vanishing from his sight. The outline of the archway pulsed brighter in that same instant, and the wind picked up slightly as well, bringing with it a faint scent of smoke.
There was a brief hesitation; if he was going to turn back, this would be the time to do it, but that would also require an explanation to Hermione. She would be so disappointed…
With a shrug and a quick check to make sure his wand remained easily accessible, he took one last calming breath and stepped through the wall.
As before, there was the sensation of rushing forward at a great speed along with a rush of air. Harry resigned himself to appearing somewhat messy, but was reassured when Rose looked somewhat windswept as well when he reappeared. He chalked this up to the fact that this journey had taken noticeably longer than the one prior.
"Took you long enough, didn't it? The Boss is waiting for you; you wouldn't want to be late!"
Harry fell into step beside Rose, pointedly not acknowledging the shocked double takes of some of those they passed (thankfully, those reactions were in the minority). "And whose fault would that be, hmm? I'll have you know that I was on track to be precisely on time. You might even call me a paragon of professional punctuality."
She shot him an amused look. "You're a lot more fun than I remember. Guess it helps when there are fewer people trying to kill you?"
He shrugged - it was as good a reason as any, though he was enjoying himself far more than he thought he would when he first agreed to this endeavor.
They navigated through a door that appeared to be made of living wood - Rose stroked a vine to cause it to swing open - festooned with flowers that were faintly humming the melody to 'I Dreamed A Dream' in an eerie harmony. Harry could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up as he passed through the doorway, and as the melancholy sound faded behind them he looked to Rose and said, "What."
She sighed wistfully. "Poor Fantine, you suffered so." Seeing the way Harry was looking at her, she said, "Don't mind Paul, he's just been in a mood lately."
As they continued down the hallway, Harry said, "The door's name is Paul?" This day's events were beginning to approach Hogwarts-levels of strangeness.
"Not really, but it's fun to name things, you know? Makes them feel more friendly. Paul is our equivalent of… oh, how to explain? Are you familiar with a Muggle device called a telephone?" At his amused look, she hurriedly continued, "never mind, of course you are. 'Oi, Harry Potter, do you know what a phone is?' well done there, Rose." He was definitely trying not to laugh at her now. "Anyway, this is where our hold music comes from. If you're trying to use our network to go somewhere but there's already someone or something on the way, we thought it would be nice to have something to listen to while you hurtle through the void. We've got great bundles of sheet music from all kinds of places, and Paul is enchanted to pick from among them. Everyone who works here gets to add music to the vault! Helps keep things interesting for everyone; you never know what's going to come up."
They went through one final door - all indications pointed toward it simply being what it appeared to be, but Harry eyed it suspiciously as they passed just in case - and in short order, he found himself seated in a delightfully comfortable armchair with a chilled goblet of pumpkin juice in hand and assurances from Rose that "The Boss" would be in to see him soon.
True to her word, Harry only had time for a handful of appreciative sips of the nostalgic drink before he could hear heavy footsteps coming down the hall. Harry stood just in time for the man to enter, and his first impression was one of surprise that he could fit comfortably through the doorway.
He was built like someone had taken Hagrid and shrunken him mostly down to scale and though his shaved skull gleamed merrily it was the fierce mane of curly black hair that was well on its way to achieving Dumbledore-levels of length that commanded his full attention. The Great Wall of Whiskers trembled and then parted as the man grinned excitedly at him. Yet another hand - gloved as well, Harry noted - was shoved his way, so Harry set the goblet down for another round of socially acceptable behavior. The small voice that sounded remarkably like Hermione that occasionally made attempts to act as his conscience congratulated him on a successful interaction.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries - he spoke in a pronounced Quebecois accent, which was just enough different from the French accents Harry was familiar with to be distracting - the man made his way to stand behind the desk and motioned for Harry to sit, so he gratefully reclaimed the heavenly armchair.
"'The Boss,' I presume?"
"Ah, yes, allow me to properly introduce myself." He dipped in a curtsy as well, and Harry suppressed a snort of amusement. He was surprisingly graceful for a man of his size. "Chief Enchanter Maurice Malveaux, at your service. As you've likely gathered, given that you're here for an interview, we are hiring."
Harry simply looked at the man, who chuckled in response.
"Yes, I suppose I deserved that. Do you have any questions for me?"
"Where are we, exactly?"
"Why, London, of course."
Harry's gaze slid sideways towards the innocuous-looking moon cactus on the man's desk as it made some soft rumbling noises before making its way back to his intense gaze. He could see little flecks of silver in the otherwise dark brown eyes. "I see."
The man rummaged around his desk drawers before pulling out a small glass bottle with a dropper cap, gently placed two drops of something - the liquid was a vivid pink, had a strong scent of vanilla, and each drop let out a little puff of steam when it landed - and said, "I'm sure you'd wondering why we had you fly all the way up to Kylesku when you could've just" he snapped his fingers "popped on over. It wasn't some sort of hazing, if that's what you're concerned about; we needed to see how you reacted to Modern Floo," the words sounded capitalized to Harry's ear, "and, as luck would have it, you did splendidly!"
Harry sat up somewhat straighter, and his interest bled into his tone, "Hang on, are you saying that was a Floo connection I just went through?"
The man nodded, a self-satisfied grin on his face.
"But that was… that was…" Harry trailed off, not quite sure how to reconcile the pleasant journeys he'd just had with the nausea-inducing unpleasantness he was more accustomed to.
