As you have probably already noticed, the title of this story has changed xD 'Let Me Be Your Hope' was bugging me the whole time. It didn't feel right, but my muse was playing dead whenever I tried to think of another title. However, thanks to EndofthePage, I now have the perfect title for this Jily fic!

Also, it's getting real, folks! Grab your cookies and enjoy this chapter :D

Trigger warning: Mention of torture and abuse.

Chapter 9 – He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

To think that he would ever feel this light-headed, he'd have honestly never believed it.

He'd had a concussion more times than he could count – and most of them he'd probably already forgotten about –, he'd done somersaults on his broom whenever there had been a particularly bad Quaffle tossed his way, and he'd been on dates. Quite a few of them. Never because he really liked the girls' company, but because Sirius kept on asking random girls out that he found good-looking in that month and then pestered him until he relented. He'd ask out a nice, usually shy girl, one he knew he'd enjoy the company of, and together they would join Sirius on his disaster of a date. Or dates. Plural. That's usually what happened, but he'd never felt nervous, twitchy, or light-headed before, in any of those described scenarios.

Never.

So, now here he was, leading Lily Evans through the back garden, past the chatting groups of people that he should probably talk to some time today, but really couldn't be bothered to right now, and back into the entrance hall. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that she not only asked him to go to Hogsmeade with him – something he still dreamt about at night and during every free minute he had whilst ignoring Sirius' jaunts – but had actually accepted his invitation to the probably most boring summer party there was. He didn't know what had possessed him to ask her in the first place, but whatever it had been, he was utterly and eternally thankful for it. Because looking at her now, her eyes big and sparkling with curiosity and joy, was the best feeling he'd had. Ever.

"I can't believe you actually live here," she said, and he could hear the light sound of laughter in her voice. "This is so beautiful. Everything is so beautiful! Do you ever get used to it?"

James shrugged awkwardly. "Well…"

"Okay, that was a stupid question, sorry. You grew up here." A pretty blush darkened her cheeks that he could clearly see even though she turned away from him to hide it.

"It's probably weird imagining that," he said slowly, trying to see the parlour with its heavy curtains, marble fireplace, and velvet couches from her perspective.

"It is and at the same time, it isn't. Does that make sense?"

James tilted his head to the side, thinking for a moment. "Yeah, I think it does."

Lily grinned and turned back to the parlour. She walked over to the set of velvet couches and ran her fingers over the soft surface before marvelling at one of many portraits that were scattered throughout the manor.

"That's my great-great-uncle, Demetrius Potter," James said as he slowly moved over to join her. "He died some time in the 1870s, I believe. Wasn't much of a leaving-the-house-type and preferred to keep to himself. He even refused to allow a painter to come and paint this. He had his house elf go to the painter, hand him a memory of how he looked like, and then commissioned the painting. So, who knows if he ever looked like that or if that was just how he wished he'd looked."

The most beautiful laugh echoed through the room and James literally felt a wave of warmth rush through his body at the sound of it.

"I have the feeling that a lot of pure-bloods are peculiar, to say the least."

James snorted as he led her out of the parlour. "Yeah, insanity isn't unheard of."

"Oh, I don't think your great-great-uncle was insane," Lily said, and she turned around to look at him with big, green eyes. "I actually understand him really well. I wouldn't want to sit in front of a stranger for hours on end, too afraid to blink. You'd never know what the painter would turn that blink into! Sending a memory for the commission isn't that bad of an idea, if that memory was truthful."

"Which that one most definitely wasn't."

They both laughed out loud.

"Yes, nobody has such a square chin as Demetrius Potter."

"Not even Demetrius Potter."

It went on like that throughout the rest of the house tour. They ignored most of the downstairs rooms as James didn't want to risk another ambush à la Sable, but Lily didn't seem to mind too much. She was in awe of everything: the high ceilings with their ornate decorations, the polished wooden floors, and the sheer number of old paintings hung up on walls that seemed to never end. James would know – he grew up in that manor, and he himself had never managed to find the end to that particular hallway that they were standing in right now, looking up at yet another portrait of some ancestor of his. Honestly, he was sure Potter Manor was hexed in some way, but even his parents didn't know anything about that. Or refused to admit it, a tiny voice whispered in the back of his head as stared into the smirking eyes of Eardley Hereward Potter.

"I wouldn't say what you are thinking is true, young man," the portrait said, adding to the general confusion James was feeling right now, "but this is a Wizarding home. Anything is possible." His snow-white moustache twitched, amused, as his eyes jumped from James to Lily and back again.

"What is possible?"

James turned to Lily, who looked as if she wasn't sure whether to laugh, scream, or just run away right now. It would probably all make sense, so he couldn't blame her.

"This corridor," James said and motioned to his left. The dark grey runner only emphasised the sheer endlessness of it. "It never ends."

"It really doesn't," said a voice that James hadn't heard in a couple of hours, and he turned around to see a grinning Sirius leaning against the doorframe that led to his bedroom. "Lily flower, this manor is full of secrets; secrets not even its inhabitants know or understand. Well, except maybe for some weird-ass paintings around here." He squinted at Eardley Potter, who had gone over to inspect his fingernails. "Honestly, I have stopped trying to find its end. One time, Tooky found me in a random room I have never seen before and forced me to eat his roast because apparently, I have been missing for over 24 hours."

