Monday 25th June
74F / 23C, Clear and Sunny
5:45pm

The Nog wasn’t a usual haunt of Cepheus Gamp, and he doubted neither to intrepid Daily Prophet journalist Niobe Thursby. The timber framed, wattle and daub building had a low ceiling and tiny glass windows due to when it was built. Muggles passed by the place, entirely unseeing it like the Leaky Cauldron, and it had been the same for several hundred years in Norwich[1].

Their appearance would be noticed by the locals, but it would seem more like they were there for a geographical reason about a story rather than just avoiding the usual London eyes and ears. As well as that, the Nog had one of the nicest beer gardens, that always felt several degrees warmer. Probably some masterful weather charms.

“Almost a waste of a day in the office,” Ceph expressed, palms up and arms out to the side gesturing to the good weather. “But sweeter for ending it in the evening sunshine.” He was so pale he looked like he might just turn pink or red for stepping into a strong moonbeam, but with shirt sleeves rolled up and tie loosened, he closed his eyes and looked up and basked his face a moment enjoying the opportunity.

They were sat at a picnic table in the cobbled yard at the back of the Nog, furthest from the building but with a clear view of whoever was about. Two tables away a trio of wizards were smoking something that smelled of pine needles, the clouds above them twisting into different shapes as it rose. Their table was carved with runes, some the sort that when tickled could muffle drunken behaviour or reduce the likelihood of being casually overheard. Beneath the picnic table was a Flourish and Blotts tote bag, nothing out of the ordinary, but while Gamp had brought it, Thursby would leave with it.

“So elves then,” Cepheus got to it, since the social niceties of ’good day? What do you want to drink? Sit over here?’ had all been followed through. Thursby didn’t have all day, and there were only so many beers she’d buy him for information. “The House Elf Relocation team have been doing their best to keep track of families and their wages, but some of the elves are still reluctant to share. It’s either old habits dying hard or that they’re not actually free.” His dark eyebrows drew together. “For instance, there’s an Avery who came in recently with an elf, claiming it to be re-registered as free, but it’s not come back of its own accord when contacted. But really…” he rushed on, as if this had been heavy on his mind all weekend, “… the worst recently is we had an urgent case over the weekend. An elf taken into St Mungo’s barely alive, supposedly ‘free’ but it had beaten itself within an inch.” He shook his head, “what free elf does that?”

1.	FYI pronounced ‘noh-rich’

"No earthly idea," Niobe Thursby replied firmly. There were more Gamps than you could shake a stick at in government, and the sheer number of them became almost background noise for a journalist covering the Ministry. Thursby had in her head a list of Good Gamps and Bad Gamps, actually. It was kind of a shorthand for keeping track of them, and how far she could trust them. Cepheus Gamp, but all accounts, was a Good Gamp. They'd known each other since they were just kids, he seemed to want to do the right thing.

Good Gamp or Bad, Cepheus's family owned house elves. Maybe they were treated well, maybe they weren't. It just wasn't something you'd ever catch a Thursby doing, even the bad Thursbys. They couldn't afford it, anyway.  Niobe Thursby had laid her coat down over the bench beside her as content in the perfect weather as her companion for the afternoon. She stirred her drink with the little straw.

"They say a free elf won't self-punish. But they also say an elf can't free itself, and we know that they do."

Niobe shrugged and sipped from her glass. There was no ostentatious black verbatis quill out on her pad today. If she needed to remember a word or two, she'd jot it down with a pen. They didn't need anyone talking about who the Beings Head was talking to. Cepheus had come to her. He was clearly uncomfortable withe the channels usually available to him. Both Spectre and Carstairs up the elevator from him had slow-walked werewolf reform. There'd be no fire at all under any elf business.

“True, very true.” Cepheus agreed, and wet his whistle with his cider pint. A local brew called apply married. The bottle had the design of a pair of apples in traditional wedding garb. A perfect accompaniment to the sunshine.

“I realise elves aren’t really top of the agenda, Niobe,” Ceph began to organise his thoughts, looking past her a moment over her shoulder, but with a serious tone. “Neither at the Ministry or at the Prophet. But it’s something I’ve felt for a while that needed more light.”

His gaze slid back to her. “As you know in my time I’ve managed to push through the changes to vampire law, which were controversial and even opposed by fellow middle managers.” The vampire feeding regulations and freedoms had been given inches across pretty much every paper, both in Britain and abroad. There wasn’t a day that passed that Gamp didn’t wonder if all the opponents had a point and the vampires would turn on them all one new moon.

“But as contentious as that was, you would think that updating house elf legislation would be worth no more than a shrug. But it’s somehow worse.” He frowned and rearranged his fingers around the cool glass covered in condensation. “Proposing that elves have a fair wage and choose who to work for? I might be better legalising vampires to feed off muggles.” His face told her what he thought of that proposal.

