A short, and rather odd, Harry Potter and Harry Dresden Crossover. If you don't know who Harry Dresden is then I advise you go out and read the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, they are fan-freakin-tastic (brief overview, Harry Dresden is a wizard who works in Chicago as a, well…wizard. He's in the phone book. He doesn't use wands and doesn't get along well with technology, so his computer, of a sort, is a wind spirit that resides in a human skull that he calls Bob. Now go and read the series for yourself!). And if you don't know who Harry Potter is then you've been living in a cave for the past decade.

Written in the same format as The Dresden Files for the most part, In other words, from Dresden's POV.

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"This is your office? It looks more like hell with florescent lighting."

My five O'clock had just arrived, and it was five-thirty. That, along with his clever little observation, had already set the tone of this meeting for me. I debated sending him and his disdainful glances about my cramped office packing, but my rent was up, and as usual, I needed the money.

I offered him a seat, but he said he preferred standing as he rustled through the many pamphlets on my desk. He didn't look up as he addressed me.

"I heard you were the real thing, it true?"

I sighed, this looked like it was turning into another case of boredom on my supposed clients part. I got them every once in a while. People leafing through the phone book and coming across my add, and with nothing better to do decided to see what exactly I was playing. I decided to cut to the chase, I wasn't in the mood to indulge some bored kid.

"Did you come because you need something, or just because you wanted to play twenty-questions with a claimed wizard?"

That got him to look at me, the pamphlet reading 'I was a teenage witch' slipping from his fingers as the overhead light flickered. I quickly reigned in my annoyance and the flickering stopped. He sat in the chair I had offered him earlier, an annoying little smirk playing about his pale features.

"Bloody hell! I thought for sure no real wizard would be daft enough to go public."

His accent was starting to grate on my nerves. It reeked of culture and good breeding, the exact stuff I tended to avoid.

"What makes you believe I'm not just some charlatan out to rob you blind?"

He continued to smirk at me, his pale eyes never once blinking.

"Because no muggle I've ever met has an aura as powerful as the one you just flared a moment ago, and I almost missed it too. You've got an awfully tight leash on your emotions," his smirk grew even smirkier, if that was possible, "but I'm betting they more often than not get the better of you. White Knight syndrome, I've seen it before."

'Muggle?' Why did that sound so familiar? Plus it was pretty freaky on the accuracy of his description of me.

"Who are you?"

"Someone who's interested in what you do, Mr. Dresden, and how."

"Alright, but it'll cost you."

'Damn.' I can't believe I had given in that easily. He might want me dead, or be working for someone else who did, but at that point I didn't care as long as it paid well. I've been reduced to whoring out my services to anyone.

He reached into his jacket and I couldn't help but flinch as what I expected to be a gun was pulled from beneath the well-tailored fabric. A billfold landed instead on the dusty top of my desk. Damn paranoia, but it hadn't killed me yet. It was nice and thick, well over my daily rate, but I didn't see the need to mention it.

"What do you need me to do?"

I prayed that it would be something legal. It would be a shame to give up the money on moral grounds.

"I need you to fix something for me."

A thin black stick, cleanly broken in three places appeared as if by magic in his hands.

"Can't you just get a new stick?"

I cursed my brain even as the words left my mouth without my consent as he passed the fragments over. The minute they hit my hand I felt it, that undeniable rush of life that everything carries to some degree, the raw energy that was magic if harnessed the right way. A rushed "Whoa" left my lips as my fingers trailed over the seemingly normal stick, one finger caressing what seemed to be a strand of white hair poking out of the ends of one of the pieces.

"Where did you get this?"

"Someplace I'm no longer welcome, which is why I came to see you. Can you fix it?"

I was pretty sure I'd be able to at least remake it if not exactly fix it, but I'd never seen anything like it before.

"What is it?"

One of his impossibly blond eyebrows arched.

"It's a giant chopstick, part of a pair I picked up on Mars. Look, can you fix it or not? I'm kind of in a hurry."

I wasn't sure I wanted to be messing with unknown magical objects, but what the hell.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Just give me a couple of days."

The blond stood, dropping what appeared to be a couple grand onto the desk to join the billfold.

"I want it tomorrow at noon, I'll swing by then to pick it up."

And then he was gone in a crack of displaced air. My eyebrows shooting up to join my hairline, the living wood, whatever it was used for, still sitting in my sweaty hands. I'd fix it up later that night, but I'd definitely be taking several detailed notes.

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