A/N: This was a plot bunny I just couldn't shake. It begged to be written. This may just stay a one shot, or I might come back and follow up on it. It all depends on the muse. I'll be leaving it marked as incomplete for now.
This is inspired by the truly funny and wonderful TV series 'Black Books' by Graham Linehan. If you haven't tried it, I strongly recommend.
Disclaimer: I don't own either Harry Potter (by JKR) or Black Books (by Graham Linehan). This is merely some weird lovechild produced in the mess of my head.
He'd opened the shop on a whim. A dare. An act of defiance against his family name. Any of these things. All of them. Why he'd chosen a bookshop was... honestly, it was beyond him why he'd chosen to be a purveyor of the written word. And it wasn't that he disliked books necessarily, but who could possibly work up a passion over books? Who?
It was late March, and the morning was misty and grim, and Sirius Black did not want to get out of bed. He lived above the shop on Diagon Alley, alone and in squalor, and liked it that way. That wasn't to say that he was an unsociable individual. On the contrary, he was a deeply sociable individual – when the mood (and the wine) took him.
But the morning hours were, he admitted, not his finest ones, as a general rule. In fact, he decided, rolling over in the bed, he'd be better off staying put. The bed was warm, almost mocking, in its comfort, and the morning was chilly and uninviting. He was beginning to drift off again (not much of an effort, to be honest), when the door clattered open.
Hermione swept into the room, bringing with her a breath of cold air, and the scent of mist and damp hair.
"Get up, Sirius, you foul beastie," she called out, sauntering around his room, yanking at the curtains in that annoying way she had. She reached his bed, and looked down her nose at him as she placed a cup onto the bedside table. Sirius glared balefully, from beneath the depths of his covers.
"Oh, don't be like that. You're not that foul, I suppose," she said musingly, flopping down onto his bed. "Though, you are rather lazy, and," she sniffed, "you smell awful. Perhaps a shower?"
He grunted in response, refusing to acknowledge her. Any kind of interaction with Hermione was to be avoided. It only encouraged her.
"You might feel like a human, you know," she continued, a glimmer of something that sounded suspiciously like maliciousness lurking in her voice, "as opposed to the mongrel you so clearly are."
He ignored that, preferring to focus on the lull of his blankets, the softness of his pillows-
But no, she had started prodding him. Her devil-bitch fingers worming through the covers, jabbing ferociously into his side, his shoulder, his- no fucking way was she getting her vicious little fingers on his prick.
He flung back the covers, propping himself up on his elbow, proffering her a stony glare.
"Alright, you utter harpy, you vengeful bitch flung from the depths of hell –how is my mother, by the way? – I'm awake now. But next time, try to keep those talons away from my jewels, yeah?"
"Sirius, my dear, if those are jewels, then you are a pauper," she smirked, throwing a contemptuous glance down at, well, his jewels, covered by a mound of blankets. "However," she continued, jumping back up off the bed, with an energy that made Sirius feel slightly seasick, "I've brought you a little bribe. To soften the deal, say."
He simply stared at her. If I indulge her, he thought, it'll only make her worse. She'll be insufferable.
She, however, was not inclined to back down easily, but then, she never did. She simply held his unimpressed gaze with her dark eyes, warm with mischief, and her mouth twisted into a taunting smile.
The silence stretched, and the mild headache he had woken up with was gaining strength with it. The hangover was beginning to wrap its steely bands around the base of his skull, and he knew that further conversation with Hermione would do it no favours. Talking with the girl made his head ache, even at the best of times.
"Aren't you even the tiniest bit curious?" she asked him finally, in a low honeyed tone, though there had been a moment when irritation flickered in the wrinkling of her brow.
He rolled his eyes in response, and finally gave in to the overwhelming urge to fall back onto the pillow.
"Fine, then," she sighed, in a dramatic (and entirely unconvincing) fashion, "I'll just take this lovely coffee, to which I added a splash or three of a really rather fine oak-aged"-
"Give it to me," he finally spoke, his composure cracking, though he was thankful his face was stuffed into a pillow.
"I haven't even gotten to the best bit yet, you know. I also happen to have a lovely little vial of this very, very tempting Hatspixie Hop-To potion. Only the finest hangover cure for you, boss."
"You're an angel," he managed, the sarcasm sticking on his tongue somewhat - or was it just the pillow?
"Oh, I know. Come on, get up. Shop has to be opened."
"Can't we just let Moony do it?" he asked, pulling himself upright again.
"Come now, Sirius, haven't you forgotten little Teddy?" she asked, picking up the cup of coffee, swirling it slightly. "Moony, as you so love to call him, is likely at home with the rather adorable Dora and that little scrap they call a son. You really ought to visit, you know."
