Nilsy watched Marcus stumble out of the floo in a state of shock. The tall young man towered over Nilsy so much that a lesser house elf would've been scared at the sight of the mean-looking boy, but Nilsy had known Marcus since he was a baby. He may have had his father's face, but his mother's heart was there—buried underneath layers of ice that had been built up over years of being abused by his father. There had been a time when Nilsy was afraid that the sweet young boy he'd raised would be replaced by a hard, mean man like his father, but then Marcus had met Katie Bell and the ice had started to melt just a little. A small drip that had turned into a trickle. The ice was still there, but Nilsy was certain that, one day, it would break up and float out to sea.

Marcus and Katie just needed to sort out their feelings for each other first.

Nilsy knew that they were young and human , which meant that they couldn't be expected to see things as clearly as he did, but, sometimes, he wanted to smack them both over the head with a frying pan. The least that they could do was sit down and talk about their feelings, but, no. They had to be stubborn idiots who were terrible at communication and great at assuming the other's feelings. Nilsy was fairly certain that the only people who couldn't see that they were made for each other were Marcus and Katie themselves. Even Merriam could see how they brought out the best in each other and she'd only met Katie once.

Marcus stood in the middle of the parlor, unmoving. He didn't notice Nilsy as he popped into the space before him. Nor did he notice the elf's magic pull the soot from his skin and clean the sweat coating his practice robes. Marcus's eyes were blank as Nilsy gently guided him to the wing-backed chair before the fireplace. As Marcus sat, Nilsy noticed the angry red mark scarring his left wrist. Nilsy gasped as his fingers brushed over it. He could feel the magic radiating from the scar—ancient and permanent and wrong. It felt so, so wrong.

Nilsy had never seen a proelia bond. In his entire life he'd only heard of one family that still used the practice: the Guants had used it to tie their son, Marvolo, to his cousin-wife. That family was long gone now, squandering the revered name of Slytherin into nearly nothing. A proelia was the worst kind of wizard magic. Nilsy could understand killing curses, but to tie one's child to another's in such a violent fashion was unforgivable.

Not even Merriam's family had forced a proelia on her.

That it would be used again—that it would be used on Marcus—made Nilsy's blood boil. He wanted to storm Julian Flint's home and snap his neck in his sleep. He wanted the man to feel every injury from the years of torture that he'd placed his son and wife under. He wanted Julian Flint to fear him—to know that the only thing that had stopped the house-elf from killing him all those years under his employment was Merriam's kind heart. Merriam had forbidden it, and, because Nilsy loved Merriam as he loved Marcus—even if she was not Merriam back then—he had stayed his hand.

He didn't want to look at the mark left by the proelia , but his eyes drifted downwards all the same.

A bell in a rose.

Katie.

At least their magics were compatible, Nilsy thought. It wouldn't kill them, even if the actions of their heads of house might damage their relationship. Nilsy would just have to ensure that they didn't turn their backs on each other. The love was already there. It simply needed to be allowed to flourish and grow.

"Master Marcus," Nilsy's voice came out a whisper as he took Marcus's hand in his own. The boy's eyes cleared as he focused on Nilsy before him. He didn't say anything, but Nilsy didn't need him to. He'd raised the boy. He could understand him without words. "It's been a taxing night. After everything you've been through, you need to sleep."

Nilsy could carry Marcus up to his room using magic if he needed to, but he'd rather not levitate the nearly six and a half foot man through the flat. He might accidentally knock over a lamp or vase.

"Promise you won't wake me up early?" Marcus asked with forced humor.

His attempt at a joke fell flat when Nilsy answered, "Yes."

"Shit, Nilsy. I didn't… I mean… it's not that bad."

Nilsy didn't bother to reprimand Marcus for his language. He'd given up trying to teach the boy to watch his tongue long ago. "It's a proelia , Master Marcus. That is not a spell that should be cast lightly and I doubt your father put much thought into it."

Marcus snorted. "Good ole Julian's got his revenge. He's probably hoping the bond will drive me mad."

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

Nilsy scoffed. "I know everything. Your magic is compatible with Miss Katie's. Trust me on this, Master Marcus. If you follow your heart, your magic will be stronger in the end."

