This was written for the Moonlight Forgotten Year 7 THC/ The House Competition 2021
Round 8
House: Gryffindor
Class: Muggle Studies
Category: Drabble
Prompt(s) chosen: [Colour] Royal Blue
Word Count: 599
Fifteen-year-old Sirius Black stood in front of the mirror and stared at his image. He was carelessly handsome—something he inherited from his family, mostly his father. He was dressed in elegant, royal blue robes with a silver trim and his sleek black hair that most could only achieve with a Sleek-eazy potion was neatly combed. Anyone else would have admired how he looked, but Sirius couldn't help but look at his image with disdain.
Royal-blue. The family color of the Ancient and Noble House of Black. The Blacks usually wore royal-blue to social events as a proclamation of their "royal" Black heritage. They arrogantly thought they looked like royalty amongst the other families in attendance. He used to like royal blue just fine as a child but gradually grew a resentment for the color as his family had begun to represent everything that he hated. He hated their bigotry, their cruelty, their support of Voldemort and, to top it all off, the fact that they were encouraging Regulus to become a Death Eater. His hatred for his family and what they represented now made him hate everything that represented them too. Hence, he now hated royal-blue due to its mere association with his family.
Sirius was forced to attend the boring social events the Blacks attended. Boring was one thing, but he cringed at the way the people at these events behaved; they were mostly bigoted, social snobs. Sirius wanted so much to rebel and wear any other color just to snub his family, but he was threatened by Walburga that she would lock him up and never let him return to Hogwarts. For now, he would settle with playing amusing pranks at these events and blackmailing Regulus into helping him and keeping his mouth shut. He couldn't wait to turn seventeen and be free from his family. He would never wear royal-blue ever again after he was free from his family.
Twenty years later, Sirius was back in his ancestral home, something he had never thought would happen. But cruel fate had done many things to him in the past fourteen years. First, he had lost his best friend, James. A few days later, he was wrongly framed and arrested for giving the Potters up to Voldemort, and then he had spent twelve years in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit. Two years ago, he had finally escaped but was now stuck being in hiding in his ancestral home until his innocence was proven. Sirius's only consolation was having the company of his godson, Harry, the Weasleys, and Hermione, who were all living with him that summer.
"Sirius," came Harry's voice, bringing him out of his thoughts.
Sirius automatically brightened up at the voice of his godson. He looked, sounded and acted so much like James which was both a source of comfort and grief to him. His eyes widened at Harry's shirt which was royal blue.
"Nice shirt," he said, trying not to let his voice give away his disdain for the color.
"I finally got a shirt in my favorite color," said Harry.
This surprised Sirius. The only thing he ever associated with royal blue was his family. He had never realized that the color might not represent that to everyone. Perhaps it was silly to associate a color solely with one thing. A color was, after all, just that: a color. Human beings gave meaning and symbolism to them. A color that represented his family to him would now also represent his godson to him who ironically felt more like family than his own.