The Dresden Files / Bob the Skull / 11. Text
Title: Between the Lines
Fandom: The Dresden Files (tv-verse)
Characters: Bob, young Harry
Prompt: 11. Text
Word Count: 2,226
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry learns the difference between fact with fiction.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files do not belong to me; just passing through.
Table: Here There be Ghosts.
It was that time of the afternoon that Bob most anticipated. With a glance at the grandfather clock in the far corner of the study, he thought, "Just a few minutes more."
As the clock chimed the quarter hour, the ghost heard the familiar sound of the heavy front door swinging open. It had a tendency to bang when thrown wide, the inner brass knob striking the wood of the wall if not caught by a waiting servant. This sound was almost always followed by the subsequent slam of it's closing and the pounding of sneakered feet across the parquet flooring of the foyer.
Harry was home from school.
Standing beside the weathered old chalkboard, Bob turned with a smile of greeting. But to his surprise, it was not the Harry he was accustomed to who came through the study doorway. There was no "Hi ya, Bob!" or a run-together onslaught of words in one breath that teenagers often use to describe the events of their day. There was, instead, an angry young man with fire and pain reflected in his dark brown eyes.
"You lied to me!" shouted Harry.
Bob took an involuntary step back, as if the words had been a physical slap. "What--?"
"You LIED to me!"
Sorely wounded by the unexpected hatred in Harry's tone, Bob regarded the boy with surprise and confusion. "I have never lied to you." He had upon occasion omitted the whole truth or bent it slightly to protect him from his Uncle's intentions, but he had never outright lied.
"Yeah? Oh YEAH?" Harry grabbed his schoolbag and pulled a small, leather-bound volume from its cluttered depths. "What about THIS?" he demanded, slamming the book onto the desk hard enough to rattle the skull on the far corner. "I thought you were a good guy, Bob! I thought you were some kind of sad figure that someone stuffed into his skull out of spite or something." Hot tears glittered in those dark eyes now but, determined, Harry would not let them fall. "But you're not, are you? Are you?!"
"Am I not?" he asked softly. "Have I ever treated you ill?"
"No," Harry grudgingly admitted, then countered, "But you're probably afraid Uncle Justin will punish you in some way."
"Have I ever tried to harm you?"
"No, but that's because you can't! You're a ghost. You can't even pick up a piece of chalk!" Harry's anger was dark and impenetrable. "Maybe you secretly wanted to hurt me but couldn't because of the whole ghost thing. I'll bet that just pisses you off, too, doesn't it? That you can't hurt me or anyone ever again!"
A blade to the heart would not have cut him as deeply as those carelessly flung accusations. "I would never harm you, Harry. Never!"
"That's not what this book says!"
Bob did not need to look at the tome. He had known it for what it was the instant Harry revealed it. "And where, pray, did you find that thing?"
"Uncle Justin gave it to me to read."
"Why?"
"Because I asked him about you. I wanted to know what you were like when you were alive. I wanted to know why someone made you a ghost and punished you forever. I knew it had to be pretty bad but I didn't know… I didn't think…" Harry jabbed a finger at the book. "How could you have done some of those things? They're horrible! And evil!"
What Bob heard within the boy's tone, along with the hurt and betrayal and anger, was the sound of a pedestal, however small, crumbling into dust.
"I know what it says, Harry," he admitted. "I know it all too well. The author made it a point to relate every word to me as he was writing it."
"So now you're gonna tell me it's all lies, right?" he demanded. "That's what Uncle Justin said you'd do. He said you'd try to make me believe you instead of some guy who wrote a whole book about the terrible stuff you did!"
"Such as planting the seeds of the Black Death that killed millions and nearly decimated the population of Europe," said Bob rigidly.
"Right!"
"And how I cruelly murdered the young Princes Edward and Richard within the Tower of London."
"Exactly." That one had hurt. It had been hard enough to believe that Bob could sic some kind of nasty disease on a whole country, but killing a couple of helpless kids? Kids that were just a little younger than Harry? Somehow, that was a lot more believable. Probably because it hit too close to home.
"And let us not forget the San Francisco earthquake which I supposedly caused by raising an air elemental." Bob carefully moved his hands behind his back, clasping them tightly so that they would not shake. "All terrible tragedies, that is true. But they are the sorts of murder and mayhem that require magic and stealth. And a corporeal form."
"Right! So why did you… huh?"
