Severus had never been overly fond of Christmas. His childhood had not been full of warm hearths, plentiful gifts and affectionate parents like many of his peers, nor had his adulthood. If anything the holiday had faded into the background. If a colleague or friend had ever attempted to give him a gift they had quickly learned his disinterest in the practice and lack of appropriate thankfulness. Truly Christmas was and always would be just another reminder of the joy and happiness that his life had lacked. At least so he thought until this year.
Narcissa had written Severus a rather passive aggressive letter earlier in the month outlining the expectations when courting a pure blood witch. It didn't seem to matter to her that Lucia was neither of entirely pure blood or actually interested in being courted in a traditional manner. Narcissa did list off a few recommendations for gifts in the letter than Severus had considered. Jewelry was, of course, at the top of the list.
Severus sifted through his mind, trying to remember if Lucia wore jewelry and when. She had worn a necklace on their date, but he had noted that she was adjusting it constantly and removed it at some point in the night. She wore small stud earrings with what looked like rubies every day and didn't change them. He noted she did have a second piercing in her ear but had never seen her wear anything in them. The fact that he had paid that close attention to her ears did not entirely settle well with him. He was paying too much attention to this woman. As for bracelets or rings, she seemed to own neither. Save for a small nose stud that he occasionally noticed was switched out for a ring, Lucia went unadorned.
In fact, after reviewing the list of suggestions, there were very few things on it Severus could imagine Lucia enjoying. She was almost exclusively interested in music, though he was happy to discover she also enjoyed reading.
He was actually quite proud of the gift he had settled on. It was something she did not, to his knowledge, possess and would hopefully be impressive and meaningful. Developing it had been no small task and he wondered if she had guessed it when she noticed the books on theoretical legilimens as well as musical charms on his desk.
If she had guessed, she hadn't revealed anything and even seemed displeased when he asked her if the gift had arrived in her chambers. Perhaps she had not been expecting to exchange gifts. Either way, it was Christmas morning and Severus couldn't help the mild feeling of anticipation bordering on excitement he had as he left his chambers for breakfast.
The dungeons were especially dark and quiet around the holidays. It seemed a waste to light the dark crevices when there were so few students in attendance. Even Severus had to admit the still darkness was a bit disconcerting, especially in the gloomy early mornings when the light was too weak to penetrate the black lake. The light increased as he approached the grand staircase, illuminating the stairwell in a grim light as it began to shift and raise off the ground.
"Blasted stairs," Severus muttered, raising his wand to summon the stairs back when he noticed a figure dressed in white laying on the floor, partially hidden in the shadow of the steps.
A student must have decided to drink on Christmas Eve, he decided. It wasn't often that they were stupid enough to pass out in the hallway but it was not the first time. He considered leaving them, hoping another student would find them and save Severus the trouble of helping and ultimately punishing the student. Detentions, though never fun, had lost the twisted satisfying feeling that they had held for so many years. Perhaps it was because Lucia always scowled at him when she thought he was being a, in her words, 'spoil sport.' It was actually the image of Lucia scolding him for letting a student be passed out in the hallway that caused Severus to approach the figure.
It wasn't until he cast a lumos charm and got a better view that he realized it was not a student.
"Lucia!" He rushed to her side, dropping to his knees to examine her.
Lucia's eyes were closed, the dark circles underneath them made even more obvious by the harsh shadows cast by his wand. Her hair was disheveled and there looked to be blood seeping out from underneath her head, soaking her curls in a dark red. She was laying on her side and her arm and shoulder underneath her looked to be at an odd angle. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, but she didn't respond when he called her name.
Severus knew better than to move her. It looked as if she had maybe fallen and he didn't know how extensive the injuries were. Instead he called out for the house elf Sippy.
The elf appeared in front of him, her cheerful smile quickly turning to concern as she glanced down at Lucia.
"Sippy, I need you to get Pomfrey down here immediately." He said, perhaps more harshly than he intended. Sippy was the only house elf who wasn't frightened of him and he didn't want to ruin that.
"Of-of course sir. Right away." She said, her wide eyes on the still form of Lucia as she disappeared with a pop.
"Lucia, Lucia wake up." Severus said, trying to gently lift her head and inspect where the blood was coming from.
There was a large knot on the left side of her skull that indeed was leaking blood all over the dungeon floor.