"You are starting to sound like my mother."
She laughed then, nothing too loud, thankfully, then handed him the cup and spoke.
"I doubt that. You forget, I've met your mother. Or rather her portrait," she paused, musing for a moment, and continued. "You said that the artist captured the, ahem, best of your mother's... personality?"
"I did say that," Sirius replied, squinting blearily at her before taking a sip of the really, really fucking excellent coffee. I must thank her, he thought briefly, helping himself to a slightly more generous mouthful of the brew.
"Well then," Hermione said, looking nonplussed. "Really quite a lovely women, I suppose. An absolute fucking lunatic, and a complete shrew, to put it fucking mildly, but, yeah, you know, all in all, a top notch woman."
Sirius managed to crack a grin, because, really, anyone who managed to thoroughly bash his mother was fine with him. And she'd brought the coffee. He was about to offer a rejoinder when she opened her mouth again.
"And actually, I wanted to ask you, because, you know, I saw Grimmauld Place before Ginny Potter got her hands on it, and what's the story with all the stuffed house-elf heads on the walls? Ginny had them burned, by the way. Great big bonfire in the kitchen. Kreacher didn't speak for weeks, apparently, that miserable little git."
This time Sirius did laugh. He wanted to put it down to the coffee, but it wasn't that. She was funny, when she chose to be. Most of the time she was an unbearable nag.
Hermione shot a grin at him, a warm, cheeky flash of teeth – white and straight- and glittering brown eyes.
"Glad to see I'm finally getting through," she said. "Welcome back to the land of the living. Sort of. Anyway, I'm going to take pity on you – this is the last time I'm doing this, you understand me? – and open up. This is your shop, you twat."
And on those particularly eloquent words, she turned and strode towards the door. Before she walked out, she paused and turned, pulling out her wand without flourish. She gave the wand a quick, elegant sweep across the room, and things began to rearrange themselves: Clothes bundled themselves away, albeit messily, but still away; the curtains pulled themselves open fully, allowing the grey morning light to pour into the room; his shoes danced themselves merrily into his wardrobe, the door shutting behind the last pair with a click.
By the time the room was (relatively) clean, she had disappeared, and Sirius could head the soft tread of her feet on the stair. Stifling a yawn and scratching his head, he pulled himself out of bed and began searching for something to wear.
When he finally came downstairs, the shop was open – door pulled wide, letting a chill seep into the room like cold water, blinds were pulled, floor swept – and Hermione was somewhere in the depths of the shelves, a book in one hand and a duster in the other. She'd pulled her damp curls up on top of her head, and used her wand to secure it, and already there was a smudge of dust on her nose. She turned, hearing him approach.
"Finally. It's only half ten, Sirius. How long does it take you to get ready? It's not as though people come in here to look at you."
"Cheers, darling," he scowled, leaning against the bookshelves. "You're looking the very picture of madness this morning yourself, I must say."
"Thank you," she replied cheerfully. "I do try. Now, would you care to take your head out of your arse and actually do some work?"
"What more do you want of me? I got up, didn't I?"
"Oh for fuck's sake, you fucking fuckwit, this is your shop! You don't pay me enough for this nonsense!"
"And, actually, where's that Hop-To got to?" Sirius asked, ignoring her fit of profanity. They were a regular enough occurrence. He was almost certain she'd treat him to another one soon. "You promised."
Hermione swung away from him and began pinching the bridge of her nose, muttering under hear breath. Sirius couldn't hear what she was saying, but he could guess without much effort. After a moment, she turned back to him, pulling a vial from the depths of her robes.
"Here," she said, shoving it roughly into his hand. "I hope it burns on the way down."
And with that, she had brushed past him and was gone. After a moment, he could hear her voice – her polite one – raising above the stacks. Talking to a customer, he presumed. Looking down at the vial she had left in his hand, containing a bright orange concoction, he unstoppered it and downed it.
They never really tasted good, did they? The more innocuous ones, like the Hop-To, generally weren't too bad, but – as a general rule – the more serious the need, the more foul-tasting the potion. He knew from Moony that the Wolfsbane tasted atrocious. Within moments, the dull, deep pounding in his head began to lessen, the ache in his neck dimmed, the rise of nausea in his stomach settled.
He could hear Hermione, still, talking to whoever, and then the sudden trill of her fake laugh. Like a bird sounding the alarm, it was the laugh she gave when she was deeply uncomfortable and not at all happy about it. It was the first warning. Get the fuck out here, Sirius, before I crawl the fuck back there and dismember you. He could almost hear the hiss of her enraged tones.
