Renewing the Light

Renewing the Light Chapter One- "I will protect you"

    Hermione Granger descended the steps that led down to the Gryffindor Common room. Slowly. Her hair was pinned up behind her with shimmery barrettes in it. She wore an elegant evening dress that was all white, but over it she wore red dress robes that she bought specifically for the graduation ceremony she was to attend tonight.

    All seven years that she was to spend at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were gone and now it was time to leave. For the past three years the war between light and dark was waging and many had already suffered and died at the hands of the evil Dark Lord Voldemort.

    The events of the evening would begin with the graduation ceremony itself with everyone's family there to support them. Then came the graduation feast for all and after dinner came the full graduation dance, in which everyone was to have a date. Ron was going with Lavender Brown whom he had come to like very much in the past few months. Harry and Hermione had been dating for the past three years almost.

    Now here they were ready to finally become full wizards and venture off into the world that was at the moment struggling in the midst of darkness. Hermione saw Harry waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her with his bright green eyes beaming at the sheer beauty of her this evening. He watched her smiling at him; the same smile she gave him two years prior when she swore to always protect him.

                    *Flashback*

    "He needs protection! And some of us here have to swear to protect him. Harry cannot go through all of this... this war by himself. We need to help him!"

    Harry stood in the crowded room full of adults, with the exception of Ron and Hermione, who had accompanied him to this meeting along with Hagrid. Harry felt as though he wasn't really in the room with the way the adults were speaking about him. And more so then that, Albus Dumbledore's slightly raised voice didn't comfort him any.

    "So who is going to help protect him?" Albus asked the crowd of people.

    "I will, of course, I'm his Godfather after all," Sirius Black, the first one to step forward and speak up. True Sirius was his Godfather and would protect him always. He assumed full responsibility for Harry at all times. He loved him, and tried to be as much of a parent as possible.

    "If Sirius goes I go," Remus Lupin said. Remus would never leave Sirius' side especially if it came to protect Harry. Remus liked Harry, but more so he would never go anywhere without his old friend, Padfoot. That was the way of the old Marauders; they never left each other alone for one minute, never. As two of the last Marauders from the group Remus and Sirius felt that they owed it to Prongs to protect his son, as a lasting memory of him.

    "I'm goin' to protect him of course. Did yeh think I wouldn't help?" Hagrid said. Albus just smiled. Hagrid was among the first people who had started protecting him. He had gotten Harry out of the damaged house at Godric's Hollow when he was just a baby and brought him safely to the Dursleys. He wept when Albus had left baby Harry on the door step of number four Privet Drive and was the one to bring him back into the wizarding world when he turned eleven. He had no reason now not to help protect the little boy that was his friend.

    "I'll protect him," Arabella (Mrs.) Figg said stepping forward as well, "I've been there protecting him since he was first brought to his relatives. I'm not going to stop now." Arabella Figg had also been protect Harry since he was first brought to the Dursleys. She was his secret keeper and always took care of him when the Dursleys went out and refused to bring Harry with them. She watched him grow up from the time he was a little baby until he was eleven when she knew very well that he'd return to her world and be safe there.

    "Very well then, Arabella," Albus said, "I'll of course help as well. Anyone else? Minerva?"

    Professor McGonagall nodded her head accordingly. She was his teacher for the past four years and liked Harry very much even if he did cause some trouble sometimes. Whatever Albus did she would do too and so it was the same with this mission. Albus was to protect Harry and she would go along too. Then from a quiet, dark corner another spoke.

    "I'll protect him too, Albus," Severus Snape said emerging from his dark corner coming into the light of the room. Harry stared at him lost for words.

    "Severus, you were the last person I would have expected to step forward and offer to protect a boy you've had something against for nearly five years now," Albus exclaimed.

    "I don't deny that I have had something against him for years, but I assure you it has nothing to do with the boy, nothing whatsoever. And besides, why shouldn't I help protect him? I'm just as capable as any of you and if not more capable then some of us. I've been protectinging him since he first came to Hogwarts, which is more then I can say for some of us," Severus said giving a nasty look at Sirius and Remus, who both tried to ignore the comment for the sake of the seriousness of the matter at hand. 'Besides I promised Lily that if anything were to happen to her or James that I'd protect Harry. I owe that much to her,' Severus though to himself.

    Harry was still starring at Snape in disbelief. He had always thought he had hated him, but now here he was offering to help protect him after everything; all the fights, the disagreements, and even the threats. None of it seemed to matter any more. Severus went back to his corner still paying attention to everything else that was going on in the room, most especially the looks on some of the people's faces. He looked at Harry and saw that he was looking back at him. Severus didn't smile, but inside himself he realized that Harry was braver then he thought and had lived through some bad times.

    Severus had pushed Harry every chance he got. He wanted him to succeed, not fail. He wants Harry to strive for excellence and the only way for him to do this was to push him to his limits and pick on him because he was indeed most capable of it. All Gryffindors were capable, even Neville Longbottom who even though he showed no academic excellence in Potions did succeed in other subjects outside the dungeons. Perhaps it was because he did so poorly in Potions that he tried his best to excel in the other areas of magic.

