Enslavement

Chapter 4

Lunch at Last

Harry peeked out of his room down the ostentatiously long hallway, hoping his friends would do the same and find them in the same puddle of confusion he was in.

His confusion came from the fact that he had nothing to wear; the wardrobe stood empty - empty enough to contain a cool drought he could enjoy after a hot steaming bath. And he couldn't wear the clothes with which he had walked into the manor because they were dirty beyond indignity, soiled with every form of his excrement.

It was now ten minutes to two o'clock: it had taken almost an hour to clean himself thoroughly enough to be satisfied that he had taken care of all the sordidness. There was so much of it he had to refill his bathtub six times; at one point he nearly lost himself in his self-pity as he stared at the thick floating bubbling muck. And he had to bathe with the door open as his stench grew stronger with every stroke of the loofah on his skin. He had shaved his pubic hair after finding, besides the fact that the curls were tight balls of hair that to comb straight would be torture, that no matter how hard he scrubbed at it the dirt was so enmeshed in it and indelible and so thick that when he rubbed at it, it felt like clay. Even his complexion changed: as the dirt lifted his skin became lighter. For all the time he was indoors without sunlight he should have been an albino.

After climbing out of the tub moments before, he had inspected himself and found he had done a pretty good job. He quickly dealt with his ghastly long nails with a nail clipper he found in the shelf behind the mirror and that took care of everything. Long nails combined with a darker complexion and overgrown spiky hair would have had Uncle Vernon jolt in his shoes and run the other way only to come back at him with a leaf rake. But Harry was most grateful that his breath smelled far more bearable.

Luck rarely spared him any from its coffers, but to his relief moments later Ron's and Hermione's doors opened and their heads poked out too, looking about wonderingly up and down the hallway. When their eyes met they all shrugged cluelessly. And at that point it suddenly hit Harry that the only logical thing to do next was to simply walk out of his room, naked.

"Is your wardrobe empty like mine?" Harry asked them, at which Ron and Hermione nodded.

"What do we do?" whispered Hermione. She seemed to be panicking the most understandably.

"Lunch is in five minutes," Ron pointed out. Then he asked, totally unabashedly, "Did you guys have bugs in your bathwater, by the way?"

Harry and Hermione stared at him for a moment before they slowed shook their heads. Harry wondered just how brown and thick Ron's muck had been.

"My hair is totally ruined," moaned Hermione, plucking it hopelessly. "I might just as well rip it all off. It's tangled impossibly!"

"I think we all need a haircut," said Ron, feeling the back of his head and plucking at the tight coils. "At least this time I get to--"

"Glad you're finally all cleaned up. I could've sworn you were the sons and daughter of veteran vagrants," said a voice down the middle off the hallway. Harry, Ron, and Hermione hadn't seen Malfoy stride there and fold his arms. He had made a change of wardrobe, discarding his blue silver-seam overcoat for a black v-neck shirt and grey slacks. Either his mother styled him or he had a penchant for dressing like a ponce, Harry thought. And he had never heard of anyone changing for the common occasion of lunch. Perhaps Malfoy wanted to get rid of everything that lingered from his visit to Hogwarts.

"You should be in the dining room in about five minutes," ordered Malfoy, as he spun on his heel, only to face his mother, who had just appeared behind him.

"I don't think it would be appropriate to have unclothed guests at the dinner table, young dragon," she chided in a slow, sweet voice. Judging from how still Malfoy was standing, Harry surmised he was blushing at the affectionate term. "They may be slaves, but they're still human. Why don't you have Tibby robe them at the least, hm?"

"Yes, Mother," mumbled Malfoy. Though the narrow sheet of platinum-blond hair obscured much of his neck, Harry could see the little bit of its flushed flanks; he thought Malfoy was quite right to feel embarrassed. Malfoy waited until his mother was out of sight before, his back still towards them, summoning Tibby and ordering her accordingly. Immediately after, he took off in a swift and stiff gait.

"But where's the dining room?" Harry hollered at him. Malfoy only hastened down the hallway and took a sharp left.

"Tibby will show you where the dining room is, Slave Harry Potter," announced Tibby, as she appeared from thin air. Though there was something discomfiting about hearing a voice before seeing its bodily source, this time Harry, Ron, and Hermione managed to suppress a startled reaction. Tibby snapped her fingers and the next thing they were wearing robes.

Surprised, they stepped fully out of their rooms, closed their doors, and inspected their new gear. Harry was wearing a dark-blue silk robe that felt heavenly on his skin, which he had scrubbed almost raw for the better part of an hour. Ron wore an aubergine robe that seemed to stretch his tall figure even further and accentuate his slimness. And Hermione wore a deep emerald robe that unflatteringly made her sharp hipbones stick out. But Ron seemed to find no flaw in her as he stared at her up and down, his bottom lip dragging on the floor.

"This way," squeaked Tibby, and she turned around and began peddling steadily down the corridor.

"Why oh why didn't she give us underwear?" groaned Ron. Harry noticed him trying to push down his growing erection.

As they traversed the hallway, to Harry it felt even longer than it seemed when he combined with it the sight of Tibby's stubby little legs working double time to match a distance one stride of their legs could. If it weren't for the fact that he knew elves had large bulbous nose which shone with any source of light in a room (so unlike Dobby's, which was long and pointy) he would be sure she was working up a sweat.

But after some corners and more wide and ostentatious corridors they arrived in a long room with a long table in the middle of it. Harry lost count of how many chairs were on one side as Tibby led them inside. There was a square tiered chandelier hanging above the table, on top of which rested several brass candelabra. Malfoy and his mother sat at the very end of the table on the other side of the room.

