Turning about him for the source of the noise, Harry saw nothing but the pale street, same large square houses, same tarmac road, same everything.

The voice, he was sure of it, had come from somewhere behind him, from the shrubbery that lined the curb, but all he could see was that, shrubbery, and the odd bird scavenging for non-existent early morning worms. He was sure he'd heard her, he knew he had. Either that, or had had, finally, due to years and years of madness, gone completely insane.

A moment later, however, Harry caught sight of a flash of red among the green, then, with what looked like great difficulty, a cloaked arm emerged from the nearest bush, (a startling sight indeed if you, unlike Harry, had no clue to how it was happening) followed by a red haired head and torso. It shook itself, scattering leaves all over the curb, swore crossly. Being concealed inside a bush evidently did not agree with Ronald Weasley.

More hissed scolds followed, as Ron pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, and taking the third arm, that was hanging hopefully and a tad impatiently in mid air from the bush, pulled it, to reveal a girl with thick bushy brown hair and eyes to match, pale, slim and short, looking very harassed.

Both of them brushed themselves off, straightening their clothing (in the boy's case robes, and in the girl's a long coat over jeans and trainers) and beamed at Harry, and the boy, Ron, began to say "Harry mate, long time no see, all of a week this time, innit-" before the girl tutted, and cut him off in mid sentence, striding over to Harry with a mixture of annoyance and happiness of her face.

Harry had seen this look before in his best friend, it was evident she did not know whether to scold or hug him, and would, eventually settle on doing something of a mixture of the two. Sure enough a second later, in response to Harry's amused smirk, Hermione threw her arms around his neck, whilst hissing into this left ear "What an earth are you doing out her on your own, surely you weren't going to fly to The Burrow?"

She left go of him a moment later, inspecting him critically. Harry exchanged a slightly exasperated, but pleased look with Ron, before replying, "Well, that was the general idea, yes."

"Hermione, he's a big boy," said Ron nonchalantly, picking leaves from his robes with a disgusted expression on his freckly face. "He can do what he likes now, remember?"

"Not for another three days he can't!" Hermione shot back, holding Harry at arms length and inspecting him, like an overbearing grandmother.

"All right mate?" Ron said, striding over to Harry and pulling him purposefully from Hermione's grasp.

Harry grinned at him at them both. Putting aside their reasons for being her for that moment, he was just glad to see them, both of them there.

"Great thanks, great," Harry replied dazedly, as Hermione raised an eyebrow at Ron, evidently annoyed at Ron's lack of concern for the seriousness of Harry's crime, which, indeed Harry was not quite sure existed.

"We off then," said Ron airily to Hermione, glancing around the street, checking for nosy neighbours and early morning passers by.

Hermione did not look impressed. Ignoring Ron, she turned back to Harry, and rounded on him.

"Harry, you do realise how dangerous it is, you waltzing around in broad daylight when Voldermort," Ron gave a little yelp at the name which she ignored also, "is after your hide. For goodness sake Harry, couldn't you have just stayed put? Did you really think we'd leave you there?"

"Well, judging from past experience, I'd say I wasn't that far of the mark with that thought, wouldn't you?" Harry retorted, slightly more coldly that he'd intended.

Hermione turned slightly pink.

"Hermione, can't you wait till we get back to rant at him, we're just exposing ourselves for longer stood here like a bunch of twits," said Ron testily, as he caught sight of an old lady, slipped and carrying two plastic shopping bag, filled with what looked suspiciously like cat food at her sides, her dressing gown flapping about her ankles. "Old lady at three o'clock," he added, suddenly panicked.

Harry followed his gaze, feeling his own heart begin to race, it only just occurring to him now, that Hermione, annoying though it may be, was, as always, right. He had not given much thought to his safely when he had planned his getaway. Voldermort could be anywhere, even here, in Little Whinging, just waiting for him to step out of the house, just waiting for his chance. How could he have been so stupid? He had not thought it though at all.

He relaxed however, when his eyes fell on the intruder. It was Arabella Figg, his slightly insane, cat loving neighbour, a squib, but, most importantly, a friend.

"It's alright," Harry said in relief to the other two, "It's just Mrs Figg, it's-"

Ron and Hermione, however, were not listening; they both had their wands out and raised, pointing them directly at the old lady, who was not only a few meters away from them, and for her part, did not seem to see them all stood their, Harry with his trunk and his owl, Ron in his battered robes and Hermione, hair flying everywhere in even this slight breeze, face set and ready.

"W-what are you doing?" Harry said, almost aghast, to the other two. It's alright, she's on our side, she works - worked," (it pained Harry to have to use Dumbledore's name in the past tense) "for Dumbledore, she's-"

But Harry's words faulted as he noticed that, now merely feet from them, Arabella Figg was not looking at then, indeed she, were not really looking at anything, her face to the floor, he movements jerky and unfluid. And too, Harry noticed at this distance, an odd stench hung about her, like something rotting, like something old that had been left in a cupboard too long and had gone off. Something was seriously amiss.

