An Encounter in Privet Drive

Kurama loved summer, and a summer spent in Privet Drive was no exception. The heavy, relaxing heat gave the neighbourhood a feeling of lugubrious calm, and the lazy residents sipped lemonade in their deckchairs. Nasty shorts had been dug out of wardrobes and paddling pools had been painstakingly erected. Children laughed, and adults danced in sprinklers.

Yes, summer was a good time to be a human, even if it did dry out his plants and make his hair frizzy. Kurama liked the happiness the season brought-hard-working humans returned to their families and messed around on beaches or in their gardens, as his human father had once done so very long ago.

And on this particular day in August, Kurama was doing what he did every summer back in Japan-snooping around his neighbours' gardens and watering their plants. Privet Drive, he reasoned, was too charming a neighbourhood to be blighted by withered and unhappy roses.

Besides, Kurama liked the karmic boost.

He had just finished giving a little extra youki to No.12's azaleas when a fluffy grey head popped over the opposite fence.

"Good morning, Shuuichi! Would you like a cup of tea?"

Kurama flashed a brilliant smile at the intruder, who was the only old lady in the neighbourhood (aside from Mrs Figg, who could take down a rhinoceros) who wasn't scared of Kuwabara.

"Good morning, Mrs Merryweather. And no thank you-would you like me to tend to your sunflowers? I noticed that they looked a little wilted..."

"Don't worry, dear boy. I'll water them later. But..."-here she leaned over the fence and gave Kurama a conspiratorial wink-"that Petunia Dursley from No.14 hasn't touched her roses in weeks, and you have such a wonderful way with roses-"

(Yup, nothing to do with being a 3000-year old Kitsune at all...) Kurama grimaced slightly. He could see where this was going.

-"and with the Pride of Britain competition starting next week, all of Little Whinging has been smartening up their lawns, so if you could just go and give them a trim..."

Old English ladies, Kurama had noticed, were surprisingly competitive and unsurprisingly village-proud. The elderly of Little Whinging had been preparing for the Pride of Britain competition for weeks (planting up window boxes, curling their hair, cutting their grass with scissors etc).

"...we do so want to do Little Whinging proud this year and if Petunia were to let the side down...."

Kurama merely flashed that dazzling smile and nodded, hopping over Mrs Merryweather's fence (despite what she said, those sunflowers needed attention.) He'd go and tend to No.14's roses in a minute.

Petunia Dursley had spent a productive morning cleaning, sorting, and scrubbing what she had just cleaned with bleach to make sure the germs were really dead-and gossiping with her neighbours. She and Mrs Fairfax from No.13 had been very interested in the subject of Hilda Thogburry's alleged affair with her much younger and more handsome Lithuanian gardener (no facts where yet known) and of the mystery of just who had moved into No.7 Privet Drive.

(Unconfirmed sources stated that it was a short, dark-haired person wearing copious amounts of green, but Petunia was not one to believe such things.)

So she carried on ironing her napkins, determined to get to the bottom of Hilda Thogburry's alleged affair by the end of the week, and blatantly not looking after her garden. After all, with The Boy gone, who was to tend to Petunia's roses?

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Outside, a pretty redhead crouched in the very same bushes that Dobby apparated from roughly three books ago. Said redhead did not like what he saw-this lawn was dry, sparse and untended, yellowing in places and with the obvious signs of a barbecue gone wrong in one corner. And whilst most of the flowering plants were in easily watered pots on the patio, the ones that were not-for example, the roses-were almost bent double in defeat in their epic struggle against the heat.

Those poor, poor things. Kurama slinked across the dusty grass and approached the dying flowers, stroking them softly with his pale fingers.

"There there, little ones....you'll be alright soon, I'm here to help you now...." he cooed softly, gently soaking the delicate petals with his youki. Under his tender love and care the flowers began to visibly perk up, the rose petals flushing with their natural pink and their leaves unfurling themselves from their withered state.

Kurama watched the roses with a smile. As far as he was concerned, this was a job well done!

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The last thing Petunia expected to do today was to glance up from her ironing and see Lily of all people tending to her roses. For a second she thought she'd seen a ghost.

And then she gathered herself together, found a broom and ran outside, determined to get rid of this dreadful, probably-wizard-made apparition. She burst out of her front door wielding her deadly weapon and began to attack the Not-Lily ghost.

"Get out of my garden, beast! Out, out vile spot! Begone, fiendish demon!"

Kurama (for his part) was surprised that someone in Little Whinging had realised he was a demon-and then he got a broom in the face, sending him sprawling into the begonias.

He sat up quickly, shielding his nose from any further damage. "Look ,Mrs Dursley-you've got it all wrong, I'm not here to harm you-rather, we've discovered an area of unprecedented demon activity and we're merely here to monitor it-"

"Vile magic-talk! Be quiet, you horrible Not-Lily! How dare you think you can come in here and monitor my house whilst pretending to be my own sister? Go away, you disgusting freak!"

The furious woman slammed the broom down hard on Kurama a few more times before he managed to get to his feet, and soon enough Petunia Dursley was chasing Youko Kurama out of her garden with all the ferocity of an enraged hippopotamus.

"Out, you evil, evil people! And you can tell that boy that he's not coming back, not after this trick! Never darken my doors again! My husband will hear about this!"

And with one final thwack at Kurama's (hastily retreating) figure, Petunia broke down into sobs. It was never pleasant seeing the nigh-on ghost of your long-dead sister come back and tend to her roses.

If this happened to me, I'd be very upset and disturbed-so I think Petunia's reaction is appropriate. Anyway, there's no sex and no Snape, just Kurama doing what he does best-fiddling around with plants.

I've been watching Saint Seiya (a true gem of an anime, seriously) and that has a man with excellent hair and great legs (among many) that fights with blood-sucking, flesh-eating roses-so Pisces Aphrodite, this is dedicated to you!

Sorry for the sporadic updates, and apologies to any ravenous yaoi fans. You won't get that again!

-The Love Bug