He leant against the shelves, making a bet with himself as to how long it would take for the throat-clearing to begin. He gave it another minute or two. Perhaps less, seeing as she seemed to be particularly... tense this morning. He owed it to her, to make up for his rude awakening earlier. Moony had always been much more reasonable.
And there it was: The throat-clearing, followed by a less-than-delicate sounding cough. Sirius smirked. At this rate she'd cough a lung up, or maybe he'd get lucky and she'd explode from sheer exasperation. It was rather an appealing prospect.
The coughing became more persistent, loud and grating against the ear, and Sirius felt his smirk grow into a grin. He knew he'd best go out and intervene, especially when he heard the alarmed tones of the customer.
"Merlin's beard! Are you quite all right, girl?"
Sirius took that moment to emerge from the shelves, and spoke.
"Yes, girl, are you quite all right? I hope you don't plan on dying on me, now."
The coughing immediately stopped, and Hermione turned from the customer to shoot a poisonous glare at him, one that clearly promised death and dismemberment, and another shouty, foul-mouthed lecture. Sirius offered her his blandest smile, and turned to the customer.
"Now, sir, how can I help you?" he asked, in the most professional tone he could muster. "Hermione, I'm sure there's a trunk of books back there for you to throw yourself into."
Hermione, not a stupid woman by any measure, immediately headed for the back of the shop, (presumably to look up a good hex to use on him later, knowing her) choosing to ignore both Sirius and the customer as she fled.
"Excuse me, you are Mr. Black, the owner of this shop?" asked the man, his voice high and stuffy. He had that look about him too; his voice matched his appearance.
"Much to my dismay, yes," Sirius replied, his interest in helping the customer waning rapidly.
"You should know that your shopgirl there, was significantly less than helpful. She's positively obtuse," the man went on, nodding his head in the direction Hermione had gone.
"You know, I'm inclined to doubt your words here," Sirius mused, ignoring the customer's look of outrage. "She's many, many things – dangerous, and very shrill, for example, but obtuse isn't one of them. Now, what do you want?"
The customer took a breath, puffing up his chest in a manner resembling a peacock, and seemed to pull himself together.
"Well, unruly shopgirls aside, I wish to know if you have a book in stock," he sniffed impressively.
"I gathered. Do get on with it." Sirius was beginning to get bored of this fool.
"A number of books," the man pressed on, pulling a list from his pocket. "The first one is called The Piety of Purity by Secondus Rowle; the second is A Bitter Taint: The Muggle Problem, by Ernst J. Whithering ; next is The Muggle Plague: Finding a Final Solution by Ignatius Flu"-
"We don't have them," he said shortly.
"How do you know?" the man asked, his face reddening. "You haven't even looked!"
"I just do," he answered, giving the customer a smile so bland it bordered on manic. "You can leave now."
"I beg your pardon!" the man exploded in indignation. "I will not be dismissed, by Merlin, I won't. The books, Mr Black."
"I'd really rather you left," Sirius replied calmly, examining his nails. "I doubt we can help you here. Off you go."
"Well, I never!" he cried, his face mottled slightly by suppressed temper. "You know, I thought, seeing as this is a bookshop owned by a member of the most ancient and illustrious Black family, that you would be the very man to assist me"-
Well, Sirius wasn't going to stand for that sort of horseshit now, was he?
"We do not stock that interminable filth in this establishment," he cut in on the man coldly. "Now do the world a favour and kindly fuck off."
The customer looked as though, for a moment he (foolishly) thought to retaliate, however, he then noticed that Sirius was rather larger than him, and really quite angry and then he most likely recalled that Sirius had once – many years ago now – been imprisoned in Azkaban. He glared at Sirius a moment more, then stormed out of the shop, slamming the door behind him.
As soon as the door had begun to swing, Hermione's head poked out from between the shelves, eyebrows raised. Under normal circumstances she'd tell him off. It was hardly the first time Sirius had frightened customers off, and usually for something far less, like him not wanting to search for the book, or not liking the sound of the title of the book they chose.
This was different.
"Wine, is it?" she asked, already knowing.
"Firewhiskey, I think," he replied.
"Not a bit early for that, dearest?"
"Get the fucking Firewhiskey, Granger," he said, before disappearing to his 'office', at the back of the shop.
Hermione remained between the rows of shelves, a frown on her brow, though she waved her wand nonetheless, summoning a bottle of Ogden's finest to her hand. Rolling her eyes, she finally spoke:
"Typical," she said, in a low tone, tinged with something like bitterness, as she wove her way through the shelves into the depths of the shop.
A/N: Now, I think there's room in this for a short-ish, possible ten-part, story. If you would like to see me expand this a bit, please let me know in the reviews.
Otherwise I may come back to it when I've made more progress on my dramione fic Dreaming of Spires.
Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think :)
-Millie