    This same thing went for Harry. In Severus' eyes Harry had a tendency where trouble always found him, but in all situations he never turned his back to trouble instead he decided to fight trouble. Severus knew that Harry's determined spirit would one day take him to great lengths to fight the forces of evil that were to come in the near future. One thing else that Severus knew, was that, like him, all Slytherins would find a point in there life where they would turn to darkness but would fall through to the point of no return when they would not be able to turn back and come back into the light. Severus was fortunate and had seen his mistake when he first turned to darkness. Lily's death had convinced him to get out of the Inner Circle before it was too late. This is why he owed it to her to protect Harry now in these troubled times.

    "Well then I guess the matter is settled then-" Albus said beginning to close the meeting when all of the adults had volunteered to help protect Harry. But a determined voice had stopped him.

    Hermione had stepped forward, "I am going to help too and no one here will dare stop me!" she said staring at every adult in the room. True she was only fifteen, but she was determined to protect her friend. She loved him, but hadn't realized it till now.

    "Hermione, it isn't your job to protect me," Harry said only speaking to her at first, but then he looked around at the adults looking each one of them in the eyes. Starting with Dumbledore's eyes, moving to McGonagall's, and Mrs. Figg's, then Hagrid's warm black eyes, next to Sirius' and Remus' eyes and finally looking into Severus's cold eyes. "It's not any of your jobs to protect me! None of you should have to do this! It isn't fair to you, to any of you!" Harry was becoming angry, just because Voldemort had put them all into a position where Harry was unsafe and left Dumbledore requesting that they protect him. It caused them to think he fragile and special, but he was not. This was not who he wanted to be at all. He wanted to be normal and not put people at risk of losing their lives because of him. "You all realize that you could lose your lives protecting me? You shouldn't do this!"

    "We all realize that, Mr. Potter, but these are difficult times. Do you not realize how imperative it is that we keep you safe and alive now that this war has begun?" Minerva McGonagall asked him shaking her head as she spoke.

    "Difficult times or not, this is not your responsibility, nor any one else in this room," Harry tried proving his point but no one seemed to be listening to him. Severus strode over to him towering over him still even though Harry had grown quite a bit since his first year.

    "This is what we have to do, Potter. It is our duty as part of the Light side; to protect those who in the past, present, and future have the capabilities of once and for all destroying the Dark Lord forever," Severus said staring right into his bright green eyes that Lily once had.

    "I am not one of those people. Can you understand that I am not a God? That I cannot destroy Voldemort? I don't know what happened in the past or anything like that, how he vanished in the first place after trying to kill me the very first time. I don't know how to kill him and I will not have any of you risking your lives for me, especially not you Hermione!" Harry said trying to have the last word.

    Hermione moved to speak, but Severus had spoken first, "Potter, do you want to die?"

    "I'd rather die than have you all die while protecting me," Harry turned back to Hermione, "You can't do this. You cannot go along with they're plan to protect me. I don't want protection."

    "Harry," Hermione began, "I love you and I will protect you always because of that."

    "Yeah, and she won't be alone either," Ron said.

    "Ron, not you too," Harry looked at Ron.

    "Damn right I'm going Harry. Look around. These people are doing this because they all feel it's the right and moral thing to do," Ron reasoned with Harry. Harry indeed looked around at the many faced that were staring at the three fifteen year old children in the middle of the room.

    "Fine, you all want to do this go ahead, but if any of you die I will never be able to live with your death!" That was the last thing Harry said.

    "If there is no more disagreements between us, then I say this meeting is finished. Nine of us to protect Harry," Dumbledore said as Fawkes came soaring down. Albus raised his arm and Fawkes perched himself atop it, "And we shall call ourselves and the followers of the Light side.... the Order of the Phoenix."

*End Flashback*

    "Harry?" Hermione tried getting his attention, bringing him back from a deep thought.

    "Oh, dear, I'm sorry, I was lost in a deep thought," he said.

    "That I can see," she said smiling.

    He took her left hand and kissed it, "You look beautiful tonight, Hermione."

    "Thank you, Harry. Oh there's Ron and Lavender over there with Neville and Parvati."

    Harry gave Hermione his arm. She took it smiling and walked over to Lavender, Ron, Neville, and Parvati. They were all dressed nicely and were laughing at something Ron was telling the girls.

    "Hermione, you look lovely," Parvati said.

    "Thank you Parvati, so do you and Lavender," Hermione.

    "Well, I suggest we should head down to the Great Hall right about now. Everyone wants to find their parents and I want to find Sirius," Harry said.

    "Oh, Harry, my mother had said that she was coming to the graduation not only for me but for your behalf as well," Ron told Harry. Harry smiled. Mrs. Weasley always had cared about him and treated him like one of her sons. She was just about the only mother that Harry had ever known. She knitted him sweaters every Christmas and welcomed him into her home always even when they had little money, but with Arthur Weasley's promotion to Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office the Weasley's had a bit more money coming into the home and with Percy having moved out two years ago and Fred and George moving to an apartment in Hogsmeade to take over Zonko's, they had enough to buy new things for the kids that were still left in the house. That was only Ron and Ginny, but Mrs. Weasley had always included Harry as well.

    "I'll have to thank your mother when I see her Ron, she always done so much for me. I owe her a lot," Harry said while reflecting on all the the Weasley had done for him.

    Hermione and Harry led the way down to the Great Hall, arm in arm, followed by Ron and Lavender also arm in arm, and Neville and Parvati. They were finally ready to graduate and leave Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry forever.