Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 7

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Harry has finally gotten home to do his werewolf research, and we are reintroduced to his apartment and his cat. Nothing about the space or decor has appreciably changed since the previous book, except that he's replaced the door with a sturdier one (although not yet with the reinforced steel monstrosity he installs between Dead Beat and Proven Guilty), but he seems to feel more positively about it than he did in Storm Front. We are told, for the first time, that Harry decorates in textures, rather than colors, and the layered rugs and hangings are described her as a matter of aesthetic as well as warmth. 

This picture of greater comfort and confidence is carried forward into the lab, where Harry's initial banter with Bob is considerably less sharp-edged than in the previous book, and mixes some support and compliments in with the teasing. Harry isn't quite able to match Bob's (snarky) emotional honesty about the challenges of incorporeality, and pulls them back to business when Bob brings up Elaine - the first time she's mentioned by name. 

Of interest only to the truly obsessive (although if that's not you...what on earth are you doing here?), Harry nearly trips over a stack of comic books, about which we are told "don't ask". I am not aware of any text confirming what this is actually about, but these are almost certainly the Calvin and Hobbes treasuries that Harry finds in with his research materials in Small Favor, which at that time he cannot account for. Presumably, they were tidied away into that box when he was cleaning u the lab to go Full Research Mode between Grave Peril and Summer Knight. 

The two potions Harry makes, one a kind of super coffee, and the other a "blending brew" intended to make him seem like an unremarkable part of the background, have weirdly parallel ingredients. Soap and deodorant, for the stimulant and the blending brew respectively. Washcloth bits and plain cotton for touch. A to-do list and a blank piece of paper for the mind. "Bright, cheerful music" and elevator music for the spirit. The sight, hearing, and taste ingredients are less closely matched, but it's still strange, and I don't really know what to make of it. This may just be a question of Harry's available set of personal associations being limited, but I wonder if the ideal ingredients would be so similar were Harry not brewing them in tandem. 

Bob walks Harry through the five different kinds of werewolves, which consist of

• Werewolves - humans who can use magic, but only to turn into a wolf. 
• Humans transformed into a wolf by someone else's magic. Not really shapeshifters, since they can't change back on their own, and will eventually lose their memories and their reason. 
• Hexenwolves - humans who use an amulet, usually a wolf pelt belt, typically acquired from a demon, to turn into a wolf. The amulet contains a "spirit of bestial rage" which helps them manage the wolf body and insulates their humanity from the transformation, but it's bad for their conscience and inhibitions. 
• Lycanthropes - natural channels for a spirit of bestial rage. They act like animals, at least some of the time, and get some enhanced strength and healing, but don't physically transform. 
• Loup Garou - people cursed to turn into a huge wolf monster every full moon. They can only be killed with inherited silver. 

The way lycanthropes are described honestly makes them sound like something akin to White Court vampires. They have a demony thing attached to them from birth, which gives them access t greater speed, strength, and healing, but also influences their actions. I'm immensely curious where these spirits get their energy, since they don't seem to feed the way the way the White Court do, and I strongly suspect it's from the lycanthropes themselves. Likely, they would have dramatically shortened lifespans, even if they didn't tend to die by violence, but it's something worth keeping an eye on when we get to the part where they actually show up. 

The chapter ends with Harry sitting down to watch the potions simmer and write up his report to Murphy. It hadn't quite clicked for me before that the reports Harry does in the first few books are written entirely by hand, unless he has a mechanical typerwriter in his office and types up a fair copy to hand in, and this is just never mentioned. But i think he's literally just writing them on a yellow legal pad. No wonder people have questions about his professionalism. 

That' what I got. Thank you all so much for being patient with me during these uncertain times. Be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things.