Spinner's End was depressing in a very thorough way.
The kind of damp little house that smelled like old arguments and cheap tobacco, where the wallpaper had given up and the furniture had absorbed too many sighs.
Eileen moved through it like she'd been cursed to haunt it.
Coals in the grate. Kettle on. One eye on the clock, another on the street outside. Tobias would be at the pub on his way home, which meant she had a shrinking window of peace before the night turned ugly.
"Your lair sucks," Nico said, lazily, from under her skin.
Eileen flicked her wand. The kettle jumped obediently to hook over the fire.
"You're welcome to leave," she said.
"You say that," he replied, "but without me you're stuck with off-the-rack misery and below-average spell efficiency."
She didn't dignify that with an answer.
She crossed to the small table where her wand lay next to Severus' first-year textbooks. The boy had gone to bed hours ago, exhausted from practice and his own anxiety.
Eileen had waited until his door shut before putting the books back on the table.
She picked up her wand.
The wood felt… lighter, somehow.
Not cheap. Just less like dead weight.
"Try something," Nico murmured. "Humor me. Worst case, you set the curtains on fire. Honestly this room would improve."
She eyed the threadbare curtains. He had a point.
She stepped back, pointed her wand at a cracked teacup on the table.
"Reparo," she said.
The cup jumped in her hand.
The fix was instant, smooth, clean. No stutter, no strain. The hairline crack sealed without the usual dragging resistance she'd come to expect from casting after a long day at work.
She raised an eyebrow.
"That felt… easy," she muttered.
"That was you," Nico said smugly. "I'm just here making everything less stupidly inefficient. Think of me as… slime Wi-Fi."
She ignored the phrase "slime Wi-Fi" on principle.
She picked a more ambitious target.
The rickety chair in the corner had one leg shorter than the others and wobbled like a nervous first-year.
"Erecto," she tried.
Normally, an old piece like that would fight her. Today, the wood straightened with a soft creak, all four legs planting firmly on the floor.
The magic left her without drag. Like the difference between carrying water in a bucket and having it piped in.
Her hand tightened around her wand.
"That's new," she said.
"Mmhm," Nico said. "You're not pushing alone. I'm reinforcing from underneath. Soul scaffolding."
"That's not a thing," she said absently.
"It is now," he replied.
She moved through a series of basic spells, almost without thinking.
"Lumos."
Bright. Clean.
"Nox."
Immediate.
She tried a jinx next, aiming at an old, chipped bottle on a shelf.
"Diffindo."
The bottle's neck snapped clean off and clattered to the floor.
Eileen blinked.
"I barely put anything into that," she said.
"I noticed," Nico said. "You're underpowered for your skill. I'm top-up. You're welcome."
Something nasty and old twisted in her chest at the word underpowered.
She'd been good. Once. At school, in dueling club, in potions. Everyone had said so. Then life had chipped away at her until casting anything bigger than a decent Shield Charm at the end of the day felt like dragging a trunk up a staircase by her teeth.
"Do it properly, then," she said quietly.
"What," he asked.
"Protego," she said.
No wand movement, no target. Just the word. The habit of decades.
The shield that sprang up around her wasn't the thin, shaky thing she'd managed in recent years.
It was solid. A clean, translucent dome that caught and refracted the firelight, humming against her skin like it wanted someone to try.
Eileen stood inside it, breathing.
"Well," Nico said softly. "Hello, dangerous."
Her lips twitched.
She flicked her wand again and the shield dissolved.
"Useful," she said.
"You can just say 'thank you,'" he replied.
"I said useful. That's better."
She walked back toward the stove. With a lazy twitch of her wrist, the kettle floated off the hook, water inside already simmering.
"Wingardium Leviosa," she said.
The kettle rose smoothly, no wobble.
She let it float next to her a second too long, just to feel how little effort it took.
"Make a list," she said.
"Of what?"
"Things you can do faster than my wand," she said. "Without me exploding."
Nico perked up immediately. "Easy. Armor, clothes, physical barrier, limited self-moving, carry stuff, stab things, temperature control, compression. I can totally be armor, by the way. You'd look amazing in me."
"That sentence," she said, "is a crime."
