Pink for want. Purple for spontaneity. Orange for muse. Red for fire.
At seven, Sirius found color. Washes of blue, tinges of green, sparks of yellow. They enamored him, captured him, made him desperate. He would search all day trying to find specks of anything that wasn't gray and black and white. He dug up old newspapers, seeking satisfaction and pleasure at the crinkled, yellowed pages. They brought him out, made him bold, made him unafraid. Even in a place so void of life, he found color.
At eleven, Sirius had his first kiss. It was pink, full of innocent want and undeveloped confidence. He remembers memorizing the color of her hair, dark and brown, contrasting vividly with the brightness of her lips. The pretty blur of the bookshelves behind her head where literature he would never read rested and observed silently. He wants to relive that moment again, surrounded by color, color that was endless, color that practically engulfed him. He yearns for that moment to come again, where he can grasp the colors, hold them tightly in his fist and bring them back to the present.
At fifteen, Sirius encountered himself lost. He's loud now. Rebellious, unruly, wayward, complicated, sad. He hides his growing teenage angst, his pent up anger towards his physically abusive father and mentally abusive mother with purple. He snogs tons of girls. He cries a couple of times. He hits Regulus on several occasions. Purple lets him do that. Purple lets him be him. Random, careless, cold, frightened, and worried. Purple crowds him from reality, but not completely. He gets glimpses, stares, glances. They scare him, more than he would ever admit. So he repeats. He shoves his tongue down the mouth of any girl who allows it, lets the tears fall only when he's sure he's alone, and wonders in a daze why he didn't try harder to protect Regulus as he carves scars that will always come back to haunt him.
At seventeen, Sirius fell in love. Orange is his muse. He likes its neutrality. Not achingly unachievable like yellow, but not terrifyingly dangerous like red. But it's unfortunate, because orange is hope, and in the long run, hope never wins. Not even once. And he knows he has no chance, like the painful, happiness of yellow but he tries anyway. Because, somewhere in his heart, he knows he loves her in that terribly perilous way where he closes his eyes and jumps headfirst in without looking back. He's made the dive and he struggles for air. He gasps and splutters and waves frantically, but he's in too deep. That's what orange does, fools you into thinking it's nothing and kicks you in the shin for believing.
At twenty one, Sirius died. His heart died, along with his soul, and his mind. Red is frightening, as anyone will tell you. Red is the color of Lily Evans's hair, and James Potter's love. It's the color of the blood spilled, thick and glossy and constant. He can't tell the difference, between the one whose parents were purists and the one whose parents cared. He holds up his wrist, the red slit blossoming and trickling. He watches it move, down the path it traces on his skin and crumbles. Red is passion. And too much passion destroys. The colors are gone, left only with his childhood to play like a movie in front of him. Black and white and gray. This time there is no escape, no yellowed newspapers and pink lips and purpled reality and his orange muse. They have vanished, taken from him, squeezed out until he is left shriveled and broken.