FIC: Coming Home (1/?)
Title: Coming Home (1/?)
Author: guardian_chaos
Characters: Harry, Morgan, Bob.
Rating: PG-13.
Book or TV: TV
Words: 2193-ish
Warnings: Harry!angst. Tiiiiny bit of language (one word, if I recall correctly)
Spoilers: Takes place before the series, but references events from “What About Bob?” quite a bit. :)
Summary: Harry goes to take Bob’s skull home and encounters an angry warden.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files in no way belongs to me.
Author’s Note: Written for my LJ friend,
joonscribble. Was supposed to be a ficlet, but it demanded more room for back-story and, in giving it to the fic, I turned it into a two or three-parter, with the prompt I was given not even coming into the picture until a bit later. *sheepish grin*
Ahem. Anyway, despite some different ideas, I hope you like it, joonscribble! =D
* * *
Harry could not even look at his late uncle’s mansion without feeling nauseous. Once a secure, if also somewhat oppressive place to live in, the building had begun to look, to him, as if it were no more than a giant tombstone. Nothing about the place appeared elegant or grand anymore, although logically Harry knew that its appearance was as unchanged as it ever had been. His uncle had been a stickler for appearance and, as a child, Harry could remember receiving many lectures from the man about how a clean, well-kept house worked to the benefit of every person who lived within it. A contrasting view that Harry’s father had once given Harry was that a place without a little clutter here and there was a place trying too hard to hide its true character, and that such places were often dangerous to be near.
Harry had never placed much belief in either view, but in this case-as in many, as Harry was beginning to find-his father had been correct. But regardless of how safe or unsafe the place was, Harry had no choice. He had to enter the mansion, at least one more time, even if he never did so again.
Feeling unnerved as he stepped hesitantly up to the elegantly carved doorway to the mansion, Harry lightly pressed his fingers against the doorknob and twisted in the direction not facing the deadbolt. Not being locked, the door gave easily with a slight squeak and Harry suddenly found himself staring into a house he had not entered in nearly three months. Inside everything was still and covered in a slight layer of dust, an indicator that the place had not been cleaned for at least as long as Harry had been away from it, a fact that only heightened his sense of nervousness.
Breathing deeply, Harry steeled himself and stepped inside of the mansion, only pausing at the door for long enough to close it. Once the door was shut, the wizard walked briskly through the hallway towards the parlor, trying on the way to avoid noticing the places on the floor he knew his uncle’s last moments had been spent upon.
Shutting his eyes briefly as he walked over the spot in which he remembered his uncle dying, Harry inhaled a steadying breath and then entered the parlor, in which Morgan was waiting for him. Seeing the warden, Harry froze, his cold hands stiff in his pockets. Dimly, he was aware of his sleep-muddled mind shooting automatically to autopilot as he abruptly greeted the warden, whose eyes narrowed in reply.
“Dresden,” the warden shot back, handling the word as if it were distasteful to him. “The Council professed your innocence. You must be very pleased.”
Swallowing, Harry fought the urge to look away from the warden’s intense gaze and instead grinned, although the expression wavered convulsively on his face. “Yeah,” he stammered, feeling threatened, “I guess.”
Behind Morgan, Harry could see the pale figure of his friend standing quietly by the edges of the boundaries his skull allowed him. At the knowledge that Bob was all right, Harry felt a panicky sense of relief wash over him, but it was quickly quelled by the grim expression the ghost was giving him. Looking further into the situation, Harry noted that Morgan was loosely holding Bob’s skull in his hand, yet the warden’s intentions toward the skull did not seem to be particularly alarming, so Bob’s expression made little sense to him.
Wanting some cue as to how he should be acting in Morgan’s presence, Harry tried to re-catch Bob’s gaze, but the ghost just looked away, unwilling, or at least unable, to help. Knowing then that he would have to confront Morgan on his own, Harry felt the muscles in his shoulders sag. “Morgan,” he moaned, exhaustedly, “What are you doing here?”
