Cooking the Spell Books
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Black Books. They belong to J.K. Rowling and Dylan Moran respectively.
AN: I guess this counts as AU. It wouldn't fit into continuity anywhere anyways. It isn't meant to but hey, I did try! Let's say somewhere in OoTP. In terms of Black Books continuity, it starts the morning after the last episode of series 3: "Party".
Chapter One: The Morning After The Party
It was a quiet evening at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Alastor Moody had decided to review some of their files concerning the Order of the Phoenix in one of the rooms upstairs, as Molly was still shouting at Tonks for dropping a pot of stew downstairs. This just so happened to be the room where the tapestry depicting Sirius' family tree was hung.
Sirius had tried many times to throw out the moth-infested tapestry. But Kreacher, his mother's old House Elf, always seemed to know when he was about to do it and always managed to stop him.
Remus sighed and dropped another stack of folders on the table.
"We're never going to get this done," he moaned, looking at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 9 o'clock in the evening. They had been reviewing the files since 11 in the morning.
"Dumbledore wants this done by Tuesday," Moody growled. He slid the file he'd been reading aside and picked up another.
"What are we actually doing?" Sirius asked, staring blankly at the file in his hands.
"You mean you don't know?"
"…No… I've just been skimming," Sirius confessed.
Moody groaned and put his head in his hands. Remus looked at his file and his eyes glazed over.
"What are we doing?" he asked Moody.
"Let's take a break," Sirius suggested before Moody had a chance to hex them.
"Fine," he growled.
The group moved from the hard wooden table and chairs to the soft plump sofa in the corner. Remus waved his wand and suddenly each of them was holding a warm cup of hot chocolate. The sofa they were sitting on seemed to have been placed so that one could view the whole of the enormous tapestry hung on the wall.
"Argh. I need to get rid of this piece of shit," Sirius said, glaring at the offending tapestry as if it were Severus Snape.
"It might be good to keep it," Lupin said, well aware that Sirius despised the thing. "If only to be able to trace your family tree."
"I don't much want to do that. Anyone decent has had their name burnt off it anyway." He pointed to where he name had once been, where there was now a hole in the tapestry surrounded by black charred bits of fabric.
"I've never seen that hole before," Remus said. He pointed to a gap that was along to the right of where Sirius' had been.
"Mm… neither have I actually," said Sirius, cocking an eyebrow. He got up and walked towards the tapestry. "Oh wait, yes, I know what that is," Sirius said. He turned back to face Lupin and Moody.
"Who?" Remus asked.
"My dad's cousin or something. He was a squib so they disowned him. Because that's how lovely my family is." He sat back on the sofa.
"Think he's still alive?" Remus asked.
Sirius shrugged.
"Probably. Last I heard he moved to Ireland. No one ever really mentioned him."
"Don't you think it'd be interesting to meet him?" Remus wondered aloud. He was gazing at the tapestry.
"Remus, I know you're into the whole tracking your family thing but seriously, I'm not going to do that."
"Actually, I think it's quite a good idea," Moody said, Sirius looked at him, his mouth wide open as if he were trying to catch flies.
"No way. There's no way we're doing that."
---
"I can't believe we're doing this," Sirius grumbled.
"Oh, be quiet," Lupin said merrily.
The three wizards had borrowed a Ministry Car from Arthur Weasley and were currently attempting to navigate the streets of London "The Muggle Way" (as Tonks had put it).
Lupin was driving; Moody was sitting next to him in the passenger seat with a massive A to Z sprawled across his lap, while Sirius sat grumbling in the back of the car. In his hands he held all the information that Lupin had so courteously gathered on his long lost dad's cousin's son.
Apparently, his dad's cousin's name had been Gregory Black, and he had sadly passed away many years ago. However, he had had a son before he died. His son's name was Bernard and he owned a book shop somewhere in London. The shop's name was, quite creatively, Black Books.
"Turn right here," Moody said.
Sirius couldn't believe that Lupin and Moody had actually gone to the trouble of doing this. Well, it was better than reading through files and files of information. (Sirius still couldn't remember what they'd been doing).
"Turn left at the McDonald's."
As Remus followed Moody's directions and turned left, the book shop came into Sirius' view. It was quite small, a quaint looking shop. The building itself was black, and big white letters atop the shop window read "Black Books". One couldn't actually see through the window as there were stacks of books clogging it up.
Remus stopped the car and got out. Moody followed after he had finally folded up the maze-like A to Z. Sirius stayed put.
"Come on Padfoot," Remus said, opening the car door for his friend. Sirius crossed his arms and pouted, staring straight ahead.
"Get out of the bloody car, Sirius," Moody grumbled. He prodded Sirius sharply with his wand.
"Ouch! God, fine! But I don't have to like him!" Sirius complained. He got out of the car, stormed over to the shop and up to the door. "They're closed."