For his poor vision in absence of his broken glasses, Malfoy seemed to be pouting at his folded arms, as though he had lost all that regal air he had about him back in Harry's room. Or rather it was eclipsed by the elegance of his mother, who was staring pensively out of a window with her head tilted backwards slightly, exposing a stretch of delicate, pale neck adorned with a simple pearl necklace. As soon as they heard the sound of Tibby's pattering feet and the cracking bones of Harry's (it was always a sign of a bad summer when he was fed exceptionally little and became thin such that the first few steps he took out of his bed in the morning were accompanied by a few bony cracks of his feet) they looked up and stared carefully and stoically at them.

"We're glad you could join us," said Narcissa, clearly speaking for herself as Malfoy quirked his eyebrow in sarcastic sincerity. "Please, take your seats," she said, as she waved at their seats, while her son's nostrils flared slightly as they sat down on the chairs as though they were soiling them with their bums.

And as soon as their bums made contact with their chairs, the table was suddenly laden with five plates of food.

Harry's nose twitched at the smell of normal, even better, food. When last had he smelled something so otherworldly? For several moments he just stared at his full plate of two toasted sandwiches (torched not toasted of course) packed with diced sausage bits smothered in a creamy mayo sauce.

"Please don't feign modesty," begged Narcissa kindly. "After your lengthy stint in captivity you should be dying to eat real food. Don't mind us prissy eaters. The only reason we persist as we do is in memory of Lucius."

Her son's fork hung in his mouth as he stared incredulously at her as though she had just slurred Lucius' name.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione needed no further motivation, nor did they need the utensils lying next to their plates. Before they knew it themselves their cheeks were bulging with food and they were drooling thick white sauce.

Before they got a chance to swallow, Tibby appeared at the other end. She clicked her fingers and magicked two goblets on the table for Malfoy and his mother before quickly dawdling over to them.

"Hogsy, pumpkin juice, white or red wine, Slave Harry Potter?" asked Tibby, with a white tablecloth draped over one arm.

Malfoy choked on whatever he was drinking in his silver goblet.

"Did he just offer wine to the slaves, Mother?" he whispered in outrage not too softly at his mother, who merely smiled in amusement. He frowned from the other end of the room as though waiting to hear what Harry would chose, or rather if Harry had the gall to request some wine. Meanwhile Tibby was whipping her head back and forth between Malfoy and Harry, breaking into a terrible sweat (for the second time that day), undoubtedly flustered that she thought it appropriate to offer slaves wine, something standing in stark contradiction to the implication of his master.

"Pumpkin juice, thanks," Harry replied to Tibby's rescue. Tibby nodded quickly and clicked his fingers. Harry didn't have any experience with wine anyway. He sipped the goblet that had just appeared. Tibby made swift work of taking orders from Ron and Hermione before disappearing as though her departure couldn't have come sooner.

"Ale is more their thing, no doubt," harrumphed Malfoy. He was apparently under the impression he was entertaining his mother with all his indirect insults. However, she said nothing back but angled her head slightly as she chewed and swallowed and cut her chicken fillet and dabbed it in tartare sauce.

As soon as the bolus of food in Harry's mouth hit his stomach he nearly fainted with the relief and the pain. He swayed in his seat sideways and balanced himself with his elbow on the table, a move unmissed by Malfoy. Harry bowed against the table and chewed slowly as his stomach tried to adjust to the new sensation of having food in its cavity. It felt like someone was stabbing him from the inside, and with every stab his stomach would squeeze into a ball and roll on itself. It was excruciating to eat real food after having not eaten it for so long.

This should not have been surprising given that they had survived on runny gruel for that period. But he simply had to force himself to eat. And the next instalment was a quarter of a day away at seven o'clock. Harry looked up to see that Ron and Hermione too had slowed down very much from the ravenous pace with which they had begun eating. And judging by the lines on their foreheads, they were experiencing similar gastric pains.

Harry half considered asking if he could take his plate to his room so he could take his time eating it or save it for later. He almost burst out laughing with the thought. But the near laugh was enough to cause his abdominal muscles to contract and therefore disturb his stomach, which rolled and turned again in agony. Harry closed his eyes shut and swallowed his moan of pain. He gathered his strength and sat up, swallowed carefully, and chewed while breathing calmly.

Lunch progressed quietly with or without their pain, and the clink of goblet on wood and fork on plate filled the room. After Malfoy and his mother finished eating - which was a considerable time before they did - the pair remained seated quietly as though waiting just as they had when the three of them had walked into the room. In fact words were spoken only after Tibby had returned to magick all the cutlery away before departing hurriedly with another click of her stumpy fingers.

"You're dismissed," Malfoy called down the table shortly, the bite in his words suggesting his satisfaction in dismissing them summarily.

Without a moment to waste, but also slightly regretfully, they came to their bare feet and made for the double doors.

"One more thing," said Narcissa, halting them in their tracks, tinkering with her pearl necklace. "Your collars arrive tomorrow morning."

A pulse of ice ran up Harry's body, stopping at his neck, where he felt his throat constrict as though Malfoy's mother had breathed the imminent collar around it. Struggling to swallow, it felt more devastating to Harry as the friendly reminder came from Malfoy's mother. He watched a fastidious, pale hand lift a serviette to a pair of happily smiling lips and pat them, and Malfoy gave a sigh of sweet delight. It had been a wonderful meal.

"Will our presence be required again for the rest of the day?" Harry asked, with his back to the Malfoys.

"No," he heard from Malfoy's mother, after a moment. They went to Harry's room.