Guess who's back! I'm so sorry for the delay, I've just had my uni finals so things have been VERY busy at Red Sparks HQ. However, I am back now and I have a new chapter just for you. And it's a long one, just to show how extra sorry I am.

For a moment I wasn't sure where I was. In the confusion I had forgotten the place I had apparated to. The sight of the rolling hills in the distance reminded me, however, I had come to Derbyshire, the peak district. A half-remembered place from a distant holiday and happier times. Behind me swept a large forest, which I could only hope would provide shelter from whatever was out there. I forced myself not to think of Oliver, to think of anything, because if I did I would just sit on the ground and curl up and never move again. This new world was like being lost in a forest. You had to keep going, keep walking and hope that somehow you'd loop back to a place you knew. To a place you could be safe.

So I kept walking. I found the remotest part of the forest and set about with my enchantments, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. When all was done I sat in the tent with Woody, eating pieces of cheese and feeling very lost.

"What do I do now?" I muttered to Woody, who just looked up at me, his face sympathetic but hopeless. He certainly didn't have any ideas, and neither did I. There was nowhere for me to go because I wasn't going anywhere. I was just drifting now, staying under the radar, out of the spotlight, hidden from the world, for however long this darkness went on for. More than anything I wished I could do something, wished I had some way of fighting back. But I couldn't see this enemy, and I was so alone out here. I wanted to be a solider but where was my army? Where was anyone? It was just me and these empty woods, and if there was a battle raging then it was far away from me, and yet too close by far.

I lay back on my bed and flicked through a Quidditch magazine. My eyes passed over the words but didn't stick. My head was too full of thought to absorb match results, and player statistics, and broom reviews. I flipped over a page and jolted. Oliver's face beamed up at me, there among his fellow Puddlemere members. The picture of him, smiling, clashed so vividly with that final image I had of him, being dragged away to who knew where by Death Eaters, it made me feel sick. I shut the magazine quickly and hurried out of the tent to get some fresh air.

I slapped myself, the pain piercing through the wave of despair that threatened to overthrow me. This was not me. Riza Alvic didn't wimper, she didn't moan, she didn't break. Riza Alvic was a fighter and no one was going to take that from me. Not when they'd taking so much already. This was my battle, to fight against the loss I was feeling. To take a stand against the misery I was facing. To not be beaten. To not lose myself to pain. To be stronger and better and burn brighter against the darkness than I ever had.

I paced around the clearing. My vigour charging my steps. I had no army. But maybe you didn't need one. Maybe you could do enough on your own. Not anything huge perhaps, but enough to be able to say you did something, enough so spending what felt like years running did have to be running away. I may be in danger, but there were others more at risk than me. Muggles who had no idea that there was even a war going on, but who would be the worst casualties from it. I could help them. Somebody had to help them.

My now powerful and enthused strides came to a sudden halt with the sound of breaking branches not too far away. I ran to the edge of my protection, looking out into the woods.

It was a patrol of some kind, albeit a small one. Two figures, a man and a woman, their faces cruel and haggard, were pushing a young man in front of them. I couldn't see his face at first but he seemed familiar. Suddenly he turned towards me and I recognised him, it was Simon, from back at my days at the dig. He had been beaten badly and could scarcely walk. I froze, wondering what to do.

I had to do something. To not would have been to break every vow I just made. To hide when someone clearly needed help, it would make me feel more sick than any photo of Oliver in a magazine. Silently, although I knew they couldn't hear me, I drew my wand.

"Pretty little Mudblood boy" the woman chuckled nastily.

"He's not so pretty now." The man replied.

"Less pretty still when we get him to the camp." The woman gave a nasty shriek and gave Simon a swift kick in the back of the ankle. He stumbled to the ground, leaving the two death eaters open to my attack.

"Stupefy" I muttered, sending out the spell and knocking the man in the chest. He flew backwards landing unconscious on the roots of a nearby tree.

The woman drew her wand immediately and turned wildly, searching me out. I sent out another curse and she too collapsed.

Before Simon knew what was happening I pulled him through my defences. He gazed up at me, amazed.

"Riza?"

"The one and only. My God, Simon, what happened to you?"

"They came to my flat one evening, I don't know, I don't know what's happening."

"Yeah, well that makes two of us. But fancy running into you, crazy world, huh?"

Simon looked back towards the unconsciousness death eaters. "Yeah, something like that."

"We need to go, that spell won't knock them out for long."

"Don't you have shields up?"

"I'm going to level with you, Simon old boy, I put as much faith in my shields as I do in a Goblin bargin. We need to go."

Simon didn't put up any resistance, we returned to the tent and hurriedly packed it away, I'd been here for less than two hours and I was moving on already. I only hoped that the rest of my imposed exile could be so thrilling. When all was clear I lowered the shields and Simon and I disapperated.

I landed on my knees in yet another middle of nowhere. Next to me Simon was brushing dirt off his shirt and looking around him.

"I always hate doing that." He muttered.

"Where did you take us?" I asked, inspecting my unfamiliar surroundings.

"Me? I thought you were leading!"

"What gave you that impression?"

"Well, you do seem to have taken charge somewhat."

"Oh suddenly saving your life is taking charge?"

"Well it certainly gives you more authority than being rescued."

I shrugged my shoulders, defeated.

"Well, I don't recognise this place. And if I was thinking of anywhere it was home, back in London."

"This certainly isn't London" Simon commented, looking around the forest that engulfed us. "I was thinking of Norwich."

"That your home?"

Simon nodded. "Feels a very long way away."

"It might not be. For all we know."

I hoisted the bag higher on my shoulder and headed through the woods.

"Where are you going?" Simon called after me.

