Red and Green and Gold and Silver:(Was: Harry's green eyes)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 85312

Carol wrote: 
>> But what's extremely odd is that the eye colors and wand light 
colors are opposite. In other words, Voldemort has red eyes but the 
light from his wand is green, matching Tom Riddle's old house: 
Slytherin. Harry has green eyes but the light from his wand is red, 
matching the scarlet of Gryffindor.
 What on earth does it mean? It can't be that green (Slytherin) = evil
and red or scarlet (Gryffindor) = good. <snip> The union of the 
houses? The end of rivalry and division at Hogwarts? Is gold 
associated with Fawkes the Phoenix? >>


   Well, Harry's jet of light is red because it comes from the 
Expelliarumus spell, whereas Voldemort's is green because it's an 
Avada Kedavra. Harry's earliest memory: jets of green light=bad. Then 
he gets to Hogwarts where green = Slytherin = Draco = enemy. I don't 
know if we have it anywhere else in canon that Expelliarumus is a red 
jet though - we know that Stupefy is. Someone flag down a passing 
L.O.O.N? I wonder if the significance of Harry and Voldemort having 
their opposite number's eye colour has something to do with that 
old "In Essence Divided" malarky which I see Berit has flagged up in 
response to this post - linked because each of them has a little of 
the other in them. Lily Potter, too, with her red hair and green 
eyes, connects them. (NB - none of the Weasleys are mentioned as 
having green eyes)

  Certainly gold=Fawkes in this instance - it occurs along with the 
phoenix song because the wand cores come from him. Phoenix rebirth as 
good, though? Rising from the ashes is precisely what Voldemort does 
in this scene and is obsessed with.

Berit wrote:
 
> Personally I think Rowling's use of colours often means something. 
What exactly, I'm not sure :-) Has anyone noticed her use of colours 
in the silver instrument scene in OoP? The one where a SILVER 
instrument issues GREEN smoke from which a SNAKE arises.>

Silver is also the colour of the Patronus. There's one other silver 
spell I'm interested in too:
******
Dumbledore flicked his own wand: the force of the spell that emanated 
from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his *golden guard*, 
felt his hair stand on endas it passed, and this time Voldemort was 
forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect 
it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the 
shield, though a deep, gong-like note reverberated from it - and 
oddly chilling sound.
'You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?' called Voldemort, his 
scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of his shield. 'Above such 
brutality, are you?'
'We both know there are other ways of destroyng a man, Tom,' 
Dumbledore said...'Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I 
admit -'
'There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!' snarled Voldemort.
'You are quite wrong,' said Dumbledore...
******
OoP, Bloomsbury, p718. Emphasis and ellipsis my own. 
Voldemort knows something we don't here  - that this spell (whatever 
it is) couldn't kill him. However, the force of description by which 
it is rendered suggests that this particular spell is that thing 
worse than death which Voldemort is in denial of. His denial is 
preserved by the physical manifestation of a silver shield, and this 
silver shield is very different to Harry's "golden guard" (the 
headless statue).
So, if the phoenix gold has something to do with 
rebirth/revitalisation, silver seems to be the colour of protection 
and possibly denial. It makes the Dementors (depression, confronting 
one's worst fears) disappear (as someone noted today, it doesn't 
*destroy* them, just sends them on the run for a while. Patronus as 
wizarding Prozac, anyone?), and it protects Voldemort from this thing 
worse than death, which he fears but will not admit to.

Kirstini, absolutely unable to draw any further conclusions!