Title: Fairy Hair
Fandom: The Dresden Files (both book-verse and TV-verse)
Characters: Harry Dresden, Connie (Karin) Murphy, Bob the Skull
Prompt: Hair
Word Count: 5,676
Rating: PG-13 (swearing, some adult situations implied)
Summary: Harry Dresden and luck don't get along. When a high profile lawyer comes to Dresden to find his missing daughter with an offering of one thousand dollars, it looks like things might have changed between him and luck. But, looks can be deceiving.
Disclaimer: I own neither the book series nor the TV series. I'm just playing. :)

Fairy Hair

I'm not the sort of man who hopes for luck. Let's be honest, more often then not there's something evil, vile, and disgusting chasing after me in the dead of night, and I'd much rather trust in my hockey stick, charged and ready to throw some kick ass energy at it (if I don't say so myself) than to hold my breath under a bridge.

What I don't do, however, is doubt in luck. Sure, I can't hope for it (the stuff stays away from me like I stay away from electronics) but its existence is, unfortunately, extraordinarily reputable.

When I found the strand of hair (strawberry blond, two feet long) after stubbing my toe on a beaten up trash can and landing hard on my ass in a puddle… I knew that it wasn't entirely of my own doing. It was the dead of night, but other than that, things were looking up. Luck had decided to grace me with her presence again. I have no idea why she had a change of heart, but I wasn't about to start complaining. Normally I'd feel honored, but I was too busy delicately plucking up the hair and wrapping it around my drumstick to pay anything but the tiny piece of evidence any mind.

The case was an average one, if very sad. Murphy had already been involved and I was technically on her payroll still. Earlier today, a terrified and angry father called me up (it was a good day – my phone was working) and ordered (literally ordered) me to help find his daughter.

I was making my dinner (heated up leftover spaghetti) with a wooden spoon in one hand and the phone cradled in the other.

"Hello, this is Harry Dresden, Wizard, speaking."

"You've got to help me."

"Excuse me? Slow down there… are you in danger?" I raised an eyebrow. Sensing a potentially interesting thing, Bob walked through the wall of the lab and into the kitchen. My spaghetti sauce was quickly forgotten and I speed walked with the phone (thank god we'd decided to get a portable, even if the batteries fizzled every week) out to my desk.

"No, no. Well, it's my daughter. She's been kidnapped."

I sat down and rummaged through all of my things. Where was a pencil when you needed it? I managed to find my stash of basil, though. "Take it easy," I say slowly. Last thing I need is him passing out at a pay phone somewhere. "What's your name?"

"Peter Dubois. I'm an attorney for the Pentness Firm." Phew, that was big stuff. This guy could easily throw several grand around and possibly ease my rent concerns. "I see. Mr. Dubois, have you contacted the police? I'm really not the person to go to here."

He laughed a little. At least, I think he laughed. It was a bit more of a bark and too muffled by my scratchy phone line for me to tell. "Of course I have. No offense, Mr. Dresden, but you're dead last on my list of options."

Ouch. No surprise there, though.

"None taken. The police found nothing?"

Bob had followed me from the kitchen and was surprisingly quiet. He was in one of his broody moods, I could just tell. He had a hand under his chin and appeared to be in deep thought. Though, he could have been fantasizing about Agatha Christie for all I knew.

"Of course not," he barked at me. I pulled the phone further away from my ear. I was beginning to dislike this man. "I've had a lot of contact with the police through my work and they were consistently useless. They did a lovely job of insinuating that I kidnapped her myself, though." The controlling mania wavered as it was replaced by anger and frustration. The guy kinda had my sympathy there.

"Okay, okay," I took out my drumstick. Oh, how I loved that drumstick. Despite all appearances, my drumstick was one of my main magical tools. It wasn't as powerful as my hockey stick staff, but it could sure be useful. I gave the phone a quick flick with the stick and a man's face waved into existence above the portable set. It was like caller ID, only better (plus, this version of caller ID didn't die every week as it reacted to my magic). He was a man around my age standing at a pay phone near a coffee house. Long nose, brown eyes. Fairly normal looking. "Tell me everything you know. Wait," I paused, "where are you? It would be a lot easier to do this in person." I didn't mention that that way I could figure out if he had actually kidnapped his own daughter.

"Princeton and 23rd."

"Can you get to my office?"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

I was going to say goodbye, but he hung up on me before I could even spit out, "I'll see you then." I looked up at Bob as I placed the phone in its cradle. "What do you think?"

