Five Six Times Things Did Not Turn Out As Bob Expected, and One Time They Did

1. 1983 (Harry Age 11)

Hrothbert stood at the window, watching through frost-streaked glass as the housekeeper waddled down the drive to the waiting taxi.  Breakfast would be finished, then, and he could expect the boy at any moment.  Hopefully after he had remembered to wash up.

A few minutes later, he heard footsteps stop just inside the doorway of the improvised class room.

“What’s ‘smekla’?” the child asked.

“It’s Lithuanian.  It means ‘ghost’,” he replied, watching the housekeeper wedge her considerable girth into the back seat of the cab.

The boy joined him at the window. “Does she always cross her heart and spit when she says it?”

“Yes,” Hrothbert said, narrowing his eyes.  He and Audra had come to an understanding of sorts quite some time ago, which mainly involved Not Touching The Skull.  He glanced down at the boy, who looked rumpled in faded denim trousers and an ill-fitting sweater.  With any luck, Audra had been dispatched to fetch him some decent clothes.  Yet another way in which the boy’s prospects were suddenly looking up.

He took a step away from the window and gestured to the empty space in front of the blackboard.  “Well?  Show me what you can do.”

The boy looked at him then stared at the patch of floor, making no effort to actually go there.  He squirmed uncomfortably instead, saying nothing.

Hrothbert waited.  Bragging about their slim talents and showing off what pitiful tricks they’d managed to acquire was simply what new apprentices did.  As the silence stretched out he became impatient.  “You’ll find ignoring me doesn’t make me go away,” he advised, crossing his arms.

The boy continued to stare at the floor.  “I can’t do anything,” he finally mumbled.

“No?”  Hrothbert reached over and put his hand into the boy’s back.  Oh, there was power there, just as Morningway had said.

“Hey! Cut that out!” the boy said, twisting away and glaring up at him with defiant eyes.

“There’s no point lying to me, boy,” he said, his voice low and hard.  “I can have the truth of you any time I choose.”  This was patently untrue, but it usually took an apprentice a few years to figure that out and in the meantime would make things considerably easier.  “Show me.”

“My dad said not to,” the boy replied, looking away.

Morningway’s instructions had been clear.  The child was not to dwell on the unfortunate circumstances of his life with his waste of a father.  He was to take instruction, study hard and prepare himself to assume the life he should have been living all along.  If his father had been actively impeding the natural use of his emerging talent, they would have that much more ground to make up. “Your father,” Hrothbert began, “could not begin to comprehend the power you will one day command.”

The boy raised his head.  There it was, thought Hrothbert.  The lure that brought them in, every time. 

“Yeah, he did,” the boy said, speaking clearly now, the expression in his eyes nothing like the eagerness Hrothbert had expected to find there.  “He said what I can do is like a gun.  How do I know you’re not trying to turn me into some kind of bomb?”

“How do you know you aren’t one already, boy?” he snapped.

“My name is Harry Dresden,” the child replied.  “My father was Malcolm Dresden.  That’s how I know.”

Hrothbert could actually feel control of the situation slipping away from him, flowing smoothly into the small figure standing three feet away.  He eyed the boy - Harry - with new respect.  He clasped his hands behind his back and nodded, conceding what he suspected was a far larger point.  “Would you like to tell me more about him?”

Harry’s shoulders relaxed.  “Yeah,” he said, a sad smile touching one corner of his mouth.

Hrothbert saw the expression, and something twisted deep inside his chest.  This was not going to go at all according to plan.

2. 1988 (Harry Age 16)

That evening he wandered into the kitchen to find Harry sitting alone at the table.  "What on earth is that?" he asked.

"That, Bob, is a grilled-cheese sandwich," Harry replied, employing the name he had, for no discernible reason, bestowed on Hrothbert two years ago at the outset of what was hopefully a phase of some sort, "with ham."  He took a swig from a can of Coke, and grinned broadly.  "And fries."

