I want an audio file of you reading this, Fay.

Consider it the Buffista equivalent of Xander's "They should film this and show it every Christmas."

Because I can hear it in your voice, and it's bloody brilliant.

Hee! Well, I'm sufficiently self-indulgent that I likely will make it into audiofic...it just takes me the best part of forever to upload audiofiles. (And, God forgive me, I probably will do a Truly Dreadful Irish Accent for Bernard. Because the Truly Dreadful Irish Accent I did for Seamus Finnegan in Fearless Diva's Tissue of Silver still makes me laugh out loud in embarrassed horror.)

OMG, Fay! You should be writing scripts for this show! I'm chortling along with every sentence. Great stuff, great stuff.

Fay! Yes - audio file would be excellent!

Lovely.

So happy you discovered Black Books.

Thank you!

....aaand here comes another one. Because apparently I've decided that Black Books is to be the Little Black Dress of UKcentric crossovers. Or something. Anyway, here's the start of a Black Books/HP crossover:

AS-YET NAMELESS FIC

The phone has been valiantly ringing on and off for at least half an hour when Manny finally gets back from Tesco and answers it. Bernard doesn't look up, but he is conscious of the wretched gnome dropping his shopping, scurrying towards the desk, leaping nimbly over the unshelved cookery books, vaulting across a small, sticky child and dodging around a pair of pensioners in his haste to answer the bloody thing. Bernard knows perfectly well who he's hoping to hear from, and finds the whole business perfectly disgusting. A moment later Manny pulls the fluffy pink earmuffs off Bernard's head, and Bernard is rudely wrenched from his tranquil appreciation of Brett Easton Ellis's tragic hero and returned to the sordid reality of his bookshop.

“Yes? What?” he snaps. “If you want time off to see that hussy, the answer's no.”

“Phone,” says Manny, offering him the handset.

Bernard scowls. “Desk,” he says, pointing at the desk. “Book.” He presses one grmy fingertip to the cover of his battered copy of American Psycho. “Parasites,” he finishes, gesturing vaguely at Manny and the customers before fixing Manny with another glare. “Are we playing at English for beginners?”

“I mean, there's someone on the phone for you,” says Manny, with the air of a man battling disappointment that the caller has turned out not to be a small brunette called Rowena.

Bernard allows himself a mean little grin, and accepts the grubby handset. “Black Books. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Right. Okay then.” He plonks the handset back into its cradle, picks up his book and settles the earmuffs back in place, magnificently ignoring the pensioner who is trying to hand him a five pound note in exchange for a small stack of Georgette Heyers.

Manny breathes a sigh, and starts serving the customer.

* * *

The trunk arrives at eleven o'clock in the morning, so it is Manny who signs for it. When Bernard finally surfaces two hours later, his hair looking like the kind of nest that might have been favoured by a particularly filthy crow and his clothes so thick with ingrained dirt that they could probably have stood up straight on their own, Manny is quite eaten up by curiosity.

“It's for you!” he says, pointing at the trunk. “Are we expecting something? You didn't tell me we were expecting a delivery. What is it?”

“Breakfast!” snarls Bernard, pointing imperiously at the kitchen. It is only after Manny has handed him a sausage-and-bean toastie and a large cup of builder's tea, and he has partaken liberally of both, that he deigns to look at the trunk. “ 'sfrom my Grandpa Marius,” he says, with a shrug.

Manny perks up. Bernard never talks about his family. “I didn't know you had a granddad,” he says.

“I don't,” says Bernard. “He died last week. The lawyer people phoned yesterday.”

“Oh!” Manny blushes under his beard. “I'm sorry!”

“Don't be,” says Bernard. “He was a million years old – about time he got on with shuffling off this mortal coil. Besides, he was nuttier than monkey shit – has been for years. Thought he was a squid.”

“A squid? That's...unusual,” says Manny. “So this is – what, this is something he left you in his will?”

“Apparently.” Bernard looks irritably at the trunk. “Probably full of old socks or cans of catfood – whatever it is old people like. Knitting. False teeth. Pictures of the Queen. Some shite like that.”

“It could be treasure!” says Manny.

Bernard rolls his eyes. “This is what comes of letting you watch 'Pirates of the Caribbean', isn't it?”

“I'm just saying – you don't see trunks like that these days. That's wonderful workmanship – not the kind of thing you could just pick up in British Homestores. Lovingly hand-crafted by genuine...genuine trunk-makers. It looks like an antique itself, is all I'm saying. And you never (continued...)

( continues...) know – he might have been secretly rich, your grandpa! He might have left you a box full of, of rubies and diamonds and things!”

“There are no rubies and diamonds and things, you stupid Yeti. Grandpa Black had no money. His hoity-toity rich bitch family cut him off without a penny because he was a squid. Thought he was a squid. Whatever.” Bernard waves his hand in bored dismissal of crazy old relatives everywhere. “Salient point: no money. It'll be full of old bus tickets, or half-eaten sandwiches or something crap. Dead pigeons, maybe.”