He gave me one of the suffering looks he was so good at. I swear he practiced those in the mirror when I went to bed. "I think your spaghetti sauce is burning," he said.

"Shit!"

Dinner was a complete loss. There was no more food left in the house (I wasn't counting my newly found dried basil) and I was down to twenty-five dollars and eight cents. Enough to buy dinner… but then not pay off the parking ticket I'd recently acquired. Normally this was fine, I'd just ignore the ticket and hope it went away, but the lovely meter maids had (again) booted my car. It was my dinner versus my jeep.

It was a tough decision made no easier by the untimely arrival of Mr. Dubois. Just as I was rechecking my pantry (still nothing, but it was worth a try) he rapped impatiently on my door. I don't like people who rap on the windows like that. I'm a knocking person, myself.

I voiced this thought to Bob, who simply rolled his eyes and, as he was disappearing back into his skull, promised to keep an ear through the wall since I would obviously need his help on this one, if only to make a headache-relieving potion.

He wasn't what I expected. He was the same man as in the phone image, but when not crouched in a pay phone, he looked more like a pit-bull than a man. He was pissed off, biter, and likely to take every bit of shit that happened in his life out on me. He let me open the door but once he was in, I wasn't allowed a word edgewise.

"I read about you in the paper," he said. I could see why this guy made it to the Pentness Firm, he had a very forward air about him and he knew how to direct a situation. Which was great for lawyer-ing, but awful for me and magic. He began to pace around the room, his eyes flickering to all of my 'odd' collected items. "You have quite the dichotic history. You're listed by the police as a consultant on many of their difficult closed cases, but the front page considers you a menace." He looked me directly in the eye. I had forgotten how scary humans could be.

"I've helped out the police, yes." I was going to continue, I really was, but he took my tiny pause as a chance to interject again.

"I need to you to find my daughter, Mr. Dresden. With or without the police, I don't give a damn. I can pay you ten thousand dollars to do it."

I let my jaw drop a little, I didn't even care if he noticed. Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money and I hadn't seen that much green since… ever. I was almost always on the underside of my rent and scraping by. I asked him to sit down (it was a good excuse to get my jaw moving and back closed) and he did so. On the edge of my desk, my usual perch. Things were not off to a great start.

His daughter, it turned out, was named Emily Dubois: seven-years-old, cute as a button with long blond hair and a round little face, liked to watch Disney movies, had a nanny, a baby-sitter, and a pet cat. He had left her with the baby-sitter one night to have dinner with a client and when he returned home a few hours later it was to an unconscious woman (the baby-sitter had been beaten, but was alright) and a missing child.

As he spoke he slowly lost his commanding voice and practically wilted flat against my desk.

I catalogued events and possibilities while giving him some recoup time by going to make tea.

The threshold of his house had been crossed, no doubt about that. The baby-sitter may have let the kidnapper in, or maybe event he little girl had done it. Or, it had been crossed without permission. A crossed threshold meant deep magic… or no magic at all. Physical beatings were usually left up to thugs and not demons. While I boiled some water, Bob pushed himself through the wall.

"Harry, you must take this case," he said very seriously. His eyes bore into mine in their expressive way.

Ohh… I knew that tone of voice. It was the, 'Harry, I know something you don't know and it's very bad,' tone of voice that the ghost got every once and a while. It was usually followed by chaos, pain, and death. And, unfortunately for me, Bob tended to be right about these sorts of things.

None the less, I glared at him. "You gonna tell me why? A beaten baby-sitter, Bob, this sounds completely magic and demon free." I was playing devil's advocate and he knew it: I'd have been an absolute idiot to refuse this case. I threw on the kettle and set out two mismatched mugs (the one with the chipped lip was my favorite).

Bob gave me a second look I was familiar with. It was the, 'Harry Dresden, I've known you for over half your life and you and I both know full well that you'd take this case regardless of what I had to say' look. Sounds farfetched, but you can honestly tell exactly that just from looking at him. I did say he was very expressive. In a hushed voice he said, "Harry, a child is missing and a young woman has been beaten. A rich father wants you to help him, and you're honestly considering turning this down? First, it would violate your ridiculous moral code, and second, I believe the number he said was," he morphed his body into Mr. Dubois and said, "ten thousand dollars." He morphed back and looked smugly at me.

Well. He caught me there (though it wasn't a surprise to either of us). The kettle whistled and I lifted it off the gas burner. "Tell me what you know, Bob."

