The sun rose over the rooftops of the houses of Privet Drive in the same manner it had done every other day for the last week. Harry Potter rolled over to face away from the light coming in through his window.

He'd been having such a good dream, it had involved Ginny and an army-camouflage patterned bikini. He smiled just thinking about it and checked under the bed sheets. Yep, there was the proof of the dream. Wonder how I'll explain that to aunt Petunia, Harry wondered to himself. Maybe he could sneak his sheets into the wash before the Dursleys woke up. He looked over at his alarm clock; six o'clock, it read. With a sigh, Harry groped for his glasses and crawled out of bed.

He had been with the Dursleys for a little over a week now and was counting the days until his 17th birthday. He knew that he didn't have to stay that long but he figured Dumbledore would have wanted him to use aunt Petunia's protection for as long as he could; the spell became void when he became a legal adult.

He dressed quickly in a pair of faded and torn baggy jean shorts and a black t-shirt that had, like most of his clothes, once been Dudley's and as such was much too big for him.

He headed down the stairs taking his sheets with him and dropped them into the washer before starting the cycle.

He was just helping himself to a bit of cereal when his aunt and uncle descended the stairs into the kitchen.

His uncle wrinkled his nose in what Harry took to be disgust at the sight of him, aunt Petunia chose to ignore his presence completely.

Harry ate fast hoping to get out of the house and away from the Dursleys as fast as possible. He had taken to spending most of his time at Mrs. Figg's house a few blocks over. Since Harry's first day back, everyday one or two members of the Order would come visit; usually Lupin or Tonks and occasionally Mad-eye. Whenever they got together they would practice dueling in Mrs. Figg's basement and teach Harry a variety of new spells. Because Harry was in the house of a known magical person, his underage magic was not noticed by the ministry and he needed all the practice he could get before he left to find the horcruxes.

So when he left number four at 6:30 that morning and headed off neither his aunt nor uncle questioned it; as long as they didn't have to deal with him, he could do what he liked.

Harry rang the doorbell to Mrs. Figg's house and was let in by Tonks.

"Wotcher, Harry," she said to him. She seemed much happier and back to her usual state (including bubble gum pink hair) now that she and Lupin were together.

They got started right away, practicing all the spells and charms he had learned so far while Mrs. Figg and her cats watched from the side. Harry couldn't deny it, he was becoming very good and all the Order members were constantly telling him he was a natural.

"To fight a wizard's duel you don't need to be big and strong. You just need speed and quick thinking, agility!" Mad-eye had told him only a few days ago. This theory suited Harry nicely; while his body was indeed nicely toned he'd always been on the skinny side, but he was also light and quick which was part of what made him such a good seeker.

It wasn't until near four o'clock that Harry left, calling his goodbyes and promising to return tomorrow. Harry was going over the last practice duel he had had with Tonks. She had sent a powerful jinx at his knees to knock him over and at the same time had sent the cutting curse across his chest. Of course it was practice so all the spells they used were would have no actual effect on their target; Tonks' intent was to have Harry only able to block one of the attacks while being hit by the other.

However, Harry had surprised even himself by jumping up and to the left while leaning back so that both curses missed him and at the same time he conjured a shield charm so powerful that Tonks next spell (a confundus charm) was rebounded back on her with such strength that it took Harry's counter spell a full twenty minutes to take effect.

With the play-by-play going in his head Harry didn't even notice that there were people following him. He continued to walk along until he reached Braven's creek and saw their shadows in the water.

He spun around and pulled out his wand but before he could aim it at anything, one of his stalkers body checked him causing his wand to go flying.

Momentarily disoriented he merely lay on the ground before looking at his attackers.

It was five boys about his age, all built the same as Crabbe and Goyle. Harry recognized one of them to be Piers Polkiss and knew that this was Dudley's gang. For six years they had left Harry alone on Dudley's orders, but Dudley was not with them and Harry did not have his wand, nor, he thought, could he have used it if he did as that would be breaking wizarding law by using magic in front of muggles. Things were not looking very good for Harry Potter at that moment.

He decided he would press to his advantage; he wasn't strong enough to fight back, but he could outrun them. The problem was that he was still lying on the ground and they had surrounded him.

"Look it's the Potter freak!" one of them called to the others in a mocking voice. They all laughed.

"I thought they'd shipped you off to that prison school, freak" Harry tried to think of a cool retort but they did not give him the chance as the next thing he knew, He was being held down by three of them and the other two were kicking and punching. Harry couldn't call out for help as the wind was knocked out of him. But out of the corner of his eye he saw one of Mrs. Figgs cats run back in the direction it had come, no doubt to inform whatever Order members remained of the trouble their savior was in.

Harry knew what bullies were like; he knew they liked to spark resistance so Harry just lay there, docile, as they continued to hit him.

After what seemed like ages they seemed to understand that he would not fight back and ceased their attack.

As soon as they relented Harry stood up to run. Piers tried to grab at him but Harry easily dodged the slow movement. Suddenly he had been caught by two of them and was being hauled off his feet. The creak swam into his view.

Oh no, the thought before flying through the air and landing with a splash in the icy water.

"What the hell's going on here?" Harry knew that voice, it was Dudley. For a brief moment Harry was grateful for Dudley's presence because he knew Dudley would order his cronies to leave. Then he met Dudley's eyes and saw a smile in them. Dudley's eyes flew to a point to his left and Harry followed their gaze to his wand lying in the grass. Dudley knew he was defenseless; he was dead.

Harry stood up to run but slipped in the mud below the creek and fell over back into the water. Raucous laughter ensued from Dudley and his gang. Harry scowled at them from where he lay. He was beaten, wet and covered in mud but he had a slight chance, he was several meters away from them now and could run if only he could get out of the water fast enough.

While Dudley and his friends continued to laugh and shared their own private jokes, turning there attention away from Harry, he slipped off his too-large wet shirt, it would only slow him down, and positioned himself to get ready to run.

As he was crawling out, the bullies noticed what he was doing and began to advance on him. Just as he moved to run he heard a voice to his left and all the boys froze. Standing by Harry's wand was a beautiful girl with fiery red hair that fell several inches below her shoulders and then she spoke:

"Just what do you think you're doing to my boyfriend?"

AN: Teehee. Ginny to the rescue! Ok so Mrs. Figg is not technically a magical person as she is a squib but for my stories purposes were going to assume that after the mix up with the dementors in book 5 she was added to ministry records.

Also, in this story Harry has already told Ginny about the prophecy.

There has been some confusion about the dates I put on DD's portrait in chapter one. For the record the dates there are the years he was Headmaster not the years he lived.

Next chapter coming up soon!