A/N: Lucius does not take kindly to Severus' suggestion. Artist!AU.

Submission for:

The Marauder's Era Competition: Your character has a fight with their best friend - Lucius Malfoy. Prompts: "Reducto!", It wasn't like I wanted it to happen, disappointment, test

The AU! Club: Artist!AU. Prompts: Lucius Malfoy,The urge to interrupt him before he had finished was overwhelming

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

The urge to interrupt him before he had finished was overwhelming. He was spouting pure rubbish and it was a true test of Lucius' patience to continue listening.

"Are you finished?" Lucius asked when Severus' mouth finally closed.

The man gave his friend a look of disappointment. "You never heard a word I said, did you?" he asked.

"Oh, I heard everything," Lucius said, "that's why I can say it's completely idiotic what you're proposing."

"Have you seen your work?" Severus asked as he walked around Lucius small work shop. Hung upon the walls and propped on easels were canvases of Lucius' artwork done in oils, pastels, pencils and crayons, or portraits, gardenscapes and abstracts. "You should show the world your talents. Hold an art show, auction them, sell them."

Lucius scoffed. "I have no need for money, you know this, Severus. I have no need for fame. I don't want people to see these. I paint these for myself." He walked towards an oil painting of a beautiful blonde woman, her eyes bright and her lips pink. This was before the sickness, before she lost all her hair. "I paint these for her," he added quietly.

Severus sighed. "It's been weeks since you've left this place, Lucius. It's not healthy. If Narcissa knew you were running yourself ragged up here,"

"Don't you dare speak her name," Lucius said, whipping out his wand and interrupting his friend. "You don't get to say her name."

"It wasn't like I wanted it to happen," Severus said. "No one did, but it was out of our hands. However, she wouldn't want to see you like this. She would want you to be happy and move on.

"You don't know what she would have wanted," Lucius seethed. "Where were you in her last few days? She asked for you, she wanted to talk to, but you never showed, you never returned her letters. You are not worthy to say anything about her."

Severus moved towards his friend, his hand outstretched and his eyes on the blond man's wand. "Lucius, I-" he began.

"Reducto!" Lucius screamed. Severus jumped out of the way quickly, the spell flying past the edges of his long cloak and hitting one of Lucius' paintings.

Lucius' mouth fell open as the flammable oils burst into flames, the blackened edges slowly eating away the view from Narcissa's bedroom window, one of the last things she saw.

"Get out!" Lucius said.

"Lucius, I didn't mean-"

"Get out!" Lucius roared, his eyes still focused on the burning canvas.

The door to the workshop opened and shut as Severus left. Lucius fell before the canvas, putting out the flames with his wand, but the damage had already been done. His eyes began to sting as tears filled their corners. One of her favourite pieces of his work, ruined.

From a young age, Lucius had an affinity for art and he practiced his talent often, hone his skills and filling countless books with scribbles and sketches. It had been a distant dream of his to be an accomplished artist but Malfoys didn't do such things. They invested their Galleons in businesses. They didn't draw.

Narcissa loved his work and she encouraged it as much as she could and he loved to make her smile. She loved his gardenscapes and his portraits and she was his favourite subject.

When she got sick, he threw himself into his paintings, trying to create more and more pieces to make her happy, to make her forget the pain she was suffering.

Now she was gone and he was left with his paintings, these paintings that once brought her much joy but only served as reminder of what he had loss.

"Narcissa, why did you leave me?" Lucius asked with his head turned to the ceiling, the tear hanging in the corner of his eye finally falling.