Manny seems reluctant to abandon the notion of ill-gotten Spanish gold without a fight. “He could have had a secret double-life,” he says. “He could have been a pirate. Bootstrap Black, the Pirate! Terror of the Spanish Main!” Manny's eyes narrow. “Some pirates look like squid,” he adds, thoughtfully.

“He was not a pirate!” yells Bernard. “Or a squid! He was a crazy old fella who talked to himself! Mad as a box of ferrets on acid! He used to ride the vacuum cleaner around the garden and say he was playing Squiddish! He used to stand in the fireplace shouting street names! He thought that Fairy washing up liquid was evidence that we had magical cleaning elves who would show up eventually, if we let things get mucky enough. He tried to feed postcards to pigeons! He was barking mad! Crazy! Loopy! Howl-at-the-moon, eat-your-own-underpants mad!”

“Oh,” says Manny sadly, unable to come up with a pirate-centric explanation for riding a hoover. “Oh. Well. Still – don't you want to know what he's left you?”

“Not particularly,” says Bernard.

“It could be wine,” Manny points out, and Bernard's eyes light up.

“It could be wine, couldn't it?”

“No harm in looking.”

Squiddish! Ha!!! Oh, very well done, Fay.

Hee! Thanks, love! More:

It isn't wine, or rubies, or false teeth. It is, as far as they can gather, some very elderly cleaning products, some kind of trick mirror, a battered old brass lamp that looks like something from an amateur production of 'Aladdin', and a book entitled “So Now You're A Muggle: A Squib's Guide To Life In Exile.”

“See?” grumbles Bernard. “Tat. Stupid Old-Person-Tat.” He leafs through the book, wondering how to price it, and snorts. “My God, just LOOK at this. What's it supposed to be, even? Have you seen the chapter headings? 'Dress For Success: How To Put On A Pair Of Trousers.' 'Flying Without Brooms.' 'Life Without Your Owl'.” He glares. “Poetry? Fantasy? Comedy? New Age bollocks?”

“Misc,” says Manny helpfully.

Bernard nods, scribbles a random price inside the cover, and flings the book over towards the sprawling 'Misc' section. Then he picks up the mirror in its tarnished silver frame, and squints at it. “What the hell?” He holds it at one angle, then at another, then shakes it hard. “Is it a holo-thingy? Like you get with Rice Crispies? One of those shifty-changey-wibble-wobble-picture things?”

“Er,” says Manny. He picks it up from the desk, where Bernard has set it, and tries tilting it around. “Maybe?”

“Well, it's crap. It's ALL crap. Crap crap crap crap crappity crap. Get rid of it all. Put it in the back garden, or in the bin or somewhere.”

“Can I keep this?” asks Manny, poking the little lamp thing. “It might make a nice oil-burner.”

“No,” says Bernard at once.

“Oh, go on. Please, Bernard?”

“No! What am I, made of money? You think I can afford to just give away my hard-earned things?”

“But you don't want it!”

“That's not the point.”

“Aw, go on. I'll buy it off you?” says Manny, not at all sure why he's so intrigued by the lamp.

Bernard's eyes light up. “How much?”

Manny fumbles around in his pocket. “Er – three quid? And a packet of Clorets?”

“Done,” says Bernard, snatching the money and the mints. “Now get rid of all this tat, will you?”

Manny considers protesting for the briefest fraction of a second, and then starts to drag the trunk into the kitchen and on towards the garden.

• * *

Rowena doesn't call that morning, and she doesn't call again that afternoon. Manny, who had been floating around in a cloud of shag-having, girlfriend-acquiring happiness, sinks into a stygian gloom. When they close the shop and Fran turns up to drag them off down the pub, Manny elects to stay at home and do some chores.

“He's sulking,” Bernard tells Fran with some satisfaction. “Because that tart hasn't called. He was such a rubbish shag that she's changed her phone number, fled the country and joined the French Foreign Legion.”

“Sod off,” says Manny miserably, and Fran smacks Bernard over the head with a copy of Hard Times.

“People whose ex-fiances have to pretend to be DEAD to get out of seeing them don't get to make cracks about other people's love lives, Bernard.” She casts a sympathetic look at Manny, while Bernard massages his scalp and mutters imprecations under his breath. “I'm sure she'll call, Manny. She's probably just playing hard to get, to make sure that you don't take her for granted. But I'm sure she's WANTING to call. Anyone could see that she thought you were the best thing since sliced bread. Come and have a drink?”

He smiles a watery smile. “No, it's okay. You go on without me. I'm going to wash my hair. It'll be nice to have a little peace and quiet.”

“Was that directed at me?” demands Bernard, as Fran drags him out of the shop. “That was directed at me, wasn't it?”

• * *

After he's finished cleaning the kitchen, Manny considers tackling the bathroom, but the thought of the mysterious stains makes him quail. Instead he goes upstairs and vacuums his bedroom, then washes the windows and dusts everything that can possibly be dusted.

“Why doesn't she call?” he asks himself, polishing the photograph of Moo-Ma and Moo-Pa. “I wish she would just call!” He (continued...)

