Chapter 6: Slavery
Harry found that he liked being enslaved. He did all of the hag's chores around her hovel: cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, bathing the hag (which he found somewhat arousing), and working in the garden and flowerbeds.
Every morning an owl delivered the "Daily Prophet," and Harry was disturbed to see that the manhunt for him had, if anything, increased in magnitude. "Boy-Who-Lives Still Evading Capture," read one headline. "Potter Thwarts Ministry Attempts," read another. When the Hag read these headlines, she chuckled sadistically and said things like,
"Maybe I ought to turn you in... says here I'd get" - she checked the paper quickly - "1,000 slaves with the reward they'd pay me!" Harry would quake in his boots and turn a translucent white colour; he was terrified.
"Teehee," the Hag would cackle. "I can see your innards when you go all translucent like that."
Harry, embarrassed, would turn a lurid tomato colour. The Hag would laugh heartily and say,
"Don't worry; I won't turn you in... yet!"
"Oh good," Harry would reply, his fears temporarily assuaged.
And so, the days dragged on. One morning, while Harry was pondering the legality of his enslaved status, he decided that the Hag could not be keeping him as a drudge under Commonwealth law. He marched up to the Hag and, feeling very proud of his wit, said, "In lieu of the fact that slavery is illegal under Commonwealth law, I am here to inform you, Haggis, that I am going to go to the bobbies and turn you in if you do not either grant me liberty or start paying me!" Inwardly, Harry congratulated himself on having successfully used the word "lieu" in a sentence yet again.
The Hag chuckled and shook her hideous head in amusement at Harry's inanity.
"Right," she said sarcastically, rolling her beady eyes. "You just march on down to the Constable and tell him that you, a mass-murderer the whole EU is after, are not receiving humane treatment from the Hag kindly enough to grant you asylum." She gave a mirthless laugh.
Harry didn't get it.
"You just watch me," he said haughtily. "I'll go and talk to this Constable and then you'll be sorry, Haggis!"
And with that, he set off across the front garden toward the nearby village, leaving the Hag rolling her eyes in his wake.