Chapter 1 - Once upon a time...

I suppose I should have realized it was going to be one of those days when my daughter came home from school with a teacher's note and a black eye.

"I didn't mean to," Maggie, my daughter, said. She kept looking at me, the note, and then the floor. "Tracey Mathis was just saying really bad things about you and . . I . . . I just wanted her to stop."

Right beside her, my mountain bear of a dog chuffed.

"Quiet you," I told him as I pinched the bridge between my eyes. I wasn't actually annoyed with them. Not really. I mean, I'd been in plenty of similar scraps when I was younger, and not a small number of them for a similar reason either. I was the the freakishly tall, gangly orphan kid with weird things happening around him all the time. Any one of those reasons would have been enough. All three and it was practically a school bully buffet. It didn't help that I was what my mentor called 'an ornery pup without a lick of sense.'

My problem isn't the fact that she got in a fight. My problem was trying to wrap my head around the idea of someone picking a fight with my daughter with my enormous grizzly of a dog right there next to her.

How was I supposed to proceed from here? I don't like bullies. Anyone who's ever spent five minutes around me knows that. Even now, when I was supposed to be the smart and responsible one, I just wanted to get her a banana split.

That's when someone knocked on the door.

Our apartment was located on the third floor of a four story complex in a part of Boston that seemed to pride itself on who's hallway smelled more like urine. Polite company was the sort of thing you had to pay for around here. We'd been in our rinky dink place for all of two months. We'd been in this world in particular for a little over three. In that time, no one had ever come looking for us.

"Turn on the lights, sweet pea," I called out to seemingly no one. I'd already grabbed my poor man's staff that I'd placed in the umbrella stand by the door. In the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie retreat into her room, Mouse faithfully following.

Hell's bells, this is what my life's become. Waiting on the next nasty thing that goes bump in the night to literally come knocking on my door.

"All done, father. Want me to get their coats?" Bonnie, my other daughter, replied from nowhere. I felt the wards we set up a few months ago prime themselves for use. Unseen energy thrummed in the background of my senses, waiting to be unleashed.

"That's ok, we're not expecting guests." Translation: Be on standby.

The runes on my staff glowed an ethereal green and while I didn't feel it, I'm sure the temperature in the room went down by at least five degrees. Frost started to form on the surface of my staff where I was gripping it.

Another knock.

My duster was in the other room unfortunately. I bent down and peered through the peephole. Whatever I was expecting it was not the magnified, smudged sight of a mop of hair that barely reached the lens base.

I moved the staff to the crook of my right arm and readied my shield bracelet in my left. I'd just finished the haphazard thing last week, and I was already using it. I wondered if that was tempting fate.

I unbolted the door and opened it just a few inches. Outside in the hallway, was a kid. He was short, barely making it up to my waist in height. He had freckles, short brown hair, and a disconcertingly cheerful grin on his face.

"Hi!" he said, "I'm Henry. You're the wizard, right? I need you to help me find my mom."

I suppose I should start from the beginning.

My name is Harry Dresden. I have two daughters called Maggie and Bonnie, a dog called Mouse, and a big stick that I occasionally hit people with. We live in a rundown one bedroom apartment on the west side of Boston, MA. My daughter Maggie goes to school with Mouse at Jackson/Mann Public School. My other daughter stays at home rereading library books because she's a spirit of intellect who's already smarter than her father.

I work in construction during the day, and do occasional bouncer work at night. All told, I get about four hours of sleep a day.

I'm also a Wizard. Capital W if you please.

I can do things most people can barely even imagine. A lot of it is something that I've been assured is "impossible" and "crazy" by skeptics. Generally that was after something similarly impossible and crazy came clawing for their throats. As a note of warning, denying that that's a loup garou or a ghoul right in front of you isn't going to make you any less appealing.

I've summoned hurricanes at thugs, thrown down with a skinwalker, and even dropped a frozen turkey on a vampire. I've tangled with enough nasties to know better but I still keep doing it.

I had a business in Chicago, a private investigator firm that I'd been in the process of rebuilding. Finding missing pets, lost items, and even shadowing a wayward spouse or two. It was rough living, but I was good at it. All with a side of doing my best to keep people safe from the nightcrawlers.

