[The Dresden Files (TV)] Truth Be Told (2/8)
Title: Truth Be Told
Fandom: Dresden Files (TV)
Characters/Pairings: Bob, Harry, Justin
Rating: PG-13
Length: This chapter: +2900
Summary: AU. Bob decided to protect young Harry from Justin as much as he could, and now Harry himself must work some things out.
Spoilers: For the episode 1x10 "What About Bob?"
Notes: From this chapter, I'm borrowing a couple of things from the books, but if you haven't read them, it doesn't matter. Well, it does (:P), but not for the fic.
Chapter 1
Harry's birthday had been pretty much uneventful so far, and he planned to keep it that way by staying away from trouble. He would not think of what-could-have-beens, even if his uncle Justin was out of the manor right then. Harry wanted to, but he didn't want to risk being caught and getting another of those lectures he knew by heart already, about how he should close his eyes to the past and move on towards the bright future that awaited him. Harry didn't like the idea of forgetting what was left behind, but he loathed having to hear about it even more, so he did his best to keep his mind occupied with other things.
He'd been excused from classes and homework for the day, and allowed to wander around in the garden –as long as he didn't climb any trees, he didn't stomp the flowers, and he didn't go into the greenhouse (even Bob had agreed on that one; “You're not ready for most of what lurks in there,” he'd said. Harry wondered if he'd ever be old enough for all the stuff that 'lurked' in the manor).
All those instructions left him with very few ways of action, most of them variations of standing up under the Sun the whole evening.
Standing up under the Sun, like a lizard. Which rhymed with wizard.
That'd make him Harry Dresden, the wizard lizard.
Which in turn sounded like a character in a children's book.
And why not? He was a kid who was being taught magic by a ghost while living in a manor with a rich uncle who –luckily, truth be told– preferred to be locked up in his room working or away, traveling.
All in all, it was a good argument, if no for a book, at least for a movie.
Bob had even added an interesting conflict a few days ago: what if a mean wizard, his family's long-time enemy, wanted to kidnap him or kill him?
Thanks to the helpful tips the ghost teacher had given him during their classes, our hero'd be able to defend himself and stop the bad guy until the Council wardens showed up. And then the Council itself would held a ceremony to give the kid a reward for being so brave and having helped caught one of the most dangerous evil wizards in the history of mankind.
All the adventure would happen while the rich uncle was overseas in one of his business trips, of course. Because, really, he may had good intentions, but he lacked the charisma to be an endearing character. And he was too powerful anyway, so he could've had set things straight from the beginning and there went all the fun.
Yet, as amazing as the adventure sounded, Harry winced at the thought of having to write the whole thing by himself. Too much work, and he had enough already learning magic.
Still, the idea was too good to let it go to waste.
What a dilemma...
Then, it hit him.
“You want me to what?” Bob asked, looking at Harry from underneath highly raised eyebrows.
“To write a book,” Harry repeated, deadpan. “Well, I'll be doing the actual writing while you dictate it. I'd do it all myself but I've never done something like that and you said you had.”
“The books I wrote were grimoires. I've never attempted fiction.”
“Still, yours'd be cooler 'coz you've more experience!”
“A larger vocabulary and better grammar I definitely do have,” Bob replied, hands on his back, and Harry knew his teacher was starting to give in.
Nothing like aiming low, targeting the ghost's ego.
And, now, the final blow.
“Please, Bob?” he said, innocent and hopeful, opening his eyes as much as he could. “It'd be the greatest birthday present ever!”
Against this, Bob could do nothing but rub his face with his hand no less than three times.
Right then, Harry was sure he'd won the match, but he thought it'd be wiser to wait for a little longer before celebrating his victory.
“Fine,” Bob said, finally. “I think it wouldn't hurt if we do it during your free time.”
“Great!” Harry exclaimed. He attempted to dash forward and hug Bob, but he stopped in mid-movement as he remembered it would've been in vain.
“It's all right,” Bob said, warmly and maybe a little sadly, as if he'd understood Harry's intention. “When do you want to start this little project of yours?”
“I've to tell you about the plot and the characters first, so, maybe tomorrow?”
“Plot and characters?” Bob sounded impressed. “You have everything sorted out, then.”
Harry shrugged. “Just the general idea.”
But before he could elaborate any further, his uncle Justin appeared at the door. “Harry, come with me,” he said, harshly.
At the moment, Harry's heart began to beat faster, despite that he didn't remember having done anything wrong recently. He even kept away from the grass this time.
He looked at Bob expecting to find either some comfort or a hint as to what he'd done, but the ghost was totally expressionless.
Uncle Justin was walking away now, so Harry hurried to follow him. Whatever was going on would, without doubt, get worse as soon as his uncle noticed he wasn't right behind him.