He turned back to Lily, a bright grin on his face. "Truly fascinating."

Lily merely blinked and James was reminded again of her opinion on pure-bloods from earlier, seeing it confirmed right here in the form of Sirius Black.

And once again, like she always did, Lily just smiled and surprised him with her acceptance of everything weird. "Is that your room?" she asked as she pointed towards the room behind Sirius and looked up at James, who just nodded, unable to formulate a proper sentence.

He was overwhelmed with everything that was Lily Evans once again. He didn't know what he did to deserve her time, to deserve her friendship. He didn't deserve her. He knew that. She'd made it more than clear during the last six years of him useless pining after her. He'd been a right idiot, he knew that as well, but he hoped that, eventually, he might actually deserve her fully.

But as soon as he saw his best friend, James was reminded of what hadn't stopped haunting him ever since he had overheard Mr Greengrass and his father's conversation earlier.

"Padfoot?" he asked quietly and allowed Lily to walk past him to have a look around his bedroom. The rough stone walls were covered in Gryffindor memorabilia, flags of his past and present favourite Quidditch teams, and posters of his favourite Muggle bands. Well, 'favourite' was relative, as those were the only Muggle bands he knew.

He watched Lily slowly walk towards his bed, fingers gently trailing his dark red day blanket, as her eyes took in the old, wooden furniture. He turned around towards Sirius, who was silently looking at James, expectedly but patiently waiting for him to continue.

"Have you ever heard the name Lord Voldemort?"

Sirius' eyes narrowed slightly as his friend looked at him. "Why?"

"It's just that Lily and I overheard a conversation between Dad and Mr Greengrass, and the latter tried to convince Dad to take his side in the next voting, at least I think that's what it was about. He said something about how this lord wants to protect the Wizarding community, and it all sounded a bit… off. And I've never heard that name before, so he can't be anyone of the Families or someone who's been active in politics in recent years."

"No wonder it sounded off to you," Sirius said quietly, and all of a sudden, James noticed how his entire posture had changed completely. Gone was the chipper Sirius from when they had entered his room just moments before, and in his place was someone James had only once seen before – on the night that Sirius had knocked on the doors of Potter Manor.

"What's wrong, Sirius? What do you know?"

"Well, I don't know much," the young Black said hesitantly, not quite looking James in the eye. "My old man kept going on and on about him. How he's the next Great Lord who will show us wizards the way to glory and all that bullshit. Said if people really worried about the future of the Wizarding world, we should all follow him and join his ranks. His words, not mine."

James' frown deepened, but he stayed quiet and patiently waited for Sirius to continue.

"He said that nobody is to say his name and that I have to refer to him as either 'My Lord' or be damned." Sirius scoffed, visibly disgusted by that idea. "He honestly refused to say his name, only called him 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,' and if I wasn't so sure that it's literally impossible, I'd actually say he worships that… that lord."

"That doesn't sound good," Lily said softly from behind James, and he whirled around to see her standing right there, worry and fear clear on her face.

"No shit." Sirius sighed, and after a few seconds of fighting with himself said, "He wanted to force me to take his Mark."

James blinked before looking at Lily, who looked equally confused. "His Mark?" he asked as he turned back to his friend, who had turned a sickly shade of green. "What do you mean by that?"

"Apparently He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named marks his followers like cattle. According to my father, it's an honour to be allowed to bare it and to grovel at his feet kissing the hem of his robes. I don't kneel down in front of anyone."

Both James and Lily stared at Sirius open-mouthed, unable to form words, so Sirius took a deep breath and expelled it in a sharp burst.

"That's why I left," he said softly, shuffling his feet, clearly uncomfortable about where this conversation had headed to. "Because he wanted me to take a cursed Mark, join the ranks of what sounds like a psychopath, and be happy about it. So, naturally, I refused. I didn't even see the first Cruciatus coming, he was that quick. He probably already knew how I'd react."

"He did what?!"

Sirius just shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Honestly, Prongs, what did you expect when I showed up at your house in the middle of the night, crying, with no luggage whatsoever?"

And just like that, James felt incredibly stupid. He'd known something was horribly wrong in Sirius' home life, what with the welts he'd seen on his back when they'd changed after that one Quidditch match in which they'd gotten absolutely wrecked by Ravenclaw. He knew something was off – very off – but he'd always just waited for Sirius to come to him to talk. Whenever he was ready. He'd made sure that Sirius knew he was there if he needed him, but he also knew that Sirius was a stubborn bastard who couldn't admit even to himself that he needed help sometimes.

"We need to tell the Order." Lily's voice broke the tense silence that had filled the room after Sirius' blunt question and jerked the boys back into motion. "Your mum and dad, James. They'll know what to do."

"And what should we tell them?" Sirius asked sarcastically before James even had the chance to answer. "That my father has lost his marbles and is in some sort of cult worshipping Lord Voldemort, who no one has ever heard of before?" He scoffed, causing Lily to wince, hurt flashing in her eyes. "Yeah, right. As if that's something note-worthy."

