Haha, ok. When they were only a few years younger they were all hiding with their parents and James with his grandparents at the burrow. But somehow the Dark One knew where they were, James, Rylai and Alexandra all ran away into the woods, no one came to find them, they went back to the house a few hours later and found them murdered, no enemies were to be found. So that's pretty much it, they got the house underground with some clever use of magic, put up even more barriers and protection spells and started to recruit anyone who wanted to help them bring the dark one down.