Verdant

Verdant

Red and yellow, jolly good fellow,

Yellow and blue, tried and true,

But green and red makes dead.

Green for serpents and red for lions; green for cunning and red for courage; green for cold stone walls and stiff-backed seats, red for a crackling fire and plush armchairs with velvet covers. Green for Slytherin, red for Gryffindor.

Green and red for children, colourfully clad in their mothers' lovingly knit jumpers and scarves and gloves; green and red for children chanting rhymes in the castle courtyard; green and red, dead.

Green for thick, dark, stiff, bristling holly leaves, and red for little round berries peeking out between; green for sprigs of mistletoe placed to trick unwary passers-by, red for dangling stockings and for a white-bearded man with an ample belly, and red for dangling baubles against a green Christmas tree.

Green and red for piles and piles of glittering wrapped presents in the morning, green and red for laughter, green and red for Christmas.

Green for flickering points of ghostly light against a velvet-black sky that all of a sudden resolve themselves into a snake-tongued death's head, red for noise and sudden stabs of rushing, ferocious anger. Green for pale, cool, impersonal hospital walls, for soulless sympathy, red for blood. Green, on occasion, for evil; red, on occasion, for passion. Red for Mars (oh, and how Mars is bright tonight).

Green and red for jets of splintering light that fasten onto each other, red for 'Stupefy!', aiming only to disable (not kill, never kill), and the other one, the one that is green, coldly aiming to exterminate an inconvenience, to grind it into oblivion until not even the merest dust remains. Green and red together for anger, green and red for revenge, green and red for death.

(But gold, gold for a domed cage of ever-splitting light, gold to break the pattern because green and red makes dead and it is not the night to die.)

Green for a potion in a cauldron in a cavern somewhere, green for carefully-calculated weakening, and then madness, and then death; green for unearthly pooling light just where a cold corpse-hand breaches the shadows. Red for Gryffindor Tower, lying empty as its occupants rush to a greater defence; red for a lamenting phoenix, red for Ginny Weasley's floating hair.

Green and red, dead.

Green, years ago, for a lady's eyes, and red for her long hair; red also for her little son, little Harry Potter's bedroom walls, red emblazoned jauntily with Quaffles and Bludgers and Snitches and lions and the occasional handprint. Green for his eyes as well.

(Gold for pooling light and little glints in her red hair; silver for the moon outside as she gathers him in her arms and murmurs comfort softly. "We will win, Harry, we will.")

Green for rushing death, winging its way towards his mother on swishing, invisible wings; her hair spread out (still red), her eyes open (still green). Green and red together for betrayal, for death, for ending.

Because green and red makes dead.