He grinned in her head. "You love it."
She poured herself tea with a casual flick.
Steam curled up around her face.
She took a sip, then set the cup down.
"If I let you cover me," she said, calm and clinical, "do I suffocate?"
"Do you breathe through your elbows?" he asked. "I avoid the important parts. You get armor, I get front-row seat. Win-win."
"You're not touching my face," she said instantly.
"Rude," he said. "But fair."
She leaned back against the table, staring at nothing.
Her magic was still humming under her skin. Not jittery. Not overstimulated. Just… alive.
She hadn't felt like this in years.
"You did more than 'reinforce,'" she said. "You're amplifying."
"Little bit," he admitted. "It's easier than I thought. You've got good channels. Dusty, but good. I'm just unclogging them and pumping extra juice in. You're the one doing the aim and control."
"Hm."
She let that sit.
Then, because she was not seventeen anymore and horny, stupid choices needed better payoffs now, she asked:
"And what do you get from this, besides the joy of not living in a psychopath's wrist alone?"
"You," he said easily. "Your magic. Your perspective. Your… everything."
"That's vague," she said.
"That's horniness," he corrected. "I like you. You're sharp, you're mean, you're tired in a hot way, and you keep trying anyway. It does things to me."
She rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth had softened.
He shifted a little under her skin, testing limits, never quite pushing into painful.
Clothes rustled.
The ugly secondhand robe she wore for evenings at home smoothed itself, fit correcting around her shoulders and waist. The fabric tightened just enough at her middle to remind her she had a shape under the layers.
The choker he'd given her earlier today reformed, lying cool against her neck, then warming to her skin.
Her posture adjusted without her noticing: shoulders a fraction straighter, chin a bit higher.
"You're preening me," she said.
"I'm presenting you," he said. "Big difference."
"For whom," she asked. "There's no one here to impress."
"Me," he said, like it was obvious. "Also you. Mostly me, but you should enjoy it too."
He tugged gently at the fabric over her chest, lifting it a fraction, fixing the flattening strap.
It made everything sit… better.
Not obscene.
Just right.
She looked down.
"You're adjusting my boobs," she said.
"I am optimizing your silhouette," he said.
She snorted.
"Merlin's balls," she muttered. "You're worse than every Slytherin boy in my year rolled into one."
"And yet," he said, "you're letting me."
She didn't answer that.
She didn't need to.
The room was small. The house was small. Her life, lately, had felt swallowed by "no."
No new books. No better robes. No time. No room. No help.
Nico's presence was noisy, inappropriate, and deeply unwise.
He also made casting feel like flying again.
And no one had looked at her with that much intent since… well. Ever, probably. Tobias' attention had been more drunken convenience than appreciation.
"You're staring at my posture," she said, sipping her tea.
"Your posture is illegal," he said. "It deserves to be stared at."
"You're in my posture," she reminded him.
"Exactly," he said.
The fire popped.
Rain tapped at the window.
She set the empty cup down and, on impulse, pointed her wand at the chipped plates in the sink.
"Aguamenti," she said.
Water gushed out, perfect control, filling the basin to the right level in seconds.
With a lazy gesture, she banished the leftover grease and crumbs.
No strain.
"Inconvenient," she said.
"How," he demanded.
"Now I can't complain about chores," she said. "It takes the same effort as blinking."
"Good," he said. "Save your energy for violence and self-care."
"That's the same category for you, isn't it," she said.
"Yes," he admitted cheerfully.
She sank into the now-stable chair, wand resting on the table.
Her body was tired from the day.
Her magic was awake, coiled and content.
Nico eased along her arms, down her back, around her waist, not smothering, just… present. Like a second skin she could call up when she wanted.
"Do you miss it?" he asked, quieter now.
"Miss what."
"Being… terrifying," he said. "Winning duels. Raising your wand and watching people flinch."
She thought about it.
"No," she said.
He went silent for a beat.
"Liar," he said.
Her fingers tightened on the armrest.
She stared into the fire, jaw working.
"I miss," she said slowly, "being taken seriously. That's not the same."
"You miss both," he said.
She didn't argue this time.
After a while, he spoke again.