Bob looked up from the book, dismissing it with an air of contempt. "I realize that you flunked world history in your last grade, Harry, but I ask you to try and recall a few of your lessons. When, approximately, did the Black Plague ravage Europe?"
"I dunno. Fifteenth century? Sixteenth?"
"Fourteenth. And when were the Princes known to have last been seen within the Tower?"
"Um … at night…?"
"Fourteen hundred and eighty three," Bob supplied. "And the San Francisco earthquake?"
"1906." That one Harry knew because, well, natural disasters kind of fascinated him. "Why? Why does it matter what the dates were?" He looked at Bob with renewed suspicion. "You're doing it now, aren't you? Trying to convince me you're right and it’s wrong!"
"I hope I do not need to 'try,'" said Bob archly. "The truth is before you, if you care to look. Both here," he bowed his head slightly, "And within that accursed volume."
"Meaning what?"
"I was already a hundred years dead by the earliest event related within those pages."
Whatever pleas or lies Harry had expected Bob to roll out in his defense, that one had never occurred to him. "You were?"
"You need not take my word for it. There are a number of books on ancient and rare magical artifacts in your Uncle's library that will confirm the age of the skull to which I am bound."
"A hundred years before?"
"At least. And, as you have already pointed out, I am a ghost. It is not within my power to wield a spell or cause physical harm to any, no matter how desperately I would desire to do so."
"But, the guy who wrote this-"
"--Was a poor wizard with negligible talent and a burning hatred of anyone or anything more accomplished than himself. Even the ineffectual ghost of a dead and damned sorcerer who happened to fall within his possession. Frankly, I am surprised he did not accuse me of devouring the Donner Party like some ravening wolf or lay the loss of the Hindenburg upon my head as well."
"He was jealous of you?"
"Of what I once was."
"So … you're saying he wrote this thing to get even."
Bob shrugged. "It assuaged his ego."
"Huh?"
"It made him feel better."
"It wouldn't make me feel better."
"I am delighted to hear you say so. But then, that is not the manner of person you are. You act and react, directly and honestly, without malice aforethought. Such plotting and deceit are not your way." You are not like your Uncle. Not yet. May you never be so…!
Harry frowned at the book, clearly torn between its accusations and Bob's words. "I dunno…"
"Think on it," said Bob reasonably. "Finish reading the book if you must. And if, at last, you decide you would prefer another mentor - one that you may better trust - you need only tell your Uncle and it will be arranged. For the moment … there is no class for the day." The lesson already learned had been quite painful enough.
After a moment's hesitation Harry picked up the book and stuffed it back into his schoolbag. Before he stepped through the doorway into the hall, he heard the ghost softly call his name and paused.
"I have never lied to you, Harry," said Bob. "Nor shall I ever. That I swear upon my soul."
~ ~ ~
In the week that followed, Bob anxiously waited as was his custom, his gaze riveted upon the face of the grandfather clock as he listened for the sound of slamming door and running feet. But although the minutes ticked away and the clock continued to chime the quarter hour, no footsteps came toward the study nor did any cheerful voice rise to greet him.
It seemed that Harry had made his choice and, unknowing, had torn Bob's heart in twain.
By the ninth day Bob no longer bothered to manifest in anticipation of the boy's arrival for their lessons. As hope waned, he stopped listening altogether for the joyful sounds that had so brightened his existence. He was, for all intents and purposes, dead and damned and alone once more.
~ ~ ~
"Bob?" Harry stooped down and peered into the skull's dark eye sockets. "Hey, Bob? You in there?"
Was he napping? Did ghosts even need sleep? The teenager knocked on the bony cranium for good measure. He jumped back just in time to avoid being bowled over by the flash of orange and red flame that shot out of the relic and into the air. A moment later it vanished, leaving a familiar, tall, white-haired and regal figure in its wake.
"Harry?" The ghost blinked at him as if expecting the illusion to vanish. "It is good to see you."
"Thanks! It's good to see you, too," replied the boy, and meant it.
"Have you been well?"
"Huh? Um, yeah. Sure. I've been fine." He shuffled a foot, his expression a bit sheepish. "Look, um … about last week. I'm sorry I didn't come back right away but, uh…"
"You needed time to think."
"Kinda, yeah."
"Perfectly understandable. You had a lot to digest."
"It was hard, you know? I mean … that book was pretty convincing."
"Of course."
"And Uncle Justin told me a few things, too."
Bob's expression soured slightly but he did not comment. Indeed, he could not while Justin remained master of the skull.
