Author: Aibhinn
Story: Green
Rating: Everyone
Setting: Pre-DH
Status: Completed
Reviews: 13
Words: 695
Green is the colour you see when you look out the window of your
bedroom at the Burrow and the front garden rolls on and on forever,
past the rickety fence, down the hill, and out toward the valley and
the village. But more, it's the colour you see even farther out, toward
the horizon--hills and trees and the farmers' fields in June, verdant
with growth.
Green is the colour that fills you with
contentment in the back garden of the house, weeding and planting, not
because you love plants (that's more Neville's line) but because you've
always loved to get your hands dirty, and this is how you do it without
Mum complaining. And the sun is warm and yellow, and the earth is cool
and brown, and the plants drink in your patient tending and thrive on
it. No matter how horrid the day has been, the plants soothe you with
their calm, cool greenness.
Green is the colour Mum keeps
trying to put you in "because it goes so well with your complexion,
dear". Forest greens, mostly. Deep earthy colours that go with your red
hair (no, auburn, it's turning to auburn, Hermione said it once and you
cling desperately to that hope). You hate to admit it, but Mum's right,
the colour does look well on you, and a certain pair of eyes once
followed you all over the common room at school when you were wearing a
green jumper Mum had knitted, though you tried hard not to notice.
And that's the other green in your life, the emerald green of a pair of
eyes behind round, wire-framed glasses, topped by messy black hair.
Green eyes that can go from miserable to mischievous in a split second,
that can be shadowed with grief or blazing with--well, not love, it
can't be love when one is sixteen, can it, but it is definitely something, and for more than a month that something was directed at you, all at you. You could see the worry and stress of everyday life at school fade away when the something
came into his eyes, and though you knew he had some sort of secret he
was keeping, you knew also that everyone has secrets, and that he would
tell you when he was ready. So you took your time and enjoyed the
afternoons on the green lawn in your green jumper with the green-eyed
boy.
Until the day the world fell apart. You fought--Merlin,
how you fought--but you knew that if he hadn't given all of you the
Felix potion, you would all have been dead that night. And you sat at
the funeral a week later and cried, and wondered what had happened,
that the most powerful wizard on earth was dead, but you, a
fifteen-year-old girl who hadn't even passed her Ordinary Wizarding
exams yet, managed to survive. You knew your world could not remain
whole after that, and so when he said, "We can't be together any more,"
you held in the tears and were strong for him. The pain in his green
eyes was the only thing that held you together, because it meant that
he hated it as much as you. You knew that arguing would do no good, and
so you let him go.
But not really. Because when he walked
away with Hermione and Ron, and you knew that it would be the three of
them going someplace you could not follow, you knew the green of
jealousy as well. And you made a vow to yourself, that you would not
let him go into danger alone any more than they did. You didn't know
how you were going to manage it, but by Merlin, you'd find a way.
Green and brown--the colour of life, the colour of earth. You look into
the mirror, at your brown eyes, and you remember his green ones, and
you know at last what you must do. So you take a breath, and straighten
your shoulders, and go downstairs to fight for your place in the life
of the green-eyed boy whom--despite the fact you're not quite
sixteen--you do, truly, love.