Now Bob looked smug. If I didn't love the guy so much, he would drive me absolutely insane. Oh wait. He has.

"Ask him about the child's mother," he said quietly. I rolled my eyes. As if I wouldn't have done that anyhow. "I'm sensing fairy enthrallment."

Oh hell's bells. I hated fairies. "You sure?"

Bob nodded solemnly. "He's still enthralled, though now more so by his daughter. You were too busy fighting off his… rather forward… personality to notice, but once a person is enthralled, it's nearly impossible to miss the signs. Obsessive, willing to do anything, madly in love…"

I tried not to shiver, I really did. In the end, though, I couldn't help myself. "You mean…"

"Not yet."

Phew. At least that's a relief. No wonder the police thought he was involved. I wonder if Murphy is on the case…? I poured the water into the mugs and set the tea bags in to steep.

The thing is, fairies and faeries are different. Faeries are fae, mostly harmless, tiny, and can actually be helpful if you trick them right. Fairies are scary as hell and something I try and stay far away from. The good news is that they hardly ever leave the Nevernever. The bad news is that they aren't afraid of messing with human affairs and think of humans as toys.

A fairy took human form, seduced the man, had a child with him… and then disappeared? Fairies didn't die easily so it was much more likely that she'd retreated back to the Nevernever. She didn't break the enthrallment spell, though, and her half fairy daughter retained the innate ability to control the already existing spell over her father. The kid literally had her father wrapped around her little finger. And the father, thanks to powers beyond his control, was potentially in love with his daughter in a more-than-paternal way.

And now she was kidnapped. Possibly by the mother, but it was equally likely that the father himself stole her away, perhaps at the girl's request, perhaps not. Who knew at this point? Hell, it could have been a third party who did it too.

"How did I not notice?" I asked skeptically. I really should have seen that spell and it should have set off at least three of my alarms.

Bob shrugs. "You let him in. Half your wards are ineffective if the threshold has been crossed with permission." He gives me another piercing look. "The other half are simply ineffective regardless."

Gah! "I really hate fairies."

Bob looks at me sympathetically, "I know, Harry, but you must take this case. If you don't, I'll be stuck reading the same romance novel over and over again because you can't afford to buy any more." He walked through the wall back into the lab, leaving me to deal with the lawyer. Out of time and frustrated with life, Bob, and the man in my office, I exit the kitchen with the tea in hand. Mr. Dubois seems very grateful for both the time the tea gave him to collect himself and for the tea itself.

There are lots of reasons I serve tea to my clients. It sooths the nerves, provides conversation… and gives me a great sample of saliva. Not only that, but it also gives me a one-way street to adding all sorts of potions into someone's digestive tract. Don't get me wrong, I don't like to do stuff without people's permission and most of what I do is completely benign. Mr. Dubois wouldn't notice any difference in his feelings or behaviors because there would be none. I, however, would be getting a colorful clue as to exactly how enthralled the man actually was.

"Mr. Dubois, why don't you tell me a little more about that evening?"

The man nodded in a very Bob-like way. I wondered, briefly, if the ghost was watching before deciding that of course he was. Bob didn't get out much (try at all) and watching my life and cataloging my blunders was as good of entertainment as any.

"It was raining and Emily was scared. The baby-sitter, Joy, called me around eight so that I could talk to Emily, get her to calm down and go to bed. Things sounded fine… Emily had had dinner and was finished playing dress-up and Cinderella – you know kids."

I blinked slowly and nodded. Mr. Dubois was turning perfectly sapphire blue. At least I knew my tea was working. Blue was pretty good, not great, but alright. It meant he was under little mental prods, but nothing all encompassing or powerful. Emily probably got a pony without much fuss, but the spell was far too weak to drive the man to kidnap (or, thank god, love) his daughter.

Suddenly, the man flared bright red and even began to glow a bit. "I got home around nine, nine thirty maybe. It was dark and I thought Joy had fallen asleep on the couch. I turned on the light and she was on the floor…" there was a hiccup in his voice and his fingers clutched against his mug, "There was a lot of blood. I called 911, of course, but not until after I ran into my daughter's room and found her missing. The window was open… her room's on the third floor."

I nod again, looking down into my own tea. Red… was bad. It meant that the enthrallment spell was two, maybe even three leveled, which meant it was way above my level. Any hopes I had of getting rid of the spell myself were immediately squashed. Which also meant that the daughter was just as much of a second player as the father.

