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Wild Mass Guesses about future events in The Dresden Files, some of them (at bottom) Confirmed or Jossed.

For the benefit of fans who haven't yet read Book 15, please post Skin Game-derived predictions to that page, not here. Predictions specific to Book 16, Peace Talks, also have their own page.

Christ's Crucifixion Was A Result Of, Or Action Against, The Outsiders
We know that items pertaining to Christ's crucifixion are back in play as weapons against the Outsiders. And belief holds that Christ gave his life to absolve humanity of their sins, right? Well, what if we changed 'absolve humanity of sin' to 'protect humanity from Outsiders'?

It would fit that God's son gave his life to protect humanity and, in so doing, created items that can be used explicitly to fight the Outsiders he was striking back against.

Heck, I would not be surprised if Judas was working with the Outsiders to kill Christ, possibly in a ritual aimed at God, but Christ turned it around and made a willing sacrifice to protect the world. I mean, why else would items of faith have power against Outsiders when there's not a whole lot of people believing they would?

Harry will trap Evil Harry in Demonreach at the end of Mirror, Mirror
  • We know from the Word of Jim that Harry made a choice at the Masquerade in Grave Peril, and Alternate Universe Harry chose differently. (We don't know most of what happened at that party). Harry 2.0 pulls the Winter Knight into his Universe for some nefarious purpose. Wouldn't it make sense to be locked up there?

Harry's ex-Parasite inherited sum of knowledge from both him and Lash.
Which will make her very valuable and potent ally, when she grows up.
  • Jossed: it's more like "access to all the knowledge in the universe". Though she's currently inexperienced in actually accessing it. And this makes her way more valuable.

Original Shroud has enough healing properties for Harry's back/Michael unjuries.
First will remove dependence on mantle, second will allow Knight to return.

Harry will confine coins in his current possession in crystalls of Demonreach.
Meaning, that you have to get rid of Demonreach to retrieve them. And if you get rid of Demonreach, you have some more issues, than try to find some coins in that crater, left in place of USA.
  • Two-layer prison. And in such way number of Denarians will permanently decrease.

Kemmler(what's left of him) is somehow related to Black Court, and Mavra's doings are related to him.
Well, Blacks are living corpses, like zombies and liches, with latter being apex of necromancy. Council destroyed him enough to stop, but several times failed to get rid of him completely, because he always had some form of failsafe. And now he's in some form of suspended animation, and Mavra, who somehow got his vessel in possession, needs all his books to figure out, how to reanimate him. Maybe she has debt to pay him, maybe she wants to install him as new marionette Black King.
  • Or by virtue of being such a bastard-undead-necromancer he already was the Black King, and she's just loyal to him.

Lord Raith's Outsider shield is not actually a shield, but Outsider, wrapped around him.
Possibly third Walker. And when someone (likely, Harry) finally removes this shield, creature is free to roam and royally pissed.

Harry's mother possessed black athame at some point in the past.
Title "Le Fay" isn't given without reason. She was in some scheme involving Outsiders for sure.

Fitz will be mentored by Mortimer Lindquist.
Harry was Molly's wizard teacher for a couple of years. After the events of Ghost Story, Molly knows Mort, and even Fitz, after what he's done for Father Forthill and Butters, she could put him in touch with a good teacher - one that is especially attuned to ghosts and other spirits. Who other than the ectomancer Mortimer Linquist of Chicago?

Mirror Mirror will be the big time travel book.
The discussion between Harry and Vadderung in Cold Days sets up the idea of divergent timelines. The title Mirror Mirror seems to imply alternate universes. The actual and nonreversable death of Harry would indeed be something that could split the timeline. We're looking for something that A) can kill harry, B) does not do so, and C) the fact that it does not has little to do with Harry. All signs point to? Little Chicago - the flaw in it would have smeared Harry across a couple of time zones, but mysteriously fixes itself.

At some point, Harry does/does not get pasted by Little Chicago, splitting the timeline. The "dead Harry" timeline is a much darker, more awful place, with the good guys sorely pressed and losing the battle. Word of God is that at some point Harry will be summoned by someone else, like one would summon a faerie, and it's not inconceivable that someone (ie. Molly) in the "dead Harry" timeline makes a last desperate gamble to summon Harry from the "living Harry" timeline. It's too little, too late to actually help, and Harry can't go home without someone in that timeline summoning him back. He watches everyone he has ever loved die horribly, and catches a glimpse of the here that is to come (ie. Apocalyptic Trilogy)... and picks up the Blackstaff, time travels back to the point of divergence, fixes Little Chicago so it doesn't explode in his face, and then time travels forwards along the corrected timeline to get home, forewarned and armed against what is to come.

  • Interesting prospect. However, Word of God has also hinted that the one who summons "our" Harry to the alternate timeline is, in fact, another Harry. And the diverging event happens in Grave Peril, years before our Harry made Little Chicago.
  • Jim has said that the choice was made after the Masquerade in Death Masks, and most of what happened at the party has yet to be revealed.

Mirror Mirror will feature a callback to The Snow Queen
  • The Snow Queen is a Hans Christian Andersen tale that features The Snow Queen (sound like anyone we know?) and an enchanted mirror that shatters and stabs a boy in the eye, forcing him to see only the ugly and bad side of things. I've already suggested on the Characters WMG page that this is the reason Rashid's eye looks like it's made of Crystal - it's a way for him to more easily detect infection by Nemesis (since he more easily sees badness). I posit that the titular Mirror is going to show Harry a world where everything is wrong. This can work with any of the other Mirror Mirror predictions on the page - I just wanted to suggest the mechanism by which it can occur.