"You know you're… beautiful, right?" he said.
She made a small, sharp noise. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm very stupid," he said. "Not blind."
"Wrinkled, broke, stuck in this house. With this face?" she said. "You've seen my reflection."
"I have," he said. "And if I was still in my previous host, I'd be trying to commit identity theft on you anyway."
"That sentence makes no sense," she said.
"You make me stupid," he said. "That's a compliment."
She snorted again, but her shoulders relaxed minutely.
He pressed a little more, voice dipping.
"You walk like someone who's been trying to disappear for years," he said. "But every time you do magic, the room changes around you. You do realize that, yes?"
"This room changes when someone farts," she said.
"I've been in a lot of people," he said. "I know the difference between background noise and gravity. You're gravity. They just convinced you you're not."
She swallowed.
Her throat felt tight.
Nico quietly adjusted the strap of her bra through the robe again, relieving an ache she hadn't wanted to think about.
Heat flickered low in her belly, startled and unwelcome and not entirely unpleasant.
"Stop that," she said, not very convincingly.
"Name one person," he said, "in the last decade who has appreciated you like this."
"Flattery is cheap," she said.
"I can prove it," he said.
"How," she asked.
"Give me fifteen seconds and a little trust," he said. "No witnesses. No audience. Just you and me. If you hate it, I stop and we go back to inventing new ways to kill your husband with household objects."
Her mouth twitched despite herself.
She hesitated.
The hesitation was shorter than it should have been.
"Fifteen seconds," she said. "I swear to every Prince who ever lived, if you do anything stupid—"
"I am definitionally 'anything stupid,'" he said. "Starting… now."
He slid.
The robe shifted like a living thing.
Fabric wrapped her more snugly at the waist, cinching just enough to emphasize the curve of hip. The neckline adjusted, not obscene, but framing her collarbones and throat. The sleeves tailored themselves, falling just right along her arms.
The choker warmed.
Underneath the layers, she felt him stroke along her ribs, up her spine, a slow glide that wasn't touch, not really, but her nerves sure thought it was.
Her breath hitched.
"Ten seconds," she said tightly.
"Armor test," he murmured. "Stand up."
She did, almost without thinking.
The robe hardened for a heartbeat, like leather and scaled plate, then softened again. The weight was there, reassuring, like a hand on the small of her back.
"You're a walking shield now," he said. "Anyone tries to hex you from behind, I'll take it first."
"That's… four seconds," she said, voice a little rough.
"Three," he corrected.
The fabric tightened slightly over her thighs, then loosened, mapping her shape. He didn't go higher, not quite. Just enough to make her acutely aware of every inch of herself.
He lifted her chin, metaphorically, by straightening the way the collar sat against her neck.
"You deserve to be looked at," he said. "On your terms. Not in passing. Not as an afterthought. As a problem."
"Time," she said, but it came out softer than she meant.
He loosened his hold.
The robe relaxed.
The armor hum settled into a quiet, constant background comfort.
He didn't push further.
"See?" he said. "I can be well-behaved. For tiny, medically inadvisable bursts."
She stood there, heart drumming, every old insecurity crowding her brain and not quite winning.
Her reflection in the dark window was… hers.
But sharper.
Alive.
Wanted, at the very least, by the idiot currently curled along her spine.
"You're trouble," she said finally.
"Yes," he said instantly. "But I'm your trouble."
She snorted.
She sank back into the chair, letting the fabric move with her instead of bunching awkwardly.
"Tomorrow," she said slowly, "you're helping me test more spells."
He perked up. "We could try curses. We could absolutely out-hex—"
"And," she added, overriding him, "you're going to show me how to harden this armor fast enough to break Tobias' wrist if he ever raises his hand to Severus again."
Nico went very quiet.
Then: "Deal."
Something cold-sharp and satisfying echoed through their shared space.
She could feel him coiling in anticipation, not just for sex or flattery, but for violence on her terms.
She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and let herself enjoy the hum in her blood.
He had made her magic easier.
He had made her body feel like hers again.
He had made her feel seen.
That was more seductive than anything else he could've done.
For now.
Because this was Nico.
And fifteen seconds of good behavior was probably his limit.