#46 Enigma / Bob the Skull
Title: Revelations
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Characters: Bob, Harry
Prompt: 46. Enigma
Word Count: 1,628
Rating: PG
Summary: Bob comes to a startling realization about his young student.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files are not mine but I can dream, can't I?
Notes: Tv-verse
Table: Here There be Ghosts.
Harry Dresden was an extraordinary child. Not the most extraordinary. Not in terms of magical prowess or aptitude. Bob had taught the Art to brighter, more attentive students throughout the centuries, their stellar accomplishments largely fueled by family ambition or their own burgeoning thirst for power.
But then, Bob he had never been entrusted to teach anyone as young, or as isolated, as Harry. There were no other students at his lessons; no peers to interact with or confide in; no friendships to be had. The handful of servants at the Morningway estate kept themselves aloof and strictly professional around the boy, meticulously heeding the strict instructions of their employer. To defy Justin Morningway was to invite very unpleasant repercussions.
Bob, who in life had been known as Hrothbert of Bainbridge, was also a servant; less conventional than his flesh and blood counterparts but more strictly bound; a soul condemned to an eternity within his own skull, forbidden to move on. Like all of the skull's previous owners, Morningway regarded the ghost as a font of arcane knowledge and a convenient tool but impotent; a powerful but mostly harmless Artifact that could be switched on and off at will. It was just one more bane of Bob's cursed existence, which left him wholly unprepared for the enigma that was young Harry Dresden.
~ ~ ~
The crystal pendant wobbled a bit at the end of the string.
"It's not doing anything," said Harry as he frowned at the glittering shard.
"Of course it isn't," said Bob. "You're not concentrating."
"I am too concentrating! You told me to think about something I wanted to find. That's what I'm doing. Thinking." The teen's voice cracked slightly from frustration aided by the advent of puberty. He'd been staring at the crystal for the better part of an hour and all it had given him was a bit of a jiggle. "It's not working."
"Concentrate harder."
"If I think any harder my head's going to explode."
"That won't excuse you from this afternoon's lesson. It will only delay it long enough for one of the maids to clean up the mess," said Bob, drolly unsympathetic. "I doubt she'll thank you for it. Now then, if you're finished feeling sorry for yourself . . . let's begin again."
With a martyred sigh, Harry turned back to the pendant. Centering himself exactly as Bob had taught him to do, he pushed all conscious thought from the front of his mind except for one. His goal. His quest. His desire.
"Where?" Harry whispered to the crystal, encouraging it. Perhaps pleading just the tiniest bit.
Bob stood as quiet as the dead and watched the lesson with a critical eye. He could not hear Harry's thoughts but he could feel the power behind them. Slowly building like the rippling current beneath the still surface of a lake, it flowed through the boy's fingers to the string and then down, toward the pendant.
The quartz began to spin slowly clockwise.
"Good," said Bob quietly.
Pure white light began to glow within the crystalline depths, radiating outward.
"Even better," encouraged Bob, genuinely pleased. The shallow copper bowl on the table beneath the crystal began to hum in metallurgic sympathy, it's contents smooth as glass. "Concentrate. Con-cen-trate," he encouraged, leaning forward to see what image would manifest. "Focus. Think only of the Object. Seeing it. Touching it. Holding it."
Bob glanced over at Harry and felt a sudden shock of concern. The dark eyes were no longer focused on the crystal but squeezed tightly closed, turning his mind's eye inward instead of out. Glistening beads of sweat sheened his forehead, wrinkled in fierce concentration.
This isn't right, thought Bob. He's using too much power.
The pendant stopped in mid-spin. Stopped as suddenly and completely as if a hand had reached out and closed around it.
Bob stood upright in shocked surprise. Whatever Harry had been searching for was actively resisting him. And anything that could resist was very likely to push back. Hard.
The white glow of the crystal began to bleed away, swallowed by creeping bilious green edged in motes of black. Dark colors. Dangerous colors.
"Harry, stop." Bob reached out an ineffectual hand, his fingers passing harmlessly through the boy's shoulder. "Harry? Harry!" The cancerous green light expanded, resonating upward along the string conduit toward the fingers holding the end of the tether.
"Stop!" Voice sharp now, Bob filled his tone with scorn and rebuke and turned it into a verbal slap. "You've botched the whole exercise. AGAIN."
