Disclaimer: This chapter and the story it is a part of it was not written in the hopes of profiting from its sale or distribution. At current I have never and have no plans in the future of receiving monetary compensation for this work. And I certainly do not own Harry Potter or any other related titles. Any resemblance the characters portrayed in this story might have to real life figures is completely coincidental.

The Star Chamber

Chapter Four: The Greenest Grass

"What do we have on Podmore?" I asked Percy as we sat in his office about a year after his appointment.

"Practically nothing," Percy answered. "I've had him on round the clock surveillance for months now and he hasn't so much as jay walked. The same with that lap dog of his Finch-Fletchy, they're both clean as much as it pains me to say."

What did you think I would organize a takeover of the Auror department and not put them to good use? And what with Percy's crusade against corruption any Auror who had the gall to object soon found himself the subject of an ethics investigation.

"There has been some movement on the Malfoy front however," Percy continued.

"Lucius finally back to his old ways?"

"Not that kind of movement unfortunately," he replied. "Someone from the Enforcement Squad caught the younger Malfoy in a bathroom stall at the International Portkey with a… well um... In any case I had my aurors hush it all up."

"Oh good Lord," I said shaking my head. "Why couldn't he have just gone to a respectable knocking shop like the rest of us?"

"I don't think Madame Addler's caters to his um… requirements," Percy said uncomfortably as he handed me a photo of a woman with a protruding Adam's apple.

I shook my head in disgust.

"Poor Astoria, Such a fine girl stuck with such a wretched man."

"If we out this to Lucius I think he would be more than willing to do us a favor or two with that side of the Chamber," Percy said.

"No," I answered regretfully. "I couldn't even if I wanted to, Daphne would kill me for one, dragging her sister's husband through the mud like that."

"Oh the great Harry Potter tamed by a woman?" Percy said with a smug grin.

Out of all my creatures Percy was perhaps the only one who could get away with teasing me like that. Percy you see under all that pompous hot air was actually very competent. He was also steadfastly loyal to the biggest bully on the playground, first Crouch, then Fudge, then Scrimouger and now me.

"Tamed isn't the word I'd use," I replied calmly.

"And what is the word you would use?" Percy asked his face alight with amusement.

"Terrified," I answered truthfully. "Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex had absolutely nothing on Daphne. If I was ever stupid enough to seriously make her mad I don't think your aurors would ever find enough of me to bury. In any case I must be off I have that meeting with Hermione."

"Any idea what's it about?" Person asked as he rose from his chair to show me out the door.

"No she didn't say."

"Something's been brewing in the Minister's office," Percy said a little worry creeping into his face. "A lot more close door meetings this week. Outside consultants scurrying in and out."

"Maybe they're looking to start the next legislative push?" I said opening the door.

In truth Percy was right rumors had been circulating the Ministry like wildfire for at least a week now about the strange activity coming out of the Ministers Office. They vied with the birth of Hopkirk's triplets as the most discussed subject in the Ministry that week.

"Harry!" Romilda called after me detaching herself from the Chief Cane, Prescott, a man for whom I have no respect.

"Walk with me Romilda," I said as I continued down the hall towards the lift, "I haven't the time for a proper chat. Prescott?" I asked once the Chief Cane was out of earshot.

"He's a valuable source you know," Romilda replied with a shrug. "And a lovely old man too."

"He's a dried up old prune whose spent far too many years on the backbenches," I replied.

"He's got more influence then you give him credit for Harry," she said with a fond smile. "The minister's eyes and ears in the Wizengamot. Wheeling and dealing, gathering up all the votes for legislation, rather important really."

"In the old days, they used to give one slave a whip and tell him he was in charge," I answered. "That slave would get mighty full of himself too tanning the hide of anyone who slacked off and all that. But at the end of the day that slave would still go home to a squalid little mud hut, and that's the Chief Cane for you. He might be the top back bencher but he's still just a back bencher. He might ramrod legislation through but he doesn't write it."

"If you say so," Romilda replied with profound disinterest.

"I don't write the rules my dear I merely live by them, now what was it you wanted?"

"Do you have anything for me?" she asked hopefully. "It's been weeks since you fed me proper."

"I fed you proper Tuesday night," I replied with a lecherous wink.

Romilda glared at me and I got the distinct impression that if I wasn't such a valuable source she would've slapped me then and there.

"Don't be like that Harry," she said her voice full of reproach. "When we're in the Ministry can we keep it professional?"