“There are certain changes I want to push through,” Ceph continued, “that are long overdue when you look internationally,” he was rushing his words, passionate about things, “but I’m getting doors closed in my face left, right and centre by the old families who form the Ministry’s backbone and nobody’s going to sit in the Ministry atrium to free house elves.”

When Cepheus indirectly referenced her shrug, Niobe felt a tinge of having been gently chided and she accepted it whether it was intended or not. She'd mistakenly let a trickle of cynicism in, that the Ministry would never do right by house elves and that what Cepheus had for her would be inactionable. But no. She leaned forward on her elbows and tilted her head to listen, intending to show him she'd give him more than the time of day.

The Daily Prophet's editorial stance, tightly controlled by Barnabas Cuffe, concerning werewolves and vampires were always nearly synchronized with what the Ministry intended to do next. More than pushing a certain political stance (which was exactly what Cuffe had always done), the Daily Prophet needed to always seem correct, always land on the right side. So their coverage of the vampire bite legistlation had followed the wind and while it was full of warnings initially, now there was a section for the Best Bite in Brighton. Werewolves had always been covered the same way, reporting the controversy, trying to print what most of the readers wanted to hear.

But there were no eyes for house elves, or goblins, or merfolk for that matter. Daily Prophet readers seemed to find them uncomfortable topics, and, not being human or human-looking, there was no one who'd raised a stink for them. Niobe frowned and sipped her drink.

Cepheus was painfully right. No one was going to sit in the Ministry atrium to free house elves.

"That is a line I'd to print," she said, brows furrowed. She was thinking.

"What would it take, though? An all-out ban on owning house elves, freeing them all?"

“Not even the elves would be happy with that.” Cepheus replied without hesitation. “But it’s a romantic thought, isn’t it? Cast off the invisible shackles of house elves and masters up and down the country. Each one of them free to choose their lives without bidding.” It was a notion Hermione Granger had pursued in her Hogwarts days, apparently.

“Reality is that the average house elf is content with their lot.” He admitted. “It’s a cultural, generational thing. A meaning to life I suppose. They’ve only known this life and they are anxious that any other life would be worse.” He sighed. “So, why bother trying to change laws if the elves themselves aren’t in support of them? That’s what they’ll ask when that’s put before the wizengamot. Change shouldn’t be for change’s sake, but simultaneously, without change we stand still stuck in the past, which is something the wizarding world loves. Why else is the Futurist movement getting such a swell of support from the younger generations?”

Ceph wasn’t a futurist, but he could see their point when he worked for the Ministry. Laws in both the magical and muggle world were written and left untouched for decades, centuries and became archaic and pointless soon enough as the world moved on.

“Ultimately, house elves are slaves,” Cepheus gestured with flat hands, remarkably animated and firm in tone against his normal polite and unassuming temperament. “You can reason that they are provided for with a place to live, a purpose and certain satisfaction in life, food, belonging with a wix family, but they’re born into this life and they have no opportunity to think wider than that. A whole population who could feasibly create, invent, progress but have tied their self-worth to the service of another magical species and their homes. If you explained it to a muggleborn fresh on the train to Hogwarts for first year, they’d think the elves must be held prisoner by magic or something, don’t you agree?”

Niobe listened attentively and with concern and found herself wondering how in the world she'd overlooked Cepheus Gamp. In a lot of ways, their social circles overlapped, but in examining why Niobe and Cepheus had never become friends she was reminded of her differing social status, embarrassing twenties, and her full-tilt obsession with overworking herself.

"No, that's exactly what I thought for the longest time, that they were controlled with a horrible spell," she admitted. "I felt so sorry for them. It was a total mindfuck to learn that they're just that way. That if you opened the door, they could run. But wouldn't."

Somehow 'mindfuck' even was an understatement. Niobe's mother was from Barbados; slavery was a part of her family's history. The stories were constant, the way they'd been taught to move around the world. The stink of imperialism seemed to affect everything, if even in the tiniest corners. To be Black in this country was to live with the legacy all the time. So when Niobe had been young and had learned the truth about house elves, she couldn't fathom it. She'd shoved them away where they couldn't confuse her further.

No one could truly want to exist that way.

And then, what did Niobe do? Nothing, just like everybody else. She let the house elves fade into the background and she existed in the comfort that she didn't have any, and never would.

"But here's the thing - don't you think it matters, too, our own souls? Do you know what I mean? Maybe a house elf is happy to a slave, but I don't know that I'm happy being an enslaver."

She let her gaze wander from the man sharing her table over the top of the fence that kept the garden. The sky was beautifully blue.

"I don't know. Well, clearly, some of us are. Happy, I mean."