Filled with hurt and resentment at the rebuke, Harry's eyes snapped open in time to see the venomous light just a hair's breadth from his fingertips.
Thank the gods! "Drop it, Harry!" shouted Bob urgently. "NOW!"
Harry opened his fingers and snatched back his hand. The cord remained ramrod straight for a moment longer, suspended in thin air by the invading force, then burned to ashes as it fell into the bowl with the crystal's charred remains.
Bob blew out a breath. That had been close. Far too close!
"Whoa," said Harry, eyes wide. "Was that supposed to happen?"
"Was that--?!" Now that the danger had been averted, Bob found himself in a high righteous anger. "No, that was NOT supposed to happen! THAT, young Master Dresden, was a classic malevolent resonance! Do you have any idea what that is?"
Young Master Dresden? Crap, he's pissed. "It's a, uh, security measure, right? Like a burglar alarm."
"It is. And the spell needed to conjure it requires blood magic; the darkest kind."
A chill shivered through Harry's body. "You mean, it required a death?"
"From the color of that sending, I'd say that one took several." Bob's eyes narrowed with a suspicion. "We've not yet covered the Aspects of malevolent resonance. Explain to me how you knew it was a security measure."
"Oh, uh, well," Harry shrugged, trying his best to look innocent. "It, um, just kind of made sense, I guess."
"And why on earth would you suppose such a thing?" Bob folded his arms across his chest and peered at his student with steely blue eyes. "Out with it."
"Out with what?"
"The object you were concentrating on. The subject of the seek and find spell. I said to keep it simple. Obviously, you and I have a different interpretation of the word." Bob's gaze never wavered from Harry's face as he indicated the now misshapen bowl with a nod of his head. "That was no lost pair of gym socks you were searching for, was it?"
"No," confessed Harry.
"What, then?"
"Promise you won't get mad?"
"I will do no such thing," said the sorcerer in clipped tones. "What. Was. It?"
Harry squirmed a bit in his seat then said, very softly, "The Apocryphal Book of Tobit."
Bob's eyes widened in horror as his mouth dropped open in soundless surprise. What little color he had in his spectral features paled considerably and his voice abandoned him, snatched away by astonishment.
Harry had never seen such a reaction in the old ghost before. Oh shit! I'm in for it now!
"I can explain!" Jumping up, Harry held out his hands as if to placate the momentarily stunned sorcerer. "It's not what you think! I mean, I know it's one of the Apocryphal Archana and that's really really bad mojo. And I know what you're going to say. I shouldn't have been thinking about it and you're right! But I didn't really expect it still existed! Uncle Justin said that the High Council destroyed all of the Archana hundreds of years ago but I just thought if, you know, I could find it --"
"Why?" Bob's voice literally shook. "Why would you want to find such a tome, Harry? It's an abomination."
"It has a spell I need."
Bob briefly closed his eyes. Very few grimoires contained as much evil as the Apocryphal Archana. He ought to know; he'd penned several of them himself. How could he have been so wrong about Harry? "What spell?"
"Bob-"
"What spell?" he repeated tightly, his tone quietly anguished. "What spell could possibly be so important that you would endanger your soul to possess such a book?"
"The one that breaks the High Council's Damnation Curse," said Harry.
Bob suddenly felt as if someone had punched him in the heart. ". . . what? . . ."
"The spell that sets you free." Harry saw the sorcerer's image waver and fade. "Bob, wait! Don’t go! At least, don't go away mad, okay? Please?" he pleaded, misinterpreting the ghost's shock. "Okay, you're right. Maybe I shouldn't have looked for the damned thing. But slavery's wrong, whether you're alive or dead, isn't it? That's not white magic or dark. It's just wrong. No one deserves to be imprisoned forever without a chance of parole." He jammed his hands into his pockets and cast his eyes down to the floor. "Especially not you."
Hrothbert of Bainbridge felt a sharp twinge as the sensation of tears fill his eyes. This boy - no, this young man! - had just done something that no one else had even considered. Something Bob no longer thought possible. He'd thought about Bob first. He genuinely cared.
"Harry." Bob struggled to find the words to express the depth of his gratitude. "Knowing that you feel that way means more to me than you can ever know. I'm touched. Truly and deeply touched. Thank you." His expression became stern and urgent. "Which is why you are going to promise me that you will NEVER attempt to find that book, ever again!"
"But Bob! Don't you want to be free of the curse?"