"Professional?" I asked far more amused than offended. "This from the woman who jumped my bones not thirty seconds after I gave her that auror story."

"Harry," she said as we entered the lift. "I fuck you because you're handsome and your good at it, but if you keep making those stupid jokes then I'm going to start thinking you're more annoying than handsome. Now do you have a story for me or not."

The look of anger on her face, the quirked eyebrow to show she was serious… what can I say it was god awful cute. Oh I should've been livid at her, but I'm not the livid sort.

"I don't have anything for you Miss Vane," I said making my voice unnaturally harsh. "But the bathroom attendant at the International Portkey Hub might."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped apparently taking my tip for an insult.

"The aurors were there Tuesday night, I'd ask around you might find something interesting."

Daphne would be furious if she found out I was the one who leaked but what she doesn't know can't possibly lead to her hurting me.

"Thanks Harry," she said with a small kiss on the cheek before she got off the lift.

I do miss my conversations with Romilda. These days I pass my leaks on through Colin who I have absolutely no desire to flirt with.

I was rather surprised when I got to Hermione's office to hear her talking with someone, as I had rather been under the impression it was to be a one on one meeting.

"Madame Minister," I said in surprise when I entered the office to see Hestia perched on an arm chair in the corner. "I had no idea you'd be joining us today."

"There's a matter we wished to put to you together Harry," Hermione answered after she greeted me with a light kiss on the cheek.

"It was actually rather you're idea," Hestia said with a conspiratorial wink.

"Oh did you get that memo about outlawing teachers unions?" I asked hopefully.

"What the Minister meant to say," Hermione said with a rather self-satisfied grin "is that stunt you pulled with the new tests gave me an idea for how we can tackle another problem of ours. House Elves!"

Just goes to show you that Hermione Granger never admits she's wrong about anything. Two decades after founding SPEW, one of those decades spent in government no less, she still had that idiot idea of freeing House Elves bouncing around in her head. I mean really! What would house elves even do with freedom, you know the buggers are too stupid to reproduce by themselves. It's true! Daphne's family fortune is all tied up in House Elf Breeding I got a tour of the farm once…. Horrid experience.

"What a brilliant idea!" I exclaimed.

One must remember that if you intend to stab someone in the back, you must first get behind them.

"You like it then?" Hermione asked relief coming over her face. "I was afraid you'd wouldn't, I mean you were always skeptical in school and of course there's Kreacher."

"Oh well Kreacher," I said waving that objection away with my hand, "You know that old fellow wouldn't know what to do by himself. The poor thing couldn't stand the idea of leaving Grimmauld. As for me I'd be much happier cooking for myself!"

That's a lie I'm a dreadful chef, well that's not completely true I do make a mean mushroom soup. Practice you see, mushrooms were about the only think in the Forest of Dean where I was forced to spend what should've been my seventh year at Hogwarts.

"Excellent!" Hestia said, her face radiating happiness. "I knew we could trust you Harry."

"I'm curious though," I replied. "The Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is Amos Diggory? Isn't he violently opposed to House Elf Rights? And more to the point won't emancipation require a Wizengamot Vote?"

"We can bypass Diggory," Hermione answered. "The Head of the House Elf Affairs is one of our people, so long as Diggory gets no word of the plan in advance he won't be a problem."

"As for the Wizengamot," Hestia continued. "We're not actually going to be freeing house elves, unfortunately, we're merely going to publish new guidelines for their care and treatment. How tightly packed their living quarters can be."

Kreacher lived under the sink.

"Mandate 8 solid hours of sleep a night," Hermione chirped in.

I'm not actually sure if Kreacher slept… do house elves sleep…?

"How much food they must be given and of what quality."

I'm pretty sure Kreacher subsided on rats he caught while cleaning.

"And of course," Hesita said as if it should be obvious, "access to healthcare."

To this day I'm not actually sure if there are house elf doctors…

"What marvelous suggestions," I said with all the false enthusiasm I could muster.

"And even if someone tried to raise a court challenge to the new regulations, Chief Cane Prescott assures me that the High Court won't hear the case," Hermione finished looking like Crookshanks after he'd just caught a canary. "Diggle won't allow it to come up in the Docket."

"Oh and it will be quite popular with the voters," Hestia said happily. "I mean only rich idiots can afford house elves anyways right?"

The Minister had apparently forgotten that I owned several. Not to mention that only rich idiots ran for the Wizengamot.

"Well this is simply fabulous," I said with false cheer, a plot to derail the plan already forming in mind.

"Of course secrecy is of the utmost importance," Hestia said.

