Disclaimer: If Harry Potter belongs to me, I could have asked either Stephenie Meyer or Nora Robert to finish the series. So, yeah, obviously it's not mine.

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A/N: First of all I want to say thank you to everybody that read this story. It's the first piece I have ever finished in English, even if it is a bit short. I'm especially grateful to TwilightAngel08 who beta read the story for me. It meant a lot so thanks.

This is my entry to the 'Beautiful and Broken Challenge' by sick-atxxheart. It was a wonderful challenge and I had a blast writing this story.

I really hope everybody enjoy the story and please let me know your thoughts on it!

Beautifully Broken

He came down the stairs with his camera in hand. The year has just begun but he could not stop himself from wanting to send home more pictures. Unlike the year before, when what he wanted was to somehow introduce his family to his life as a wizard, to the things that were happening in Hogwarts, this year it was out of pure pleasure.

He knew he was good with a camera. But being good was not enough when what he really wants in life was being the best. Just that past summer he had started working for a professional photographer who lives near his house, though he had done little but fetching coffee all summer and he could not even touch one of the photographer's precious cameras. But the experience was amazing anyway. And it let him know that he had a long way to go before being the best.

He was in a good track though. According to said professional photographer, he was pretty good. For an amateur anyway.

Colin was so concentrated on his thoughts that he almost missed the small figure who was sitting at the window. However, when he finally spotted her he came to a sudden stop. He had never seen anyone more beautiful.

It has to be the pose – she was sitting on a cushion on the windowsill. It was closed, because it was raining. Her face was turned towards the gray sky and thanks to the lighting the drops of water in the window were reflected on her face, making her look like she was crying. – Because he had seen her dozens of times before and while he always thought her pretty enough, she had never had that effect on him.

As he walked closer to her a lightning crossed the sky, he could see for the one instant that it was alive, her eyes not only reflecting the storm outside but the one going inside of her. He was sure that she looked young and lost to everybody else in that moment, but to the artist in him she was breathtaking.

Before he could really think about what he was doing he grabbed his camera and took a photo.

Wide brown eyes burned him immediately and once again he acted without thinking and took another photo.

"You're beautiful." He said as he continued to take pictures of her.

"Will you stop that?" While her face and the look on her eyes had spoken of vulnerability, her voice was strong and irritated. "What's your problem?"

"I told you, you are beautiful. The most beautiful creature I had seen. Ever."

She laughed. It was a mirthless sound, almost hollow, and stood up, crossing her arms around chest, like she was trying to hug herself.

"Then I guess you have a really messed up sense of what's beauty and what it's not."

"Why do you say that?" he asked her confusedly. He scratched his head with a hand while the other gripped his camera even harder. He wanted to take another photo of her it that position she was in right now, but knew she probably hex him if he tried. "You have to be aware of how bea…"

She interrupted him however, before he could finish that sentence. Her voice this time was harsh and emotional. Agonized.

"Don't say that. Please, don't call me beautiful. I can't stand it."

"Why?" He was completely baffled. "It's the truth, Ginny."

"I'm not beautiful. I'm a complete mess. I'm an idiot, a fool. Completely and utterly broken. That's what I am. That's who I am."

Because a sob just escaped her as she just finished yelling at him, she turned around and walked back to the cushion on the windowsill. She sat and put her hands on her face, then on her hair like she was trying to pull it from its roots.

"How can you stand to be near me? After everything that happened last year? After what I did to you? How can you stand right there and call me, of all people, beautiful? How can you believe it?"

She was crying now. Colin could see how much it cost her, not only the words that she was telling him, but the action on itself. To cry in front of him. He could see it in her eyes, that she believed herself to be weak. To be broken. How much she hated herself.

"Because I don't blame you." He finally said.

She looked at him with surprise but lowered her head once again, like she could not stand to look at him. It broke his heart to see her that way. To see a creature that was meant to project life and joy and magic in its purest form shows nothing but sadness and agony. To be so tormented and broken was wrong.

"Well you should." She said after a long silence. Her voice was soft and vulnerable. "I'm not the victim here, Colin. And everyone is treating me like I am. Everything that happened last year, all the attacks, were because of me. I let them happen. It was my fault you lot almost died. Harry almost died."

"You almost died."

He walked to her slowly, showing her his hands. She was like a wounded wild animal, and he knew that she would lash out at the minimum provocation. He came to a stop in front of her and took her chin on his right hand, forcing her to look at him.

"Listen to me. I don't care if you are responsible for what happened last year. For my attack or the others'. I don't blame you, Ginny. I'm just glad to be alive and that the whole business it done and over with."

"You could have died!" she whispered desperately while she willed herself not to cry again.

"But I didn't."

"But..."

"No buts." He sighed and dropped his hand. "If you feel so bad about it, you can make it up to me."

"How?"

"Be my model. Let me take photos of you."

"Why? Haven't you been listening? I'm not good at all. I'm damaged goods."

"And I'm a complete bastard that, instead of helping you get out of this funk, I'm going to take advantage of it to make a series of portraits. I have a name for it too."

She smiled. And just like before he grabbed the camera and took a picture of her before he could think it through.

"What did you do that? I just finished crying."

He shrugged to show her it had been an impulse.

"You're beautiful when you cry." He said simply and she could do nothing else but believe him.

"Colin? What's the name?"

"The name?

"Of the series of portraits? The ones you wanted to do about me? What's the name?

He kneeled on the floor and put the camera in his face, trying to adjust the lens of it, a half smile on his face. One that made her think that there was more to him than what she first thought.

"Beautifully Broken," he said and she laughed, showing that she was beautiful not only in sadness, but in every aspect of her life.

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