There was someone else at work: the mother.

This is the reason I hate fairies. They don't think about anyone other than themselves. They don't even stop to consider the man they're ruining or the child they're stealing. In fact, it probably never even entered her head that it would be a problem, and it pisses me off.

I stood up from the leather sofa and paced a bit. Mr. Dubois had stopped glowing red and simmered back down to a blue. I tried to ignore how strange it made the room look.

"Mr. Dubois, I know this is delicate, but please let me ask: what happened to Emily's mother?"

The man wilted further, looking very depressed. This was coupled with the fact that, just as before, he lit up red like a Christmas tree again. Seemed anything to do with the mother and the daughter's disappearance was linked with heavy enthrallment. Great.

"She died," he said softly. See? I hate fairies. "It was a car accident – she went off the road and into Lake Michigan. They never even found her body."

See that? Screams cover up and magical activity. Don't know how I could have missed that when it happened.

"And when was this?"

"Three days after Emily was born, exactly seven years ago today."

Well shit. Fairy mom runs back to Nevernever to have some fun and leaves dad to do all the heavy parental lifting. Then, when the kid turns seven, comes back to collect her. Great. The girl being seven means something too: once a child is over the age of six it's no longer considered infant stealing to kidnap them. Since the girl is her child, what she did was actually… legal. I tried very hard to keep a look of disgust from rising up on my face.

I nodded. "This is going to sound strange," I said, and he snorted at me. He was somehow able to look both completely defeated and cocky at the same time. I wish I had that ability. "But do you have anything of your daughters? Some hair, a favorite toy?"

His face folded up in a way I'm fairly used to by now. It's the, 'you're a fucking weirdo and a pervert' look. I give him a great big smile. I really hope Bob is watching because I could use some proof of karma here.

Despite his obvious unhappiness in the situation, Mr. Dubois loved (or was compelled to love) his daughter and was willing to go to supernatural and extreme lengths to ensure her safe return. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a balled up handkerchief. "She used this," he stated, clearly challenging me to ask for something else. I didn't.

"Perfect." I snatched the white kerchief up and set it on my desk, circling back and picking up the tea mugs. "Mr. Dubois, I promise to do my best to find your daughter and bring her back to you. I'll keep in touch."

Mr. Dubois gave me another look before straightening off of my desk and walking out my front door. Judging from his attitude, I really was his last resort. Then again, I probably hadn't been too polite. Reading auras, deciphering enthrallments, and drugging teas tended to do that to me.

"Bob?" As soon as the father firmly shut the door behind him I call out for the ghost. He appears with his usual combination of subtlety and gaudery. "You get all of that?"

He nods his head. "Yes…I'm almost afraid to say this, Harry, but the girl might be better off with the mother."

"I was afraid you were going to say that." I hated fairies, but I hated family stuff almost as much. I had my reasons for both. "But we don't know and we won't know until we find the girl." I picked up the handkerchief. "What was it you said about kids, Bob? Always lots of snot?"

He snorted, shook his head, and walked with me toward the lab. Bob may be the most annoying ghost on the planet, but I wouldn't have any other.

The tracking potion took two hours longer than it should have thanks to a depleted supply cabinet. Despite Bob's earlier naggings, I hadn't gotten a number of things replaced once they were used up and a huge lot of my supplies were outdated and had lost their potency. But, we got the potion working nonetheless. Though, watching Bob's disgusted face when I scraped out Emily's snot from the handkerchief had been well worth the extra two hours.

And that was how I found myself, at eight in the evening, in an alleyway a couple miles north of my apartment. My jeep was still wearing its lovely boot (thank you Chicago) and I had to borrow my neighbor's bike. But, I was here. Wherever here was (thank you non-specific tracking potion).

The thing about half human half fairy children was that they exactly that: half and half. So when I did the tracking potion using her snot, I was only able to track her half way. Literally. Her human aspects were the less than pleasant ones (bodily functions being among them) and thus I only tracked her human side. And, if she had left this realm as was most likely, that wouldn't get me very far at all.

And that was when I found the hair. Two feet, strawberry blond, and shimmering under the streetlamp. It was fairy hair, no doubt about it, and probably Emily's. I picked it up and rolled it between my fingers. I even gave it a tug, but it didn't break. Definitely fairy hair. I grinned even though I was alone and no one would see it.

