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It was three o’clock on the morning of his twentieth birthday when Harry realized he was tired of the color green.
He then promptly rolled over on his green pillows, swung his legs over the side of his green bed, and tried to locate his green slippers. They were having none of it, however, and the moment his big toe found them they snapped. Harry swore as the slippers scurried off under the dresser.
“Right. You might want ter let them through tha’ night”, Hagrid’s note had read, “They get hungry then. Best leave em’ alone.”
He meant well.
They all meant well.
“The Boy Who Lived and Also Saved the World” was still horrible at saying no. Hermione had been working with him on this, even going so far as to seek a proper Muggle counselor for him a mere six months after the war ended. It was thanks to her near constant support that Harry learned he could ask for more time. More time to decide if he wanted to become an Auror or go back to school, more time to decide if he’d live in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, more time to decide if he wanted to resume his relationship with a certain flame-haired Weasley.
He did ultimately decide yes to the first two and no for the latter. He was especially grateful for his choice to live at Grimmauld Place - without it his current problem would be tenfold.
The first of his gifts arrived one week after he finished training.
In the eyes of the Wizarding World, he was now “The Boy Who Lived and also Saved the World and Will Protect us from Further Threats”. The gift had been a thank you letter from an old squib named Mariette Burton, and with it she’d sent a six pack of gigantic green quills. She’d heard it mentioned that his eyes were green.
A week after that he arrived at work to find a stack of parcels on his desk. He had no choice but to open them or he couldn’t get to his work. More green quills, a set of verdant robes that smelled of horses, and sixteen packets of Bertie Botts “Harry Potter Limited Edition Surprise Box: Featuring flavors such as grass, bogeys, green apples, lime, and spinach.”
“You can throw those away mate, you know that right?” Ron said over his stack of unfinished paperwork.
“Yeah,” Harry replied. But aside from the Beans (which he tossed to Ron) he took all the packages home. He magicked a cupboard to add an extra compartment, where he would place his gifts month after month. Some he kept out for practicality - the sheets, quilt, lampshades, rugs...all these he decided he should use instead of spending unnecessary money.
Mrs. Weasley still knitted him a green sweater for Christmas that year and the year after that, and his birthdays were punctuated with green frosted cakes and green fireworks and the envy he noticed in Ginny’s face when Hermione gifted him a teddy bear. It was brown, like wet sand at sunset or the pages of a very old book. Its eyes were brown too, deep chocolate marbles sewed in.
“It’s for the nightmares,” she’d said, for no one’s ears but his. It was for the nightmares that had come back for the first time in nine years. The flash of green light and the cackle and the screams. He needed something to ground him when he woke up in cold sweat. She couldn’t stay with him every night.
Later, Ginny had tried to take the bear so she could give him her gift - a wand polisher in his favorite color - but Harry wouldn’t let it go.
After that initial year the presents had declined. But he’d still received an onslaught around his birthday. He kept the gifts out of guilt for receiving them and feeling he’d be perceived as ungrateful if he didn’t. But every time he looked at them he felt like he was stuck in a Skeeter piece: Harry Potter: The Boy Who was Obsessed with Green.
Green was the color assigned to him.
Slipperless and blind, Harry felt around on the floor. Blankets and pillows had been knocked off the bed from his writhing, and it took a few moments to locate what he wanted. By the time Harry got back in bed, breathing deeply with the bear cradled across his chest, Harry was beginning to wonder how he’d communicate the truth of his favorite color...if he ever truly could. It was nothing vibrant, not like the flora in the Hogwarts greenhouses nor pastels of Aunt Petunia’s flowers (certainly not those).
It was brown, like ginger biscuits and the crust of Mrs. Weasley’s pies. It was brown like his Muggle chess set and the four poster beds in Gryffindor dorm. Brown like a warm gaze and untamed frizzy hair.
Harry rolled over and closed his eyes again, squishing the bear against his nose as he drifted off.
Yeah, it was brown.