Harry's Favourite Colours

Harry's Favourite Colours

If Harry were an artist, he'd have a palette filled with only his favourite colours. He only has a few, not being one for flashy rainbows and iridescent specks of light, but with only his favourite colours, he'd be able to paint anything he ever wanted. Less is more, in Harry's opinion. One colour can speak and mean so much.

Harry likes:

1. Yellow

Yellow is marigolds and baby canaries. Soft butter churning and the colour of money. Yellow is Draco's hair when it's still wet, flaxen and fluffy, Harry's hand ruffling it amid squawks of protests.

Yellow is the flesh of the sweetest nectarine, dripping down the curve of Draco's pale throat. It represents bananas and reminds Harry of phallic symbol jokes, jokes which never get old. Yellow is mellifluous honey, a syrupy warm sort of delight, liquid sugar which also happens to be fat-free.

Yellow is cowardice, fleeing from danger with the tail tucked beneath the legs, only taking shortcuts. It is scurvy fever and jaundice, in skin of the deceased. It is piercing, blinding to the eye in short intense bursts.

It is easily forgotten.

2. Red

Bold, brash, brave, brazen, bright red. The colour of sunset, crimson rays drizzling through Draco's silhouette, casting him in carmite shadow. Red is also the luscious curve of lips, complete with Cupid's bow and perfect blush.

Every day is a red-letter day because Draco is with him. Everyday, Harry smells the florid roses, blooming wildly along the roadside. Their thorns scratch at robin redbreasts and nightingales. Red is also dusty Quidditch robes, long-forgotten, lying in some unimportant drawer. A pretty witch Harry walks past, happens to have scarlet nails.

Red is sanguine cheeks, warm and breathless. A pointed tongue - a collection of tasty rose buds. Ragged pants, hyperventilating without breathing, in flushed ear. Burning passion, blazing like wildfire, nothing safe from its path of rage.

Red is what Harry sees when Draco kisses another man.

3. Silver

Silver is tender change and glint of wicked knife. It is Draco's eyes, mercurial. Mercury is poisonous, having been known to kill.

Silver is valuable, rare; crystal earrings embossed with silver filigree. It is like Draco's slender arm in the moonlight, the underside gleaming. Draco's tongue is silver, reeking of eloquence and charm.

Fingernails under cold artificial life, is silver. Other silvery objects include: the cold metal frame of somebody's spectacles, or tears that drip down, from eyes rolled back.

Harry kisses away Draco's tears, and says he's sorry.

4. Blue

Blue is the ocean, sparkling in its own effervescent beauty and treachery, with the corpses of countless good men and ships sunk beneath the depths.

Blue is the sky, cloudless, spanning across the whole wide world. It is cold, calming, relaxing. It is the colour of Draco's blood, liquid aristocracy.

Blue is moodiness, and short fits of temper. It is the colour of the moon when Harry is actually happy.

Turquoise, cobalt, ultramarine. Cyan, cerulean.

Oxygen-starved lips in the gloom.

5. Brown

Harry likes brown. He sees furry puppies, bouncing in meadows; fresh soil still smelling of life; tanned skin from spending too many hours in the sun, basking in the rays of happiness.

Brown is blood, stained dry on parchment, immortalised. It is chocolate, sweet, to satisfy any craving. Brown is slightly burned toast, and a colour so common but so undermined by everybody else.

Coffins are brown, their polished surfaces making them smooth to touch.

The autumn leaves are brown, as they wither away.

Harry sees brown in everything, from the pews of an empty church, to the suit that Draco is wearing (but would have rather died than wear in life).

*

Harry walks away. He does not care for the golden sunshine, nor for the red crescent marks on his wrists (courtesy of the sharp digging nails of Draco, so insistent to live). Harry simply cannot remember the silver stars which sang of their love, nor is he aware of the glorious blue butterflies and the dancing bronzed crickets.

He can only remember yellowing books of fond memories long gone; infidelity and how his heart really broke; silvery lashes which fluttered weakly as the heart gave out; the colour of Draco's face after Harry's hands left that pale, pale throat, leaving red welts which soon turned brown, like bruises and the ground Draco is buried six feet under.

Harry hates his favourite colours.

fin

One colour can speak and mean so much. Harry was never one for rainbows.