Severus swore to himself, casting a quick charm to clot the blood. Madam Pomfrey would do a much better job but at least he could stop the bleeding.
His eyes began trailing down the rest of her body. The nightgown she was wearing was loose and hid her figure, not allowing him to properly inspect her without removing it. He began to lift it from her legs when he realized it was not just any nightgown. It was the nightgown. The one from her dreams. The one she had asked him to inspect.
A thought flitted across his mind that perhaps he should move away from her. Though she looked like his Lucia, there was still a murderously powerful being that may be lurking behind her pretty face. Gods she looked pale. As much as his instincts told him to preserve his own safety, the fragile state of her insisted he stay at her side.
Pomfrey appeared soon after, exclaiming in shock as she looked down at Lucia's form. She quickly pulled out her wand and began assessing the damage, muttering under her breath about the moving staircases and how there's at least one accident every year.
The trip up to the Hospital Wing seemed to take years as he watched Lucia's seemingly lifeless body float ahead of him. Pomfrey had quickly reset her shoulder which had been dislocated and mended her broken arm. Her collarbone was shattered as well and that required a potion, but besides a concussion that she didn't yet know the scope of, Pomfrey assured Severus that Lucia was safe to move.
Severus could have cried with joy when she said that Lucia would likely have a full recovery, though not for a few days. Her shattered collarbone would need to be mended using the skele grow potion rather than a spell and her concussion would need to be treated with care and supervision, both of which Severus was quick to volunteer.
"What a dreadful Christmas gift." Pomfrey said absentmindedly as she lifted Lucia's unconscious head to sit more comfortably in bed. "A bad fall and a concussion. Poor dear."
Severus was silent, standing next to the bed and looking down at Lucia. Pomfrey had mended the wound on the back of Lucia's head and cleaned her up a bit, but her hair was still wild and her face still hauntingly pale.
"I can let you know when she wakes up." Pomfrey offered.
"No. I will stay." Severus said resolutely. The urge to reach out for Lucia's hand was overwhelming but he wouldn't dare while Pomfrey was still nearby.
"Now Severus, that's no way to spend Christmas." She tutted.
"I said I would stay." He snapped, not taking his eyes off Lucia.
"Alright, if you say so." Pomfrey lifted her hands in defeat. "Though I can't imagine she will wake up anytime soon. Skele Grow can be quite unpleasant so I gave her a few drops of a sleeping potion, hoping to save her from the worst of it."
Severus sat next to Lucia's bed for hours. McGonagall had visited, offering to bring him a book while he waited for her to wake up. He had dismissed her quickly, not wanting to be distracted in case her condition worsened. Or she woke up and was not his Lucia.
She had always been pale. The golden olive tone of her skin was light. She joked occasionally about being a shut in and never being outside long enough to tan. Even still, she looked especially pale despite the bright white of the bedding.
It wasn't until late in the evening when she stirred. Severus tensed in his seat, his grip on his wand tightening.
"Merlin's sagging beard. Fuck me." She muttered under her breath.
Severus let out a sigh. This was his Lucia. A medieval era phantom wouldn't swear quite as colorfully.
"Why do I feel like I tried to get intimate with the whomping willow?" She asked, cupping the back of her skull. Her eyes gazed around the Hospital Wing with confusion before landing on Severus. She looked tired but he was relieved to see she was awake.
"You may have fared better if you did." Severus said, trying to keep his expression composed.
"Seriously, what the fuck happened?"
"I was rather hoping you might have an idea."
"The last thing I remember is eating a very large portion of cake that I smuggled into my chambers and then falling asleep." She said, her brows still furrowed.
This information did not surprise Severus. He didn't expect her to remember being possessed, if that was indeed the case.
"Do you have a history of sleepwalking at all?" Severus asked.
"No I sleep like the dead. Which is very fitting considering the dead are the subjects of most of my dreams."
"What did you dream about last night?"
"Nothing." Lucia replied. That wasn't unusual. If she wasn't seeing someone's death, she usually had a blissfully dreamless sleep. "What the hell happened, Severus?" She asked, her frustration growing.
"You were found on the floor of the dungeons with a few broken bones and concussion. Madam Pomfrey suspects you fell from at least the ground floor, possibly the first." Severus said, watching her face carefully for recognition.
"I don't- I don't remember heading down to the dungeons or waking up. Perhaps it's the concussion?" She tried to rationalize.