"If the Wizengamot were to find out before we went ahead with the plan then they could legislate away our ability to do it," Hermione continued. "But after the regulation is in place they can't remove it with Legislation only in a court case. And of course a court case can't be brought without the approval of the Chief Warlock, who's on our side."

The constitutional framework which governs our great nation is riddled with loopholes and several downright silly tradition isn't it?

"We called you in Harry," Hestia said. "Because as you know Hogwarts is one of the largest owners of House elves in Britain, and as an undersecretary from the DME we thought you might be able to tell us how this would affect the school."

I looked at the paper she had handed me, and felt distinctly like laughing at the rank silliness of some of the suggestions. Two weeks of Holiday a year? Where in the devil would they go? Tahiti?

"Well of course some of these suggestions might be difficult to be implemented at Hogwarts given the size of their house elf population," I said carefully. "But on the whole I think that we could achieve something like this."

"What changes do you have in mind?" Hermione asked leaning in.

"Well if we reimbursed them the cost of the expanded living space and upped the overall budget 3% to compensate for the Health Care… It's doable."

"Excellent!" Hestia said leaning back in her chair happily.

"Of course I would have to run these numbers by experts from my own department to be sure," I said. "And Hogwarts might need a year or two of exemptions for some of these measures, but on the whole all of these aims could be achieved by the next election."

"Have we told you lately that you're a godsend Harry?" Hestia asked with wide smile on her face.

"You flatter me Minister."

Even years after the fact that the memory of that woman makes my skin crawl. A brown nosing sycophant, who by chance, had found herself leader of Great Britain, God help us all. In any case the matter could never go forward for several reasons.

For starters there was no way in hell I was going to be paying for Kreacher to go to the doctors or Tahiti for that matter. Next as I already said Daphne's family fortune, which upon the timely death of her father would become my family fortune, was all tied up in the breeding, training, and selling of house elves. And finally it was just a stupid proposal to begin with.

There are two sorts of wizards which give a flying hoot about House Elf Rights. There are of course the bleeding hearts like Hermione who go on and on at parties about the plight of the oppressed. Then there are the upstanding gentleman such as myself Diggory, Malfoy and others who own house elves. In our case familiarity had breed contempt with the entire servile race. Then of course there are the other 80% of wizards who don't own a house elf and don't give a flying fig what happens to them. In general people like Hermione are vastly outnumbered and vastly out bribed by people like me.

In any case I was in quite a fit when I returned to my office deep in the forgotten bowels of the Ministry.

"Sarah!" I called to my assistant. "Tell Amos Diggory I want a meeting with him."

She poked her head back in several minutes later, "his assistant says he's booked up for the next two days, how does Thursday look for you?"

'Tell that git, I dragged his dead son out of a Death Eater get together, he can damn well spare me fifteen minutes!"

"Do you actually want me to tell him that?" Sarah asked her eyebrows raised.

I thought about it for a moment longer then I probably should've but finally decided against it, I would need Diggory on my good side.

"Ask him if he and his wife would like to come around for dinner tonight," I replied instead.

It was better to do it away from the Ministry in any case, less prying eyes and all that. In any case I headed home to make some preparations.

"You're home early," Daphne said barely looking up from her magazine as I stepped out of the fireplace.

"Spot of bother at work, we're going to be having guests tonight so we'll need to set four places instead of two."

"Why are you telling me?" Daphne asked with her eyebrow raised. "Kreacher's the one who cooks."

"Sorry muggle habit," I said feeling my cheeks start to burn a little in embarrassment.

"So what's this problem at work anyways? Percy broke a fingernail again?"

"No, Hermione's on another of her free the house elves rants," I replied as I took a seat next to her.

"Oh God," Daphne said with a roll of her eyes. "I honestly don't know what you see in that woman."

"Loyalty," I answered feeling a need to defend my old friend.

"If you want loyalty go and get a dog," Daphne said with a snort. "Loyalties a fine trait for a German Shepherd but it simply won't do for a Ministry Official."

"I had a dog once," I replied with a shrug. "Didn't work out so well."

I freely admit to having morphed into a heartless bastard but some traumas run deep. I still can't think about dogs without remembering the look on Sirius's face a he fell through the veil.

"Yes and you grew up in a cupboard under the stairs and until you were 12 no one had ever hugged you," Daphne said with profound disinterest as she flipped a page in her magazine. Perhaps there was something to the theory that the Dursley's had screwed me up when it came to love. Because for some reason I found Daphne's trite dismissal of my sufferings to be infinitely more attractive then Ginny's cloying affection had ever been.

