Colours
Rating: M for Language
September 7th, 1991
The young boy sat beside the fire in a small clearing in the forest. He was eating the rabbit which he had just killed and roasted over the fire he had started with a wave of his hand. Watching him was a large white snowy owl, who glowed with the yellow of confidence and the orange of regret.
Harry knew that Hedwig was proud of her prowess as a hunter, but ashamed that she had not fully dispatched the rabbit herself with her talons, leaving it to Harry to end the beast's suffering with the rock him summoned into his hand. Mice and lemmings, she could kill with ease, but this large bunny was too large to dispatch so efficiently. Hence the regret.
As the greenish shade left the rabbit's body, Harry had thanked its spirit for its sacrifice.
Harry had long been fascinated by colours he saw around things. When he had been taken to Sunday school, while his aunt and uncle were hypocritically in church showing off their finery to their neighbours (who were about as devout as they were, and doing the same), the teacher had shown the children paintings of Jesus and the saints. Harry had been surprised to see the paintings showing the halos around the heads of the holy people, as this seemed to indicate that others saw them too. The teacher had dismissed his comments saying that this was just an indication that these were special people, and that nobody had really seen the halos.
Harry was not so convinced, but noticed that some painting showed a full halo while others showed just a faint ring, and he decided that must mean that some of the painters could see the full aura like he could, while others could only see a little bit. To him, this was kind of like how he had to wear glasses while others had good vision, or some people could hear quiet things while others had problems hearing people talking even when they were close together. Just individual variations between people.
Harry noticed that all the painting showed the halos being the same colours, and had seen a couple people with halos of the same gold colour. Once when he was at the hospital (Dudley had scratched his leg, so it apparently required immediate medical attention, unlike Harry's frequent and completely untreated injuries), he saw a young mother leaving the hospital with her newborn baby, being accompanied by her husband, and she had a similar colour halo around her. In his recurring nightmare of when his mother was murdered, as she tried to shield him, she also had a halo of the same shade.
Then he asked the teachers what it meant when his uncle had a halo of bright red with black fringes around his head. Questions were asked, and Harry was never taken to Sunday school again. And he was beaten.
Over time, Harry came to associate certain colours with different emotions or states of mind. There were slightly different shades of red for malice and hatred, and different shades of green for different living things.
His aunt usually had an aura of malice, while Uncle Vernon had the red of hatred, and the dark fringes that Harry came to understand were a desire to hurt others. Aunt Petunia didn't show the 'hurt' colour (Harry could never tell if it was actually black or just a deep violet, contrasting with the bright red). His cousin Dudley, on the other hand, constantly showed the blackish fringe, but without the malice or crimson of hatred – Harry figured that Dudley didn't really hate anyone, it was just that hurting people was what he did, having learned at his father's knee that this was how you treated other people. Vernon and Dudley did both have the 'royal' blue that Harry had also seen around Very(!) Important People, which he took to mean an understanding that they were somehow 'Inherently Better Than You'.
Harry had come to the conclusion that the mixture of malice and confidence were what other people called 'smug'.
Working in the garden, as he did, he found that different living things had different colours of green. Plants had a particular shade of green, and in the autumn, the green left the leaves of the shade trees and moved down towards the roots, while the fruit trees did the same but also had some of the green concentrate in their fruits. With flowers that bloomed for only a year, the green moved up into the seed pods as the plants' stems withered.
Living things that could move under their own power had a slightly different shade of green flowing around their bodies. Like the rabbit he had just eaten, the distinct green light left their bodies when they died.
People, although they were also animals that could move, had a different shade of green again. Animals that had some sentience, like Hedwig, and the dolphins Harry had seen on the school field trip to an aquarium, had a green aura somewhere between that of other animals and of people.
When Harry's teachers taught about the different colours of glowing gases in science class, he was fascinated, and started to associate the different colours he saw with the different kinds of light. No—one else he knew saw the light around people the way he did, but from the paintings, he knew that some people could. From reading stories of people in other countries, life the yogis in India, he found that some other people claimed to see these auras as well and could tell about the people's characters from the colours they saw.
