"Are you two coming or what?" I called out to Sirius and James who both seemed to be reclining in the car. James and Sirius had never seemed like the posh, private school type before but as they lounged around with their sunglasses on, I saw it.

"Yes, we're coming." Sirius groaned getting out of the car. He walked slightly stroppily towards me, "How long are we walking for again?"

"Only a few hours!" I said which made him sigh a loud, theatrical sigh, "Come on, Sirius, that's not that long, me and my Dad used to walk for days - "

At the mention of my Dad, I saw something shift as if he'd just remembered that we were doing this in the place of the walking holiday I would have gone on with him. James had suggested it which my mother had loved and Sirius had agreed to come as well, even though he seemed to be regretting it now that we were here.

"Fine, but we might need breaks along the way." I rolled my eyes at the sudden diva that had emerged from Sirius. James got out of the car looking marginally more ready than Sirius. He had worn actual walking boots rather than formal boat shoes. Sadly, I could tell that unlike my tatty, old pair, his shiny leather ones hadn't been broken in and I dreaded to think what would happen when they got their first blisters.

The boat shoes did look a bit odd with his outfit too. Sirius was a child of punk, always wearing a sex pistols shirt or some obscure band that he claimed would be big in a few years. His jeans were always worn but sort of deliberately worn, in the posh boy trying to be poor. It was the complete opposite to his ridiculously smart, sophisticated style of Regulus. He was dressed in his usual style today except for the boat shoes, it was odd.

"Come on, Sirius, don't be a drama queen." James said, patting the pouty Sirius on the back, "This walk is dedicated to Oliver Evans, an avid walker, we have to do him proud."

"See James has got the spirit!" I said, getting out the map and unfolding so it was so large my arms almost couldn't hold it flat. Sirius and James clearly noticed my lacking arms-span and helpfully held one side each.

"Okay, so it's a pretty simple route, we're next to a road for most of it and we got past a couple of farms so it should be easy to navigate." I said as I traced the route with my finger. It was nothing compared to what me and my Dad did and whilst he'd be happy that I'd simplified it for my amateur companions, I couldn't help feeling that he'd be just a little disappointed. I quickly pushed it to the back of my mind, he'd be happy that I was out at all, I was being ridiculous.

"Let's go then!" I said, striding ahead with James by my side. Sirius looked suited to an elegant soirée or a yacht club but not for a hike. He had already fallen behind a bit and I couldn't help feeling a slight pang of irritation. 

"It's so pretty out here, it had never occurred to me there was so much corn. It's everywhere." James said sounding genuinely amazed by the yellow fields that stretched out for miles.

"They need it for all those cornflakes." I laughed.

"I don't know why but I'd never thought about where they came from other than the supermarket."

"You're such a rich boy." I said bumping into him playfully. I'd always suspected that he had a lot of money but I hadn't really known the extent of it until I'd seen his house. It was a large, sprawling red brick manor house. It was only three storeys, but there seemed to be so many parts to it that I got lost the first time I went in. My room had a beautiful octagonal balcony outside of it and I enjoyed standing there in the evening, watching the sun go down over the hills.

"Yes, but I'm one of the subtle, humble ones, there are ones who are much more obvious..." He said, subtly turning around to look at Sirius who was several metres behind us, looking disgusted as he his boat shoes got slightly muddy.

"I'll go and sort him out." I said, trying not to laugh as I walked back towards Sirius. He was usually quite cool and aloof but with all the troubles at home, I'd been seeing the posh boy within him come out a lot more than usual. He almost seemed like a grouchy child as he dragged his feet along.

"You okay, Sirius?" I asked walking along besides him.

"It's hot, I'm going to burn." He said flatly.

"We've only been walking for about 5 minutes..." I reminded him.

"... and I already have a blister." He finished off for me.

"That's because you wore boat shoes, why on earth did you wear them?" I said laughing at him, "You usually wear those lace up black boats so why boat shoes."

"My mum said they were only to be worn on the boat so I wore them on land." He said simply as if that was the answer to all the questions.

"But why today?" I asked confused by his logic.

"No idea. I just felt like it." He said casually. I noticed that when I distracted him, he actually began to walk at a decent pace, it was almost like he just didn't want to be walking alone.

"Sorry, I felt left out..." James said waiting for us, grinning at Sirius, "You alright there, Padfoot?"

"Yeah, I'm just not a walker." He replied.

"The car isn't too far away, you could always drive back." I suggested but he shook his head adamantly.

"No, I agreed to do this, I'll probably get into the swing of things." He seemed a lot more positive now that we were walking with him.

"That's the spirit, Sirius!" I said, as the four of us plodded on. It was always nice walking with other people, walking was a great time to just talk about everything and that's exactly what we did. James and Sirius were very good company, especially when Sirius stopped whining about his choice of shoes. We had been walking for about an hour when I realised we had a slight problem. I hadn't checked the map since we'd left.

