Awesome / White Night

• Harry freezing a portion of Lake Michigan using a fire spell.
  • Let's reiterate here: Magic has to draw energy from somewhere. Fire magic has to draw heat from somewhere in order to manifest. What Harry did was draw the heat away and traject it skyward where it was useless. This results in the formation of ice in Lake Michigan thick enough to run across.
• Elaine, having just slit her wrist after almost being driven to suicide by a grief vampire, manages to shake off her torpor and produces a lightning bolt so powerful it takes out the entire front of the building she's in. Right before she casts, Harry notices that every light in sight goes dim, as though "something big was taking a deep breath."
  Elaine: Who's useless now, bitch?
  • Harry getting through to her via their telepathic link to break the aforementioned despair spell.
• John Marcone showing up in the Deeps with his private bodyguard AND a small army to help Harry fight various White Court vampires, regenerative ghouls and at least one person possessed by an Outsider.
  • And they don't just show up either; they reduce several dozen super-ghouls to ribbons in their opening salvo and proceed to wade through a slugfest between supernatural entities without taking a single fatality.
  • One particular irony makes it all the sweeter; less than an hour ago, more than half of the White Court Vampires were pushing the notion that humanity is weak, and that the time was ripe to cement their dominance over us. Lo and behold, the Vamps get their assess handed to them in short order, while the "prey" shows up and bails them out of the fire.
  • And then we find out in Changes that the private army was made up of Einherjar.
• Harry's entrance into the vampire conference in the Deeps.
  • A bit of explanation: one of the Big Bads who (thinks he) arranged the plot of the whole books is talking to the assembled White Court of vampires, saying how they can take out the minor magic-users among humanity with impunity. After all, who was there to stop them?
    If that wasn't a straight line, my name isn't Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.

    I lifted my staff and slammed it down on the floor, forcing an effort of will through it to focus the energy of the blow into a far smaller area than the end of the staff. It struck the stone floor, shattering a chunk the size of a big dinner platter with a detonation almost indistinguishable from thunder. Another effort of will sent a rolling wave of silent fire, no more than five or six inches high, down the tunnel floor, in a red carpet of my very own.

    I strode down it, Ramirez beside me, the fire rolling back away from our feet as we went, boots striking the stone together. We entered the cavern and found it packed with pale and startled beings, the entire place a wash of beautiful faces and gorgeous wardrobes—except for twenty feet around the entrance, where everyone had hurried away from the blazing herald of our presence.

    "Vittorio Malvora!" I called, my voice ringing with wrath in the echoing cavern. "Madrigal Raith! I am Harry Dresden, Warden of the White Council of Wizards. Under the Unseelie Accords, I accuse you of murder in a time of peace, and challenge you, here and now, before these witnesses, to trial by combat." I slammed my staff down again in another shock of thunder, and Hellfire flooded in the runes of the staff. "To the death."

    Utter silence fell on the Deeps.

    Damn, there ain't nothing like a good entrance.
• Harry, when confronted by a dozen ghouls attacking him on a boat, shows what he's learned since the last book.
  • Note the uncharacteristic glee with which the narration explains how doomed they are: New Mexico made him angry.
• Harry preventing Lash from simply leaving a conversation she didn't want to continue, on the basis that it's his head and therefore his rules. He points out that she can change, since he might not be able to change Lasciel, but Lash is not Lasciel. Then he lands an Armor-Piercing Question on her.
  Harry: How many shadows like you have ever stayed in a host like me for longer than a few weeks, huh? Longer than three years?
  Lash: [quietly] Never.
• Harry and Ramirez tag-team destroying (as in literally shattering every bone in his body after setting off an explosion in his face) that sonuvabitch Madrigal Raith. Also, "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Bowling for Vampires," which even got the vampires laughing.
• Carlos deserves a huge amount of props during the whole Final Battle and the moments before. While The Reveal that Ramirez is actually a virgin leaves us chuckling madly, Carlos proceeds to resist Lara and pulls a knife on her, enough to show the White Court Vampire he’s not easily cowed and controlled, which actually goes to impress her. In the battle proper he shows himself just as badass in combat magic as Harry by using the most deadly aspect of water as his main offensive magic: erosion (which he uses as a Disintegrator Ray). And later after crushing Madrigal Raith along with Harry while wounded (a knife in his leg) Carlos proceeds to turn a bunch of Ghouls that were gaining on The Cavalry into mush (this in particular impressed Harry quite a bit). As Carlos himself puts it: “It hurts to be this good!"
  • Not to mention that Carlos reveals he has also put two and two together and like Harry and McCoy has guessed the existence of the “Black Council” by being Genre Savvy.
  • We also find out later that Ramirez didn't even realize that he had a knife buried in the leg; he figured the pain was from Harry accidentally kicking him or something.
• Murphy putting an armlock on Hendricks. That is all.
  Harry: Murph, pick on somebody your own size.
• Harry and Lara Raith riding out the explosion of the Deeps while kissing passionately.
• After using the lust generated by kissing Lara Raith to get them out of a blast zone, Harry begins listing off a series of increasingly costly demands as reparations for the damage inflicted by her house. At the end of it, he adds one final demand: ''Some Listerine. I've got a funny taste in my mouth.'' Her reaction is priceless.
• Shadow Lasciel's Heroic Sacrifice. Best of all, it leads in with a simple statement:
  Lash: I... She... doesn't deserve you.
  • For a bit of context, Lash is a psychic impression that's a copy of the demon imprisoned in the blackened Denarius. By making her pull a Heel–Face Turn, he has essentially redeemed a Fallen Angel.
  • For my money, Lash topped even this by leaving Harry her music.
    • His music. She only gave him the skill to make it sound in the real world like it did in his head.
    • Turns out in Skin Game she left him more than that. Act of pure love = act of creation = Harry's pregnant.
• Lara and Thomas utterly stopping a horde of nigh-unkillable super-ghouls in their tracks. It's so awesome Harry uses it as an example of why Lara shouldn't be underestimated in Turn Coat.
  John Marcone: [regarding the Raith siblings in action] "I have never seen such a beautiful nightmare."
• Murphy detecting an invisible Molly right behind her and quickly taking her out, followed by both her and Harry listing the numerous ways she let them detect her, and exactly what a bad idea her following them into a crime scene was.
• At one point, both Hendricks and Murphy start reaching for their guns, but Marcone orders them to stop. When he speaks, the authority in his voice is enough that Hendricks, Murphy and Harry freeze instantly. In Harry's own words, there's a reason why Marcone's at the top of Chicago's criminal world.
  • He tops it later by getting a spot in the Unseelie Accords as a Freeholding Lord. To give you an idea, amongst the other in such a position there are a couple of dragons and an actual god. Marcone gets it despite being a vanilla human (and the first vanilla human to even try it).
• John Marcone makes Harry Dresden say "pretty please."