"Not at your expense, Harry." Never at your expense!
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Characters: Bob, Harry
Prompt: 46. Enigma
Word Count: 1,628
Rating: PG
Summary: Bob comes to a startling realization about his young student.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files are not mine but I can dream, can't I?
Notes: Tv-verse
Table: Here There be Ghosts.
Harry Dresden was an extraordinary child. Not the most extraordinary. Not in terms of magical prowess or aptitude. Bob had taught the Art to brighter, more attentive students throughout the centuries, their stellar accomplishments largely fueled by family ambition or their own burgeoning thirst for power.
But then, Bob he had never been entrusted to teach anyone as young, or as isolated, as Harry. There were no other students at his lessons; no peers to interact with or confide in; no friendships to be had. The handful of servants at the Morningway estate kept themselves aloof and strictly professional around the boy, meticulously heeding the strict instructions of their employer. To defy Justin Morningway was to invite very unpleasant repercussions.
Bob, who in life had been known as Hrothbert of Bainbridge, was also a servant; less conventional than his flesh and blood counterparts but more strictly bound; a soul condemned to an eternity within his own skull, forbidden to move on. Like all of the skull's previous owners, Morningway regarded the ghost as a font of arcane knowledge and a convenient tool but impotent; a powerful but mostly harmless Artifact that could be switched on and off at will. It was just one more bane of Bob's cursed existence, which left him wholly unprepared for the enigma that was young Harry Dresden.
~ ~ ~
The crystal pendant wobbled a bit at the end of the string.
"It's not doing anything," said Harry as he frowned at the glittering shard.
"Of course it isn't," said Bob. "You're not concentrating."
"I am too concentrating! You told me to think about something I wanted to find. That's what I'm doing. Thinking." The teen's voice cracked slightly from frustration aided by the advent of puberty. He'd been staring at the crystal for the better part of an hour and all it had given him was a bit of a jiggle. "It's not working."
"Concentrate harder."
"If I think any harder my head's going to explode."
"That won't excuse you from this afternoon's lesson. It will only delay it long enough for one of the maids to clean up the mess," said Bob, drolly unsympathetic. "I doubt she'll thank you for it. Now then, if you're finished feeling sorry for yourself . . . let's begin again."
With a martyred sigh, Harry turned back to the pendant. Centering himself exactly as Bob had taught him to do, he pushed all conscious thought from the front of his mind except for one. His goal. His quest. His desire.
"Where?" Harry whispered to the crystal, encouraging it. Perhaps pleading just the tiniest bit.
Bob stood as quiet as the dead and watched the lesson with a critical eye. He could not hear Harry's thoughts but he could feel the power behind them. Slowly building like the rippling current beneath the still surface of a lake, it flowed through the boy's fingers to the string and then down, toward the pendant.
The quartz began to spin slowly clockwise.
"Good," said Bob quietly.
Pure white light began to glow within the crystalline depths, radiating outward.
"Even better," encouraged Bob, genuinely pleased. The shallow copper bowl on the table beneath the crystal began to hum in metallurgic sympathy, it's contents smooth as glass. "Concentrate. Con-cen-trate," he encouraged, leaning forward to see what image would manifest. "Focus. Think only of the Object. Seeing it. Touching it. Holding it."
Bob glanced over at Harry and felt a sudden shock of concern. The dark eyes were no longer focused on the crystal but squeezed tightly closed, turning his mind's eye inward instead of out. Glistening beads of sweat sheened his forehead, wrinkled in fierce concentration.
This isn't right, thought Bob. He's using too much power.
The pendant stopped in mid-spin. Stopped as suddenly and completely as if a hand had reached out and closed around it.
Bob stood upright in shocked surprise. Whatever Harry had been searching for was actively resisting him. And anything that could resist was very likely to push back. Hard.
The white glow of the crystal began to bleed away, swallowed by creeping bilious green edged in motes of black. Dark colors. Dangerous colors.
"Harry, stop." Bob reached out an ineffectual hand, his fingers passing harmlessly through the boy's shoulder. "Harry? Harry!" The cancerous green light expanded, resonating upward along the string conduit toward the fingers holding the end of the tether.
"Stop!" Voice sharp now, Bob filled his tone with scorn and rebuke and turned it into a verbal slap. "You've botched the whole exercise. AGAIN."
Filled with hurt and resentment at the rebuke, Harry's eyes snapped open in time to see the venomous light just a hair's breadth from his fingertips.