As Harry got older, and met more people, he observed them closely. In part this was for self-preservation, as Dudley and his friends made life difficult. He learned about the orange of regret when he tried to make friends with Marjory Adams in first grade. After a couple days she told him she could not be his friend (orange) because Dudley and his friends had threatened to hurt her if she did (light blue of doubt and cyan of fear).
Dudley and his gang never showed the blue of doubt or the deeper blue of self-doubt. They were the top dogs, and they had no doubt about either that or their place in the world. And they always had the dark fringes of the intent to harm.
Some colours puzzled Harry. Was the gold halo around this Jesus guy and his friends an indication of holiness (whatever that was – Harry had never experienced anything like it in his upbringing) or of unconditional love? Perhaps he had not seen enough examples of either to distinguish between the two, or there was a third intermediate state, or the painters could only find paint of a limited range.
Harry reflected about the people he had just left at Hogwarts.
Headmaster Dumbledore had the yellow of self-confidence glowing brightly around him, with no sign of self-doubt. Professor Snape had displayed a bright crimson of hatred when he looked at Harry, which Harry could not understand as he had given the man no reason for this. However, as far as he knew, he had never given his Uncle Vernon reason to hate him, but it was there anyway.
Hermione Granger had displayed an unusual aura, of bright yellow of confidence and even brighter blue of self-doubt. Harry smiled at her attempts to tell everyone what she knew was to show she was confident in her book-learning, but she was very uncertain of this new world where she found herself. He understood well where she was coming from, but she was still annoying.
Ron Weasley had a strong aura of the yellow-green of envy, overwhelming almost any other colours.
Draco Malfoy was no mystery, because Harry had grown up with the malice, hatred, self-importance and the intent to harm, all his life. Crabbe and Goyle had both shown supreme confidence until Harry had demolished Draco in front of them, after which the light of self-doubt seemed to explode around them.
As he was mulling over his recent experiences, Hedwig gave a short bark of warning.
Harry summoned another rock into his hand, preparing for another attack, when an elderly woman started to come out of the darkness towards his fire. She held her right hand open in the air in front of her, while she glowed with a very bright orange and deep blue. In her left hand she held an old broom. She was dressed in black slacks and a black pullover sweater, and had her grey hair in a long plait.
The woman stopped her approach, and called out, "Harry Potter, it is Minerva McGonagall. I promise you I mean you no harm. May I approach?"
Harry looked at her. He could see no sign of malice, and no intent to harm, but he had learned over his short life that caution was its own reward. He had never seen such intense regret, so his caution was precariously balanced against his curiosity.
He called out, "Throw your wand into the light!", and her wand landed on the ground near his small fire. "Now put down your broom. Okay, come forward" after she had lain the broom on the ground.
The elder witch came into the firelight on the side away from Harry, holding her empty hands out to her sides. She was clearly trying to show that she was no threat.
He glared at her. "How did you find me? Did you track me with magic?"
She smiled and laughed quietly. "Mr. Potter, didn't you know that witches fly on brooms? Well, not all of us. At Hogwarts you would have learned a game called quidditch, where you fly on brooms. When I was at school myself, I played, and I still get out to ride once in a while. You were following the rail tracks and heading back towards London. I flew up and followed the track until I spotted your campfire. I used no other magic, I assure you."
He continued to glare, glancing at the rock in his hand. "How you I know you aren't going to call a rock to you or something, like I can?"
The elder witch nodded. He obviously did not trust her. She knew that trust had to be earned, and so far he had been shown no reason to do so.
"Mr. Potter, most children's magic is very uncontrolled, and we call it 'accidental' magic. Most of us cannot do magic without our wands, and we spend so much time practicing with them that most of us forget how to do magic without them. Once you get dependant on your wand, it is very difficult to learn to do wandless magic. The fact that you can summon that rock in your hand, and the way you walked through the doors and the gates, indicates that you have great power, or at least the potential for great power. This is part of the reason I came to see you. For your own safety and the safety of the magical world, you need to learn to use your magic properly."
