SUMMARY: With Bill and Fleur's wedding postponed due to Bills injuries, Harry must embark on his frightening journey along with Ron and Hermione, to find the horcruxes, and defeat the Dark Lord. Can Harry forget Ginny? Or will his undying love for her be the death of him?

AUTHORS NOTES: Thanks to my good friends who willingly obliged to reading my work for me, and my great beta reader.

Also, thank you so much to J.K.Rowling, for making up such amazing characters, alas, I did not make them up myself! (Which is obvious, because had I written Harry Potter, the 7th book would be called Harry Potter and Bothering Snape)

HARRY POTTER AND R.A.B

CHAPTER 1: The Golden Phoenix

It was a perfectly ordinary summer day in Godrics Hollow and walking along the road were perfectly ordinary people. Except for one person perhaps, with strange, dark green robes and a thin lightening bolt-shaped scar, he was not the most normal looking person. He was sat in a graveyard with flowers in his hand, ignoring the funny looks he was getting from passers by. As he laid the flowers down on his parents' grave, a tear rolled silently down his young cheek. Deep in thought, he stood up, watching the gravestone as if expecting something to jump out of it, or perhaps waiting for someone to whisper words of comfort.

Harry felt someone place a warm hand on his shoulder. He looked round with a start. He had forgotten why he was there, but suddenly it all came back to him as he looked into the face of one of his best friends.

'Are you ok Harry?' Hemione removed her hand from his shoulder, looking concerned. 'I - I'm fine' he croaked, fully aware that the tears were coming in floods now. Harry felt very thankful that Ron wasn't there. 'Well, I suppose we'd better get on with it then, I told Ron to wait round the corner, you know how insensitive he can be.' and, taking Harry by the hand, Hermione gently led him over to where Ron was sat waiting. Ron was a lot taller than when Harry had last seen him and his brilliant red hair had grown so that it hung like a lions mane around his freckled face. Harry grinned, here they were, just the three of them on another mission, except, he thought gloomily, the grin sliding off his face, this time he didn't have a choice. If he didn't find Voldemort, Voldemort would find him first.

The three young adults walked to the front of the house that had once belonged to Lilly and James Potter, but had been rebuilt since their death. Hermione stepped forward, and with a shaking hand, rang the doorbell, which seemed to echo round the large house. A large, beefy man-not unlike Uncle Vernon, thought Harry- wearing a long maroon dressing gown and carpet slippers answered the door,

'May I help you?' he inquired coldly,

'We – we're – well, err, the thing is we –' Hermione stopped short, noticing the cold sneer on his lips. As she opened her mouth to try again, Harry cut in,

'Hello sir, my parents used to live in this house, Lilly and James Potter, I don't know if you –'

'Ah, Lilly Potter, fine lady, very fine. She died shortly after I moved in next-door'

'Yes, well, we were wondering if we could have a look at the older bits of the house, the parts that were there when they were.'

'Why of course,' the mans face had lost the cold look as he beamed warmly at them all, 'anything for Lilly's only son. However,' his beam faltered as he took in Ron's long hair, and shabby robes, 'your friends might have to stay outside, it's only a small room after all.'

'Please sir, we wont cause any damage, and we wont even enter the room, as long as we can go with Harry here.' Hermione put on her sweetest smile, and looked innocently up at the middle-aged man.

'Well alright then,' he agreed grudgingly, 'come on in.' He led them into the house, and through to the kitchen, which had a good view of the garden, 'This is it, the house and everything in it was left to me when they died, so I kept everything in this room exactly where it was when the rest of the house was destroyed. Have a look around whilst I make you some tea.' As an afterthought he added, 'I'm Richard by the way, Richard Black.'

The three got to work, digging through piles of old papers, letters, phone numbers. 'Wow Harry, take a look at this!' Ron made to pick up a large, gold phoenix ornament, but Harry put out a restraining arm, 'careful,' he whispered, 'it might have something concealed in it.'

'Well, if it does, there's only one way to find out,' he knocked Harry's arm out of the way and grabbed the phoenix, suddenly a loud klaxon-like sound filled the room and a ghost-like phoenix rose from the ornament, becoming increasingly larger as the sound got louder…

'Put it back Ron! Put it back!' Hermione screamed over the top of the sound. Ron obliged, and put it exactly where he had found it. Immediately the sound stopped. Instinctively Harry looked round to find Mr. Black humming merrily over the tea, 'Hmm, strangest thing, I just thought I heard the fire alarm go off. Oh well, I must have been daydreaming.' And with that, Mr. Black busied himself with the tea once more,

'That was close, don't move anything else from its place, not just yet anyway.' Hissed Hermione,

'Here's your tea, and I'll bring over some sugar so you can do your own.' Mr. Black gave everyone their drink's, and sat down, his own tea clasped between his long, ringed fingers, 'So, what're you looking for,' laughing at their shocked faces he said, 'you don't surely think I didn't realise you were searching for something do you? No, I've had many people wearing funny clothes like you, coming round here to try and find out what happened to the Potters and their house. So, back to my question, what're you looking for?'

'Clues.' Said Ron plainly,

'Well I guessed that! Explain.'

'We want to find the man who killed Harry's parents, and we thought we might be able to find something here,'

'Ahh yes, typical children' he raised a hand to stem the outrage from Ron at being called a child, 'they can be told something any number of times, but they must find it out for themselves! But it is clear that you do not wish for me to know everything!' they finished their tea in silence, 'Well children, I'm terribly sorry, but I really must get back to my gardening, you may come again tomorrow however.' and with that, he shoed them through the door.