( continues...) picks up the little oil burner and makes a mental note to look for some scented oils the next time he's in town. Girls like that kind of thing, and it would help to hide the stale smell of Bernard that permeates every room of the house. “I wish she would call and be my girlfriend and we could have lots of fabulous sex and live happily ever after,” he says, polishing the battered brass.

The phone rings.

• * *

Bernard is utterly appalled by the noises from upstairs that greet him when he lurches back into the shop many hours and many bottles of Chardonnay later.

* * *

“We'removingintogether,” says Manny. He looks like a man having to tell a sweet little girl in a fairy princess dress that her puppy has just been diagnosed with cancer. Bernard stares at him blankly, and he rattles on. “Me and Rowena. We love each other, and we're moving in together, but I'll still come back and help you in the shop, Bernard, and I can still do the laundry and make you your breakfast and clean the kitchen and everything, so it won't be a big change really, and you're always saying that you want the space, so in a way it's sort of ideal, really, because this way you can have your privacy and Rowena and I can...can be together without it annoying you. Um.” He stares across at Bernard imploringly. “Say it's okay?”

“Of course it's okay,” says Bernard, after a very long pause. “I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not your mother, for God's sakes. Go. Make hairy little babies with Ribena. Have a lovely life.”

Manny swallows. This is very much worse than he'd been expecting. Bernard looks like he might actually cry, and he hasn't even thrown anything at him yet. “I mean, not yet,” he says hurriedly. “We're going to look at flats together, you know. It'll probably take a while.”

“Whatever,” says Bernard, waving his hand vaguely. “Take as long as you want.”

Manny swallows. “Right. Well...right. Okay. Good. That's...good. Thanks.”

“Not at all.” There is a very awkward silence, followed by an even more awkward silence, followed by a pause. “Get me another bottle of that Pinot Noir, would you, Manny?” says Bernard, politely, and Manny shudders. He can't remember hearing Bernard be polite. Not ever.

“Okay,” he says, and runs away to find wine.

* * *

Bernard wakes up in a hospital bed, with Fran and Manny and Rowena white-faced and wide-eyed at his bedside.

“...?” he slurs.

“I'll stay, Bernard,” chokes out Manny. “I'm sorry. I promise I won't go anywhere.” Rowena looks away.

“...?”

“They had to pump your stomach out,” says Fran. “What did you drink? I mean, Bernard, I've seen you drink nailpolish remover through a straw. What the hell did you DRINK to need hospitalising?”

He turns away from them all, and closes his eyes.

* * *

He has been back home from hospital for a day and a half, and he is thoroughly enjoying the guilt-stricken expression on Manny's face, and the way the hairy little gnome scurries around to fetch and carry and cook and clean for him. There has been no mention of the fair Rowena, nor any talk of looking for another flat, but Bernard knows it won't last. He's lost Manny – and even if Rowena goes, there's bound to be another girl out there, all clean-smelling and smiley and hopeful, wanting to whisk Bernard's minion off to a life of clumsy sex and domesticity. It isn't fair.

“Is it because of the breasts?” he asks, as Manny places a cup of hot tea in front of him. “Is that it?” Manny blinks. “Or is it because she's nice to you?”

“What are you talking about, Bernard?” Manny fusses with the blanket that he has draped over Bernard's shoulders and places a plate of chocolate biscuits on the table in front of him.

“Ribena. What has she got that I haven't got?”

Manny gapes. “What has...I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Is it because she's nice to you? Does she do things for you? I could do things for you. I could cook, you know. Or, or say nice things.” Manny sits down (continued...)

( continues...) quite hard. He stares at Bernard, as though Bernard has suddenly started talking in Swahili. “I can be nice,” says Bernard in a small voice, pouting. It's a lie, of course, and they both know it, but Bernard's pride refuses to acknowledge that there's anything he can't do if he sets his mind to it. “And I don't think her breasts are anything to write home about, anyway. I mean, she's not exactly Angelina Jolie, is she? And I don't think she's all that pretty, frankly. She must be a bit hard up, anyway, to even think about shagging someone with a hamster taped onto their chin. I don't know what you see in her.”

“Don't talk about Rowena,” says Manny. “Don't – just don't you dare talk about her like that. I love her. We're going to be married.”

The silence in the kitchen goes on for a long time after that.

• * *

He's standing in the five square inches of space left in the garden, staring blankly at all the clutter and smoking passionately when he notices the trunk again. Bernard hunkers down next to it. It does look quite a lot like a treasure chest, in all honesty, but the thought makes him feel like punching something. Instead he kicks it viciously, and the lid flies open.

Bernard picks up a little pot with 'Vanishing Cream' written on the side. He twists off the lid and sniffs the contents gingerly, then sneezes and replaces the lid. “Hmm,” he says, fingering the other bottles and jars. His eyes alight on something that looks quite a lot like a miniature bottle of liqueur. “Oooh!” He lifts it out of the trunk, wipes off the dust and squints at the label. “Felix Felicitas,” he reads. “In case of emergency, fill glass.' Bugger that.” He unscrews the lid and swallows it all down, and his eyes pop open in startled wonder as the warmth floods through him. His toes curl inside his dirty socks, and his heart feels suddenly lighter and more hopeful.