That was before here. Before Boston.

I was picking up Maggie from school that day, in person. I'd just finished scouting out an office space where I could set up shop again, and the weather was nice. I'd brought Bonnie with me in her wooden skull vessel to evaluate any potential vulnerabilities in the area. The Carpenters, the family that had taken Maggie in while I was indisposed the year before, would normally get her, but I'd called ahead and let them know I'd be picking her up from her MathMasters after-school program.

The day was warm, and breezy, with a side of a smiling cartoon sun. I'd thought Eh, why not, and gone on foot to pick her up.

After contending with the evaluating and distrusting looks of the school staff, and some of the other parents, they let loose the rugrats plus one giant dog.

I don't remember much beyond this. One moment I'm seeing my daughter walk with her comically oversized service dog. The next there's a slushy of thoughts and emotions that would leave a statue dizzy. Whenever I try to think back, all I get is just a long, drawn-out feeling of utter terror and the oily slickness of something vile but immaterial dripping off me.

I came to in an alley, no worse for the wear except for the kind of headache you should only get in your twenties and a busted lip. I was lying on a large black trash bag with a few sprung leaks in its sides. I remember the smell of gym socks.

Maggie was there, dazed but unharmed. Mouse was there too, alert and on guard, but clearly just as disoriented as me. She still had her backpack with her, her zipper and a copy of "The Wizard of Oz" almost falling out.

After picking up a discarded paper in the street that I saw we were in another state entirely.

After wasting all my quarters on a public phone, I had a suspicion something else was off.

After finding out I couldn't open a Way to the Nevernever, the adjacent/alternate realm to my reality, I was in panic.

A month into our stay here I'd reached a possible hypothesis.

We were in another world. Obviously, I didn't come to this conclusions right away. It took a lot of experimentation on my part, that and some extensive back and forth with my spiritual daughter. I'm not sure which part was harder to accept, the fact that the supernatural didn't exist, or the fact that we'd have to live in a place where the Red Sox were actually liked.

It took a lot of work, and some not-so-above board dealings with my landlord, but we'd finally managed to settle down. Sort of.

Yet, I still can't help but imagine there's more to this.

In my world, I was a warden of the White Council, and even more importantly, the Warden of Demonreach. I'm Mab's handpicked Knight, the Winter Court's very own mortal agent, through which the Queen exerts her wishes on the world of vanilla humans. I had resources and friends at my back that I'd do anything for.

I'm small time compared to some of the people I know, but you don't get to be where I am without drawing attention. I'm wondering why someone would send me and my family to the Outside.

I'm used to being out of my depth, don't get me wrong. But in my experience, most baddies don't take so long to come take you down once they've got you off guard. Letting an enemy, especially a wizard get away, was asking for punishment down-the-line. Most things I know had lifespans that measured in centuries. They can afford to be patient.

After two months, all I have is that the rest of the world is about as dry of magic as I am of money.

Which brings us to now.

When we got dropped here in this place, I had the clothes on my back and fifteen bucks in my pocket. After three months, I have about twenty and a worn out pocket.

The construction and bouncer work paid well enough for one person, I suppose, but with a ten year old girl and a one hundred sixty pound magical dog, things could get tight. There were more than a few nights I had to grab leftovers from the kitchens at the bar.

I'd put out an ad in some of the local papers around here about a week ago, my hopes twofold. If there was some kind of paranormal world here, I'd hope for some kind of contact. That, and, I have to admit, I missed the job itself.

The kid had called me wizard. Which meant he'd seen the ad in the paper. Hah! Take that, internet!

Back home, I had a rather nice apartment, a job, and a steady income as one of the White Council of Wizards wardens. I wasn't always liked, or even respected, but at least I had some footing. Here I have to throw out belligerent college kids out of places because they think enough laminate covers the forty year olds on their fake IDs.

I opened the door just a smidge more and got a better look at him. He couldn't be more than twelve. There was a hint of mischief in his wide brown eyes. He wore a dark brown pea coat with a red and gray scarf, along with a comically oversized backpack.

