Luna's Colours

Luna was never one for black. It was the colour of mourners and, since she knew that the dead weren't lost forever, she felt like a fraud if she wore it. Instead Luna always wore purple. Many of those who saw this took it as an insult to the deceased but they needn't have. Purple was the colour of lost love, which is what the true loss is when one soul departs.

Luna's funeral colours had never been questioned prior to the War, as the only funeral she had attended had been her mother's. At Dumbledore's service everyone had been too busy with the bigger picture to notice one girl's purple robes. So it wasn't until the bigger picture no longer mattered, at a small private service, that someone noticed. The service was Fred Weasley's. Everyone was so busy mourning that they didn't notice the small girl in purple slipping into the back row. George did. When people stood to give speeches about Fred, their eyes didn't get drawn to the splash of colour at the back. George's did. Whilst all the other mourners spoke of their world ending with the loss of Fred, George's did.

Luna saw all this and knew what would come from it; people were predictable. Sure enough, when everyone offered their condolences to the family, George strode over to her with angry strides. He stopped three paces from her as though her non-conformity was contagious.

"Why are you wearing purple?" His teeth ground together and his eyes were filling. He fought against the emotion. "This is a funeral."

Luna ignored his question and avoided his eyes. "Everyone says I'm sorry at funerals but no one's quite sure what they're sorry for. So I won't say I'm sorry because I'm not. Instead I shall tell you the truth: it will be okay."

He stared at her with all the hatred and anger he had felt brewing up since Fred had died. Then he began to cry. The tears were not like the tears he'd cried when he saw the other half of him fall in death. These tears were deep, hopeless things that carried away all the angry, spiteful emotion he contained, allowing him to begin to heal. The other difference in these tears was the company. For such an odd girl, Luna was certainly good at keeping him together. Her arm on his back gave him an anchor in the storm, much like Fred had always been an anchor to him. The eccentric young girl suddenly had a different role in George's eyes.

Luna's funeral colour was purple for lost love. But love can never be truly lost, even when someone leaves. Love is merely displaced so one is driven to find it again, sometimes in the strangest of places. The love that was lost with the death of Fred Weasley was found again by the twin he left behind in an unusual place. Purple, as Luna Lovegood will tell, is the colour for those who are searching. And sometimes, just sometimes, purple is a sign that it will get better.