Frantically, Harry thrust his and into his pocket and too, brandished his wand at the woman, who had now completely stopped moving, her head bowed still. It was eerie, frightening, her just stood there, and the three young magicians exchanged frightened looks before swiftly returning their gaze to the would-be threat, afraid to starve it of attention for even the briefest moment.

Silence, a chilling silence. Harry's breath was suddenly very shallow, his every sense focused on the woman in front of him. He could hear Hermione's rapid breathing beside him, and Ron, who seemed to be holding his breath, swallow, his wand hand steady.

Mrs Figg, slowly, so slowly that she might not have been moving at all, raised her head, that appeared to be set, as she moved it became clear, at and odd angle on her shoulders. And then she was facing then, and the trio stepped back, horrified, as one, at what looked back.

The eye sockets were hollow, deep and dark, containing nothing, and skin, rotten skin, stinking, grey and putrid. The hair was still in tact, covered by what might have been a hairnet; it was hard to tell as it was disjointed and torn, set atop the head, angled so oddly.

The thing cocked his deathly head sideways, as though still attempting to see them with eyes that had long since been removed, and a withered, rotting hand stretched out towards Harry, grabbing at thin air and obtaining nothing.

"Harry, we have to leave now!" came Ron's terrified voice, and it was then that Harry realised she was no longer at his side, and neither was Hermione, but facing away from him, wands outstretched, pointing directly at figures, cloaked, looming; Harry did not know or care if these new foes were inferi also.

Memories of the cave flooded back to him, as his mind worked frantically for the spell he needed. As far as he was concerned, this qualified as a life threatening situation, and as the inferi-Mrs Figg made another, swifter grab for him, Harry threw the underage wizard law to the winds along with caution and fired fire itself at the corpse, closing his eyes against the sight as he did so.

There was no scream, so anything, just the unbearable smell of burning, dead flesh. Opening his eyes reluctantly, Harry saw small fires had erupted all about his as Ron and Hermione fired the same spell at the cloaked figures.

More were coming down, from the right and left, up and down the street, tens of them, some cloaked, some dressed quire normally, some missing limbs, heads even, and Harry, feeling extremely sick, fired more fire at the nearest to him, the corpse of a woman, still fully in tact, no older than twenty, her eyes still very much in their sockets and staring him out as her torso went up in flames.

Unnoticed by any of them, curtains belonging to surrounding houses began to twitch them open, and cries so loud that of it were not for the noise taking place on the street, would have echoed across it, but it was lost in the commotion.

"What did I tell you Harry!" shrieked Hermione as she fired spells at a hugely fat corpse of a man over her shoulder that was inches from her.

"For Merlin's sake, Hermione, is this the time to lecture?" bellowed Ron, caught off his guard by an inferi that had crept up on his at his left as he desperately fought one to his right; Hermione shot it with a jet of flame a moment later, her eyes round and petrified.

"Time to Apparate you think?" Ron added in a yell, shooting flames in every direction, narrowly missing Harry's head, as he ducked not a moment too soon.

"We can't just leave!" Hermione shrieked, jumping as an inferi at her feet made a grab for her ankle, and blasting it with flames, "What about all these people? The Muggles?"

"These things are after Harry!" Ron shouted back, shooting two inferi at once as the made a lunge for his neck, "Once we clear off, so will they!"

"Right," agreed Hermione, flattening herself against the wall of number six and a blind inferi stumbled past her, igniting it with a wave of her wand. "Right, we just need to get some space so we can all hold onto each other and-

CRACK!

"What the bloody hell-"

Despite themselves, the trio stared around, searching manically for the source of the noise. A man, tall, with brown hair, greying and thinning ever so slightly was charging towards then, his wand outstretched, robes more battered and shabby that Ron's billowing out behind him, his face furious.

"Lupin!" Ron shouted, the relief in his shaking voice, and the man streaked past him, spraying fire at three corpses that were rounding on Hermione and Harry feet away.

"I'll hold them off," bellowed Remus Lupin, his voice more desperate and tired than Harry had heard it in a long time. "You three, get out of here, now!"

Ron and Hermione tore towards Harry, who's hair was now smouldering slightly from his own spell. They seized him by an arm each, and Hermione nodded at Ron, as fire streaked past them, emitted from Lupin's wand.

"Wait!" Harry yelled, shaking free of the other two, his eyes on Lupin. "We can't leave him!"

Something in what Lupin had yelled, the way had had volunteered to hold off the enemy, had hit a note somewhere deep in Harry's memory that he could not ignore

"Lily, just go, take Harry and go, I'll hold him off…"

"Harry, come on, Lupin knows what he's doing, once we leave, they'll go!"

Harry was not listening to Hermione's words, nor reason. Three of the walking dead were now surrounding Lupin, and he blasted them back with ease, and six more lumbered up behind him, arms outstretched.

"Professor behind you!" Harry yelled, brandishing his wand, though he was now to far away to do anything of real use.

"Harry, go, now!" Lupin bellowed back amidst his fighting. "Quickly!"

Harry opened his mouth the shout back, but found himself seized under either arm again by Ron and Hermione. Before he had time to break free again, his body was being compressed, as though squeezed though a tube way to small for it, and everything went totally, infuriatingly black.