Severus paused for a moment, considering sharing the last piece of information. She didn't remember and perhaps that was for the best. Before he could decide one way or another Madam Pomfrey rushed in.
"Oh dear, I'm glad you've woken up." Poppy said, rushing to Lucia's side. "Shame on you Severus for not getting me right away."
Severus rolled his eyes at the scolding. She had treated him in the hospital wing many times as a student, as well as in the last few years as he spied for Dumbledore. He was used to her scolding.
"Tell me dear, how are you feeling?" She asked Lucia.
"My head hurts and I'm tired but I'm otherwise fine. Although my right shoulder is quite stiff now that I think about it." Lucia said, rolling her shoulder with a grimace.
"Yes well a shattered collarbone and dislocated shoulder will do that. You're lucky it wasn't worse." Poppy said, pulling out her wand to cast some quick spells to examine Lucia. "As for your head, nothing a bit of chocolate won't fix."
Lucia seemed to perk up a bit with the mention of chocolate.
"I do have to check your concussion dear. The mind is a very fragile thing." Poppy said. "Tell me, what is the name of this castle?"
"Hogwarts?" Lucia said, her expression giving away the fact that she thought the fanfare was a bit ridiculous.
"Indeed, and where in the castle are we?"
"The Hospital Wing."
Pomfrey lifted her left hand and displayed 3 fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three. Honestly I'm fine. Please just give me some chocolate and I'll be on my merry way." Lucia said, snapping a bit in irritation.
Poppy sighed. "Of course. Though I was hoping I could convince you to stay until your collarbone had fully healed. Promise me you won't do anything strenuous for the next few hours." She shot Severus a pointed look. "Like… dancing."
"Oh I can assure you there will be no dancing." Lucia said dismissively.
"Until New Years." Severus corrected.
"I think it's probably best I don't exacerbate my shoulder." Lucia pretended to pout.
"You'll be fine by tomorrow." Poppy corrected, reaching under the bed and retrieving some folded up white fabric. "Your nightgown from last night. I took the liberty of cleaning it. There was a bit of blood on the collar."
Severus stiffened and looked over at Lucia. She was looking at the folded nightgown with an unreadable expression, though he thought he saw fear flicker behind her eyes. "Thank you." she said stiffly, grasping the fabric to her chest as she rose from the bed. She was wearing a different set of pajamas retrieved by the house elves. They were a pale pastel orange pair of pants with a loose fitting camisole. As she rose he could see the slightly swollen flesh of her collarbone and shoulder. But what he noticed most was the slight tremble of her hands and the sway in her stance as she found her feet.
"I can escort you to your rooms." Severus offered, reaching out to grasp her uninjured arm.
"No!" Lucia snapped, then a bit more gently. "No, I can find my own way, thank you."
Pomfrey summoned a set of robes for Lucia to wrap around herself and a pair of shoes, letting her know not to hesitate to call for her if she starts feeling faint or anything begins aching."
"I will, thank you Madam Pomfrey." Lucia said, she shot Severus a look of warning as she left which he promptly ignored.
She was already halfway down the hall when he caught up with her.
"You shouldn't be walking so fast. You're still weak." He said, his hand on her uninjured wrist.
"When were you going to tell me about the nightgown Severus." Lucia snapped, whipping around.
"I wanted to make sure there was no other explanation." He said, a bit shocked by her anger toward him.
"Don't you think you should have led with it? It seems kinda, oh gee I don't fucking know, really god damn important." She huffed.
"Not more important than your health." He answered.
"I'm fine. I'm walking. I can move my arms." She waved them frantically. "And I'm still just as stupid as I was before the concussion."
"You're hardly stupid."
"Seems like I am, considering I'm involved with someone that I apparently tried to murder in my sleep last night."
"We don't know if that's what happened."
"I'm sure I just changed clothes in my sleep and went on a nice walk in the dead of night to the dungeons for no reason at all. And in that nightgown of all things."
"I didn't want to alarm you." Severus sighed, seeing quickly that he was both right and wrong to not share the fact that she was in the nightgown with her.
"Well, the mission failed. I'm very alarmed." Lucia huffed. "At least that dream bitch is a clutz."
"Perhaps." Severus said.
"What do you mean?"
"It could have been that she was trying to kill me and failed." He paused for a moment. "It could have also been a warning. That she can hurt you too-"
Lucia cut him off "If I keep looking into this."
