Disclaimer: Not JK…

A/n: Written for the 'Crayola colors challenge'. The color was Royal Purple. This is my first time writing Zacharias and Lavender(except another story that completely sucked) so please do tell me if I made nay errors!

This chapter is credited to Jenny who invented and inspired me to write this pairing!

Chapter 6: The Break and the Mend

She was a princess, in her own right. She was a princess, and he was the pauper who was crazy about her. Seriously, though, who would be stupid enough to not like her? Sure, there was the odd person, Ron Weasley namely, who did not know how precious, how exotic and rare a person she was. Sense and beauty, two things that never kept the same company. Of course, not everyone thought of her as that. To them, she was the giggling, Witch Weekly reading, beauty obsessed Gryffindor. He did not understand what was wrong with that. Could anyone on earth claim that they absolutely did not care about how they looked? That they had never once in their life looked into a mirror and admired themselves? It was common behavior, really, to want to look appealing. But rarely did people have the basic good looks to pull it off, and the vast majority who didn't console themselves by stereotyping the others as brainless and dull.

And the Witch Weekly thing, as far as he was concerned, was grossly overrated. It wasn't as if anyone was accusing and looking down their noses on anyone who read the Which Broomstick, transfiguration Today or heaven forbid, the Quibbler. Witch Weekly was just another magazine like that, so why did people have to make such a fuss about it?

But of course, Lavender Brown was unaware that she had such a secret admirer, because she had her own world of drama and boy troubles to deal with. She'd never notice him and he never could work up the courage to tell her, so he remained in the shadows, watching her when he could, helping her if she needed it. And that was how he found her, lost in one of the dilapidated castle corridors, crying her heart out.

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She watched him leave the Great Hall from behind her copy of the latest Witch Weekly. It wasn't usual for her, Lavender Brown, to be discrete. Whatever she did was cast in the limelight, or she did something, anything, to get it there. But this was different, he was different. Not that anyone would notice anything different about him. Afterall, he did not have a scar on his forehead, he wasn't flame haired, wasn't a bushy haired know-it-all. He wasn't even evil. How could someone so mundane, so…bland be popular?

But those facts did not matter to her. She was fascinated by him, for no reason other than that he acted arrogant and conceited. Lavender knew people judged her pretty quickly and condemned her even quicker, but this time, she didn't want that. She wanted her little crush tucked away safely behind the stage of her over dramatic life.

So she remained hidden, behind her wall of shallowness and watched. Watched as he acted haughty and stuck up without ever meaning to; watched as his pride dissolved with the rise of the Dark Lord; watched as he gathered his courage to make the right choice, but ultimately made the wrong one.

When the war was over, so were her charades. Greyback had achieved what no body had been able to. He had ruined her face, her beauty. But with that had gone her shield, her fort from the reality of the world. Reality that came crashing down on her a week later, when she was lying on the hospital bed; she was all alone. Lavender did not know why she felt so in the midst of all her classmates who had united in the front of an enemy. They were all one big mass now, but she felt like an insignificant lonely particle, floating away from the big picture, into a void where there was nothing but black. Dark, dark, endlessly dark.

She had run away from the Infirmary, noone had noticed, which only proved her point. Her looks were gone, and so was her usefulness to others as a person. Her eyes clogged with tears, and she stumbled and fell on a random rock jutting outside from the ground. The rock was just like her, a deformity. And like her, would be removed from its place because it belonged no more. A new, better one would replace it. Lavender felt like she had been uprooted from her home, but had nowhere to land. She was floating, not knowing where she was, what was to come off her now.

And on the dreary night in the deserted corridor in the decrepit castle, she wept; for her misfortune, for her life that was now shattered, for her future that now looked bleak and colorless, and for herself, her pathetic, self-serving self, who had thought all would be well.

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He shouldn't be here. He was not qualified to be here. This castle was now a place for war heroes, of those brave people who fought in the war; not for cowards like him. But he couldn't stay away, he had to do something. He may not be any good at dueling but he did have some proficiency in warding spells and protective enchantments. He had offered to help in the reconstruction of the castle, and Professor McGonagall had agreed. His first destination had been the Infirmary, the only part of the castle that was unblemished, the one place he didn't have to work in.

Looking around, he could see the one face that was missing amongst the rest, the one face that he would have been content to see, the only face that could make fear boil in his stomach like that. He caught hold of a random student, who just so happened to be her best friend, Parvati Patil. He did not even have to ask, before she replied.

