( 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.

Slight boo-boo:

After he's finished cleaning the kitchen, Bernard considers tackling the bathroom,

Shouldn't this be Manny?

Also, my knowledge of the HPverse is not at all extensive, I only watch the movies, not read the books. What's the implications of the “Felix Felicitas?" I mean, it translates as "happy cat?" (I've no Latin to speak of, but this is my best guess.) I can see it's making him feel happy, but since it said to use in emergency it sounds like it's supposed to fix something dire.

edited to clarify.

Oh, cheers mate - I suspect there are lots more typos, actually, so keep your eyes peeled.

(Felix Felicitas is a potion we encounter in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and it grants the drinker one day of perfect good luck.)

Oh, my. I can't wait to see what "luck" Bernard has!!

Bernard reaches down into the trunk and picks up the odd mirror-thing again, and is startled to find somebody else's face staring out of it. He stares into a pair of green eyes blinking myopically back at him through a pair of John Lennon glasses, and lets out a small shriek.

“Hello?” says Bernard. “Is this a magic mirror?” He thinks wildly of Snow White, and wonders whether he could poison Rowena with an apple. “Mirror mirror in my hand, who's the fairest in the land?”

“Sirius?” says a voice out of nowhere. “My God, Sirius! Is that you?”

“Er – no,” says Bernard. “No, it's me, Bernard. Hello?”

“Bernard who?”

“Bernard Black,” Bernard replies. And then he realises he's talking to a mirror, and it occurs to him that he has no idea quite what he's just drunk. The thought that he may even now have some mysterious drugs coursing through his bloodstream cheers him up enormously.

“Black?” says the figment of his imagination. “My God. Right – er – hang on. Where are you?”

“I'm here, silly,” says Bernard, smiling down at the mirror. “Holding you. In the garden.”

“Yes, okay – but where is the garden, exactly?”

So Bernard tells him.

* * *

“...and so that makes us sort of family, almost. Because Sirius was my godfather, you see,” says the young man, looking very earnest. There is a suspiciously wobbly note in his voice.

Bernard makes winding up motions with one hand. “Yes yes yes, heroic sacrifice, wrongfully arrested, shapeshifting disguise – I got all that the first time. So you're saying that the house belongs to me? A whole house? A big house?” He beams.

“Well, pretty big, yes. And really – I mean, okay, they disinherited Marius for being a squib, but the Ministry is in the process of changing a lot of the laws relating to Squibs and Muggles, and – I mean, legally it's mine, but in all conscience I can't carry on living there when I know that you're out here, you know, Sirius's cousin, all disinherited just because of Slytherin pride.” Bernard nods approvingly. He always knew that he'd been terribly wronged by someone. “And I've got pots of money, you know. Pots and pots of the stuff. I'd been thinking about moving to somewhere a bit – well, a bit more cheerful, frankly. Now that the war's over, there's really no need to keep it hidden. I can move it into Muggle London without too much bother, and key the door to you properly. And I can take it off the Floo network, and get it all made a bit more Muggle-friendly – shouldn't take too long.” He hesitates. “Well. Er. Maybe a month or two. Six at the most.”

“You realise that I only understand one word in ten of all this, don't you?” asks Bernard conversationally. “But I'll have the house. Yes please. Do I have to sign something?”

“Er – good point. I'll get the lawyers to draw something up, make it all official,” says this Harry person, raking a hand through hair almost as dark and almost as messy as Bernard's own. “There's – I should probably tell you, though. There's a sort of a catch.” Bernard's eyes narrow. He knew it was all too good to be true.

• * *

Number 12 Grimmauld Place is the most beautiful house Bernard has ever seen. He loves its dark corners, its musty smells, its dust, its tapestries, its bookshelves and its four poster beds. He even loves the shouty portrait of the old woman, and thoroughly enjoys yelling abuse back at the old bat, and threatening to torch her favourite possessions. Most of all, though, he loves the catch.

Because the catch, as it turns out, is more of a perk.

Bernard Black may be losing his personal slave to the wretched Rowena, but he finds that he can cope with this an awful lot more easily now that he has gained a House Elf of his very own. Not to mention an extensive cellar.

“Wine!” he yells, and Kreacher is there with a dusty bottle of claret before he's finished pronouncing the word.

(continued...)

( continues...)

“Whatever Master Bernard requires,” says Kreacher adoringly. “Is Master Bernard wanting more chips, perhaps? With malt vinegar and sea salt? Or another packet of Benson and Hedges?”

And Bernard Black beams.

FINIS

OMG, Kreacher and Bernard, together at last! Perfect!

Brava!

Hee! The last scion of the House of Black may be a Squib (or possibly a Muggle?), but he's quite as shouty and toppy as Old Mrs Black ever was. I think it's a match made in heaven.