The Show Must Go On (harry/dean)
The day after this.
Magic was fluid, not fixed. Sunrise was a time of new beginnings, and the first rays of dawn could wipe away any spells left out in the open. It was one of the reasons Harry keyed his wards into a home's threshold, since by their very nature, a threshold was fixed. But for the alarm spells that would let him know if someone (or something) was approaching his home with ill intent? Those required a bit more effort.
Harry had encountered this issue in Chicago, and the way he worked it out there seemed fine for working it out here. Rings of sea glass, with runes carefully etches into their smooth sides, were hung on iron nails, which in turn were hammered into the telephone poles and trees in a two-block radius around the house. Anyone taking a route that would bring the to Harry's door would activate the spells, which in turn would activate his defenses.
The wards were permanent once they went up... well, at least until they were burned away, taken down by Harry or a stronger wizard, or had enough bodies thrown at them to burn out the spells. That last had happened to his first generation of wards, thanks to the zombie hordes at the disposal of a few necromancers. Harry had learned a few tricks after that, and the second generation wards would last long enough for that not to be an issue.
He stopped to take a break just after midday. The police had so far only asked him about a permit once for climbing a phone pole. Harry didn't want to attract attention from the local authorities just yet, so he opted for sticking to trees here on out. For now, he perched on the hood of his Jeep, munching on some Burger King.
The phone call with Bobby had been... interesting. No idea why Jo was back. Shame. But a direction to point Dean in, at least.
"It's easy to find 'im," Bobby said. "Y'know how we couldn't find Bin Laden? A giant Arab on dialysis? It's kinda like that."
Dean really didn't get the joke until he pulled up in the driveway at Harry Dresden's house.
He joked that Sam was a Sasquatch. This guy was a Yeti, or something, then. Dean already knew Harry was a wizard. He didn't really get what that meant, per se, but that was probably better, since he really wasn't a fan of witches. People were scarier than demons.
Once he was out of the Impala, Dean did his best to look friendly. "Hey, are you Harry?" he asked, walking up to the Jeep, and the Redwood sitting on top of it.
Harry shifted in his makeshift seat, gently shaking his left wrist in a practiced motion to slip the shield bracelet out from under the sleeves of his coat. His staff was propped up and within easy reach, but he didn't go for it yet. It would take less than a second to raise the shield, and about that to roll off the hood and grab the staff. The alarms he'd already placed didn't go off, but that was no reason t be sloppy. He hadn't finished placing them all yet, so the network of spells wasn't yet fully functional.
And not many here knew his name.
Even sitting on the hood, he towered over the canvas roof of the Jeep. He watched the guy approach, and could see by his movements that it was someone used to defending themselves. While the guy didn't look menacing, there was a set to his jaw and something in the eyes that advised caution.
"Who's asking?" he countered, taking up the large cup and sipping some Coke.
Oh, yay.
"Dean," Dean answered. He waited until he was close enough that he didn't have to shout the rest at the guy. "Bobby sent me here."
He looked around at the place, and then back at Harry. Beyond his normal knives, Dean wasn't even armed. Bobby put some kind of trust in this guy, so Dean did, too.
"In regard to weird shit."
Harry relaxed his stance a bit at the name of the hunter. He nodded and slid off the Jeep. "Harry Dresden," he offered, extending a hand. "Sorry. Too many things around here to be that trusting." He glanced at the Impala, then back at Dean. "Bobby Singer, huh? Guess I made a better impression than I thought." The man had torn up that Wolfram and Hart woman's card without a second thought, but he'd remembered Harry. That merited something.
"Weird shit in general, or are we looking at a particular branch of weird?"
Dean shook his hand. It was weird to feel short after all his time with Sam, but he still did.
He smirked.
"Oh, I think we got most of the name-brands covered, but specifically? Resurrection."
He waited a second for that one to sink in.
"I'm not talkin' a zombie, or anything like that. I'm talkin' whole, normal, functioning. Like nothing ever happened. And this is not a deal anybody made. We're full up on those. Don't ask."
It couldn't be as simple as the location, right? Would Jo exist if she wasn't on the damn Hellmouth?
The quick shake of hands left no lingering hint of a fellow practitioner. Those were easy to detect, impossible to hide from skin contact. It was one of the reasons Harry made it a point to shake hands. So the guy was a vanilla, but experienced enough for Singer to have called on him. From Harry, that drew a grudging sense of respect. He gave the initial comment a mirroring smirk, but then Dean continued.
Resurrection.
That gave Harry a moment of pause. He went still, but his dark eyes glittered with a sudden intensity that was nearly scalding. "Human? Fully human, I mean, nothing... from the other side of town?" Plenty of things could inhabit a human body, after all. But there would be all kinds of signs for that, if one knew how to look.
Dean shrugged. "As far as I can tell, human. Unless she came back *better* than human. She drank holy water without flinching."
He knew that wasn't the only way to check for demons. He also knew that a demon with a high enough pay grade could bathe in holy water, if it wanted. But those things were few and far between.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with her other than, y'know, the having died and having her body blown up.That's the problem. What the hell does that?"
Even he'd come back from Hell with scars, mental and physical. True, he hadn't spent a giant amount of time with Jo yet, but nothing weird was going on with her. She was the goddamn same.
"Look, I know I don't know you, and I know you don't know me. But I've seen a lotta crap. And I've never seen this. It's not even all in my head. I thought about that option, too."