The trashcan I slipped on crashed behind me and scraped against the cement of the alleyway. Shit! I whirled around to find the metal can crushed against the brick wall and a tall, unearthly woman staring down at me. Yes, down. Fairies are extremely tall. And this one was Emily's mother.

She was seven feet tall, at least, and completely nude if you didn't count the four or five feet of hair that swam out of her glowing skull. Just like Emily's (only longer) it swayed and danced like stars in the night around her body. Double shit. Still on my butt I pull out my hockey stick (you don't even want to know how I managed to bike with it) and point it at her.

"Hey," I said. I would be a liar if I said my voice didn't quake just a bit. The woman was scary as hell.

She didn't answer right away, but she did crouch down and look at me like a meat inspector. Not that I expected anything better. Like I said: fairies just don't have any respect. I was going along fine until she groped me. "Hey!" She had the grace to blink. This had gone far enough. "Did you steal Emily from her father? Where is she?" I tried to look around the fairy, but I couldn't see if there was anyone else. I could see more of the fairy than I wanted to, however.

"Emily is mine." The fairy's voice was low and elegant and probably what had seduced Mr. Dubois in the first place. She pressed her nose against my cheek. "And I take what is mine."

"You can't…" she bit my ear, "you can't take a child away from her father like that. It isn't fair to…" good lord she was going to kill me! She licked my neck… "isn't fair to either of them."

"He became dull, and she would have been dull too. I don't want a dull lover nor a dull daughter."

Her fingers pressed into placed that hadn't been pressed in a while and I couldn't help the shudder my body let out. I hated fairies. "Where is Emily?"

"'Emily'? Back home now."

Shit. It was too late then. There was no way I was going to be able to go into the Nevernever realm and waltz out with child the fairies considered theirs without loosing something important, if not my life. Though, I wasn't sure I would want to even if I could. Neither situation seemed ideal. A half fairy child with its fairy mother (whom was attempting to procure a sibling for her, from the way things were progressing) who would crush her human side, or a half human child with its human father, who wouldn't understand her fairy aspects. Both had problems, and honestly, I didn't have the right to choose.

"And what should I tell her father?"

The fairy shrugged. "You think I care?"

I should have known better. "Fine. Take the girl," I refused to admit that she already had or that she had as much right as he did, being her biological mother, "but at least let her father out of your spell. He deserves to have a life of his own."

She was pissed now, and that wasn't good. She glared at me and her hair moved like a snake around her body acting like some sort of shield. She shoved me deep into the puddle my ass had been occupying and held my head in place by my hair. "Why?"

"He deserves…" talking was very difficult with her molesting me and trying to squash my head into the concrete at the same time, "freedom just like you."

"And what will he do with his freedom? Nothing."

I spat out some puddle water. "You don't know that. He could be very important." I somehow doubted that, but it was the idea that mattered. I don't think she believed me, but she shrugged her shoulders, which sent her body dancing, and slammed my head into the ditch.

For the record, I really, really hate fairies.

My vision started to shrink on the sides but before I passed out completely I felt a release of magic. She had lifted his enthrallment spell. She petted my cheek almost tenderly and pressed her lips onto mine giving me one of the longest kisses in my life. Coupled with my probable concussion, after forty literally breathless seconds of fairy kissing that I'd like to never repeat, I was completely unconscious.

I woke up to the smell of coffee and antiseptics. The hospital, I reasoned. I cracked open one eye first and spotted Murphy perched on a chair looking utterly exhausted. I opened the other eye and saw a huge stack of electronic machinery. I hoped I hadn't broken anything yet. Or accidentally killed someone.

"Hey, Murph." Shit, my voice was completely shot. How long had I been out?

She shot upright and almost spilled her coffee. I told her she should get one of those lidded coffee mugs.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Dresden. Are you alright?"

I wiggled my toes. "I think so. What are you doing here?" And for that matter, what am I doing here?

"They found you last night in an alley behind Mama Ding's restaurant," she paused and looked uncomfortable. That wasn't a good sign: Murphy never looked uncomfortable. "Harry, you were covered in long blond hair and…"

I closed my eyes. This wasn't going to look good.

"I had the paramedics do a rape kit on you.

My eyes flew open. Now, that's not what I was expecting. I glanced over at her and she met my eyes carefully. Careful was another thing Murphy didn't do.

"Find anything?" I asked. I hoped not.

"No, but you were assaulted, Dresden. There were tears in your pants and you've got bite marks on your face."

