Green

Ted Tonks

My favourite colour is green. It's always been green. As a child my Mum had to keep a tight grip on my hand in every shop we went into to stop me touching everything green within my reach. Sweets, toys or clothes, I was a sucker for anything green.

Of course I dabbled in the little boy realms of blue and red. For my first week of Hogwarts it was yellow. I even once told my Mother it was pink to see what she would do. But I always come back to green.

It's just such a nice colour. No matter what shade. And there are a hell of a lot out there. All with fancy names I can't pronounce let alone remember.

She probably knows them all.

But my favourite shade is a really dark green that sends sparkles of light into the world when the sun hits it. That was the colour of my Dad's first car. I was five years old when we got it. To me it was the coolest thing in existence. I loved it when Dad would strap me into the front seat and we'd speed off to who cares where. I would hang my head out the window and grin at the green leaves of passing trees, green benches in the park and once the green sparks of a firework on Bonfire Night.

Part of the thrill of getting my Hogwarts letter was the green ink. The most exciting colour my Primary School used was red, and that was only the teachers and only for marking, never for proper writing. The tip of the magical world was in that green ink. Everything else Professor McGonagall explained to my parents was a bonus.

Flying brooms. Bubbling cauldrons. Plants that could swallow a little boy whole.

And green ink.

Magical.

When I found out about House colours I knew straight away I wanted to go into Slytherin. My new friend Alice laughed.

"Oh no Ted! Slytherin's the worst House ever!"

And then I met some.

We had been kicked out of our own carriage by some older students, I later learned were Slytherins, and found another with two girls in it. They weren't Slytherins yet, but they were the nastiest girls I'd ever met. On our first train ride to Hogwarts they made sure I knew what I was and how much they hated it. The shorter girl with flashing eyes and inky curls took particular delight in spelling it out for me.

Mudblood.

Crushed that something green could be so mean, I was very pleased to go into Hufflepuff. My house mates were all smiling and clapping. They looked miles friendlier looking than any of the Slytherins.

But I still felt a small spark of jealously that Andromeda Black had been applauded loudly by a sea of green.

As I was sorted I caught a glance of her sneering mouth saw her mutter something to the girl next to her. The word she had called me earlier slithered from her mouth and into the ear of the girl who could only be her older sister.

Mudblood.

I decided yellow was my favourite colour.

Like I said, it didn't last long.

Green had introduced me to the wizarding world and it was determined to keep me there.

Professor Beery's green houses were full of green plants. Professor Slughorns potions could always be guaranteed to have at least one green ingredient. Even in Transfiguration Professor McGonagall's emerald cloak oversaw my frantic attempts to give a teapot legs. Yes green was the colour for me.

But for six and a half long years, just across the Great Hall, Andromeda Black held onto the little bit of green I couldn't have.

It was worse on Quidditch days. She would lounge against the person next to her in her emerald robes looking every inch a bitch. Every inch a sadistic, taunting, bigoted, beautiful bitch.

It was a few months into seventh year the last adjective popped into my mind. And it shocked me. She had always been a real stunner. Looks-wise half the school wanted to be her and the other half wanted to bang her as Frank Longbottom so delicately put it.

But it was at the first Quidditch match of my last year of Hogwarts, with my best friend Alice right behind me decked head-to-toe in red, that I realised Andromeda Black was beautiful.

I've always been a sucker for anything that's green.