"Guys, stop, I need to check where we are." I said suddenly, scrambling in my bag for where the map was folded up into a  tiny square. We had been walking  quite quickly so I estimated that we should be near a small lake where I'd planned to stop and eat for a bit, "Do you guys see a lake anywhere, it should be near a forest."

The three of us searched around for a lake but all I could see was a bunch of corn fields on either side of the path. Panic set in, this was meant to be easy to navigate and I never got lost with my Dad. How could I have let myself get distracted?!

"Are we lost, Lily?" James asked in a concerned voice, leaning over the map to help.

"We're not lost, we must have just taken a wrong turn." I said, desperately scanning the map to try and figure out where went wrong.

"So... we are lost...?" Sirius said, walking over slowly.

"No, Sirius, we are not lost, I know where we are roughly and we can just walk back a bit and then we'll be fine." I snapped, beginning to march back, retracing our steps, "You two go behind me and don't distract me!" I yelled back at them and I saw them exchange a look which deeply annoyed me, "Hey I saw that! You can't distract me now."

James shrugged and pulled Sirius back a bit as I marched on ahead of them. I hadn't meant to be so sharp with them but if their talking to me had made us lost then they had to stop talking to me. It was simple. I tried to keep focused as we walked back through the endless corn fields but it was hard, their conversations were really interesting.

"Have you heard about the rumours about Dumbledore and his order?" Sirius asked which immediately sparked my interest. There was a pause before he continued, "You know against Voldemort and all the pure bloods. My mum would always go on about it, how it was a travesty to have him as head if he would start up a society like that as head masters. Said it was anti-pureblood or something. "

"Anti-pure blood?" I heard James say with a derisive snort, "It's not anti-pureblood, it's anti-Voldemort."

"I think Regulus is going to join." Sirius said softly, "I don't even know if he really wants to but I reckon he'll join them."

"He'll be fine, it will probably die down a bit before we leave, it's been going on since around 1970 or something and that was before we were even first years. Nothing's really happened since." James assured him but judging from the pause Sirius wasn't convinced, "Dumbledore finished Grindelwald off so he's done it before. If that Order thing is true then he's got a whole bunch of people behind him too."

"True, it's got some of the best witches and wizards on it if Mum's crazy rants were to be believed." Sirius said.

"I'm guessing she's a big fan of Voldemort." James said and I could practically see the smirk on his face.

"Oh big time." Sirius's voice became higher and raspier as he did what I assumed was an imitation of his mother, "The Dark Lord will bring us back to our rightful position in society, no more hiding in secret from all those awful muggles. We'll be in charge."

"Oh wow, that's absolutely perfect." James said and the two of them burst out laughing. Although they laughed about it, I could tell that it was serious for both of them and it was serious to me too. I'd been quite distracted by James and my Dad over the past few months but I couldn't pretend that it wasn't scaring me, I don't think I'd be able to laugh about it. Although James and Sirius were the two least prejudiced people I'd met towards muggleborns, they were still purebloods and Voldemort's followers weren't carrying out attacks on people just like them more and more frequently. It didn't seem to be blowing over, from what I could see it was just starting to heat up.

"I don't think it's going to blow over." I said, suddenly stopping in front of them.

"Are we still lost? I didn't hear you properly." James said as they caught up to me.

"I said, I don't think it's going to blow over, Voldemort and his death eaters." I said.

"I'm sure it will, these things always do..." James said putting his arm around me comfortingly.

"It just scares me and I think it's getting worse. Everyday it feels like more and more muggles and muggleborns are being randomly killed for what seems like sport and it feels like it's getting worse."

"Lily, they're not going to attack you..." James began but trailed off.

"They might." Sirius cut in suddenly. James shot him a look but we all knew he was right, "They might attack me too. The disowned son of House Black. They love attacking blood traitors too."

The three of us stood in silence for a bit, none of us quite sure what to say. We all knew it wasn't just a small thing that we could ignore, this was a threat that felt like it was growing. Finally, James stepped forward, prising the map out of my hands.

"Where do you reckon we are, Lily?" He said, smiling as he evidently changed the subject. Part of me wanted to carry on discussing it but I knew that an open corn field with my wand in my rucksack was not the best place to.

"About here." I estimated, pointing at the map, "I can't believe I got lost, Dad never got lost."

"I reckon he did," Sirius said, "He probably just never told you." I rolled my eyes at him but I had to admit, it was probably true. After a few minutes of map consultation, the three of us set off again allowing to push all thoughts of Voldemort to the back of my mind.

I thought in this chapter, I should probably mention Voldemort and the war seeing as it becomes a prominent theme later on in the book after they leave Hogwarts - E x