Disclaimer: All characters, settings and anything else recognizable from Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling, and we make no claim on her ideas.
53. Hermione Granger
A rainbow will always follow the rain. That's what Mum taught me. I would have been about six at the time, I think. She said that one would always be there, after the rain, just floating in the sky below the clouds, even if I couldn't see it. Mum told me, that even if I couldn't see a rainbow, someone else would be able to.
Sometimes it feels like it has been raining for years, but then I suppose that I couldn't have expected anything less from growing up. Not that rain is a bad thing. In fact, I love the rain. I love to stand outside, and turn my face up to the clouds, and watch as a billion little droplets fall down to earth around me. Mind you, that only works when I remember to impervious my glasses. Otherwise, I am inevitably left staring at water droplets.
Like I said, the rain doesn't bother me in the slightest. What worries me is when the clouds are dark and threatening, and the world is cast into shadow. It seems ominous and terrible, and even though those dark, threatening clouds rarely amass to much, there is enough dark in the world, enough growing threat, enough violence without the rain becoming like that, too.
My favourite sort of rain is a sun-shower. That's probably because I can enjoy the rain and admire the rainbow, all at once. It's my personal equivalent of Sirius getting his cake and eating it too. Remus says that rainbows are traditionally a symbol of hope and rebirth, after the cleansing process of the rain.
I think the world needs more rainbows.
Hermione Granger was known throughout all of wizarding Britain. The fall out of the war saw the liberation of the Light into a new wizarding world, illuminating it in the vibrant colours of happiness, of recovery and of change.In the grand scheme of all things in life, particularly that of a wizard's life, 18 years of age was not much at all, but Hermione had experienced this liberation, and rejoiced in it. 18 years. It was the build up to Christmas when Hermione had really sat back and thought about the very aspect of the newfound colour of not just the wizarding world, but her own life. Her life before entering Hogwarts was awash with the black and white of the monotony of the muggle world, the sameness and simple-ness of the everyday world of normal pre-Hogwarts existence.
She met the first colour when she was just 11 years old - the red of Gryffindor. The euphoric feeling of being chosen to serve the historic house of Hogwarts rushed through her, and as she approached the table. She remembered the cheering and applause she as she approached the table and her seat) She loved the attention her Sorting earned her. They were applauding for her, for her being chosen to serve their house. Her parents gave her attention, of course - it was natural especially since she was an only child but it felt so different now. So much more vibrant. So much more colourful. She revelled in the excitement, the bubble that had been growing and expanding since she had received her Hogwarts letter just weeks before.
The second colour Hermione had met was not the colour that would be expected, she didn't really know what colour she expected in the first place, but knew that this second one was not it. It was the sickly, gloomy colour orange from Neville's first potion. She remembered it as though it was yesterday. Her potion had been the perfect grey, as always, but Neville's was orange, thick, and bubbling like thick mud. It emitted a stench not nearly so pleasant as the one from her grey potion. Hermione remembered looking up, and, upon seeing Snape glaring daggers at the nervous, shaking boy, hurriedly whispering directions to him as their foreboding potions professor enshrouded their word in more darkness. The potion had been just about corrected by the time the professor reached their table, and both had heaved a heavy sigh of relief, not noticing the faint hint of orange lurking in the bleakness of the grey potion. It was almost like the orange of Neville's mis-made potion offended the bleakness of the world as it leaked over to colour the grey. Even today, that orange potion stayed with her, as it had helped her make one of her very first friends.
Yellow. Now there was a colour that Hermione wasn't fond of at all. Yellow reminded Hermione of the bad things in her life, starting when she first encountered it during their first year. She had been crying in the girls' bathroom, Ron Weasley had insulted her for being smarter than he was just like when she had been in primary school when she was younger, when she saw the world for the bleakness and greyness of what it truly was. Yellow was the colour of the troll's eyes, staring at her as it destroyed the girls bathroom, forcing her to hide underneath the sinks. She had wanted to leave the bathroom, only to be blocked by those horrid, watery yellow eyes. Even seven years later she still had occasional nightmares about those eyes staring at her. Seven years later, she still had the occasional nightmare about those yellow eyes, made even more horrifying as they blended in with another pair of yellow eyes from her second year of school. Both that sickly yellow, both the eyes of a creature who wanted to do her harm, she could bear to remember the colour only by remembering that her two best friends, Harry and Ron, had saved her from it both times. If it hadn't been for the troll and the basilisk, she might not ever have made such friends.
At this points, she had experienced the first three colours of her life. She had been introduced to colours that weren't the black and white of her previous life as a muggle. Even those seven years later she would idly wonder if all muggle-born children went through this change.
Green was always the colour of the opposing team, whether it was in the corridors of the school or out on the Quidditch pitch. The colours of the sly, cunning serpent house - it was Slytherin. It was always the colour of the opposition, even outside of Hogwarts, like when Viktor played in the World Cup it was the colour of the opposing side - the green of the Irish Quidditch team, even the colour of the Avada Kadavra spell.
The colour blue meant many things to many different to people. To some, it was sadness, to others it was calming. To Hermione, blue reminded her of Viktor and when they first met. He had been in the library, hiding in the shadows creating a blue light outline about his being. He looked blue as well and who wouldn't be, with innumerable fan girls following one's being about, giggling, squealing and acting as though they were chickens in a pen house waiting to be fed. It was also the colour of her dress, the shimmering periwinkle that Viktor had bought for her to wear for the occasion. He'd said that she looked pretty, and she felt it for the first time in her fourteen years of her life. She felt pretty. But Ron had hated it, hated her for being with Viktor rather than him and Harry for the night. Regardless of that, she still felt pretty. For this reason alone blue became one of her favourite colours quickly.
Indigo was a hard colour to describe. It was everything that was blue and everything that was purple. To Hermione it represented the time between the Yule Ball and Bill and Fleur's wedding, the time in which she felt the prettiness of the blue dress but longed for something more. The colour represented her worry, her campaigning for House Elf rights, her work, her potions. It was like a the colour of indigo was the merging of all the other colours, leading to the final colour of purple.
Violet. Purple. Lilac. There were many
different names for this colour, but this one was the one that she
liked most of all. This colour made her feel more complete in the
world than blue ever had, because this colour was the one that she
wore to Bill and Fleur's wedding. The lilac dress had clung to her
in all the right places, and Ron had stood there speechless as she
walked about the place, talking to the guests. Harry and Ginny had
grown increasingly frustrated with the other boy the further the
night went on. Hermione
had found that a little disconcerting at
first, thinking that perhaps she wasn't dressed appropriately, but
then he had come over to her, had danced with her, had complimented
her. And she felt complete, as a bubble of happiness swelled up
inside of her and burst, much like when she had walked to the
Gryffindor table on her first night of Hogwarts. The world truly
became awash with colour the day of the wedding.
In light of winning the war, the colours of Hermione's life had been even more so emphasised. Like a shinning rainbow, something to be appreciated - to remember forever more. The good colours and the bad, for they would serve as a reminder of the hope, the things worth fighting for in times of the bleakness of life.
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By RyanKathrynCelia & Avindara Nirvene