"Precisely."
"That means we might be getting close to something."
"What have you been looking into."
"Possessions mostly. There are a few ways to prevent it. The most promising way seems to be occlumency."
A smile threatened to spread across Severus' thin line of a mouth.
"What?" She asked.
"You happen to be speaking to an accomplished occlumens." He said, his brow raising in a proud sneer.
"Of course you fucking are." Lucia said. Biting her fingernail nervously.
"I can teach you whatever you need to know."
"I'm not sure I like the idea of you digging around in my mind."
"It's either me or a vengeful spirit."
"Well when you put it that way." She conceded. "Soon. We will work on it soon. I'm tired."
Severus nodded in understanding. She began heading toward her chambers when he called out to her. "Lucia, I never want to see you like that again."
Lucia could have laughed. Of course he's more concerned for her right now than the fact that the ghost had successfully possessed her the night before. "I'll try my hardest not to fall off any stairwells in my sleep."
Severus just looked at her as if trying to parse her emotions. "Happy Christmas, Lucia."
She had forgotten the holiday entirely. "Merry Christmas." She replied and turned back to her doors.
Her rooms were quiet, though the wardrobe was wide open and a few garments had been strewn about.
"Fucking ghost left a mess." Lucia muttered, picking up her clothes and hanging them up again before turning to the fireplace. The gifts were still in front of the hearth, though a large box had appeared as well wrapped in lavish silver paper with green trimming.
Lucia gazed down at Nuit as the cat weaved in and out from between her legs. "Suppose I have some gifts to open then." She said with a sigh.
She picked up the large box first, taking a look at the tag on the side. Narcissa. She should have guessed. The box was light despite its size and Lucia suspected she knew what it was. Her suspicions were concerned as she unfolded the gown from the day before, all chrome and beautiful in the gauzy tissue paper.
The note accompanying it read 'Dearest Lucia,
I trust that you have had a wonderful Christmas and that Severus has given you a gift suitable for a woman of your breeding.'
Lucia scoffed. Her breeding was a bunch of mouthy Italians, witches be damned.
'Though I am sure you have many serviceable gowns, please consider this as payment for your much anticipated performance at our New Years gathering. I trust you will find acceptable shoes and style your hair appropriately. Happy Christmas."
Lucia could have laughed if she weren't so tired. Leave it to Narcissa to turn a gift into a lecture on appearance.
The dress was beautiful, and admittedly she was pleased to have something new to wear. It had been a few years since she had spent very much money on herself.
The next box was from Emily. Her friend had sent her a strange instrument called an autoharp. In her note she explained that it was a muggle instrument and that, when strummed, it would play whatever chord was pressed down. Lucia tested it a bit, delighted by the ease of the instrument.
Aurora gave her a planner, something which Lucia had no plans to use, as well as a note wishing her a happy holiday and good new year.
The last box was from Severus. She was most nervous to open that one. If her suspicions were correct, and they usually were, he would also be a much better gift giver than Lucia.
Simply but neatly wrapped, the package was about the size and weight of a quaffle, perhaps a bit heavier. Lucia was tempted to shake it but thought better of it, choosing instead to slowly unwrap it.
Inside was a wooden jewelry box with a latch. It was rather simple, the dark wood nicely polished with a beautiful grain and a small silver latch. Perhaps he thought she had an extensive jewelry collection, which was absurdly inaccurate.
Inside the box was a series of metal cogs and what looked like little notches. The mechanism was entirely unfamiliar with her.
Lucia turned the box around noticing a small opening in the back to fit a key. Underneath the box was an envelope, which Lucia originally planned to read after examining the gift more thoroughly but the closer she looked the less she knew what the strange box was.
Lucia opened the envelope gingerly, unfolding the note inside.
'Lucia,
When I was growing up I had a friend who had a box very much like this. It is what muggles call a music box. When it's wound up a song will play as long as the box is open. I have charmed this music box to play whatever song suits your emotions and mood. I hope to share many songs with you in the future.
Severus'
Lucia examined the bottom of the envelope, finding the small key. She placed it inside the lock and wound it a few times before opening the box.
A soft melody began to play as the cogs began to turn inside and Lucia immediately recognized the melody. She couldn't help the soft smile that floated across her face as she began to sing along.
"Wise men say,
Only fools rush in.
But I can't help
Falling in love with you."