Bob - Hrothbert, damnit! - rolled his eyes in disgust. "And where might Audra be this evening?" he inquired.

"Gave her the night off," Harry said between mouthfuls that he couldn't possibly be chewing properly.  "I got tired of her watching me all the time."

"Are you certain she didn't prepare something for you before she left?"

Harry grabbed a french fry and shrugged.  "She pointed at the fridge and said 'valgyti!' a lot.  I figured she was telling me to fend for myself.  Now that you mention it, though..." He loped across the room, disappearing into the pantry and returning some moments later with a large piece of chocolate cake.

Harry's Lithuanian, Hrothbert observed, seemed to be as selective as Audra's English.

"I'm a growing boy, Bob," he said on his way back to the table.

This at least was true - in the past months Harry had shot up so quickly that Hrothbert was in real danger of having to learn how to scowl disapprovingly while glaring up instead of down.  "A growing boy currently courting scurvy," he said, making use of the high ground while he still had it.

Harry rolled his eyes.  "Nobody actually gets scurvy anymore, Bob."

"You'd be surprised."  Time for a different approach, perhaps.  "You uncle said the carrots and beans from the market are particularly good this year."

Harry didn't even look up. "Not interested, Bob."

"But Harry -"

"But nothing, Bob!  I don't like them, okay?  I don't care how fresh they are, or how much Uncle Justin loves them; I think they taste like dirt so just lay off!  It's not my fault I have an alternative food orientation.  It's just the way I am."  He coated a french fry in ketchup and jammed it into his mouth, his eyes flashing at the sheer injustice and unprovoked oppression. 

Bob couldn't help it.  He knew he was done for the moment the first chortle escaped his lips, and proceeded to laugh so hard that even Harry's wounded indignation eventually cracked into a smile.

"It's the twentieth century, Bob," Harry said in the tones of one imparting the wisdom of the ages. "You gotta learn to be more open-minded about people."

Bob watched, bemused, as Harry polished off the french fries and began attacking the chocolate cake with impish glee.  "I'll try to keep that in mind," he said.

3. 1993 (Harry Age 21)

“Have you considered that you may be rushing into this?” Bob asked as he observed the minor disaster area that was Harry’s room.  “If you took some time to think things through, you may find-”

“No way, Bob,” Harry interrupted, stuffing t-shirts haphazardly into a duffel bag.  “Uncle Justin promised if I passed the High Council’s entrance exam, I could go anywhere I want.”

 “I doubt he expected you to get on the next train out of town,” Bob said, trying to be reasonable.

 Harry turned, holding a single sock in his fist.  “I’ve been living here for ten years, Bob.  That’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere and if I don’t get out of here soon….” The overhead lights flickered and Harry waved the sock at them.  “See what I mean?”

 “What I can see is that you still have a great deal to learn,” Bob sniffed, folding his arms across his chest.  “The High Council’s exams are myopic and largely irrelevant to the real world, and you know it.”

 Harry snorted.  “Is that why you went off the standard curriculum years ago?” he asked, fixing Bob with a look that would have caused lesser men to squirm.  He tossed the sock aside, giving up on finding its missing partner, and slung the duffel over his shoulder.  “Do you mind?” he asked, motioning for Bob to move out of the doorway.

 Bob vanished in a puff of orange and black, reforming to meet Harry at the bottom of the stairs.  “Travel can be dangerous, Harry.  There are customs, and rules.” He fell in step as Harry headed down the hall.  “And there are still places where horse thieving is punishable by death, you know.”

 Harry stopped and turned around. “When are you going to let that go?” he demanded.  “It was four years ago and there were extenuating circumstances.”

 “Somehow with you there always are,” Bob sneered.  The rest of his argument was abruptly cut off when Harry was blindsided by stout arms flung around him and a torrent of teary Lithuanian.

 “Audra,” Harry said, his arms pinned to his side.

