Malicia: I hadn't figured out before that I can enable anonymous reviews! Thank you for reviewing! I think it's enabled on everything now…. Lilith is mostly cared for physically by the elves, Krait gets a lot of cuddle time with her, but I haven't included it in the story always… she makes a few cameos in this one. Assume she gets carted around by Krait most places but there's that mass confundment so nobody notices... and just wait for the story when she starts Hogwarts….
Chapter 3: Malfoy Caddish and a silver Rolls Royce
The beautiful silver grey Rolls Royce was quite the most expensive and opulent car that had ever been seen in Privet Drive; and the liveried chauffeur was only apparent as a goblin to members of the wizarding community. Jark had been in the service of Lucius Malfoy for all of his working life and would have cheerfully worked for a master many times more exacting for the pleasure of playing with kit like the Roller and the other cars Lucius deemed it suitable to keep available to him. It was gratifying that Mister Draco was actually taking more of an interest in the vehicles and relying on Jark's knowledge of what impressed muggles, even if Miss Krait did seem to be almost as well informed on that as Jark himself. Jark did enjoy the way the Roller turned heads as they swept through suburbia; it was like being royalty. He drew up outside number four with a flourish.
The two immaculate teenagers who emerged from the car might have been brother and sister: and indeed Draco and Krait looked on each other almost as such. They were dressed casually and in muggle fashion; and no muggle could fail to notice that their clothing was of the best and worn with an easy grace that suggested they did not think twice about it. Draco did not, though he had needed to become accustomed to muggle clothes; Krait merely had learned the self confidence to be unconscious of what she wore. The watching youth from down the road – one of Dudley Dursley's regular victims – goggled.
"V-visiting the Dursleys?" he ventured.
"Visiting Harry Potter" said Krait. "He goes to school with us."
The boy goggled again.
"I thought he was supposed to go to some borstal for criminal boys?" he said, incredulous that the visions before him should be criminals. And one was most certainly not a boy.
Krait stared and Draco laughed a drawling laugh.
"Is that what that jealous old fool tells people?" he asked. The boy nodded, having no trouble discerning Uncle Vernon from that description.
"It's a jealous lie?" he asked.
"Yeah, he's a creep" said Krait. "Harry's parents left him well off, but Vernon can't touch it…..and they arranged all his school fees to be paid if anything happened to them, because they never trusted the Dursleys not to rip Harry off if they could….we all go to boarding school together in Scotland, nice place, we personally think it's better than Eton, on account of the grouse shooting, you know….nice to meet you." She gave a friendly nod to the lad who ran off to spread the news whilst the evidence of the limousine was still outside number four with its obvious custom plate LUC1US.
Lucius was like that sometimes.
-/-
The Malfoys knocked; and Vernon Dursley opened the door, having already seen the limo, and wanting nothing less than to keep the owners of such an exotic vehicle waiting. He goggled at them like a bemused Walrus.
"We've come to see Harry, old boy" drawled Draco. "I say, I hear your boy boxes….wonder if he'd care to stand up for a few rounds with me? I'd like the chance to meet a new opponent."
"You – see Harry? I don't want any of you FUNNY types around, nor none of that business used on my son, d'you hear?" he rumbled.
Draco held up a languid hand.
"Certainly not…it's no sport to use unfair means the boy doesn't have at his disposal…." He glanced over Vernon's shoulder to where Dudley was gawping incredulously. "What say you, young Dursley? Of course, you're carrying too much weight to be much cop as a fighter, but…."
"I can lick you any day you poncey cissy!" yelped Dudley.
Draco grinned.
"That appears to be an acceptance….in the garden then? That way you'll know, Mr Dursley that I can't use magic, not without getting into serious trouble" he inclined his head to Vernon. "I'm still under age, being the same age as Harry, and I believe Dudley…."
Harry had come cautiously to the head of the stairs to see what a Rolls Royce was doing outside the house.
"Draco! Krait!" he said happily.
Vernon turned and glared at him.
"You never told me any of your weirdo friends were going to turn up" he growled.
"I didn't know" said Harry.