Marcus rubbed his hand over his face. There was exhaustion in every line of his body. "Merlin, she's going to hate me."

"I'm sure Miss Katie will understand." Nilsy pulled Marcus out of his seat and pushed him up the stairs. "I imagine she's the only person in the world right now who understands exactly how you feel."

Marcus didn't say anything after that, focusing on his thoughts. Nilsy helped him prepare for bed. It was a sign of his weariness that Marcus didn't protest when Nilsy forced a set of pajamas on him. The wizard fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Nilsy watched him for a moment. He could see the innocent child he'd once been as Marcus slept. His forehead relaxed. His face softened. He didn't look happy—Marcus was only ever happy around his mother and Katie—but he wasn't angry either. He looked content. Nilsy wished for nothing more than Marcus's contentment.

Leaving the young man to his rest, Nilsy left the flat with the gentle pop of fizzing bubbles. He reappeared in the worn-but-well-kept flat of his former mistress, who now asked to be called Merriam for she was a different woman than she had been before. Nilsy could see the change. The girl he'd helped raise had been locked away by her family for her lack of magic and beaten by her husband for what he perceived as irredeemable flaws. She hadn't deserved the life she'd been stuck with any more than her son had, but she'd escaped. Nilsy was so glad she'd escaped.

Merriam emerged from her bedroom as she heard Nilsy's pop. She'd always been a light sleeper, and that hadn't changed despite her new safety in the lower alleys. She had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and worry in her eyes. "Is everything okay, Nilsy?" she asked. "Is Marcus-"

"He is fine, Miss Merriam," Nilsy answered, calming her worries. "Physically, he is no more harmed than he would be due to quidditch. I am here because you requested to be kept up-to-date on any major changes. You should probably take a seat."

Merriam followed Nilsy's instructions as he made his way around her cramped kitchen, fixing her the perfect cup of chamomile tea. She'd need the calming effect for what Nilsy was about to tell her. For a brief moment, he considered not worrying her, but he quickly decided against it. Merriam needed to know. Maybe she could make Marcus see reason where Nilsy had failed.

"Master Marcus is engaged," Nilsy said as Merriam sipped her tea.

"I assume this isn't because he's fallen in love with a nice witch."

Nilsy didn't doubt Marcus had fallen in love with a nice witch, but, "You and I both know that Master Marcus does not believe himself to be worthy of love. This is a political union with a Rosier witch undoubtedly formed at the behest of the SOW party."

"There aren't any Rosier witches left," Merriam said. She knew her pureblood family trees. As a child, all that she'd had was the history available to her in her family's libraries. Merriam chewed her bottom lip. "The only ones still alive are Cordelia Parkinson and… Helena Bell." Merriam froze as she realized what Nilsy was saying. "It's Katie."

"I'm afraid so."

"Julian would never engage Marcus to a halfblood—especially not one related to the Rosiers. Does he know that Katie-"

"I do not believe that man knows anything about Master Marcus's relationship with Miss Bell. This seems to be about regaining favor with Lord Riddle and getting revenge on his son for crossing him." Nilsy paused as he tried to figure out the best way to break the news to Merriam. "He used a proelia ."

Merriam didn't know much about magic having been forbidden from studying it, but she knew what a proelia bond was. She knew what it could do. She knew that it could drive her son to insanity—that it could cause his downfall and demise. She knew the basics and that was enough to scare anyone.

"Are they compatible?"

"I believe that they are." Nilsy sat down on the couch beside Merriam. The woman watched him intensely, waiting for answers. "Miss Katie's cousin has had one of his house elves tracking her lately. I've been… stopping him from accomplishing his goal of uncovering all of her secrets. Miss Katie spent nearly a year at St. Mungo's when she was a child due to an accident with her core. I borrowed those files to stop them from falling into the hands of her cousin, who would inevitably try to use it against her."

With a snap of his fingers, Nilsy summoned the file from its hiding place and handed it over to Merriam. He was a curious elf and hadn't been able to stop himself from reading what was inside. It was filled with medical jargon from healers and forms about a grim Fade. Nilsy hadn't expected the stunning revelations that had come from reading the file. It had shocked him to his core.