Audra thrust a brown bag at him.  "Valgyti," she commanded, shaking it in his face.  Harry took the bag, trying to avoid the greasy stain emerging on one side of it.  She patted his cheek then pointed at the bag.  "Valgyti," she repeated firmly. As she turned to go, she saw Bob.  “Smekla,” she sniffed, but it was half-hearted, and she barely made any effort to spit at all.  If Bob hadn’t known better he could have sworn he saw a flash of pity on the old woman’s face before she disappeared again into the depths of the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Harry called after her.  He stuck the paper bag in the top of his duffel and grabbed his jacket from the hall closet.

Bob caught sight of a single drumstick poking out of a pocket.  “Tell me you didn’t use that in the exam?” he asked wearily.

“Of course not,” Harry said, doing up his jacket.  “I used my lucky one. This one’s the spare.”

Bob pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Harry,” he began.

“I’m not making another staff, Bob,” Harry said, exasperated.  “Those guys in the park called me Gandalf and I hadn’t even done anything.  I might as well take out an ad in the yellow pages under 'freak'.” 

He hauled open the oak door, and stepped over the threshold.  Bob managed one step toward the doorway before he felt his tether pull tight.  

“But hey, you never know,” Harry was continuing, building up a good head of sarcasm, “maybe if I hang around in Europe long enough I’ll get me some culture and stop being such a disappointment.”

“You’re not a disappointment,” Bob said, shocked into speaking the plain truth.

Harry looked at him for a moment, his mouth curling into a sly smile.  “I’m going to miss you too, Bob,” he said, then shut the door and went off to see the world.

4. 1998 (Harry Age 26)

The storage room was not all together unexpected.  Bob took in the filing cabinets and shelves that lined the windowless walls and the oddly familiar looking faded green trunk that was shoved into one corner.  He turned around slowly, unsurprised to see a glowering figure standing on the far side of an old wooden desk.

“To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” Bob asked, adopting aggressive courteousness for his opening gambit. 

“I’m Warden Morgan,” the man said, conveying by his tone how unimpressed he was.  Not one of Morningway’s pet Wardens.  Bob thought.  Interesting.  “You are going to answer some questions,” Morgan continued.

Bob looked down and saw the circle of sigils marked in chalk around his skull.  In theory, they would glow brightly if he neglected to tell the truth.  He, of course, had no intention of telling Morgan the truth.  For one thing, “Harry was defending himself against an attack by Morningway precipitated by Harry’s refusal to support his Uncle’s plan to overthrow the High Council which, incidentally, I only assisted him with because he had discovered how to undo the curse the Council placed me under for my transgressions and make me mortal again,” wasn’t likely to go over well.  Besides, he just didn’t feel like telling Morgan the truth.  He squared his shoulders, and looked the warden in the eye.  This was going to be fun.

“Where is Harry Dresden?” Morgan asked.

Bob thought for a moment.  “What day is it today?”

Morgan’s scowl deepened, but he provided the information.

“It took you two weeks to retrieve me?” Bob asked, shocked.

“Morningway’s housekeeper hid the skull in her knitting basket,” Morgan said.  His look of disgust turned to faint amusement. “She had planned on keeping you for herself.”

“I was left alone with that harridan for two weeks?” Bob said, horrified.  He shuddered. “She probably tried to polish my skull again.”

“Stop avoiding the question, Bainbridge. Where is Dresden?”

Bob had known – and had outwitted – more than one Inquisitor in his day.  It was a position for which Morgan was not in any danger of ever being shortlisted.  “Germany,” he replied.   The sigils stayed dull.  Morgan glared at him, a don't-fuck-with-me look in his eyes.  "I have no idea,” Bob amended.  “It’s been two weeks; he could be anywhere by now."

“Tell me what happened,” Morgan said.

“Very well.  My mother was a handsome woman, not as renowned for her beauty as her elder sister, but with a certain charm all her own.  My father, a naturally taciturn man, first beheld her at the Beltane fair, and-”

“What do you hope to gain by this?” Morgan asked, calmly but firmly.