“You should not be free,” the warden replied, simply. Breathing deeply, as if to restrain some dark intention he was suddenly experiencing, Morgan walked towards Harry, each footstep carefully calculated and filled with purpose until finally the two men were standing several feet from each other. “You are a murderer, and you will no doubt cause me troubles again,” Morgan concluded. Out of the corner of Harry’s eye he saw the warden’s hand slowly move towards his sword hilt and stay there, just waiting for an excuse to move.
Feeling his kneecaps turn to mush, Harry tried to pretend he had not noticed the warning. “It was self-defense, Morgan,” he protested, weakly. Behind them both, Bob stood, the ghost’s chin set firmly as he glanced warily between Morgan and Harry. What, precisely, the ghost was feeling apprehensive about, Harry could only assume. He only hoped the ghost’s thoughts were not lingering over the one sin Harry had yet to be able to purge from his own head. He did not think he could handle one more person blaming him any more than he already blamed himself.
The warden chuckled, the sound far darker than any Harry had ever heard from the man. “You are a fool, Dresden,” he accused, “you have opened the door to things far beyond you, and you will no doubt attempt to do so again. It is for this reason that I believe you should be stopped, now, before you can cause any more damage than you already have.”
On the verge of an abrupt hysteria as Harry’s mind went all over the place with guesses as to what this meant to the warden-many of the ideas involving himself silent, resting and decapitated beneath the blade of a Council member-Harry found himself afraid to look away from Morgan’s dark eyes for fear of how the warden might interpret such a twitch. “Morgan,” he repeated, slowly, “self-defense. I didn’t have a choice!”
“We always have a choice, Dresden,” the warden immediately countered, his tone rigid, “especially us, who do not need to abide by mere mortal restrictions. You had options, and you squandered them, and because you have done this, you are a threat to us all, perhaps even more so than your uncle was.”
“Morgan,” Harry pleaded, targeting the warden’s sense of reason, “the man could have killed you, and everyone else! He is hardly an innocent in this.”
“That does not excuse your actions!” Morgan snapped, his steel-plate exterior momentarily breeched.
“I know that!” Harry yelled back.
“So you confess to murdering your uncle with black magic?”
“No!” Harry exploded, suddenly realizing he had almost backed himself into a corner. His sleep-deprived mind whirled about at its sudden need to comprehend things quickly and Harry felt a pounding headache growing in both of his temples. Wanting backup, he turned to Bob again, only to find the ghost looking away from him, seemingly more interested in the goings-on outside of the windows than in anything else.
“Bob?” Harry begged, and the ghost turned his head to face him.
“Harry,” the ghost briefly acknowledged, sparing a brief look at Morgan before looking back to Harry, a message all in itself, although Harry was at a loss to comprehend it.
“Do not pay attention to your ghost,” Morgan snapped, his fist tightening around his sword, “not when it is your life on the line.”
“I know that,” Harry shot back.
The warden leveled his gaze at Harry, refusing to yield for several long seconds before he begrudgingly stepped back a few paces. “I am not sure that you do,” he said, seeming vaguely disappointed at this. Apparently having decided that this part of the conversation was over, he stiffly held Bob’s familiar, etched skull out to Harry.
“You already claimed this, did you not?” the warden asked, quickly moving from one subject to the next.
Stunned, Harry nodded, his head bobbing uselessly. “Uh-huh,” he barely managed to get out, in his haste to take the skull almost tripping over his own feet.
Gracefully, Morgan held the skull to the side, just beyond Harry’s grasp. “You do not deserve this honor,” he glowered, apparently wanting to make this statement very clear. “If this decision were up to me, you would not have it. Not now, not before, not ever, do you understand me, Dresden?”
Finding his throat suddenly tight with an unspecific fear, Harry nodded flimsily. “Yes, yes,” he stammered, “I know. I do. The skull, I’ll keep it safe. I promise.”