I fully opened the door then, and stepped back. Just because he looked like a kid didn't mean I was going to lower my guard just yet. It wouldn't be the first time I'd met something that looked like a duck, quacked like a duck, but smiled like a wolf.

"You're just a kid," I noted as I readied my magic.

"I'm almost eleven," he said, as if that made it ok. I wondered if he was one of Summer's—

He stepped into my apartment, and just like that I let the gathered energies dissipate.

Have you ever heard of that old legend that vampires can't cross a threshold unless invited? That's actually true but there's more to it than that. A threshold could probably be described as something like the Empire's forcefield, except instead of being powered via Dark side shenanigans, it's actually fueled via the feelings of home and love of family. In the supernatural world, actions and feelings often have more significance than first glance. We feel safe in our homes, protected. Nothing short of something truly traumatic can take that away. It's especially stronger in old family homes, ones built and lived in by the same family for years if not decades. Those seemingly fragile walls have history in them. That has a special kind of power, something that I've never seen breached overtly without a steep steep price, something all supernatural entities are unwilling to pay.

When a magical being crosses a threshold uninvited, it leaves a piece of itself at the door. The stronger the threshold, the larger the piece. For things like the Fae or a Wizard, that means leaving proportionally larger pieces of your power as the threshold scales. I've done it before, under dire circumstances, but I would honestly never do it unless I had a chance. It was like all my sense were muffled, like trying to listen to a conversation in the next room over with a glass cup pressed up against the wall. A Fae without hostile intentions to the dwellers would have to comport themselves according to the supernatural rules of host and guest, lest they suffer the punishment.

While it's true that me and the kids have only been living here for less than a season, I've made damned sure to show them as much care and love as I can. While what we have may be piddly compared to some of the ones I'd seen, it wasn't nothing and even the weakest threshold grabs the biggest chunk it can from uninvited guests. Crossing's not something that can be done easily, and the fact that this Henry kid just did it without prompt told me he wasn't some bugaboo in human skin.

I tapped my staff on the floor three times, loud enough to be heard from the other room. I immediately felt the primed energies of the wards fade down to their familiar background hum. The door to the bedroom opened, and out poked Mouse's head. He had a big a dopey doggy grin on his face when he saw us.

"Oh cool!" Henry said as he immediately went to pet him. I closed the door and then placed my staff in the umbrella stand. "My mom never lets me play with dogs!"

He dropped his backpack. It wasn't fully zipped, and something slid out. It looked like a book, an old classically leather bound one. It was titled "Once Upon a Time." Looks like the kid was into fairy tales. Hoo boy.

"You know, you should really be careful with your stuff, kid," I bent down and picked it up, "This looks pretty—"

A feeling similar to a livewire sprang along my insides and I instantly dropped the book. There may have been a yelp.

Henry looked back at me, his eyes furrowed. "You ok, mister?"

I looked from the book to the kid. I had a feeling I was calling in sick tonight at the club. "Why don't we sit down and talk about what you need help with, kid. You like Coke?"

We sat down in the living room, me on the folded-in couch sofa, and him in the bean bag chair with three strips of duct tape all around it. A styrofoam peanut flew off as Henry sank further in. Mouse nipped at it, prompting my daughter to giggle.

"He's really big," Henry said, as he brought out and held that thing in his lap. "Don't you guys get in trouble because of him?"

"Mouse pays more rent than half the tenants here."

"Mouse?"

I just pointed to the breathing mountain of fur my daughter was petting.

"Oh right. Mouse."

I smirked. I blame the wizard in me.

"So," I started, and I made sure to look as serious as I could in my worn college hoodie and ripped jeans, "how'd you find me?"

Henry looked away, not meeting my eyes. Probably a good thing too, I didn't exactly want to subject the boy to the horrors of my soul just yet. "Your ad? In the newspaper?"

"I didn't put my address in the paper for a reason, kid."

"I know," he said, all cheerful and completely unaffected by my wizardly stare. "I just called the people at the newspaper office. I just told them you were my dad and that I couldn't remember where our address was."

That . . . was far sneakier than I would have expected of someone his age.

Maggie giggled, and then quieted when we both looked at her. She hid her face in Mouse's coat. The mutt looked suspiciously innocent.