"Unexpected, that's us" said Draco, cheerfully. "My dad owns the site they're building the new Asda store on so we came down to transact some business in the region for him, see that they're sticking to contract and all that."
Vernon looked like he was about to bust a vein.
"You – your types own OUR land?"
Draco looked down his nose.
"It has been in my family since before YOUR ancestors crawled out of flea infested wattle and daub shacks" he said coldly. "I think it is futile making an issue of heritance though, don't you? Unless you wish to see my bout with Dudley as some kind of trial by combat….Harry, you must be your cousin's second, there's a good fellow."
"Ah…..right" said Harry. He glanced at his aunt who had just emerged; but Petunia glanced at Krait with frightened recognition. Krait inclined her head gracefully in return.
-/-
Dudley was keen to show off to his father that he could take on one of the horrid creatures from Harry's unnatural school; he was eager for the match up. He even phoned up a couple of his cronies to ask them over to see him smear a rich kid all over the neighbourhood.
Inevitably other watchers drifted up too.
Draco squared up to Dudley with aplomb. He had been working hard on martial arts with the Muggle Studies Hobbies Group and was as fit as anyone could be; most of the local girls who had come over out of curiosity murmured appreciatively and giggled behind their hands at his flat muscular belly as he stripped down. Dudley did not show to advantage with a bare chest; and wisely kept his T-shirt on.
Draco was more used to Wing Chun Kung Fu than boxing; but there were enough hitting moves within it, and his blocking moves were not illegal. He avoided holds and kept above the waist, and Vernon certainly did not know enough to recognise Queensbury rules if they were there or no.
Dudley soon retreated. Even his best attacks landed on arms conditioned and hardened and hurt as much as if he had been the one hit; and when Draco landed one on him, he knew all about it!
"He's hurting me!" he complained.
Draco looked down his nose.
"M'cousin here told me you were a little girl….I see she was quite right."
"Go on, Dudders, give him the old one-two!" encouraged Vernon.
"Not likely!" said Dudley "He's got steel under his skin!"
Vernon rounded on Draco.
"Have you been…." He demanded in an undertone.
"I do a lot of martial arts conditioning" said Draco airily. "Thousands of minute breaks to the bones make them grow harder….it's a painful training, but it works….none of what you call funny business. Pure physical training. Harry, strip down and show your cousin how a man fights."
Draco and Harry were well matched and sparred regularly; the blows they exchanged were fast and furious.
Uncle Vernon stared, incredulous.
"Harry? But he's just a wimp…." He expostulated. He half suspected Draco of pulling his blows; but the bruise rapidly developing on Harry's cheek and Draco's black eye dispelled that idea. Harry's muscles too stood out against his wiry frame; and the boys moved with practised ease and speed.
"Points….even" said Krait cheerfully as the pair dropped back by mutual consent to get their breath. "Good job I didn't offer to take on the Pudding Bag, he'd have been even more embarrassed to be beaten up by someone my size!"
As Krait never reached five feet without New Rocks this was quite true.
Draco turned and smiled brightly at the scowling Dudley.
"That's how to do it, old boy….you mustn't be afraid of getting hurt, it's only pain, after all….Harry's good."
Vernon was purple.
"I never knew they taught the manly arts at…that place" he ground out, trying vainly to hoosh the onlookers and the purring group of Draco's new admirers.
Draco smiled even more brightly.
"I don't suppose you ever asked Harry, did you?" he enquired quizzically.
Dudley scowled even more.
Aunt Petunia put a protective arm about her son but made no move to call down Draco as she might have any other youthful wizard.
"I'll lick you another time!" said Dudley resentfully.
Draco regarded him thoughtfully.
"Lose a few pounds….take up the sort of fitness regimen we do, and maybe you could" he said dispassionately.
"And what fitness regimen is that?" asked Dudley, half interested despite himself.
"We rise at five-thirty and run for half an hour across the moors; then we drill for half an hour; then we spar for half an hour" said Draco "Though often that last contains more, er, specialist drill too. Then we shower and go for breakfast. Does wonders for the appetite, though there's no harm in that if it's well balanced. Do you the world of good, old boy."
"How often?" asked Dudley.