"She's right, Sirius." James took a deep breath, trying to stay calm, mostly on Lily's behalf. "We need to tell the Order. This doesn't sound like a random dude who just wants to reform politics like Mr Greengrass made it out to be."

"Maybe Mr Greengrass doesn't know?"

James and Sirius turned to Lily, who had a thoughtful look on her face. As she looked up to James, he saw an excited sparkle in her eyes, the one she usually got whenever she solved a particularly tricky equation in Arithmancy.

"What if this Lord Voldemort person wants everyone to believe that? What if he wants everyone to believe that he's just a normal wizard who is worried about the prospect of the Muggle world finding out about magic and their potential reaction to that? We know from how Grindelwald got power that he used exactly that fear to gather his followers and to manipulate them into attacking the Muggles without any reason. It was purely out of fear of what might happen. What if this Lord Voldemort is trying the exact same thing? What if he tries to manipulate the Families into understanding his worries – no matter whether they're warranted or not – so that the jump to actively going against everything connected to Muggles seems so small that it's the logical next step?"

Worry washed over James as he quietly listened to Lily's thought process. Every couple of decades, it seemed, there was a wizard or witch who managed to cause a mass panic that ended in some kind of war. Grindelwald was only the most recent in history, but even he had been locked away for a long time, so people might be starting to forget the consequences of believing a madman.

"And what can the Order do about it?" Sirius asked, his arms crossed, a scowl on his face, and just in general being a picture-perfect image of disgruntledness. "What can they do besides talking and worrying about it? You haven't seen the mad look in my father's eyes as he went on and on about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He was gushing about how pure of blood he was, how powerful and convincing he was, and how we should all be honoured that he would save us in the end. It's already too late."

"I don't think it is," Lily said seriously, eyes trained relentlessly on Sirius' stoic expression. "Dumbledore is part of the Order. He was the one who founded it as Grindelwald was gaining too much power, wasn't he?"

James nodded.

"Then he has already done it once! All of them have! They have dealt with a Dark Lord before and have done so successfully. It was Dumbledore who conquered Grindelwald in that infamous duel. It was Dumbledore who ended the war. Who says that he cannot do it for a second time?"

"Lily's right," James muttered softly. His thoughts went to his parents and all of the snippets of stories he had managed to pull out of their noses at random intervals. He didn't know a lot about what had let to Dumbeldore defeating Grindelwald in the end, but what he did know was that the Griffin's Order had played a major part in his defeat.

From the end of the first Wizarding war, the Order had been relatively inactive. They'd helped find those few of his followers who had escaped justice and generally made sure that they were the first ones to know when something Dark was trying to gain power.

So they already had to know. Actually, they already did know.

"Dad told me that there's something going on," he continued as he forced his eyes to focus on his two friends in front of him. "That Dumbledore has summoned the Order for regular meetings again. They don't know directly what is happening, but the disappearances the Prophet is reporting about… They're not coincidences. This happened before and back then, it started in the exact same way."

"And those disappearances fit into what I just said," Lily chimed in, cheeks coloured darker due to her obvious excitement. "It has to be going on behind the scenes for a while now. Otherwise, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't have made it into the politics of the Families by now. He already managed to convince some of them to fully trust and follow him!" She looked at Sirius, whose expression only got darker. "This isn't something that we can just keep to ourselves. This is serious and Dumbledore and the Order need to know."

"You should talk to your dad," Sirius said quietly to James, looking extremely tired. "Lily's right. If you need me to show him my memory of that day, I will, but I'd rather not, to be honest."

James nodded and placed a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Thank you, Padfoot."

The horrors of Grindelwald's reign were part of Wizarding history and proof of what power fear and desperation still held. It showed what could happen if someone exploited the insecurities and secret worries of normal people like you and me.

James looked at Lily, who he still couldn't believe was actually here right now. Beautiful Lily, with her bright smile and big heart, trying her best to cheer Sirius up with the story of Demetrius Potter, would be in the centre of whatever was getting stronger and more dangerous with every breath they took. Sirius had said it himself – blood purity played a big role in Lord Voldemort's agenda. That taken together with what he had heard Mr Greengrass say, the need to protect the Wizarding community… Protect them from what? Muggles? Lily had said it herself and she was very rarely wrong in her deductions. It was always about power, and what better way to gain power than to exploit the only thing pure-bloods might be frightened of? The inclusion of people who were raised in the Muggle world. The inclusion of people who knew what Muggles were capable of and who, in the eyes of fanatics and narrow-minded idiots, might cause the demise of the Wizarding world. In short: the inclusion of impure wizards and witches.

He knew that Muggles were a topic that arose in almost every Wizengamot meeting, but up until now, the Light Families had always managed to persuade the Dark ones. But what would happen now that the Dark Families had a more powerful wizard on their side? A wizard that might be as powerful as Dumbledore, who had and would always be on the Light side?

Honestly, James wasn't sure whether he wanted to find out…

Uh-oh!

It seems like there's something already happening behind the scenes and nobody noticed...

Until next time - see ya!