Chapter 7: Haggis Plutarch

As Harry made his way across the deserted moor that lay between the Hag's residence and the nearest village, he talked wittily to himself.

"Silly old bird, thinking she can trick me out of an obvious course of action through sarcasm! Hah! She doesn't stand a chance against my clever wit!" He gave a haughty chuckled.

Harry then caught sight of a person coming along the worn footpath through the moor in the opposite direction. The person's head was down, so Harry could not see their face. However, something about the person's outline was familiar to Harry, and he felt a sudden flame of passion in his chest as he realised that this person was -

"Haggis Plutarch!" Harry cried, grasping his chest as a ferocious longing ripped through him.

The person looked up, and Harry felt tears of rapture come to his eyes as he recognised the limp hair, the sad blue eyes, the protuberant mole.

Haggis Plutarch recognised Harry, too. Her mouth dropped open and she let loose a terrified shriek. "GAH!"

Rushing forward, his heart beating more and more quickly until is was making a continuous buzz in his chest cavity, Harry, who suddenly found himself speaking in iambic pentameter, cried out, "My love for you, sweet Haggis, has no bounds!"

Haggis Plutarch screamed again. "GAH! GAH! GAH!"

Harry ran up to her and put his hands on her slender, hunched shoulders, trying desperately to calm this angel, this one true love of his life.

"It is alright; I never will harm you!" Harry cried, still in iambic pentameter.

Haggis looked up at him, her innocent blue eyes wide in shock. She began to hyperventilate, finally choking out, "Oh please! Do not... do not... do not... hurt... me!" She, too, was speaking in iambic pentameter. Harry took this as a sign that they were meant to be together.

"Oh!" he cried, his body flooded with emotion. He kissed Haggis tenderly on the lips.

"GAH!" she screamed. She then continued in iambic pentameter, "The Boy-Who-Lived is raping me! Help, help!"

Harry was aghast. "You would turn me in?" he asked, shocked. "I thought our love was ever-lasting!" He was no longer using iambic pentameter.

Haggis Plutarch, however, had fainted. Harry caught her in his arms, which were strengthened from all of the slave labor he had been performing for the hag, and began to drag her roughly back toward the Hag's house, all plans for reporting his abysmal work conditions forgotten.

All the way up the deserted moor Harry dragged her. He soon felt his strength lessening, but love kept him going. Finally, he reached the Hag's house, where said Hag came rushing out of the front door with a cry of, "What the fuck did you do to my god-daughter!"

"Not nearly as much as I wanted to," Harry replied slyly, giving the Hag a naughty wink.

"GAH!" the Hag shrieked. "PERVERT! Get to the cupboard under the stairs; I'm locking you in until I can trust you around my Haggis!"

Hanging his head in dismay, Harry slowly made his way into the house and under the stairs, where the Hag locked him in with a grumble of, "Filthy little boy, trying to shag a decent, kindly girl like Haggis... he'll pay for this, oh how he will..."

"I didn't try to shag her!" Harry cried in protest. "She fainted too quickly! I'm not that much of a pervert!"

He heard the Hag roar in annoyance. "GAH!"

Then she shouted, "No food for a month! If you get hungry, eat Hedwig!"

Harry turned to look at Hedwig, who was glaring at him from a corner. "Don't look at me like that," Harry complained. He slid one hand over to her to caress her juicy owl drumsticks. "I'll eat you if I need to, bird. Now shut up and lay some eggs!"

Hedwig glared at him reproachfully for another minute and then obliged, dropping a large, round egg out of her owl vent. Harry seized the egg and devoured it raw.

"WHOO! WHOO!" Hedwig quipped in rage, flying at Harry with her talons outstretched.

"GAH!" Harry shouted, ducking and kicking her in aggravation.

Upstairs, the Hag had placed Haggis Plutarch in bed and was applying a cold compress to her face. Slowly, Haggis opened her sorrowful blue eyes and looked up at her god-mother.

"Hello, dear," said the Hag, with a matronly air about her. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright, I guess... a bit tired," Haggis replied quietly. She sat up in bed to look around. "But, god-mother... how did I get here?" she asked, surprised. "Last I remember, that boy... GAH!" suddenly remembering, Haggis fainted in terror once more.

The Hag pursed her lips in annoyance. She loved Haggis Plutarch dearly, but she could really be a bit of a drama queen when she got going.

A loud crash echoed through the house as Harry and Hedwig slammed one another against the walls of the cupboard-under-the-stairs in epic battle. The Hag shook her head and banged loudly on the stairs with a broom handle. "Shut up down there!" she bellowed. "If you want to kill one another, do it quietly! My god-daughter is trying to rest!"

Harry was immediately silenced; he would never do anything to cause Haggis Plutarch grief or inconvenience. Hedwig, however, took advantage of Harry's momentary pacifism to rake his face with her talons, leaving him with yet another unsightly scar.

"Gah," Harry remarked quietly. He was exercising enormous self-control to insure that his love would sleep undisturbed.

Hedwig retreated to a corner, where she proceeded to think dark thoughts about how to solve this Harry problem.

Seeing that a momentary truce was in order, Harry began rooting around in the cupboard-under-the-stairs for grubs and insects to fry up with the owl.