Thank the gods! "Drop it, Harry!" shouted Bob urgently. "NOW!"
Harry opened his fingers and snatched back his hand. The cord remained ramrod straight for a moment longer, suspended in thin air by the invading force, then burned to ashes as it fell into the bowl with the crystal's charred remains.
Bob blew out a breath. That had been close. Far too close!
"Whoa," said Harry, eyes wide. "Was that supposed to happen?"
"Was that--?!" Now that the danger had been averted, Bob found himself in a high righteous anger. "No, that was NOT supposed to happen! THAT, young Master Dresden, was a classic malevolent resonance! Do you have any idea what that is?"
Young Master Dresden? Crap, he's pissed. "It's a, uh, security measure, right? Like a burglar alarm."
"It is. And the spell needed to conjure it requires blood magic; the darkest kind."
A chill shivered through Harry's body. "You mean, it required a death?"
"From the color of that sending, I'd say that one took several." Bob's eyes narrowed with a suspicion. "We've not yet covered the Aspects of malevolent resonance. Explain to me how you knew it was a security measure."
"Oh, uh, well," Harry shrugged, trying his best to look innocent. "It, um, just kind of made sense, I guess."
"And why on earth would you suppose such a thing?" Bob folded his arms across his chest and peered at his student with steely blue eyes. "Out with it."
"Out with what?"
"The object you were concentrating on. The subject of the seek and find spell. I said to keep it simple. Obviously, you and I have a different interpretation of the word." Bob's gaze never wavered from Harry's face as he indicated the now misshapen bowl with a nod of his head. "That was no lost pair of gym socks you were searching for, was it?"
"No," confessed Harry.
"What, then?"
"Promise you won't get mad?"
"I will do no such thing," said the sorcerer in clipped tones. "What. Was. It?"
Harry squirmed a bit in his seat then said, very softly, "The Apocryphal Book of Tobit."
Bob's eyes widened in horror as his mouth dropped open in soundless surprise. What little color he had in his spectral features paled considerably and his voice abandoned him, snatched away by astonishment.
Harry had never seen such a reaction in the old ghost before. Oh shit! I'm in for it now!
"I can explain!" Jumping up, Harry held out his hands as if to placate the momentarily stunned sorcerer. "It's not what you think! I mean, I know it's one of the Apocryphal Archana and that's really really bad mojo. And I know what you're going to say. I shouldn't have been thinking about it and you're right! But I didn't really expect it still existed! Uncle Justin said that the High Council destroyed all of the Archana hundreds of years ago but I just thought if, you know, I could find it --"
"Why?" Bob's voice literally shook. "Why would you want to find such a tome, Harry? It's an abomination."
"It has a spell I need."
Bob briefly closed his eyes. Very few grimoires contained as much evil as the Apocryphal Archana. He ought to know; he'd penned several of them himself. How could he have been so wrong about Harry? "What spell?"
"Bob-"
"What spell?" he repeated tightly, his tone quietly anguished. "What spell could possibly be so important that you would endanger your soul to possess such a book?"
"The one that breaks the High Council's Damnation Curse," said Harry.
Bob suddenly felt as if someone had punched him in the heart. ". . . what? . . ."
"The spell that sets you free." Harry saw the sorcerer's image waver and fade. "Bob, wait! Don’t go! At least, don't go away mad, okay? Please?" he pleaded, misinterpreting the ghost's shock. "Okay, you're right. Maybe I shouldn't have looked for the damned thing. But slavery's wrong, whether you're alive or dead, isn't it? That's not white magic or dark. It's just wrong. No one deserves to be imprisoned forever without a chance of parole." He jammed his hands into his pockets and cast his eyes down to the floor. "Especially not you."
Hrothbert of Bainbridge felt a sharp twinge as the sensation of tears fill his eyes. This boy - no, this young man! - had just done something that no one else had even considered. Something Bob no longer thought possible. He'd thought about Bob first. He genuinely cared.
"Harry." Bob struggled to find the words to express the depth of his gratitude. "Knowing that you feel that way means more to me than you can ever know. I'm touched. Truly and deeply touched. Thank you." His expression became stern and urgent. "Which is why you are going to promise me that you will NEVER attempt to find that book, ever again!"
"But Bob! Don't you want to be free of the curse?"
"Not at your expense, Harry." Never at your expense!