"And then I started thinking about what you'd said about being dead before any of that stuff happened and how you couldn't have done any of it, but … you had to do something pretty bad to get stuck inside your skull for all eternity, didn't you?"
Bob lowered his gaze. "Yes." And knew then, as he spoke the truth, that he surely had confirmed Harry's worst fears.
"Yeah," said Harry quietly. "That's what I thought."
Bob sighed. "You have come to say goodbye, then."
"I guess you could say that." From the pocket of his jacket, Harry produced the offending book. "It's pretty convincing stuff. He might have sucked as a wizard but he was a pretty good writer." He opened the cover, riffling the yellowed pages with this thumb. "But you know what? This book is about some guy named Hrothbert." Harry looked up then, meeting his mentor's surprised gaze. "Not Bob."
So saying, Harry grasped a handful of antique pages and ripped them from the binding.
"Harry! Harry, what are you doing? That book-"
"Doesn't know shit!" Out came another half dozen pages, tearing with a tortuous sound that would make any librarian cringe. "You're not in here, Bob!" said Harry, holding up a fist full of jagged edged paper. "You were never in here!" He tossed paper and book aside with angry impatience. "You're here! Right, here, in front of me. That's where you've been ever since I came here, five years ago, and you've never been anywhere else. And you've never lied to me. I know that, Bob. Not because you said so but because I can feel it. How weird is that? You're a ghost and I can feel you more than Uncle Justin or the servants or anyone since …" He swallowed back the bitterness. "…since my Dad died."
Warmth and joy filled the old ghost's heart in a way he had not experienced in centuries, if ever he did. "Harry-"
"I'm sorry, Bob. I'm really, really sorry! I should have trusted you instead of some dumb old book." Harry kicked said book for good measure, sending it skittering across the floor until it struck the edge of the oriental carpet. "I'll never question you again. EVER!"
"You need not apologize," said Bob gently, "But I thank you for it, from the bottom of heart. To hear you say those words means more to me than you shall ever know. But Harry? Never stop questioning the world around you. Even me," he warned. "Blind trust can be as dangerous as blind hatred."
"Sheesh, Bob," replied Harry with an exasperated (and juvenile) roll of his eyes. "Does everything have to be a lesson with you?"
"In a word?" Bob smiled, amused. "Yes."
"Good," concluded Harry with a decisive nod. "Because that's the way it should be."
Fandom: The Dresden Files (tv-verse)
Characters: Bob, young Harry
Prompt: 11. Text
Word Count: 2,226
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry learns the difference between fact with fiction.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files do not belong to me; just passing through.
Table: Here There be Ghosts.
It was that time of the afternoon that Bob most anticipated. With a glance at the grandfather clock in the far corner of the study, he thought, "Just a few minutes more."
As the clock chimed the quarter hour, the ghost heard the familiar sound of the heavy front door swinging open. It had a tendency to bang when thrown wide, the inner brass knob striking the wood of the wall if not caught by a waiting servant. This sound was almost always followed by the subsequent slam of it's closing and the pounding of sneakered feet across the parquet flooring of the foyer.
Harry was home from school.
Standing beside the weathered old chalkboard, Bob turned with a smile of greeting. But to his surprise, it was not the Harry he was accustomed to who came through the study doorway. There was no "Hi ya, Bob!" or a run-together onslaught of words in one breath that teenagers often use to describe the events of their day. There was, instead, an angry young man with fire and pain reflected in his dark brown eyes.
"You lied to me!" shouted Harry.
Bob took an involuntary step back, as if the words had been a physical slap. "What--?"
"You LIED to me!"
Sorely wounded by the unexpected hatred in Harry's tone, Bob regarded the boy with surprise and confusion. "I have never lied to you." He had upon occasion omitted the whole truth or bent it slightly to protect him from his Uncle's intentions, but he had never outright lied.
"Yeah? Oh YEAH?" Harry grabbed his schoolbag and pulled a small, leather-bound volume from its cluttered depths. "What about THIS?" he demanded, slamming the book onto the desk hard enough to rattle the skull on the far corner. "I thought you were a good guy, Bob! I thought you were some kind of sad figure that someone stuffed into his skull out of spite or something." Hot tears glittered in those dark eyes now but, determined, Harry would not let them fall. "But you're not, are you? Are you?!"
"Am I not?" he asked softly. "Have I ever treated you ill?"
"No," Harry grudgingly admitted, then countered, "But you're probably afraid Uncle Justin will punish you in some way."
"Have I ever tried to harm you?"