His brow furrowed. "What do you mean, my safety and the magical world. Why should I give a rat's ass about the magical world?"
She sighed. "I think Hagrid and Mr. Ollivander mentioned to you that there was a dark wizard who did terrible things. He called himself Lord Voldemort. When you were a baby, he murdered your parents, and gave you that scar you wear on your forehead. What happened then, nobody knows, but you survived the curse that should have killed you, and it destroyed his body but didn't kill him. I am sure people on the train told you that you are known in our world as 'The Boy Who Lived', because of that occurrence. Some of us expect that the dark wizard, who calls himself Lord Voldemort, will be come back some day, and he will likely come after you. He was not the most forgiving of sorts. For your own safety, you need to know how to protect yourself from a very powerful wizard."
"As to the safety of the magical world, and I know that so far you have no reason to care about us, but we are a hidden society. The muggle world, at times, has come hunting for us. They had burned witches at the stake, hanged them, cut off their heads, and tortured them in ways too many and gruesome to recount to you at the moment. Burning doesn't work , by the way, but decapitation does, and torture is unpleasant to say the least."
"From long and painful experience, we know that if the general non-magical world finds out about people using magic, they will come hunting, because it has happened many times before. In the late Middle Ages, witch hunts started and lasted for over two hundred years, killing many thousands. Very few were actual witches or wizards, but a lot of our people were killed. Because of this, the Statutes of Secrecy were passed to keep our existence secret. If people see you using your magic, the persecution and killing may happen again. We would rather that not occur."
Harry nodded. All his life, he had been blamed for everything going wrong, but for all that, he had never wanted to hurt anyone (with a few notable exceptions). To have thousands of people massacred because of him, was not what he wanted. If it did, someone would beat him again. After all, that was how the world worked in his experience so far.
"You say I need to learn how to use my magic. I'm not going back to that school of yours. No way. I don't know why those people hate me, but I am not going back."
The witch nodded. "That is probably a very wise decision. Professor Dumbledore claims that Hogwarts is the safest place in the country, but there are a lot of students whose families were very closely tied to the evil wizard. Sometimes he is called the Dark Lord, or You-Know-Who, because people were terrified to even speak his name, even now ten years after you somehow sent him away. Some of his chief disciples managed to convince the authorities that they had been under spells to force them to follow him, although a lot of the authorities got very rich by accepting their excuses. Whether muggle or magical, there are a lot of corrupt politicians." Her aura of regret flared brightly with this admission.
Harry looked at her through narrowed eyes. "Did the old man send you after me? Why didn't he send that huge idiot who left me at the train station?"
The old woman shook her head. "No, the Headmaster is using more complicated magical tracking devices to try locate you in London. He convinced himself that you would go there, and you would get there very quickly. Sometimes, people look for complicated answers when a more simple approach works better."
"And Harry, please do not be too hard on Hagrid. He has a good heart, but he is not the brightest candle in the chapel, if you take my meaning. When he came to get you, he had been given an important confidential mission by the Headmaster, and unfortunately it drove all other considerations out of his head."
The boy scowled. "Then why are you here?"
She smiled quietly. "Mr. Potter, I have lived through several wars, both muggle and magical. When I was a student, there was a war against the Dark Lord Grindewald, and about a third of the magical population of the country fled or were killed, before Professor Dumbledore defeated him. Shortly before you were born, the war with Voldemort and his followers, called Death Eaters, killed thousands of both magical folk and muggles. Hogwarts was built to have about a thousand students, and we have only about three hundred now. Another war like that, and we may be wiped out completely."
"The Headmaster seems to believe, for some reason he won't tell even his closest allies, that you will be crucial to defeating Voldemort if or when he returns or his followers try to take his place. I don't know whether it is you who will defeat them, or we need to learn what you did on that night ten years ago when whatever you did stopped him. Personally, I think that something you did, or something you are, may be the key."
"And Harry, I am scared. I have seen too many friends and family die because of these people. I don't want to see more."