Harry was led all the way to the kitchen, a place he'd never been in his time in the manor. He knew there was a cook, an elderly woman he'd seen only once or twice; she did her work and left, perhaps not wanting to make her employer angry by showing a personal interest for the people she served. Uncle Justin was always going about how people should remain in 'their places', whatever that was. Her food was quite good, though.
As they entered, Harry noticed three things. One, the cook wasn't in there. Two, the cake he sort of, kind of, half expected to see was nowhere in sight. Three, in the kitchen floated the warm smell of things –sugar, cinnamon, fruit beginning to be a little too old– that reminded him of home. Not this place where he lived now. Home. And of his dad and what the two of them could be doing right now if things were different.
Harry blinked several times to hold back his tears. He'd done it well during the whole day and he wasn't going to break down in the worse moment possible; he'd have the whole night to give in.
“Please, sit down,” his uncle said, pointing at a chair with his finger. He had his This-Is-Important look on his face.
Grateful at the opportunity to focus on something else, Harry did so.
Uncle Justin then started talking on length and with examples taken from Myth and History about how responsibility extended to every aspect of life.
Harry sighed inwardly.
Uncle Justin had nothing on Bob about explaining things. He knew his stuff, yes, but he just couldn't deliver; he didn't have neither a method nor patience. Bob, on the other hand, not only made his point clear every time –at the end, anyway–, but he also presented everything under an interesting light. And Harry's uncle –ugh, his uncle!– could be re-enacting the funniest movie ever and he'd still manage to bore the lights out of his nephew.
Poor guy, really.
Luckily, both because he was aware of it –he was, Bob had said so– and because of his constant trips, uncle Justin had appointed the ghost as Harry's magic teacher. A win-win situation, Harry thought.
“...don't you think so, Harry?” his uncle said, all of the sudden.
“Yes, uncle Justin,” Harry lied.
Uncle Justin nodded. “Fine. That's why I'm so proud of you today, Harry.”
Harry 'I make my uncle proud since when, again?' Dresden tried not to widen his eyes in confusion. That's what he got for not paying attention: he missed all the praise.
His uncle smiled broadly and continued. “Don't you think I haven't noticed your efforts. They've earned you a reward.”
Leave it to authority figures to destroy the illusion that the birthday boy deserved a present simply because it was his birthday.
Still, this was an unexpected turn of events.
Uncle Justin picked something from the floor next to the fridge.
Harry's heart skipped a beat.
What his uncle was holding up was a small cage, the kind you carried animals in.
Time slowed down incredibly as his uncle placed the carrier carefully over the table. His uncle was going to give him a pet? There was no noise coming from within, but there'd be just plain cruel to give someone a plant or a rock or anything inanimate in a package like that one.
Forgetting all decorum, Harry practically ran to see what was inside while his uncle opened the door. “Must be scared,” the man said, and then proceeded to speak of even more responsibility and instructions Harry had to follow if he wanted to keep his new pet. Harry's brain vaguely summarized it all as “Don't let it bother me.”
“I have to go now. Have fun with your new friend. You'll find food on the third shelf left to right, and some milk in the fridge,” was the only thing uncle Justin said Harry really listened. “The sandbox is next to the back door. Make sure he learns how to use it; there'll be no concessions on that one.”
Milk and a sandbox? It was a cat, then? Dogs didn't use a sandbox; they usually went for trees and carpets, didn't they?
“Yes, uncle,” Harry answered, his eyes still glued to the carrier. “What's his name?” he asked right before his uncle left the kitchen.
“Doesn't have any. Give him the one you want.”
As soon as uncle Justin closed the door, the small head of a big-eyed, yellow kitten finally showed up.
Harry smiled and reached out his hand. “Hello, there, uh...” Harry paused for a second before saying the first word that cross his mind. “Mister?”
Little Mister meowed and, to Harry's delight, he licked his fingers; the kitten seemed to like both his new name and his new master, which was always a good start towards a life-long friendship.
Soon enough, Harry began to notice Mister and he had a lot of things in common, starting with how both of them had moved one day to an unknown, scary place without previous notice, finishing with how they liked sweets a lot, passing right through the fact that Mister also seemed to prefer Bob's company than Harry's uncle. Mister hissed at uncle Justin and remained behind Harry's legs until either he or them left the room, and when he followed happily Harry to the study, he jumped on a couch or a shelf and purred himself to sleep.
“I sort of expected it'd be the other way around,” Harry said.
“It isn't exactly unusual,” Bob commented after a light-hearted mockery about the kitten's oh-so-original name, to which Harry had answered by sticking out his tongue when his teacher wasn't looking. “Cats tend to be more comfortable around the supernatural than dogs and horses, for example.”
“And some people,” Harry pointed out.
