Number 12, Grimmauld Place was gray. Growing up there Sirius Black had been surrounded by the color gray. The royal blue armchair where his father would read after dinner blended in with the dark green love seat where he and Regulus would play Merlin and Arthur. The parlor was fitted with dark red curtains that melded with the dark walls that were filled with portraits of dead relatives. The colors in Number 12, Grimmauld Place had blended together to create a lifeless grey backdrop to Sirius Black's childhood memories.
When he was six years old, Sirius Black saw color for the first time. He was in Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions with his mother, when a set of dress robes caught his eye. These were no ordinary dress robes. They were the color of the leaves in autumn after they had fallen off the trees and the color of the red wagon that the muggle neighbors would play with in the street, all at once. They were the color of a new Knut, but also the color of the morning sun when it would rise over his Uncle Albert's house on the sea. Sirius was entranced. He wanted to know what red would feel like. He had reached out to touch it, his small hand slow with disbelief at the vibrant, shimmering fabric, when his mother admonished him. Look but don't touch, she had said. He was a Black, not some muggleborn. Even at the age of six he didn't understand his mother's sense of propriety.
The next time Sirius saw that color he was eleven. He was in the antechamber to the Great Hall at Hogwarts waiting to be sorted, surrounded by his peers. Yet he had never felt more scared or alone. Sirius was learning that his beliefs conflicted with what his family wanted, and he did not know how to solve the inextricable problem that was 'the most noble' family Black. He was considering throwing himself into the lake and becoming squid bait when he saw it. It was the same red that he had seen in Madam Malkin's. Standing on his tiptoes he could make out a small girl, with titan hair that resembled the scarlet and gold banners that hung from the wall. Sirius thought back to what his mother had said—to be a Black was to look, not to touch. That was when Sirius decided that he didn't want to be a Black anymore.
It was late, well into the early hours of the morning, when Sirius had come back from raiding the kitchens to find her lounging on the sofa in the Gryffindor common room, engrossed in a textbook. At the sound of him entering through the portrait the figure on the sofa looked up, and smiled. The fire popped and flickered. Even after all this time, the color of her hair could catch him off guard and remind him of the first time he had ever seen her outside the Great Hall.
"Hey Sirius." Her voice was light, almost sing-songy. She was in a good mood.
"Hey Lily," he replied, as he smiled back at her, "are you hungry?" He motioned to the food piled in his arms.
She laughed. He was always eating. "No thank you Sirius."
"Suit yourself," he said, dumping his loot in an armchair as he sat next to Lily on the couch.
Somewhere in the years that James spent pursuing Lily, Sirius had become a confidant to the red headed girl. It was unconventional, for sure, but between James's misguided attempts of wooing Lily, and Sirius's attempts to prove to her that his best mate wasn't as unstable as she would like to think, a type of friendship was formed. Sirius was still James's best friend, and Lily still hated James's guts, but somehow they started confiding in each other, and they had never really stopped.
"So," Sirius said, as he stretched and put his arms behind his head and crossed his ankle, "it's our last year at Hogwarts. Weird, huh?"
"Indeed," Lily commented as she stifled a yawn. Sirius grabbed her hand and pulled her towards his side of the couch. She put her head on his shoulder and sighed.
"Any big plans on what you're going to do after you graduate?" he asked.
"Mmmm, I really don't want to think about graduation right now," between the workload the professors had given them and N.E.W.T.s were looming ominously at the end of the year, responsibility was the last thing she wanted to think about.
"Aww, why not Lily? Are you going to miss me too much?"
She grinned, and he felt her lightly hit his arm as she shot back, "In your dreams, Sirius."
"If only you knew," he replied jokingly as he threw a piece of candy at her. The two burst into laughter.
And this was how it was between them. No pretenses. Just two friends who could joke and flirt, and nothing would change.
He glanced down at her. Her eyes were closed, a dusting of freckles across her nose still remained from the summer. Her hair in the shimmered from the light form the fire. It was the color of the flames. "Lily," he said.
"Yeah."
"Can I play with your hair?"
She tried to hide her smile. Sirius wasn't usually the type to ask permission to do anything, but it was moments like this that reminded Lily why she liked the wizard so much.
"Of course, Sirius," she replied, closing her eyes again.
Gently Sirius put his arm around her shoulder. Lily scooted closer to him. Slowly he ran his fingers through her hair, the red-gold strands slipping through his fingers like water. She sighed softly. Wrapping one of the colored locks around his finger, he smiled. He drank in the moment—the heat from the fire, the warmth from the girl curled up in the arms, the sweetness of the butterscotch in his mouth, and the contentment he felt from being able to, for one moment, to say that he had possessed happiness. He had possessed color, and contrary to all things Black and gray, he was able to look and to touch.