"And another thing, families should look after each other."
The boy grimaced. "Not that I have every seen! Not my family! And what's that to you?"
The witch smiled. "Well, your mother was one of my favourite students, and she became a good friend. I attended your parents' wedding. Also, my older sister Diana was your great-grandmother, so yes, we are family."
"Then where the hell were you when I was with those monsters?" he shrieked.
The orange of regret flared brightly again. "The Headmaster said he had arranged for special protection based on your relationship with your aunt. I objected vigorously, but apparently not hard enough. He forbade me to take you myself, or to foster you with other magical friends of your parents. You have to remember that Professor Dumbledore was revered in our world to an extent that would rival a saint. He is over a hundred and fifty years old, and holds a lot of powerful positions. Essentially, when Dumbledore speaks, people listen. When he says jump, people only ask 'how high' as they are on their way up."
"I am sorry, but I listened too. I was wrong."
"And this is also why I agree that you should not return to Hogwarts. I am starting to have grave doubts, about many things. I have been his most loyal follower for nearly twenty years, and an admirer for longer than that. In all that time, he has never trusted me enough to tell me why he thinks you are so important. He says he trusts Hagrid and Professor Snape with his life, but he will not trust anyone with vital information. Nor will he tell me why he trusts Professor Snape so much. If he cannot trust me after this time, why should I trust him so compleetely?"
"And Harry, I am starting to feel my age, and I am only half the age of the Headmaster. We are none of us immortal. If Professor Dumbledore were to be killed, all his information which he claims is crucial for our future would die with him. By hoarding his knowledge, he is putting us all at risk. He has kept his own council for so long, he has started to believe that he, and he alone, should make all the decisions."
"We are not children who must be told what to do. We are stronger from a position of knowledge, not ignorance, and he doesn't see that. If he cannot trust me, why must I trust him? Why do I trust him? That is why I say you cannot come back to Hogwarts."
Harry sat looking puzzled. "You say I need to be trained, but I shouldn't go to Hogwarts. Is there another school you want me to go to? Is there another school?"
The old witch smiled. "Not quite." She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled.
From out of the darkness, two large creatures approached. The larger of the two had the torso of a man blending into the body of a dark brown horse. The smaller centaur mare had a golden coat. Both had auras showing great confidence, and little by way of doubt. More importantly to the boy, they showed no malice. Their life essence was a different green than any Harry had ever seen before.
McGonagall turned to Harry and said, "Harry Potter, may I introduce Firenze and his mate Moira. Moira, Firenze, this is Harry Potter, of whom I spoke."
The centauress nodded to the boy. "Greetings, Harry Potter. Our Wise Ones have consulted the stars and portents, and have decided that we should take you under our tutelage. It has been seen that you have an important role in the futures of your kind and ours. We do not make this offer lightly, as you are one of the first of your kind to be taught by us in many hundreds of years."
"By the colour of your halo, we see that you do not trust us. You trust noone. From what Teacher McGonagall has told us, this is wise. It has been wise. From what she has told us, those around you were not to be trusted."
The boy's eyes widened. "You can see my aura? My colours?"
Moira nodded. "All our folk can see the colours that surround living things. This is part of who and what we are, and how we see the world. One of the reasons we are willing to teach you is that you and we share this talent. In some ways we see the world in the same ways. We can see who to trust and who not. Will you accept our offer?""
Harry smiled at the centaurs and the elder witch. "You know, my uncle would have a heart attack if he saw this. He absolutely would not believe that beings such as yourselves could exist! He would bust a blood vessel, because in his world, this could not happen. This is fantastic! If for no other reason that to tweak his nose... "
Smiling, he took a deep breath, and turned to his new teachers politely. Bowing to the centaurs, he said "Thank you both. I accept you offer, most gladly."
Turning to the witch, he said, "I can't call you Professor, because I am never going to your school. What shall I call you?"
Minerva McGonagall smiled. "I think 'Aunt Minnie' would do for the present, and I would be pleased if you called me that."
