Light. Light as a shade, light as a flare, light as the means by which we can see anything else that we might someday call light. Light is not a colour, though light can take on many colours. Light as a shade simply means a certain kind of colour, and then the light itself is not a colour at all, but just a description for something else.
And as for the source of light…that’s an entirely different matter altogether for light can have many sources, as many as light’s colours, for both are infinite. Light can come from anywhere: from the heavens above in a glowing bask, from the very deepest of trees in a shimmering sliver, and, most significantly to the wizarding world, from the tip of a wand. And if it comes from that latter source, the colour of the light matters very much indeed.
As wizards progress through Hogwarts, they’ll learn that a flash of red light is a Stunning Spell. They learn the words they must speak to cast this spell, and they use those words as though they could command the light, although light itself can never be commanded. But this light isn’t real light because this light is just a symbol of something else. In a Stunning Spell, it’s a symbol of someone being Stunned. It’s an indication of something about to happen, nothing more.
And as wizards progress further through Hogwarts – although, if their parents practice Dark Magic, as many did, they might learn this spell even before the Stunning Spell – they’ll learn about other flashes of light and what those mean. A flash of green light, for example, a flash of green light, that’s the most important of them all. That one symbolizes death, death, the absence of life, death, the loss of life, death, the loss of light as one is consumed by eternal darkness.
And this, this green light, this is the most powerful spell of them all. And he knows it. It’s no secret really, so even his adversary knows it, and his adversary’s wife knows it, and even her innocent son – well, if he didn’t know it now, then he would soon know it. And he enters the house, armed with the knowledge that this green light, this green light that will be cast from the end of his phoenix core wand, will end lives. Young Harry Potter would lose his life to this green light, as so many others had before him.
And Voldemort enters, enters the house easily, knowing that this is the case. The green light has never failed to steal a life before, has never failed him at all even. And he watches as he feels the words leave his cruel lips, watches as his first opponent falls to the ground, his life lost forever. The green light has taken it from him. He watched it pass through James Potters’ body, watched the body fall limp and lifeless to the ground. Another life lost. Another life lost to Lord Voldemort. Another life lost to the green light.
He moves upstairs, beckoned by the screams of the woman and the cries of the baby boy she’s holding in her arms. He pushes open the bedroom door with ease, the spell to unlock it barely a whisper against his lips. He enters the room and sees her across from him. She’s holding the baby in her arms, comforting him, or trying to, while he, Voldemort, plots the best way to kill him. He moves forward, demands the child’s life, demands another life be lost to his cause, and this life is the most important of them all, because if the green light does not succeed in taking this child’s life, then he will never rise to power. He will lose his chance, according to the prophecy. And though he doesn’t want to admit to believing in such fallacies as prophecies, he doesn’t want to risk it.
She won’t let go, and so he’s forced to summon the powers of the green light again. Carefully he watches as Lily Potter’s soul is lost to the green light. She falls to the ground, her eyes still wide open, the life they once held just barely extinguished. The boy is crying in her limp arms, wailing at the top of his lungs. He cannot stand crying. And more importantly, he cannot stand to miss this chance.
He approaches the boy and raises his wand again. The green light, the force of the green light, and the power of the green light, is aching to burst from the tip of his wand; he can feel it. His greed is feeding his desire and he turns to look at the boy with cruelty etched in every line of his tortured face. The light shoots from the end of his wand, and he watches in slow motion as it rebounds off the boy. The boy’s life is not lost.
But then, it is his life that is lost, or being lost, as it were, because he is dying, not dead quite yet. He is in shock, because the green light has never failed him before, and he doesn’t understand why it has suddenly turned on him, why it has spared one life and has chosen to take another. But then again, it’s not the light that chooses; no, he supposes, maybe it’s the prophecy. But he can’t think any more about that just now, as he feels his own life slipping through his fingers, the overwhelming sense of loss rushing over him as he shrinks back into nothingness, unable to cling to his form any longer.
And the green light rests for awhile, unable to harm anyone from the phoenix wand when its naïve commander has lost his life. Lord Voldemort is no more. He has lost, lost to the power of the light that he had tried to summon, had tried to force to do his bidding. And the light had done his bidding, the green light, green light he had thought to have been so faithful. But the light has a mind of its own, and the green light took for its prize another life lost.