"That, lad, is the difference between our cutting-edge offering and the sloppy network slapped together by the clowns at the Ministry of Magic." The man shuddered dramatically. "But, Harry, in all seriousness: the people deserve better."
He rose and began to pace behind his desk, his voice rising in intensity and tinged with passion, though not quite reaching the level of a full yell. "Harry, you went to Hogwarts so you may not be aware of this, but a large portion of the magical population are not able to utilize apparition safely. There are portkeys but, as I'm sure you know, they're tricky business and must be prepared in advance. Brooms and the like are fine if you aren't in any particular hurry, or have terribly far to travel, but even then there are other considerations. Are you traveling with a group, perhaps, or do you have a large amount of unshrinkable items to bring with you? This leaves us with the Floo network."
The man came around to perch on the front edge of his desk, which grumbled slightly in annoyance.
"The problem is that the Ministry's network was never designed for the amount of load being placed upon it, and it wasn't set up to be easily expandable. Add to that the fact that the Ministry insists on clinging to their ancient round-robin broadcast model instead of embracing more modern advances, their dwindling maintenance budgets, a lack of training, as well as a deeply stubborn bureaucracy, and you now have a network that is horrendously outdated, unreliable, and downright unpleasant to use. The people deserve better."
"And you're going to give it to them?"
"Heavens no, Harry; I'm going to sell it to them."
They shared a laugh at that, then the man said, "Well, I'm sure you've been wondering when this was going to come up, but why would you of all people want to work at a job like this? Don't get me wrong, we're a great company, but this isn't a desk job; you'd be helping expand and maintain our network. Given your notoriety we would likely keep you in a non-public facing capacity - working with other companies, primarily; not residential accounts - just to avoid headaches." After a brief pause, he said, "Forgive me, but I must ask. Are you sure you won't get bored here and quit in a few months?" He leaned forward intently, "It would be a waste of everyone's time to start training you only to have you leave. Many assumed you would be leading this nation within the decade. We're pretty great, it's true, but why would someone like you choose come someplace like this instead of pursuing that path?"
Harry removed his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and let out a heavy sigh.
Why not try telling the truth?
"Honestly? Trying to force any kind of meaningful change would be the work of a lifetime, and I'm tired of winning impossible battles. I'd rather just live my life, but a friend of mine recently reminded me that I need to live my life, so," Harry shrugged at him. "People tell me I have a knack for problem-solving, and this seems like a better way to help people than wasting away whilst repeatedly slamming my head against the wall at the Ministry." He paused, took the time to replace his glasses, and then decided to plunge ahead with something that had been bothering him ever since it first came up. "Why is your Floo so different, anyway? I'm more used to the sort of" Harry spun his finger around a few times in the air "with the whole green fire bit."
Maurice's eyes lit up. "Ah! What you're referring to is the original, antiquated method of Floo transport. The old network was a marvel of magical engineering, far ahead of its time, this is true. The idea of using the raw powder as a magical catalyst with spoken words, as with a spell, for direction of the released energies and you're whisked off to your destination? Brilliant, truly. That original version had a similar experience to our network, actually, as it was only bridging two locations. It was only as the Ministry officials added a third, and then a fourth, and so on, without altering the base magic involved, so excited were they to travel with such ease, that resulted in the current situation. They took a proof of concept and decided it was perfect as is." Maurice let out a long-suffering sigh, "You'll find, Harry, that there's nothing so permanent as a temporary solution. The fact that the network is even somewhat functional is a testament to the original geniuses behind its creation."
Harry finished his drink and set the goblet on a convenient side table; the surface of the table vibrated as he released the goblet, causing it sway slightly before filling once more with pumpkin juice.
Neat. I want one.
He retrieved the goblet and took an appreciative sip of the pleasantly cool liquid as he mentally reviewed what he'd been told so far before steering the conversation more towards what he'd actually be doing here. Harry didn't catch the fact that he was speaking as though him joining this company was a foregone conclusion, and in his preoccupation with the goblet he entirely missed the triumphant gleam in the man's eye as he made his way back around the desk to reclaim his chair.
"Well, we'd be partnering you up with the lovely Ms. Zeller to start with." Seeing Harry's somewhat concerned expression, he said, "Don't let her act fool you; she's incredibly skilled, and could teach you a great deal about this little corner of magic. A large part of our network was put together by her capable hands over the last several years. She seemed very impressed with you, by the way. Tried to get me to promise to hire you on. Apparently you didn't even stumble when sent on the long route to our office from the staging area; 'handled it like a pro,' she said. Even that first jump she was monitoring that you took from Kylesku went smoothly."
"I'm sorry, but I don't follow. You want to hire me because I can walk in a straight line?"
Maurice leaned back in his chair, which let out a series of pained creaks and groans of protest at the movement. Harry was mostly sure they were just the standard sounds of wood under great stress, but you could never really be certain. "It's harder than you might think; most folks at least stumble a bit until they get used to the acceleration." He stood suddenly as a small red light lit up on his desk, and then gestured for Harry to do the same, to which he obliged. "No point in just talking all day; she's ready for us. If you're interested, I'd like to send you to shadow a break/fix assignment with Rose. Give you a bit of a feel for the kind of work you'd be doing and the sort of magic you'd be working with."
The gloved hand was extended his way once more. "What do you say, Mr Potter. Fancy giving it a shot?" A teasing tone crept into his voice. "Think you've got what it takes?"
There was only a slight hesitation before Harry took the man's hand and held on for dear life as it was vigorously pumped up and down as the waterfall of whiskers was parted once again by a grin.
"Fantastic, off we go!"