"I'm not setting up camp without knowing where we are. This could be Vol-"

Simon cut me off with a strangled cry.

"Don't say the name. It's jinxed, it gives off a signal so they can find you."

Well that explained a lot. I could have kicked myself, I could have got Oliver captured over a stupid verbal slip. The guilt and grief swept over me again, threatening to choke me, threatening to pull me to my knees and never let me rise. No, I told myself, don't think about that. If I let myself go into the hollowness that was settling in my heart I'd never be able to leave again. I had to keep paddling, out of the reach of the abyss. And pray I would see him again, see them all again.

"We need to move." I said simply, tearing myself back into the here and now. Simon nodded and trotted up alongside me, we headed off through the woods together.

"So what happened?" I asked, after we'd been walking in silence for a few minutes. "How'd you get captured."

"I was in the ministry when it fell. They rounded up all the" he paused "the mudbloods." he spat the word out with disgust.

"You shouldn't call yourself that." I reproached him, gently.

"No, it's fine. I think we should reclaim the word." Simon said simply, "Mud is the essence of the earth, you know, it hides precious metals, plants, even whole civilisations. I can think of far worse things to have in my veins."

I wondered how much he meant it, but my respect for Simon grew none the less. "So what happened next, how did you wind up in Derbyshire?"

"I escaped when the moved us to the camps."

"Camps?"

"It's where they store the mudbloods. A sort of holding pen until they, you know, kill us off. In the meantime they have their fun with us."

"Fun?"

"Cruiciatus curse, mostly."

"That's horrific."

"Quite. The camp I escaped from was close to where you were camping. They'd taken my wand, so I couldn't disapparate. I just ran as fast as I could, for as long as I could. Unfortunately my physical fitness has improved little since you knew me last. They caught me again. They were taking me back when you rescued me. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

I wondered how many camps were set up all over the country, I wondered if we were walking towards one right now. Maybe Oliver has been taken there, a voice in my head muttered cruelly, but I brushed it aside. Maybe your mother runs a camp, another said, maybe she tortures innocent victims like Simon. The thoughts kept coming, threatening to overwhelm me. I was trying to shut them out, but like a tide coming in they withdrew only momentarily before crashing down once more, moving close to overwhelming me each time. Soon I would drown beneath them.

"Over here!" Simon's cry interrupted my thoughts. He was gesturing to a sign, set up for tourists. "Says here we're in Epping forest."

I'd come to the forest a few times as a child. The wayward disapparation must have taken us somewhere between where I and Simon were thinking. I felt safe enough here, safe enough to rest for a while, anyway. Simon and I wandered away from the marked path for a couple of miles until we were content we were far enough from any civilisation to go unnoticed.

With the tent erected Simon set about making dinner and I lay on the sofa, staring and the cloth ceiling and wondering just how much longer this could go on for. It had been less than a day, it already felt far too long.

Simon proved himself a good cook, and the food was better than anything I could have prepared for myself. I was starving, and I regretted not taking up Flora's offer of food this morning. God, had it only been this morning? It felt like a century ago. I had aged too much for only a brief 8 hours to have passed.

"So, why are you on the run?" Simon asked, broaching the subject with some tact.

"That" I told him, "is a conversation for another dinner. I want to talk of happier things."

"Alright, let's talk of happier things. What have you been up to since the dig?"

So I told him, the peaceful and blissful memories of the years that had preceded this darkness. About Henry and Flora, my father, my first house, my promotion to British Ambassador for the International Magical Library, ending with my engagement to Oliver.

"Congratulations, may I see the ring."

"Well, we never really got that far, this whole war thing kind of got in the way."

Simon chuckled at that. And I chuckled too. And suddenly we were both in fits of laughter born of the sheer absurdity of our situation. It was so far from how I imagined my first evening on the run being, and it came as a welcome surprise. Maybe I didn't have to sink into despair just yet.

That evening, despite having no intention of sending it, I wrote a letter to Oliver.

Dear Oliver,

I know you're never going to read these words, and I sincerely hope that it is because I throw them away out of embarrassment rather than because you aren't around to read them when all this is over. But I want to write them, because I miss you, and because I've always been terrible at keeping a diary, but I feel I'll want to remember these days in the years to come and if I am going to record them for anyone I will record them for you.

So here I am, first day on the run. It's about as fun as one would imagine, and I wish you were here. However, I have found a reasonable replacement in the form of Simon, remember that guy from my dig? Well I saved him from some death eaters (I know, and only my first day too), and have adopted him onto my journeying crew. I fully expect to have a whole tribe of devoted followers by the time I see you next time. Perhaps I could raise an army of my own, and lead a crusade against You-Know-Who. He may be more powerful but I'm much better looking.

Adopting Simon has turned out to be a rather excellent idea. Despite a slight misadventure with apparating he has proved to be good company, and at least I won't go insane from being on my own all the time. He also is an excellent cook, so I won't be poisoning myself anytime soon. Of course, I'd rather be here with you, even if your cooking is absolutely abysmal.

Actually, I don't wish you were here. I wish I was there, with you. I wish we were safe, and together and all this was over. But at the moment that's not the case, and I won't risk a hair on your head until I know that I am of no danger to any of you. I just hope I haven't gotten you hurt already.

Dear God, Oliver, if you do nothing else for me ever again, just be alive. Be safe. Find someone else, if that's what it takes, leave the country and never come back, never see me again, but be safe.

You owe me a wedding. And it better be a bloody good one after all this.

I love you. I miss you.

Riza

I folded the letter carefully and stowed it carefully in a drawer. Then I lay on my bed and stared at the wall, trying to beat back the pain. I didn't notice when Simon turned out the light.