Bob shrugged.  “An afternoon’s entertainment before I’m shut up in here for as many decades as it takes the High Council to find another use for me.”

Morgan looked disgusted.  “You have no loyalty to anyone, do you?”

“No,” Bob agreed, thinking of the argument of self-defense he was unwilling to make on Harry’s behalf.  But Harry had abandoned him, after all, left him up to his non-existent neck in Morningway’s mess.  Not to mention putting an end to the one hope he had had in centuries of becoming mortal.  Bob glanced down at the sigils, which remained dull.  Well, he was finished with hope.  From here on out he was strictly a free agent.  An imprisoned and closely supervised free agent.  He wondered if maybe he’d be able to at least sneak out of his skull to read through the filing cabinets once they’d locked him in here for good. 

He looked up at Morgan.  “I don’t know why you’re even bothering, to be frank.  There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done.”

The doorknob rattled and a dishevelled figure burst into the small room.  Bob’s eyes widened.  “Harry?”

Morgan had his sword out before Harry could reach the desk. 

“Bob,” Harry gasped.  His hair stuck out at all angles and there was a somewhat dazed look in his eyes.

“Dresden,” Morgan growled, pressing the sword to his neck.

“Warden Morgan,” said a calm voice, and Bob realized that the Gatekeeper had also come into the room, and now had a hand on Morgan’s shoulder.  “Wizard Dresden turned himself in and consented to a soulgaze.  The Council found it was self-defence.”

“With all due respect,” Morgan began.

“Yes,” the Gatekeeper interjected smoothly.  “That is what Mai said as well.  Lower you sword, Warden.”

Harry closed the distance to the desk.  “I came as soon as I heard they’d taken you,” he said.

Bob blinked.  “You’ve been in Chicago all this time?”

Harry shook his head.  “Peru,” he said wryly.  “An envoy came through the Nevernever and I bartered my dad’s ring for safe passage back.”

Bob shook his head, completely at a loss for words.  "Harry..."

The dazed look had faded from Harry's eyes, and he shrugged.  "Let's just go home, okay?"  He smeared the circle of sigils with his sleeve.

"What do you think you're doing?" Morgan said.  He reached for his sword, but again the Gatekeeper stopped him.

"It is already done, Warden Morgan," he said turning his cowled face toward Harry, who had tucked the skull in the crook of his arm.

Morgan had no choice but to let Harry pass.  "I'll be watching you, Dresden."

Harry rolled his eyes and continued through the doorway.  "Bob?" he said as they left the room. "Did somebody polish your skull?"

5. 2003 (Harry Age 31)

Harry stood under the spray of cold water for as long as he could stand it, before emerging again into the oven that was his apartment.  Four days into Chicago’s first heat wave of the summer, even the lab was hitting one hundred degrees.  Slipping on a pair of boxers, Harry looked at the trail of grey goop he had tracked up the stairs, and decided to deal with it later.  Right now, all he wanted to do was not be standing up.

He propped up his pillows and lay back against them, stretching his legs out on the bed.  With the heat making his potions explode there wasn’t really much point in getting back downstairs.  He let his eyes drift closed. He’d just take a short… break…

Bob propelled himself to the loft in a swirl of impatience and orange sparks. The 'minute' that Harry had claimed he would need had extended to nearly half an hour, and the lab was not going to clean itself.  He reformed at the foot of the bed, and not for the first time wished he could be corporeal just long enough to launch something at Harry's head.  A little heat and a few late nights was no excuse for sloth.

"Harry!" he called. 

Harry's head lolled to one side and he murmured something unintelligible. 

"Harry, you have to get up," Bob continued.  "The bone setting potion boiled prematurely and sprayed all over the lab.  There is grey gunk on everything and it's beginning to congeal."

