Story Notes:
This story was written for Kat for the Dresden Halloween Ficathon. My prompt was "Thomas on Harry. Let's see his POV on his baby brother. I don't want slash of any sort, just brotherly shenanigans."
I originally planned this as a series of drabbles, one per book. Then I realized I had more to say, so I expanded it to a series of drabble pairs, plus a big bonus ficlet for a certain scene in Blood Rites. Then I realized I wasn’t delivering on the “brotherly shenanigans” part of the prompt, and time was running out, and the double drabble format was making me feel too confined, so I scrapped any semblance of format and just wrote for however long each moment needed to be. I’m still quite pleased with it, despite the lack of any rhyme or reason in the writing process. Hope you like it, Kat!
Thanks to Feather and Bard for the brilliant beta job!
Note: While this story generally doesn't spoil anything past Blood Rites, I do make reference to an event from the short story "It's My Birthday Too" in the last chapter. It shouldn't affect your enjoyment if you haven't read it, though.
I have a brother.
Okay, I’ve had several, though all were dead long before my birth. This is different. Better to say my mother had another son. I knew she died only a few short years after escaping my father, but it never occurred to me it was enough time to start a new family. I never expected my sudden curiosity at what she’d done in that time to yield such strange fruit, but it’s there in the microfilm archives of the Omaha Herald. Harry Dresden, son of Malcolm and Margaret. Not Harrison or Henry. Harry.
His birth announcement and mom’s obituary are on the same page.
The quiet murmur of the library continues unabated, utterly failing to acknowledge that the earth has just been jolted off its axis. It‘s not unlike first learning the truth about my family: my world gets a little bigger and scarier and more difficult to understand or control, but the rest of the planet thinks it’s just another day. Sometimes, I envy them.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the prim young librarian asks. Spots of color ride high in her cheeks, and her breathing is quick and shallow. She isn’t particularly pretty, but she has the kind of rigid restraint that’s always fun to shatter, releasing the wildcat within. My mind is elsewhere, however.
“Not at all,” I say.
Disclaimer: Thomas, Harry, and all other assorted characters and concepts belong to Jim Butcher. He's a smart one, he is.