"So what are you planning to do about Granger's little house elf plan?" she asked.

"Amos Diggory is our dinner guest," I answered.

"Oh that is interesting, Potter," she said closing her magazine and giving me her full attention. "And why Amos Diggory?"

That was our way, you see, she would walk me through every step of one of our plots like a tutor helping me with a math problem. It was a game we had played ever since we had first became friends in Italy. The academics politics there made Hogwarts look like a daycare I doubt I would have survived without the help of Daphne. I like to think that by the time we returned to England I was at least her equal when it came to our little game but one never could tell with her.

"Diggory's will be violently opposed to the plan and he'll sink it for me," I answered.

"You could just destroy the plan yourself you know," she said. "I'm sure if you told that little tart of yours to write an editorial then enough people would be opposed to make it impossible to pass."

Yes Daphne knew about my infidelities and I knew about her's. We had an odd relationship, but it worked.

"So if you could sink the plan yourself why involve Diggory?" she asked.

"Degrees of separation, if everyone thinks Diggory was responsible then no one can possibly blame me for the plans failure."

"Is that all?" She asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Diggory would be awful grateful to me for the help you know."

"And is that all," she pressed again.

"If I can get Diggory to derail the plan, then the Minister would be awfully disappointed with him wouldn't she?" I explained. "Department heads who run afoul the Minister don't stay department heads long. And when she looks for his replacement…"

I left the rest unsaid, modesty you understand.

"You've come a long way." The look she gave me was something like the look a mother gives her child when he graduates from Hogwarts.

"I had a good teacher," I said as I wrapped me arms around her. "You know we do have a few hours before our guests arrive."

To punctuate my point I placed my hand on her thigh.

"Really Potter?" she asked her voice full of amusement. "In the drawing room? We'll scandalize poor Kreacher."

She didn't protest though when I kissed her and when the kiss turned into more… well she didn't protest much then either.

Sometime later as we lay together on the floor a panting, sweaty, satisfied, mess I looked down at her. Her platinum blonde hair, her aristocratic features, and her lovely green eyes so like my own. I felt a wave of affection rise up in me that compelled me to speak.

"You know I was with Romilda last Tuesday."

Daphne's whole body stiffened against me and her eyes went cold as ice. I can only imagine what it must have seemed like. Daphne and I had a pretty open relationship but talking about affairs while still sweaty from our own love making was probably crossing even our tenuous line.

"I gave her a story, then I got what I wanted," I continued. "Then as soon as I was done I got up and I left."

I pulled Daphne close to me, but she didn't return the gesture her eyes staring into me as if she was trying to figure out what in the hell I was doing.

"I didn't hold her, I didn't tell her she was beautiful, I took what I wanted then I got up and I came back to you. I'll always come back to you."

"You're such a romantic," Daphne said sarcastically though I couldn't help but notice that she was now looking at me with affection instead of malice.

We lay there for a while more before she spoke again. "Oliver Wood asked me to go to his game next Saturday."

"Sounds like fun," I replied.

"It might run late," she said as she stared into my eyes.

"Are you going to come home when you're done?" I asked.

"Of course."

"Then it doesn't matter how late it runs," I answered.

She just smiled and kissed me before sinking into my arms with a contended purr. I don't think I've ever felt closer to any other person then I did to her at that moment.

As for our dinner it with Diggory it was a boring affair. Daphne was of course the perfect hostess, Kreacher stayed far out of sight and Amos and I made small talk about Quidditch. You never discuss business at the dinner table you know, bad form and all that rot. Afterwards I took him to my study plied him with brandy and I told him everything I knew.

It's odd looking back how that single conversation changed the entire trajectory of the British Nation. As I whispered my secrets into his ear I never knew that, what I was discussing would bring the Government to its knees. All over bloody house elves! Madness I tell you! Sheer madness!

A/N Some people have commented that Harry's behavior is OOC… yeah it is. Basically I've been wanting to write a story like this for a while but the idea of writing 100,000 word epic about the moral decay of a hero is far beyond my abilities. So I decided to skip that and just write the story I wanted to write.

In any case after that last chapter we just passed 100 favorites so yay me! That's pretty important considering how many people search for stories by going through favorite lists. I was also happy to see some of my favorite author's had this story on alert or favorite which is pretty fucking cool for a nerd like me.

In any case special thanks to SimFlyer for being the 100th Favorite. Now go forth and review.