"No, but that's because you can't! You're a ghost. You can't even pick up a piece of chalk!" Harry's anger was dark and impenetrable. "Maybe you secretly wanted to hurt me but couldn't because of the whole ghost thing. I'll bet that just pisses you off, too, doesn't it? That you can't hurt me or anyone ever again!"
A blade to the heart would not have cut him as deeply as those carelessly flung accusations. "I would never harm you, Harry. Never!"
"That's not what this book says!"
Bob did not need to look at the tome. He had known it for what it was the instant Harry revealed it. "And where, pray, did you find that thing?"
"Uncle Justin gave it to me to read."
"Why?"
"Because I asked him about you. I wanted to know what you were like when you were alive. I wanted to know why someone made you a ghost and punished you forever. I knew it had to be pretty bad but I didn't know… I didn't think…" Harry jabbed a finger at the book. "How could you have done some of those things? They're horrible! And evil!"
What Bob heard within the boy's tone, along with the hurt and betrayal and anger, was the sound of a pedestal, however small, crumbling into dust.
"I know what it says, Harry," he admitted. "I know it all too well. The author made it a point to relate every word to me as he was writing it."
"So now you're gonna tell me it's all lies, right?" he demanded. "That's what Uncle Justin said you'd do. He said you'd try to make me believe you instead of some guy who wrote a whole book about the terrible stuff you did!"
"Such as planting the seeds of the Black Death that killed millions and nearly decimated the population of Europe," said Bob rigidly.
"Right!"
"And how I cruelly murdered the young Princes Edward and Richard within the Tower of London."
"Exactly." That one had hurt. It had been hard enough to believe that Bob could sic some kind of nasty disease on a whole country, but killing a couple of helpless kids? Kids that were just a little younger than Harry? Somehow, that was a lot more believable. Probably because it hit too close to home.
"And let us not forget the San Francisco earthquake which I supposedly caused by raising an air elemental." Bob carefully moved his hands behind his back, clasping them tightly so that they would not shake. "All terrible tragedies, that is true. But they are the sorts of murder and mayhem that require magic and stealth. And a corporeal form."
"Right! So why did you… huh?"
Bob looked up from the book, dismissing it with an air of contempt. "I realize that you flunked world history in your last grade, Harry, but I ask you to try and recall a few of your lessons. When, approximately, did the Black Plague ravage Europe?"
"I dunno. Fifteenth century? Sixteenth?"
"Fourteenth. And when were the Princes known to have last been seen within the Tower?"
"Um … at night…?"
"Fourteen hundred and eighty three," Bob supplied. "And the San Francisco earthquake?"
"1906." That one Harry knew because, well, natural disasters kind of fascinated him. "Why? Why does it matter what the dates were?" He looked at Bob with renewed suspicion. "You're doing it now, aren't you? Trying to convince me you're right and it’s wrong!"
"I hope I do not need to 'try,'" said Bob archly. "The truth is before you, if you care to look. Both here," he bowed his head slightly, "And within that accursed volume."
"Meaning what?"
"I was already a hundred years dead by the earliest event related within those pages."
Whatever pleas or lies Harry had expected Bob to roll out in his defense, that one had never occurred to him. "You were?"
"You need not take my word for it. There are a number of books on ancient and rare magical artifacts in your Uncle's library that will confirm the age of the skull to which I am bound."
"A hundred years before?"
"At least. And, as you have already pointed out, I am a ghost. It is not within my power to wield a spell or cause physical harm to any, no matter how desperately I would desire to do so."
"But, the guy who wrote this-"
"--Was a poor wizard with negligible talent and a burning hatred of anyone or anything more accomplished than himself. Even the ineffectual ghost of a dead and damned sorcerer who happened to fall within his possession. Frankly, I am surprised he did not accuse me of devouring the Donner Party like some ravening wolf or lay the loss of the Hindenburg upon my head as well."
"He was jealous of you?"
"Of what I once was."
"So … you're saying he wrote this thing to get even."
Bob shrugged. "It assuaged his ego."
"Huh?"
"It made him feel better."
"It wouldn't make me feel better."
"I am delighted to hear you say so. But then, that is not the manner of person you are. You act and react, directly and honestly, without malice aforethought. Such plotting and deceit are not your way." You are not like your Uncle. Not yet. May you never be so…!
Harry frowned at the book, clearly torn between its accusations and Bob's words. "I dunno…"
"Think on it," said Bob reasonably. "Finish reading the book if you must. And if, at last, you decide you would prefer another mentor - one that you may better trust - you need only tell your Uncle and it will be arranged. For the moment … there is no class for the day." The lesson already learned had been quite painful enough.