I felt the tension in my neck and shoulders loosen. I might not have the best judgment, but Mouse had never steered me wrong. Sometimes I wondered if he took care of me more than I took care of him. If he was good with the random ten year old who showed up on my front step, who was I to complain?

There was a sound of a car backfiring from the street, startling me out of my thoughts. Of course, this immediately prompted the baby one floor above us to start crying at the top of his tiny lungs, along with the routine stomp stomp of my neighbors to go calm his down. Little ceiling flakes peeled off and drifted down on us.

I covered my Coke protectively, and leaned forward in my seat. The kid just smiled and took a sip out of his own can. Hell's bells, I'm not a particularly muscular guy, but I'm well over six feet tall. I've been told I look like a less attractive Rocky Balboa after fifteen rounds with Apollo Creed. I don't generally think of myself as a bad guy but normal people don't just feel at ease in the presence of guys like me.

Mouse trotted over and graciously started licking my face.

"Ack." I batted at him, who immediately knocked my hand aside with a shake of his head and started. "Down boy! Down!"

Both Henry and Maggie laughed, and I resigned myself to no longer being the big bad wizard.

I surrendered the Coke to supermutt, and focused once more on the matter at hand.

"You said something about finding your mom?"

"Yeah!" His eyes lit up with wonder. "How are you going to do that, by the way? Is there a spell or something that can- "

I held up a hand. "Back up there, speedy. Why do you need to find your mom? Something tells me you don't exactly need help remembering your own address."

"Not that. I mean," Henry grimaced and then continued, "my real mom. I want to find my birth mom."

Ah.

Crap.

The kid was adopted.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Silence reigned.

I've never liked that phrase. My life recently hasn't exactly been what you would call peaceful. I'm the mortal vassal to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. Calling her terrifying would be an insult. Mab's what terror wishes it could be when it grows up. She was knives and ice, and that was when you got her on a good day. If you met her on a bad day you'd be lucky to finish writing the will before the blood dried. And yes, I do mean blood.

I've been in employ to Mab for a few years now. In that time, I've been stabbed, beaten, frozen, bitten, and various other unpleasant things. All of that by her hand. And she was helping.

Silence always preceded it. Not always verbal silence, but the kind you feel in your bones, when you're being watched by something bigger, meaner, and with sharper teeth.

That's what I felt right now.

My gut was telling me not to do this. I'd gotten pretty good at listening to it over the years. It'd helped me out of a lot.

This could backfire in so many ways it wasn't even funny. Not only was he adopted, but it was a closed adoption. I'd had clients skimp out on paying me in the past, but I've also had some deliberately make my life difficult after whatever errand they wanted done was fulfilled. A closed adoption meant if someone raised a big enough stink over this, someone might take a closer look at the supposed wizard who lived in conditions clearly unsuitable for a growing ten year-old girl.

As if to punctuate this point, our adjacent neighbor slammed his front door with all the force of an angry Bostonian. The shared wall rattled, and a lone framed picture that'd been hanging fell.

Not to mention the very clearly magical book still in his hands. In my experience those things never brought anything but empty promises and a lot of bruises.

One look at Henry's face though, and I was reminded of a tall gangly teen with attitude problems.

"Alright, I'll do it."

Henry hiccuped. "Really? *hic* Cool!"

My daughter giggled, and it's only then that I realized I was smiling.

Dresden's back in business, baby.

End Chapter

Author's Note: I got this ridiculous idea one day while rewatching the show. What would happen if Harry Dresden ran into the usual Storybrooke shenanigans and added his . . . spin to them?

To those who just clicked on this from the OUaT fandom, the Dresden Files is a series of novels written by Jim Butcher about a wizard who advertises in the phonebook. Yes, seriously. The world is complex and intricately designed, and the characters are some of my favorites of all time.

To those from the DF fandom, c'mon. Who doesn't want to see Dresden interact with classical storybook characters? There's a section involving a dragon that'll be really fun to write.

Also, to note, Harry Dresden is a lot of things, but one thing he is not is all-knowing. Magic other than his works differently here. He's in for some rude awakenings. 'Til next time.