Bernard Black sighed, with the death of his cousin Sirius several years ago he was the last of the noble and most ancient house of Black. Granted, Sirius aside, many of his late kin had been unrepentant pure blood fanatics, so perhaps it was no great loss to the world after all. He had been disowned by them himself many years ago due to his unacceptable interest in muggle literature, and in a muggle girl: Fran. He could never recall the details of this particular quarrel for Fran had pleaded with him to modify his own memory to remove the pain it had caused him. He had the memory still, in a small whiskey bottle lost among the countless others in the muggle bookshop that he had taken possession of. Whenever anyone asked him about this painful memory he would cryptically reply, "She remembers and I'm not allowed to".
It was because his family had disowned him in this way that the remains of the once mighty Black household had passed to the potter family instead of to Bernard. Nowhere in the official records was there a mention of Bernardus (named for Barnard's star) Ludwig Black.
He now did his best to have as little as possible to do with the wizarding world, although magical creatures still occasionally found their way into his shop, attracted by his residual magic. One such creature had taken up residence under his bed and seemed to have a fondness for bananas. He called it 'The Thing'.
Until now, the strange goings on in his shop had hardly mattered; the few customers he received seldom stuck around long enough to notice. But now, after a curious incident involving an enchanted copy of 'The Little Book of Calm', he had been obliged to take on a slow witted but well-meaning muggle assistant know as Manny. He was downstairs now, working his first shift. Bernard was upstairs, preparing to transact some business in Diagon Alley. Although he professed to have nothing to do with the wizarding world, he was not averse to taking in a little gold from dealing in rare wizarding books that were hard to procure even in too-big-for-its-britches Flourish and Blotts. Bernard spat derisively as he thought the name.
He stroked the signed first edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them that lay before him on the dusty dressing table. He pocketed it and headed downstairs, thinking of all the galleons that this little venture would… "Oh God!" he thought as he realised his mistake. Manny was still out front, and Bernard was all decked out in wizard attire for meeting his client. "Manny I'm going out!" barked Bernard from his grubby kitchen. He looked at himself in an upturned saucepan and cast around desperately for some excuse to explain his outlandish appearance, "I'm taking some clothes to Oxfam." He muttered unconvincingly. With that, he strode past Bernard in a pointy cloth hat, a bright red scarf and several large overcoats which looked suspiciously like robes...