Harry's still thoughtfulness
intensified, and his right hand moved, unconsciously, to rub at the left side of his chest, just over his heart. He was frowning. "Blown up?" he asked, his voice quiet.
His own body had been damaged, sure, but the spectrum of death he'd experienced had been fairly mild in comparison. A single bullet through the chest, close enough to the heart for him to bleed out pretty quickly. Quickly, but not soon enough for him to escape from Mab. And he still bore the scar of the bullet, only slightly larger coming out than it was going in.
She. It was a girl he was talking about. Harry let out a breath between clenched teeth. "Because of the Gates, the barriers of reality are thinner here than normal. It's part of what attracts the supernatural to the area. But a resurrection like that... would have to be done by something incredibly powerful. I can think of maybe half a dozen mortals who could pull it off, and none of them have shown their faces in York yet. But even then, they would have to have some fairly intimate knowledge about the subject." He rubbed his chin. "A few gods could do it, and the Mothers, certainly."
He glanced back at Dean, not quite meeting the man's eyes. "I don't know you either, but I have some respect for Mr. Singer. If you're asking for help, I'm willing to do what I can." He raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any objections to me meeting this friend of yours?"
Dean nodded. "She... it's a long story. But 'kaboom' is the ending."
"Mortals?" Both eyebrows rose. Dean's hands came out of his pockets. He crossed his arms. "You mean like a spell?"
Dean knew enough about magic to fill a paper bag. He was banking on something larger being responsible for Jo, and that worried him. Like Smurfette. Gargamel made her as a distraction. So the smurfs wouldn't get anything done. Anything that knew Dean well enough to know Jo would be a distraction was probably divine.
"I figured it might've been an angel, but it doesn't quite seem to fit. Nothing I can think of seems to fit."
Mr. Singer. Dean laughed. He'd never heard anyone call Bobby that. Not really. Not unless Bobby was in trouble.
"If she wants to meet you, I don't," he answered. "I've never gotten real far trying to get her to do anything she doesn't wanna do. Way too good with a shotgun. I'd give it a couple days before I even bring it up."
He'd have loved that, when he came back.
Dean nodded toward the house. "Dude, I don't want to be insulting, but the outfit and the house... You look like you walked outta a Stephen King novel."
Harry snorted. "That one's new. I usually get told I belong on the set of <i>El Dorado</i>." He considered, then gave a slight shrug, indicating the jacket. "This thing has stopped assault rifle ammo before," he said. "My version of Linus' security blanket."
The staff was his security club. Don't leave home without it.
Going over Dean's theories, Harry's other brow raised. "Angels, huh? Never knew one that would take that kind of direct action." Freaking Uriel. Always working the sidelines, his own angles, talking about free will and choice. It would be nice to just get <i>something</i> for once, without strings.
Harry dug into the Burger King bag and drew out an extra burger, offering it to Dean as he took another sip of Coke. "Spell, mortal magic, yeah. Difficult, though. Knew a chick once who pulled a guy's soul back into his body. Gave the paramedics enough time to save his life." Despite the results, Harry shuddered. "Blackest damn magic I've ever heard of. Raising the dead is always black magic. Illegal. Corrupts you from the start, and it's all downhill from there." Normally, anyway. Without interference. Like McCoy had done for him. Like he was doing for Molly. "She's dead now, but her teacher could probably do it. I can check for any cold spots around town, if you want. Your friend... she'd be having nightmares galore, nervous and panicky even while awake. Keep an eye out for that."
Oh, how wonderful it would be if his first serious action in Pennsylvania was tracking down Cowl or another major-league necromancer. There was no reprieve for that kind of action - the Laws of Magic were clear on that. The trial would be a mere formality, the execution even faster and less friendly.
A faint, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Harry's lips. "Didn't tell her you were coming out here, huh? Did she have the shotgun?"
There was not, and there will never be, a power on Earth that could make Dean refuse a free burger. He took it, smiled, and said thanks before unwrapping it and digging in.
He didn't say anything about Cas, or direct angel action. Angels were pretty motherfucking direct in his experience. Good on Harry that he'd never been on that end of things. Not having lungs, Dean remembered, was not fun.
Neither was when they gave Sam cancer.
Angels were pretty much dicks.
He nodded. He could watch Jo and see if she was having nightmares, although she might have them just as a byproduct of being back. But the panic, that he could watch for, for sure.
Dean shrugged, and spoke around the food in his mouth. "I didn't think telling her I was off to see the wizard right after she came back would make her feel that great. She doesn't know why she's back. She's been assuming angels, too. But it doesn't quite fit." He shook his head. "It's.... just not how that goes down."
"So how many people can do what you're talkin' about?" he asked, looking over Harry's shoulder at the house. There was something kind of weird about the windows.
Harry shook his head, thinking. "Not many. With Kimori dead..." He went through a quick mental tally. "Three or four. Let's say four. And three of those would rather cut their own head off than try something that shatters the Fifth Law of Magic. The last... I don't see him raising a finger if it didn't benefit himself in some way. Kimori might have, just to be kind, in her own twisted way of kindness, but she died years ago."
Or had she? Harry had been certain no one could have survived the magical backlash of the Darkhallow, but yet, Cowl had managed it. He'd consider that possibility more if there was a need.
The wizard pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Unless it was the Hellmouth."