"Shit." It wasn't news to me. I wasn't even sure what the fairy did could be considered assault since I was pretty darn passive during the whole thing, wanting her to remove the goddamn enthrallment spell. I really hated Dubois right now. Course, I wasn't about to try and explain all that to Murphy.

"Yeah," she said quietly.

We just sit in silence for all of twenty seconds before I sat up and began to unplug myself from the assemblage of electronics. Most of them had gone dead anyhow.

"Dresden! What are you doing?"

I threw a glance in her direction. "Getting out of here, I feel fine. Sides, I miss my apartment." Not to mention, Bob was probably having kittens back there and I needed to come up with something to tell Emily's father. 'Oh yeah, your girlfriend is a fairy, not dead, kidnapped your daughter, and put a spell on you' just didn't have the right ring to it. I'd probably tell it to anyone else, but I had a feeling the Pentness lawyer might do some real damage to my financial situation (what was left of it) if I didn't tread carefully with him.

"Don't be an idiot!"

Now that was more like the Murphy I was used to. I grinned at her. "What? You expect me to stick around here? Me and hospitals don't get along."

"But…"

"We'll talk later, Murph. Thanks for looking out for me." And just like that, I was out of the hospital. Course, I hadn't thought things through very well (probably that concussion working its magic) and ended up having to blow my twenty-five dollars and eight cents on a taxi home. Which meant neither dinner nor my car. The good news, though, was that since it was the next day, I didn't need dinner at all. Lunch, though, was another matter.

I stuck my key in my door and twisted the lock. At least I'd remembered to lock up before rushing off to meet the fairy. A soon as I had it cracked open and popped my head inside I was bombarded with Bob's face.

"Harry!"

"Hey, Bob."

Bob could be as annoying as heck (let's be honest, he usually is too) but he's a pretty good guy all the same. "Oh, Harry, I feel so awful. I should not have encouraged you to track down a fairy, I knew you had bad relations with them…"

I tossed my staff (the paramedics had apparently grabbed my hockey stick thinking it could have been part of the crime and the hospital staff had been more than happy to hand it back over to me, not wanting to deal with it. It gives off weird vibes, even to magic free folks) and my still damp coat onto the floor in a pile and slowly shuffled off towards my phone. "S'alright, Bob. I have bad relations with most things from the Nevernever."

Bob was hovering. He did that very well, for a ghost. "But she hurt you, and I feel very badly…"

I picked up the phone. It was dead. I gave it a little whap and got a shaky dial tone, to my relief. As I dialed Mr. Dubois' number, Bob paced about my desk, looking thoroughly depressed and upset. Part of it was probably the fact that I'd obviously returned without Emily: no Emily, no money, and no more romance novels.

"Dubois."

I swallowed my discomfort. "Mr. Dubois, this is Harry Dresden, the Wizard."

I could practically feel him gripping the phone tighter. Or maybe that was me. "Yes. Have you found her?"

This was the part I hated most. I sighed audibly. "No, Mr. Dubois, I haven't. How much about magic do you believe?"

The conversation didn't go well. On my taxi ride home I'd decided to tell the man the truth. He deserved it, after all. No one should have to keep wondering what happened to their child for the rest of their life. The truth, however, was not what Mr. Dubois wanted to hear. It wasn't pretty. He agreed not to sue my ass (he listed off a number of things such as fraud and misleading my clientele) in return for not paying me a single cent and me wiping his name from my records and never speaking to him again.

Apparently the un-enthralled Mr. Dubois was just as much of a bastard as the one under the fairy's spell – he could have at least paid me for my time. Oh well. The police would come up with a story that he would find much more believable, even if it was all wrong. And I would still be broke.

I sighed. What else was new. I stood up with a little groan and began to shuffle towards my bedroom. God I was sore. Bob continued to hover.

"Harry, is there anything I can do?"

I grinned just a little. Bob could be so sweet when he thought he was to blame for a situation. "Nah. Go to bed, Bob. Things will be better in the morning."

"Harry, it's two in the afternoon."

I stared up the stairs. "Night, Bob."

I heard him sigh quietly and say, "Goodnight, Harry," before a little poof of magic blew past and I knew he had returned to his skull. I made it to my bed, barely, still covered in fairy hair, before falling into an exhausted sleep.

What a day.

End

Reviews are very appreciated. I'd love to know if I got Dresden's character right and any other iffy spots that caught your attention.

Thanks for reading!