“And some people, yes. Which leads us to the other reason why you got a cat, besides trying to avoid you hating me by proxy. They are intelligent; they have ears and eyes to hear and see things humans cannot. Thus, they can warn their masters of danger, provided said masters know how to understand what the felines are trying to say.”
“How do I do that?”
Bob smiled in a way that made Harry groan inside; it always anticipated homework. “That's for you to discover,” the ghost said, as expected. “Though they share patterns, each cat has a unique body language.”
“So, no pointers or anything?”
“That, I can do. Go get that green book over there.”
Harry stood up quickly to do as told. Learning practical things, he loved that.
Harry didn't forget about his novel. He just postponed it long enough to make of Mister a model citizen and to master the complex art of decoding his cat's body language.
Harry also learned that in the hands of a wizard household animals weren't called pets but familiars. Not because it sounded fancy, but because by being constantly surrounded by magic they tended to develop some skills of their own and that, well, set them apart.
“Nothing on a big scale, of course,” Bob had said, “but you will notice when it happens.”
Hence, Harry kept his eyes on Mister all the time waiting for the cat to do anything unusual. Or at least, that's what he tried to do.
Mister, a soul born to be free, didn't find fair to be submitted to such an strict vigilance, so the second skill he developed was one that allowed him to get out of sight as soon as Harry looked away –the first one had been, thankfully, how to properly use the sandbox.
Luckily, Mister never left the house, although he was always found in the most unusual places, from the top of the highest cabinet in the kitchen to a very narrow spot behind a row of books. That time he'd to be given back by uncle Justin, who, fortunately, was only slightly annoyed and did nothing but ask Harry to be more careful.
Five minutes afterwards, Harry and Bob were observing the shameless culprit licking his paws on a desk, purring in what could be easily mistaken as innocent bliss.
“How did he get in there?” Harry asked.
“Don't look at me,” Bob said.
“Maybe he's the elastic cat or something?”
“Why don't you put a bell on him?”
Bob's idea worked until Mister developed his third skill: walking, running, and even jumping silently with a bell hanging from his neck. Thus, Harry had to go back to tracking his cat by instinct alone while Bob helped him to come up with a spell guaranteed to make the bell sound every time the cat moved, regardless of any ninja-like abilities.
Everyone –but Mister– hoped the issue to be solved soon.
About a week after the Mister-behind-the-books incident, Harry was sent to bed earlier than usual; his uncle had a visitor and he wanted absolute privacy. It was always like that. Uncle Justin never let Harry meet none of his friends nor business partners under the excuse that he wouldn't understand half of what they talked about, or that he'd misunderstand everything and think he could end up doing things he wasn't ready for.
It was annoying, but Harry had to comply. He was under his uncle's roof and, anyway, he didn't have any good counterclaim. (Counterclaim, a strong, useful, and long word he'd learned earlier that day thanks to Bob's thesaurus.)
But, as he was taking off his shoes, he realized Mister was nowhere in the room.
The damned cat had done it again.
If Mister showed up in the living room –or whenever uncle Justin and his guest were–, Harry was going to get in trouble.
Lots of troubles.
Growling the insults in Old English he'd caught from Bob, Harry put his shoe back as fast as he could and went to look for Mister without even bothering to put his night robe on.
Once in the corridors, he tried to be as stealth as his cat while sneaking through the shadows.
The manor was nice and bearable at day, if a little over crowed with old, artsy stuff like paintings, statues, vases, and other things that couldn't be but tied to the supernatural. But, on the other hand, all of that had the effect of making the place look rather spooky at night, since the eyes of the fictional people seemed to be fixed on you, ready to attack, or to scream you were there. As far as Harry knew, that could actually happen.
He repressed a shudder, telling himself everything would be all right if he didn't touch anything and focused on looking for Mister.
After several minutes, Harry finally found him; the cat was sitting down on the floor, a few feet away from where Harry was standing. Between them, on the right wall, there was an open door from where light and voices were coming out.
Uncle Justin and his friend.
Harry gulped. What was he going to do now? He couldn't call Mister; they'd hear him. He couldn't go pick him up; they'd see him.
Think, Harry, think...
Perhaps he could make Mister understand he wanted him to come if he gestured enough; they most surely wouldn't notice a silent cat passing in front of the door. Mister was an expert at not attracting attention to himself when he didn't want to, so this plan could possibly work.
If it didn't... well, it'd be better if he didn't think of that for the moment.
Waving his hands, Harry walked slowly towards Mister, who turned his head and looked right into his master's eyes as soon as the later got as near as the door as he'd dare. Harry crouched and kept moving his hands, doing his best to look friendly. Mister remained where he was.
Then, uncle Justin's words came out loud and clear from the inside of the room in a matter-of-factly tone of voice. “You can't bribe me with that. I already know how to make Bainbridge mortal again.”
Harry lost balance and fell backwards, taking a small table full of vases with him.
Chapter 3![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
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