By most definitions, Katie Bell had been born a squib. She had barely enough magic to keep her alive. Then, one day, she suddenly had enough magic to save her brothers' from certain death. It was a miracle, but wizards didn't believe in miracles because they had magic. There had been many theories flying around about the accident and how Katie's core had grown but seemed unable to support her life. It was a young assistant healer by the name of Ashton Bonham whose theories Nilsy had found most intriguing.

Bonham believed that during the pregnancy, Helena had spent many hours in Franklin's workshop, meaning that Katie was predisposed to the magic that went into broom-making when she was born. While Katie was not fully a squib when born, she had still possessed a small magical core. The core remained small, but increasingly exposed to her father's magical designs. When her brothers exploded a bludger in Franklin's workshop, it caused a chain reaction. Katie's core had exploded. The magic within her father's brooms was still Franklin's magic, and it would want to protect his children. This magic was familiar with Katie, so her core latched onto the magic in her father's creations, which had saved her brothers by forcing the bludger back into its original shape.

Bonham believed that could explain why Katie's core had increased so dramatically in size: she had absorbed the magic of her father's brooms. It would also explain why it couldn't continue to sustain her and she appeared to eventually be Fading. Katie would need the presence of an extremely compatible core in order to fully meld the brooms' magic with her own. When Bonham suggested this theory to the healers in charge of Katie's case, it was rejected. Magic simply didn't work that way , they'd claimed as if they'd had better answers, which Nilsy doubted they did. Bonham's suggestions had been slipped into the file with two dozen other theories that made even less sense.

Nilsy had doubted the theory himself when he'd first read it, but then he'd remembered an incident following Marcus's first year at Hogwarts. Julian had been angry at Marcus after he'd come home from a friend's house because he'd gone to the hospital after breaking his arm playing quidditch. He'd been sent to bed without dinner. When Nilsy had snuck food to him later that night, Marcus hadn't been pouting as he'd expected. Instead, he'd been pensive, and then, he'd told Nilsy a story. A story about being drawn to the other end of the hospital where he found a girl with sick magic. When he touched her hand, she was warm. Reading over the file, Nilsy realized that was the same day that Katie Bell woke up.

If Bonham's theory and Nilsy's rememberings were correct, then Marcus and Katie might just have two of the most compatible cores in the world. In the old days, they'd have been considered soulmates . That was only if Nilsy was right. If he was wrong…

Nilsy didn't dare to consider being wrong.

Nilsy explained his theory to Merriam as she glanced over the files. When he was done, she said, "I think I should have Katie over for tea some time. She's a pleasant girl, and I would like to get to know her better if she's to be my daughter-in-law. Could you take care of arranging that?"

"It would be my pleasure," Nilsy said, taking Merriam's empty teacup and cleaning it. He could feel Merriam's eyes on him as he worked to his mild annoyance. He was giving her the opportunity to read more in-depth about Katie's mysterious illness and she wasn't taking it. "Can I help you with something?" Nilsy asked without turning around.

Merriam was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper, "All this talk of engagements got me thinking of my own engagement to Julian and I remembered something that I'd nearly forgotten. I was supposed to be engaged to Marcellus at first, and I was terrified. I'd only heard half of the horror stories about him, but that was enough. I remembered feeling this intense fear at the prospect of marrying him, but then he died, and I forgot about it."

"A most unfortunate accident," Nilsy mused. He didn't like this line of questioning. He needed to get Merriam to move on and stop poking around.

"Was it?"

"As I recall, they found a suicide note, so I suppose it wasn't," Nilsy said. He continued cleaning Merriam's kitchen, washing the dirty dinner dishes sitting in the sink by hand. He could clean them with magic, but he enjoyed using his hands more.

"Was it a suicide?"

Nilsy paused. He turned to face Merriam. The woman was significantly taller than him, but he felt that they were the same size as he met her eyes. "Don't ask me that question, Merriam."

Merriam stared at him for a minute. Nilsy could not read the expression in her eyes. He did not know if he wanted to. Finally, Merriam nodded. "Okay." She picked up a washcloth and began to dry.