After a moment's hesitation Harry picked up the book and stuffed it back into his schoolbag. Before he stepped through the doorway into the hall, he heard the ghost softly call his name and paused.
"I have never lied to you, Harry," said Bob. "Nor shall I ever. That I swear upon my soul."
~ ~ ~
In the week that followed, Bob anxiously waited as was his custom, his gaze riveted upon the face of the grandfather clock as he listened for the sound of slamming door and running feet. But although the minutes ticked away and the clock continued to chime the quarter hour, no footsteps came toward the study nor did any cheerful voice rise to greet him.
It seemed that Harry had made his choice and, unknowing, had torn Bob's heart in twain.
By the ninth day Bob no longer bothered to manifest in anticipation of the boy's arrival for their lessons. As hope waned, he stopped listening altogether for the joyful sounds that had so brightened his existence. He was, for all intents and purposes, dead and damned and alone once more.
~ ~ ~
"Bob?" Harry stooped down and peered into the skull's dark eye sockets. "Hey, Bob? You in there?"
Was he napping? Did ghosts even need sleep? The teenager knocked on the bony cranium for good measure. He jumped back just in time to avoid being bowled over by the flash of orange and red flame that shot out of the relic and into the air. A moment later it vanished, leaving a familiar, tall, white-haired and regal figure in its wake.
"Harry?" The ghost blinked at him as if expecting the illusion to vanish. "It is good to see you."
"Thanks! It's good to see you, too," replied the boy, and meant it.
"Have you been well?"
"Huh? Um, yeah. Sure. I've been fine." He shuffled a foot, his expression a bit sheepish. "Look, um … about last week. I'm sorry I didn't come back right away but, uh…"
"You needed time to think."
"Kinda, yeah."
"Perfectly understandable. You had a lot to digest."
"It was hard, you know? I mean … that book was pretty convincing."
"Of course."
"And Uncle Justin told me a few things, too."
Bob's expression soured slightly but he did not comment. Indeed, he could not while Justin remained master of the skull.
"And then I started thinking about what you'd said about being dead before any of that stuff happened and how you couldn't have done any of it, but … you had to do something pretty bad to get stuck inside your skull for all eternity, didn't you?"
Bob lowered his gaze. "Yes." And knew then, as he spoke the truth, that he surely had confirmed Harry's worst fears.
"Yeah," said Harry quietly. "That's what I thought."
Bob sighed. "You have come to say goodbye, then."
"I guess you could say that." From the pocket of his jacket, Harry produced the offending book. "It's pretty convincing stuff. He might have sucked as a wizard but he was a pretty good writer." He opened the cover, riffling the yellowed pages with this thumb. "But you know what? This book is about some guy named Hrothbert." Harry looked up then, meeting his mentor's surprised gaze. "Not Bob."
So saying, Harry grasped a handful of antique pages and ripped them from the binding.
"Harry! Harry, what are you doing? That book-"
"Doesn't know shit!" Out came another half dozen pages, tearing with a tortuous sound that would make any librarian cringe. "You're not in here, Bob!" said Harry, holding up a fist full of jagged edged paper. "You were never in here!" He tossed paper and book aside with angry impatience. "You're here! Right, here, in front of me. That's where you've been ever since I came here, five years ago, and you've never been anywhere else. And you've never lied to me. I know that, Bob. Not because you said so but because I can feel it. How weird is that? You're a ghost and I can feel you more than Uncle Justin or the servants or anyone since …" He swallowed back the bitterness. "…since my Dad died."
Warmth and joy filled the old ghost's heart in a way he had not experienced in centuries, if ever he did. "Harry-"
"I'm sorry, Bob. I'm really, really sorry! I should have trusted you instead of some dumb old book." Harry kicked said book for good measure, sending it skittering across the floor until it struck the edge of the oriental carpet. "I'll never question you again. EVER!"
"You need not apologize," said Bob gently, "But I thank you for it, from the bottom of heart. To hear you say those words means more to me than you shall ever know. But Harry? Never stop questioning the world around you. Even me," he warned. "Blind trust can be as dangerous as blind hatred."
"Sheesh, Bob," replied Harry with an exasperated (and juvenile) roll of his eyes. "Does everything have to be a lesson with you?"
"In a word?" Bob smiled, amused. "Yes."
"Good," concluded Harry with a decisive nod. "Because that's the way it should be."