"She went off wandering. She was too cooped up so I acted like I didn't notice her. She needs some time alone, but she needs someone beside her more. You know what happened to her…" he nodded impatiently, wanting to run in search of her. Atleast she was safe.

"She's broken, completely. She doesn't show it, but I can see it has affected her far more than she lets on. If you're going to flinch at her scars, I'd advise you not to go near her. She doesn't need that whiplash from you." Parvati walked away, leaving him confused and restless. Shaking aside the first and acting on the second, he scoured the length of the castle looking for her, restoring random bits of the castle to their original state in the process.

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He found her behind a boulder, leaning on the large rock, making it damp with her tears. She must have been lying here for hours, her blotched face and red rimmed eyes were testimony to her solitary mourning. She did not notice his footsteps until he was too near. Or may be she hadn't been paying attention at all, lost in her own world. The very imaginations that had given her happiness tormenting her with their colorless pictures and hopeless futures. She was leaning on the stone, resting her head on it, and he touched her hand to wake her from the trance. She jolted up as if she had been sleeping. Her eyes narrowed in on his face, and for a moment, he thought her torment receded. But only for a moment, after which she turned her face away from him, casting herself in the dark shadows that seemed to loom all over the castle.

"Lavender? Why are you here?" as if he did not know. But she seemed to relax at the question. Most likely she had been expecting him to recoil at the sight of her. But didn't she know? His affections ran deeper than her skin.

"I wanted to be alone for a bit, away from all the commotion and disorder. You came back?" so she knew, did she? That he had runaway from the school as fast as he could.

"Yeah, I wanted to help with the restoration. We need as many people as we can get, if we are going to get the castle back to its condition." He sat beside her, leaning on the wall which, along with the fallen boulder, had closeted her. She did not face him even then, opting to hide her face in the shade the place offered them. But her eyes followed his every move, no doubt looking for even the slightest sign that he was appalled by her distortion. Finding none, her face cleared up gradually, and he thought she almost looked normal, sans the delighted giggle, but it was a start.

"Why are you here?" her voice was unusually strong and serious, and Zacharias knew she wasn't asking him about his presence at the castle this time.

"I realized that the castle wasn't the only thing that needed to be restored to its original splendor" Lavender chuckled wryly, before she replied.

"You really don't know how to say the right words, do you?" noticing his affronted expression, she waved her hand as if to dismiss the subject.

"What do you plan on doing now?" never one to beat around the bush, she thought. More like he didn't know how to do that.

"Wallow in self pity for a few years before I pick up the remaining pieces of me and try to make something of my life" she smiled at him absently, hiding her pain behind it. He noticed.

"Good idea, if you could skip the wallowing part. There are so many other things you could do in that time" he suggested softly, taking one of her hands in his. He ran a finger around the single long scar that marred the back of her hand, and she flinched.

"It hurts?" he stopped, but his hands still held hers gingerly.

"No, it's just…why are you not cringing away from me?" she cried, all her stress obviously bursting out at his actions, and grabbed her hand from the comfort of his. Now, the wound hurt.

"Because I don't care a knut about your scars? Don't tell me you actually want me to do that." he replied equally hotly. How could she say that? But how could she hope either? It was too good to be true. She had a lonely life ahead of her, she knew that. She had accepted it, to some extent. That was what had brought on the tears afterall. But now he was here telling her he didn't care. How could he expect her to believe this was reality and not a cruel dream?

"You don't mean it. I know you say this now, but once you see me in daylight, it's horrible. And if you're seen with me, it could spoil your…" her retorts were cut off as his lips crashed on hers. She had dreamt of this one incident for so long. But he'd always, always declare his undying love for her before kissing her, gently. And she wouldn't be disfigured by the ugly scars. But reality was different, and she found that for once, her imaginations were outdone. Before she could gather herself to respond to him, he pulled back.

"Convinced? Or do I have to make a big PDA for you to believe me? I will do that too, if you want" he was grinning at her and for once, the high and mighty expression on his face dissolved into something softer, something a lot more pleasant. Something a lot like a smile.

"Not a bad idea" she placed her hand in his, loving the way her razed hand complemented his perfect ones. He lifted their joined hands to kiss her palm, a gesture that almost made her cry; he really didn't care.

"Anything for you, princess" she laughed at the clichéd expression, but loved it just as well. A princess, for a prince.

The wizarding world thought of them as the war wreck and the coward, but they did not care. They had their own royal purple cloaks and happily ever afters. They were royalty afterall.

A/n: Review!