The warden narrowed his eyes, absolutely no warmth in their darkened depths. “The word of a criminal,” he hissed, “means very little to me, Dresden.” The warden breathed deeply. “However,” he conceded, “I will hold you to it, seeing as I have few other options at this time. But rest assured, I will be watching you, and if you slip up, that’s it. You lose this, and you will not get it back. Do we understand each other?”
Harry continued to nod, consciously aware of how parrot-like he must appear. “Yeah, scout’s honor and everything.” He held out his hands for Bob’s skull, a little startled but not necessarily surprised to see his fingertips shaking slightly.
“You are lucky this was not destroyed while you were gone,” the warden glowered, shoving the skull into Harry’s chest and not offering a hand to help as the force sent Harry stumbling backwards, the wizard almost colliding with an old statue.
Sinking to his knees in sudden exhaustion, Harry held the skull tightly against his chest, almost afraid to let go. It was only a moment later, when he looked up to see Bob standing above him, that Harry realized Morgan had made one of his notoriously discreet exits and was no longer in the room. He thought he could feel a draft, as if a door had been opened and shut quickly, but he could not be sure and his mind quickly dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
Feeling awkward, Harry looked blankly up at his prior mentor, who looked strangely weary, especially considering that he was a ghost and did not require sleep. For a moment Harry wondered how awful he himself must look if a ghost could appear to be affected by a situation that he, having a physical body that could be damaged, had been personally dealing with for months. Self-consciously, he reached up and smoothed down his hair with the back of his hand, although he imagined it did more harm than good to his already disheveled appearance.
“Hey, Bob,” he greeted, and was horrified to find that his voice shook, perhaps even more so than he suddenly realized his legs were.
“Harry,” the ghost acknowledged, briefly nodding his head.
Harry laughed, his strangled nerves making the sound come out far too loudly. “Wow,” he shakily declared. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”
“You will receive no complaints from me on that,” Bob replied, smiling softly down at the wizard.
Harry shifted, looking blearily back and forth. The familiar furniture and old trinkets his uncle always liked to keep around suddenly appeared blurred and he could not figure out why. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes, but the blur returned with a vengeance and would not be stopped.
“Bob,” he whispered, “What the hell happened here?”
The ghost pursed his lips, seeming hesitant to reply. Finally, he just sighed. “A tragedy, Harry, and a terribly monumental one, at that. One that you, I am afraid, were very much the catalyst for.” The ghost allowed his eyes to drift to the side so that he could avoid meeting Harry’s gaze. “One that,” the ghost added quietly, “you may be paying for the rest of your life.”
Still blinking back tears, Harry held Bob’s skull closer to his chest, suddenly more drained than he could ever remember being before. Just keeping his eyes open was almost impossible, but worse would be to stay in his uncle’s house for even a moment longer. Everything around him was spinning and he wanted nothing more than to curl up under a blanket and pretend that the last three months had never happened.
“I’m tired, Bob,” Harry murmured, perhaps not even realizing he had done so.
Bob gestured to a couch behind himself. “Perhaps you should rest?” he suggested.
“No,” Harry immediately protested, shaking his head so violently he saw stars. “Not here.”
Bob furrowed his eyebrows, his immediate comprehension causing him concern. “Am I to suppose that you have somewhere else you can go at this point in time?”
Harry blinked himself awake, suddenly realizing his chin had fallen to rest against his collarbone of its own will. Deliberately shaking out his muscles, he slowly stood up from the floor. “Yeah,” he said, “anywhere that isn’t here.”
Bob sighed. “Always with the clever plans,” he grumbled.
Harry shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, his gaze falling on the hallway behind him. “Clever me.”
Bob raised an eyebrow, but there was nothing to be said. For a moment, only the dust swirling through the air could be seen in movement, and then Harry jerked to the side, unsteadily moving to collect a few things from the house before he left the place, a task that was made difficult by the fact that he never let go of Bob's skull. Neither spoke, each too wrapped up in their own musings, while Harry stormed through the house with a vengeance, destroying some things, preserving others and just shoving aside the rest. And all throughout, the distraught wizard could not figure out why, no matter how much he blinked, he could not bring life back into focus.