A chandelier lay in ruins, the beautiful glass crystal shattered in tiny pieces across the beautifully tiled floor, its metal frame warped beyond recognition. The rich oak tables were in splinters scattered across the floor. Blood dried and pooled on the floors, on the walls, and each of the beautiful, large bay windows that lined the walls were cracked and fractured, and the world outside those windows, she mused, didn't look much better so she tried, tried so hard to remember a more beautiful time that was almost too far gone for her to recall.

She remembered dresses made of luxuriant fabrics, champagne glasses forged out of the finest crystal, the way the ballroom glowed in a bath of light under the beautiful old chandelier, the click of heels as they fell against the gorgeously tiled floor, but what she remembered most was that moment, years ago, when grey met blue across a crowded ballroom and changed her life forever.

He'd walked across the room, and he had been perfect, perfect enough to match her previously unmatched level of flawlessness. His grey eyes held the confidence of a young man far too used to getting his own way, and though a few strands of his slicked back blonde hair fell across his face, he still looked perfect because of the grace and refinement he exuded, grace and confidence that only came after generations of selective breeding and life in the lap of luxury.

Later, years later, in between the wars, during the time of uneasy peace, she had asked him what about her had made him walk across the ballroom that night and ask for a dance.

"Your eyes," had been his simple two-word answer, because Lucius Malfoy had never been a man for unnecessary words and elaborate description, but then, he'd never been a romantic either, and she couldn't think of anything more romantic than gazes catching and holding across a crowded room, seemingly worlds apart.

His answer had been concise, and after that, he'd simply wrapped a strong arm around her slim waist and fallen asleep. The conversation was over and probably wouldn't be brought up again, but that short conversation lingered in her mind, giving her hope, bringing her light when the darkness overtook them again because she could take refuge in the knowledge that once upon a time, her husband who was now a killer had once been a teenage boy who was taken in by a teenage girl's bright sparkling eyes.

And so, she stood in that room in which grey had once met blue and wondered how on Earth she was supposed to live a life without her husband.