"Stop stalling and go in," Remus said.
"No seriously, they are."
"It's 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, they're not closed."
Sirius stepped aside so that his two companions could read a small sign written crudely on a piece of paper stuck to the door with sticky tape.
"We're closed. Bugger off."
"Well that's um… vulgar," Remus said. He peered in through the window that appeared to have been rather neglected in terms of cleaning. "There's someone in there!"
"Lemmee see," said Sirius, pushing his friend out of the way.
"I thought you didn't want to see him," Lupin said, rubbing his arm where Sirius had pushed him.
"It's a woman."
"Eh?" asked Moody.
"The person Remus saw. It's a woman. She's lying on the sofa. And there's… some plaster from the ceiling all over her."
"Right… Are you sure this is the right place?" Moody turned to Lupin, who was already checking his file.
"Yes. Black Books. It's the only shop in England called Black Books. So, I guess this is it."
"So, what shall we do?"
Sirius seemed to have made up his mind. He had already walked into the shop, slamming the door behind him. Lupin and Moody hurried in after him.
The shop was indeed tiny. And most of it was filled with books. There was a large table in the centre of the room with hundreds of books laid across it, several had fallen on the floor. The shelves were packed tight with books, and there were also several large piles on the floor.
At the back of the shop was a desk, equally as messy as the rest of the shop. On it stood several empty wine and liqueur bottles, a few packets of cigarettes and, quite curiously, a slice of bacon in a plastic cup.
Behind the desk was a curtain, which Sirius presumed held the owner's accommodation behind it.
On the wall next to the door there was a blackboard with the word "DON'T" written crudely on it in the same handwriting as the sign on the door. Across from the black board was the sofa, and the woman who had been sleeping on it was stirring.
The woman, whose dark hair was such a mess that it almost looked like Hagrid's beard, didn't seem to notice the three wizards for a while. She sat up, dusted off her clothes and fumbled to grab a bottle that was lying on the floor next to the sofa.
"Bernard… Manny… where's all the beetroot liqueur?" She finally seemed to notice the new arrivals as she stumbled to her feet. "Oh, there you are Bernard. Is my hair…. My hair… is it still sexy?" She looked at Sirius as she inquired after her hair.
"Um…" Sirius began.
"Oh! Manny!" she turned to Moody and slapped him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. "What happened to your face? Where's all my beetroot liqueur?" Finally, she turned to Lupin. She studied him with her dark eyes. "Who're you? Oh wait, Rowena! You're Rowena right? That girl Manny likes!"
"Look, I don't know who you think we are…" Lupin began, looking quite offended at being thought of as Moody's girlfriend. "But we're not… those people."
"HAH!" The woman cackled and stumbled back to the sofa, taking a packet of cigarettes out of her jeans pocket. "Got a lighter, Bern?" she asked Sirius as she attempted to put the cigarette in her mouth but missed twice, once poking herself in the eye and the second time dropping it just before it went in her mouth.
"Oh… fuck…" she muttered. "That was my last one…" The cigarette had landed in the roof plaster that was now scattered on the floor.
"Excuse me?" Lupin enquired, extremely loudly and slowly, as if he were speaking to a foreigner. "Where is Mr Black?"
"Oh, Bern? He's um… he's… I dunno!" The woman laughed again. "I thought you were him. Oh no, you're not him. You're… I don't know you," she concluded. "Who are you?"
"My name is Remus Lupin. This is Alastor Moody and Sirius Black." He gestured to each of them in turn. "Sirius needs to speak with Mr Black quite urgently. Do you know where he is?"
The woman looked as though she was about to answer, although she was swaying in her seat, when they all heard a loud crash come from upstairs. Someone shouted a number of vulgar things very loudly before tumbling down the stairs.
Suddenly, the curtains at the back of the shop were thrust open with such force that they fell off the rail. They crumpled onto the floor at the feet of the man that had just thrown them apart.
He was a man of average height with dark hair just as messy as the woman's. He wore a black suit blazer and trousers with a rather tasteless red shirt underneath. He stared around the shop, a mixture of confusion, anger and insanity in his beady eyes before limping to his desk.
"MANNY, MANNY, MANNY!" he called loudly in a strong Irish accent.
"Oh, Bernard!" the woman called, pointing at the crazed Irish man. "That guy's looking for you!" she then pointed to Lupin.
"I don't care. Manny was supposed to make me breakfast! He… he knows I can't just survive on the mushrooms in my hair!" he shouted, throwing one of the empty wine bottles on the table across the room. It smashed into a million glittering pieces against the wall.
Sirius looked at Lupin. Lupin looked at Sirius. Moody placed his head in his hands once again.
"I don't think I want to be related to him…" Sirius whispered to Lupin as Moody sighed.
"Muggles…"