Harry's eyes fluttered open for a moment, and he let out a soft giggle before they closed again.

Bob resisted the impulse to stamp his foot against the floor.  "Harry!  It's all over your books and instruments and it's getting hard," he said, raising his voice.  "If you don't take care of it soon, you'll need a sledgehammer to get it off, or possibly a blowtorch."
Harry's eyes stayed closed, but he made a sort of humming sound and raised one hand to touch his collarbone.

"That's it, Harry, rise and shine," Bob said.  "I'm not sure you've got the supplies to make another..." 

Harry's hand had continued lower, and he now seemed to be idly tracing his fingertips along his chest, his mouth curving into a goofy, lopsided smile.

"Ah, Harry?" Bob asked, dropping his voice to little more than a whisper.  "You really should get back downstairs."

Harry arched into the touch of his own fingers as they traced circles through damp chest hair.

Bob leaned forward.  "You're thinking of that redhead from last week, aren't you," he said.  "Or the brunette with the fantastic-"  Harry moaned, and Bob lost his train of thought.  When Harry’s fingers flicked over his nipple, Bob felt the throat he technically didn’t have go dry and let out a strangled cough.

Harry's eyes opened and his hand fell to the bed.  "Bob?" he asked, confused and drowsy.  "I must have fallen asleep. How's the lab?"

"Nothing a good, hard scrubbing won't fix," Bob sighed.  "If you need me, I'll be in my skull."

6. 2008 (Harry Age 36)

"What do you mean she's coming to visit?" Bob sputtered, trailing Harry down the hall.

Harry held up a single sheet of paper.  "Dear Harry," he quoted, "March 5th, I come visit.  Audra. Pretty self-explanatory, Bob."

"Perhaps you could write her back and tell her you've moved," Bob suggested, earning him a Look.  "It doesn't seem suspicious to you, her getting in touch after disappearing for ten years?"

"She didn't disappear, Bob," Harry said as he re-shelved a pile of books.  "I set up a fund with some of Justin's money and she retired to Sedona."  He caught Bob's disapproving expression and rolled his eyes.  "The woman helped raise me."

"She fed you - that's not the same thing."

"I wasn't going to turn her out with nothing," Harry finished.

Bob crossed his arms.  "And when were you planning on telling me this?"

"Right about now," Harry said, grinning. 

Further protest on Bob's part was preempted by a sharp knock.  Harry glanced at the door, then back at Bob.  "Stay out here," he commanded.  "I'm not facing her alone."

Bob made sure the smirk was off his face before Harry opened the door.

"Audra!" Harry said, and was promptly engulfed in a one-armed hug.

"Berniukas," Audra said before releasing him.  She stepped into the apartment and gave Harry a long, assessing look before shaking her head.  "Valgyti," she chided, and held out a box.

Harry untied the string and lifted up the top flap of the box.  "My favourite," he said, licking chocolate frosting from his fingertip.  "Thank you."

Audra beamed.

"Please, come through to the kitchen. I'll make us some tea."

Audra paused as she walked past Bob.  "Smekla," she said evenly.

"Madame Audra," Bob replied.  He briefly considered interpreting Harry's command as requiring him to stay in the front room, then remembered his skull was on the kitchen table, and hurried down the hallway.

As Harry served tea and cake, Bob pretended to survey the contents of the kitchen shelves while keeping a surreptitious eye on his skull.

"So how are things in Arizona?" Harry asked.

"Is warm," Audra replied, nodding her approval. "Is rocks; is sky."  She reached out a hand and patted Harry's cheek.  "Is good boy."

Harry blushed.  "I'm glad things worked out for you," he said.  Bob realized Harry was doing his best not to squirm, and smiled. 

Audra caught his expression, and looked at him with narrowed eyes for a moment.  She picked up her handbag and pulled out a sheaf of papers.  "I bring for you," she said, putting them on the table.

Harry leaned forward to look at the top sheet.  "Wait a second," he said quietly, and leafed through the next few pages.  He looked up at Bob.  "These are the symbols on your skull."

