Green

It's strange how a colour can have such a huge effect on human emotions. Take green for example. Imagine green and you may see buds, new leaves, new shoots all in delicate and pale shades, all leading you to think of hope and new beginnings. Picture the pale green of a plant just appearing after a long winter, or see in your mind's eye the darker green of a field or pitch sparkling in the morning dew. Think of the deepest, most entrancing green of all, think of an emerald sparkling with a fire all its own.

I often think that if it was any other colour I would be fine. If I had to live without any other colour I would just go on. It is green I lost though. I now live my life in the absence of any vision of green, springlike, hope filled, green.

They take me for walks around the grounds sometimes.

"Look at the plants."

They tell me.

"Spring has come, just you look Mr Malfoy."

They don't understand. They can't comprehend the reason I freeze, the reason I long to be back in my white walled room, my cocoon. I can't bear to leave it anymore.

Sometimes I make lists in my head of all the green things I remember, the things I've lost.

Leaves

Grass

Plants

Glass

Seaweed

My old school tie

His jumper

His favourite boxers

The door of our castle in the air

His eyes

I see him holding the ring I gave him in the spring of our last year, our spring. Against his skin the emerald looked alive, so vital. I remember the feeling of that spring when I finally saw the hope of a new start.

When I remember that, him, they look in at me and smile and say,

"Look, he's doing better, maybe he's improving..."

My memories race on though. Green fills my mind again. The flash that took him from me flickers before my eyelids.

I'm not crazy, never that, I know what they say. They've tested me time and time again but there's still no answer. All that is wrong is that I won't leave. I can't leave. I have to stay here in these white walls forever. When I'm here, I can pretend I don't miss it. I can almost, for the briefest of moments, imagine I don't miss him. It never lasts.

When I close my eyes, the green comes back. All I see is an endless loop of his green eyes full of determination and then a green flash and then... and then nothing. No more green. No more Harry.

Spring was always our favourite season. In our first spring we discovered how we had both longed for it year after year. We both looked forward to the days we could fly free again after the long, dark, coldness of winter. My best memories of him are all from the spring. I picture him lying at the edge of the forest surrounded by the new shoots of flowers. No colours yet, just the green of spring and then he slips into the green and my vision fills with the flash again. Green and spring and hoping and longing and aching and missing and pain.

My world isn't monochrome. Far from it, I see in rainbows just like you. All that is missing is the green. Where I should see all its shades, from sharp pine needles to broken glass, I see only a misty grey. When I sleep, everything is tinted with the missing green. I look out on my dreams from behind a green screen, like drowning in a bottle green sea. Every time I shut my eyes it fills my vision. Sometimes I try to trick myself, I open my eyes as fast as I can but as soon as my eyelids part I'm back to grey.

I think that if I saw it just once then it would all be over. Maybe if I could just see one speck of green, I would be free. I ache for a glimpse of it, the herald of spring, the sign that my winter is over at last and I can spend an eternal spring with him.