"Oh, daily" said Draco airily. "No days off just because you fancy a lie in….the girls would invade our dorms with icy water jugs if we tried it" he grinned at Krait.
"THAT's what you've been up to in the mornings!" said Dudley accusingly to Harry.
Harry shrugged.
"I'm not about to lose my tone and fitness level just because running in the streets isn't as convivial as hill work" he said half defiantly, wondering if Uncle Vernon was going to forbid it.
"Oh boy, LONDON!" groaned Draco. "I hate it when dad takes us up to the town house….still Kensington Park's ok…"
"Yeah" said Krait grinning. "And pissing off those snotty little cads from Sandhurst who thought they could pace us….that was so funny…"
"Meh…they were wusses" said Draco "They wanted to pull you, m'dear…say, Harry, now we've done what dad wants we're off the leash for a few days, you coming with us for a while on your way over to stay with the Weasleys?"
"I'm not packed…"
"Lazy toerag" said Krait. "You knew you were going to Molly and Arthur's…we're just stealing you a couple of days early. I'll help and I'm over age so I can do it the quick way." She smiled brightly.
"Uh…that is okay, isn't it Uncle Vernon?" Harry asked out of habit.
Vernon huffed.
"Of course it is!" said Petunia hastily.
"Oh yeah, I've a message from Professor Dumbledore for you, Mr Dursley, Mrs Dursley" said Draco. "He wants to pop in to talk about Harry's future with you so he'll drop by about eleven o'clock tomorrow night. He'll tell you all about it when he comes!" he smiled brightly again.
Petunia paled; her lack of colour was more than made up for by Vernon's increased colour however, so Draco felt there was a degree of artistic balance to the arrangement of the pair and nodded cheerfully.
-/-
Dudley seized a chance to have a word with Harry; his despised cousin's prowess at martial arts had impressed him; and Harry spoke to him earnestly for several minutes while Krait, eyeing the boys shrewdly, took herself into Harry's room and got on with his packing for him. She was not displeased. Harry was an indifferent packer at the best of times. She heard Harry say,
"Okay, I'll write to you then…" as she came out; and so she nodded to Dudley in a not unfriendly way. If Harry could turn around his relationship with Dudley – who in Krait's opinion had been sinned against by his parents as much as Harry himself, in a different way – then it was all to the good and Harry's friends must needs meet the spoiled brat half way.
-/-
Krait came down the stairs with Harry and his trunk and Jark leaped smartly from the car to stow it in the boot.
Harry sank back into luxurious cushions.
"Free!" he breathed. "Slughorn go all right then?"
Krait nodded.
"Seven" she said.
"Seven horcruces?"
"No….six, plus the original him…..six and seven are both significant, but the total, seven is most so. There's the book, the ring, and Dumbledore said there's a Slytherin locket, Helga Hufflepuff's cup – we'll get to watch in the penseive how he got them – probably his snake Nagini and one other. Dumbledore hypothesises a relic of Ravenclaw as Godric Gryffindor's sword is safe. I wondered briefly if it might instead be you…." She paused as Harry gasped "But I came to the conclusion that if you'd become a horcrux by being joined to him, he could have possessed you as a baby and used your body, thrusting aside the infant mind."
"You gave me a nervous moment there" said Harry seriously "Because that would only mean we could destroy him by killing me."
Krait nodded.
"It wasn't an option I relished either….but even if the use of your blood had increased the tie, I think he's already got his six….and he'd surely have used more control over you since."
Harry nodded.
"And I can block him….which means I could probably destroy the inner part of him with help anyway if he has a part of his soul in me."
Krait nodded.
"I will do all I can to find out from him….but we have enough to move on to start to run down the others first" she said.
Harry nodded.
"Good….I'm glad we are going to get more trust from Professor Dumbledore."
"He knows we can hack it" said Draco. "I for one will be glad if we can resolve this quickly….before Fishface starts to make noises about why I haven't killed Dumbledore yet….I can't imagine what I'd be feeling if I wasn't on the same side as everyone else, I guess I'd be really scared…"
Harry punched him on the shoulder lightly, and Krait patted his hand. Draco grinned at them, feeling idiotically happy.