Bob looked over the page that Harry held up, taking in the familiar symbols on the smudged gray background.  "You took rubbings of my skull?"  He loomed over Audra, who calmly sipped her tea.  "I knew it.  I knew you had some sort of sick, twisted fetish the moment we met.  I knew-"

Audra delivered a slap upside the back of Bob's skull sharp enough that he actually flinched.   "I bring for you," she repeated.

"Ah, Bob? Maybe we should just let her explain," Harry suggested.

Silently fuming, Bob nodded.

Audra took back the pages and laid them out in a row on the table.  "Is puzzle," she said.  She began pointing to strings of symbols and speaking rapidly in a language that Bob was shocked to realize wasn't Lithuanian.

"You understand the symbols?" he asked. 

Audra looked up at Bob, and then Harry, with a perfect expression of blank innocence.

Harry leaned back, looking at Audra with growing suspicion.  "How old are you, exactly?" he asked.  This earned him a cuff on the back of the head, though not, Bob observed sulkily, nearly as hard as the smack to his skull.

"Is bad manners, asking," she pointed out.

"Right," Harry winced, rubbing the back of his head.  "Please forgive me."

Placated, Audra returned to the pages.  "Is puzzle."

She turned the pages over to reveal a new string of symbols.  "Is solving."

Looking down at the table, Bob felt himself go cold.  "That's impossible," he whispered.

Harry ran his fingers along the symbols.  "I don't know, Bob.  You said Justin knew the secret to bringing you back." 

"The arrow is gone, Harry," Bob reminded him, and was caught off-guard when Audra actually cackled.

"Arrow is being goose-chase," she said, a look of smug triumph in her eyes.

Harry picked up the nearest page, turning it over with a trembling hand.  "You made these after Justin... while I was in Peru," he said.  "This is ten years worth of work."

Bob heard the astonished hope in Harry's voice and couldn't bear it.  "Why?" he demanded, taking a step back from the table.  "Why do this?"

Audra gave him an enigmatic smile and shrugged.  "Is puzzle.  Is solving."  She reached out and took the page from Harry, then patted his cheek.  "Is good boy."

7. 2008, (slightly later)

"Bob?  Hey Bob, I'm home," Harry called, closing the door behind him.  "I brought pizza for dinner."  He set the box down and shrugged out of his coat.  "It's got vegetables on it and everything."

"It smells... intriguing," Bob said, his feet making soft thumping sounds as he came down the stairs.  "Did Audra make her flight?"

"Yes, and she thanked us again for the ticket.  I think it's been a while since the last time she was in Vilnius."  Harry got out two plates and set them on the table.  "Dinnertime," he said, grinning.

"Ah. Just a moment," Bob said, and disappeared into the front room.

Harry poured himself a glass of milk and folded two pieces of paper towel into napkins.  He considered putting out cutlery and decided against it.  Bob was entitled to the full pizza experience, after all.  He wondered if he should have also picked up beer.  "Come on, Bob, it's getting cold," he called.  "Don't make me go valgyti on your ass."

"Perish the thought," Bob replied, emerging from the hallway with a smile that was slightly too... predatory for vegetarian pizza.  He went to the back door and turned the deadbolt, then surveyed the room with a nod of satisfaction.

Harry walked toward him, and leaned against the fridge.  "Is everything alright?"

Bob nodded. "The doors are locked, the telephones are unplugged, Audra is en route to another hemisphere, and Lieutenant Murphy has been informed that you are taking a case out of town for the next few days."

Harry blinked.  "Bob," he said, clearly amused, "are you kidnapping me?"

Bob grabbed Harry's shirt and pulled him close, swallowing his startled gasp, revelling in the taste of Harry's mouth, the feel of Harry's hand in his hair.  When they finally broke the kiss, he licked his lips and looked Harry in the eye.  "Oh yes."