Dresden will develop a Potion of Asexuality for dealing with the White Court
Not to mention all the other supernaturally hot baddies running around. Wizards are supposed to be all about the preparation after all, and seeing his usual purple prose about women disappear will be pretty funny. Especially when it lasts longer than he'd prefer...

Shagnasty will impersonate one of Lara's sisters
Sure, the main reason he was eating their fingers off was to hurt Lara, since he has intellectus on how to hurt people, and it both made her feel powerless again AND hurt her family. But we also know Skinwalkers can do perfect replicas of people whose flesh they've eaten, including their memories. And Shagnasty is working for the Black Council.So how will this go down when Shagnasty is for the most part restricted to the Southwest? Simple. You didn't REALLY think the White Court doesn't have a huge stake in Vegas did you? One of Lara's sisters will head out there to manage the family business and be replaced by Shagnasty.This will come to light when Dresden finally goes after the White Court in a major way, goes to confront Lara's sister prepped for White Court Vampire (sex with Murphy and an asexuality potion)...only to be facing a Skinwalker instead.

Now that Harry has the actual Shroud of Turin, he will use it to get a favor from Marcone in return for healing Marcone's "Persephone", aka the comatose daughter of Helen Beckitt

The British sounding prisoner in Demonreach is a friend of Merlin
Hmmm... A British sounding figure in "stasis". As if waiting. For a time he is needed again. On an Island. Full of fair folk. And he knew Merlin. And Excalibur doesn't have a wielder at the moment.
  • And King Arthur is supposed to come back in his peoples hour of need. That said, I'm betting on the Orignal Merlin as below.

The British sounding prisoner in Demonreach is the Original Merlin
It's kind of obvious, actually. Merlin is famously imprisoned in a crystal cave. That's a fairly easily corrupted from 'in a crystal, in a cave'. Which is what the British sounding prisoner is. Not only that, but unlike all the others, it doesn't seem evil and obsessed with escape, and is described as human shaped, as well as explicitly saying that it/he must be imprisoned here.
  • Holy shirt.
  • It's been revealed by Woj, possibly a slip of the tongue, that the British fellow is Gawain, one of Harry’s predecessors.

Gregory Cristos is also Gregor, the man who tried to sacrifice Charity carpenter to a dragon.
It would be the author's style wouldn't it and there have been a whole bunch of small scenes that ended up being quite big later on.

Nazi's will get involved
After the Second World War, many Nazi's fled to South America. There were mentions in the series of the Nazi's investigation into the occult. What if some of those investigations succeeded? What if a small, Neo-Nazi organization has managed to achieve no small measure of magical power, and some of their leaders have even managed to acquire a low-level form of immortality. Their ideology has shifted as well. Instead of viewing the Aryans as the master race, they view wizards and immortals as the "master race", and non-wizards as the undesirables. They are funding highly unethical experiments to determine how magical bloodlines function in the hopes of propagating their "master race". They are reaching out to the White Council, eager to acquire allies. Many in the White Council may be willing to listen. After all, with the Red Court gone and the Formor on the rampage, the White Council has been bled nearly dry. They need all the allies they can get. How will Dresden cope with this situation? After all, he himself has made questionable deals with amoral entities in order to protect others. How will he respond to a desperate White Council that does the same?

Harry is in fact the original Merlin
They keep mentioning how the original Merlin was the keeper of multiple swords of the knights of the cross (just as Harry is now). They also pointed out (I believe) in Cold Days that the island of demonreach apparently was established by the previous Merlin. Now that seems a tad odd if only because Merlin was known to be set in England, not in the American midwest. There is also the idea that Merlin experienced time backwards, predicting the future by remembering it. In this case Harry is reading the journals to learn the events that he can then 'predict' from the foreknowledge. He'll also then use the information gained to create the demonreach prison and when he returns to the future/present he'll then use that knowledge to maintain the prison as well as better understand the nature of what's there. Harry is also mentioned to have been marked by destiny in terms of his birht and all these different groups are interested in him, it's actually possible that they might not even fully know what he is, but they can tell that he has some kind of great mark of destiny about him.
  • Coming to North America in the time before Columbus wouldn't have been difficult for Merlin, given how travel via the Nevernever works.
  • They only mention Merlin as having possession of one of the swords, Amoracchius.

Dresden Files IN SPACE!
The Outsiders are determined to destroy Demonreach. However, now that Demonreach has Harry as it's warden, their old plan in Cold Days isn't going to cut it.

This time they've built a mass driver in space, capable of launching asteroids down on the earth. Their first target is Demonreach. No matter how strong it's magical defenses, they'll be no match for repeated kinetic bombardment.

Now Dresden and his allies must travel to outer space to knock out the Outsiders weapons platform before the Outsiders decide to demonstrate to the people of earth just how the dinosaurs died...

  • Considering Outsiders can only enter the mortal world if they're summoned there, wiping out humanity in this way wouldn't really advance their agenda to take the place over.

  • Do you know how advanced the technology on board the space shuttle is? It's already prone to technological fault without putting a wizard on board.

Regular humans will start to fight against the supernatural
Let's face it, if you're a normal everyday blue-collar human being, than the Dresdenverse sucks. You have vampires who might kidnap you and eat you. You have formor who might kidnap you and brainwash you. You have faeries who might kidnap you and "play" with you forever. You can't go to the government or to any proper authority, because for some weird reason everyone is dogmatically, irrationally insistent that monsters and magic don't exist, despite the fact that there are enough weird things going on to arouse suspicion. Almost as if somebody cast a spell on them.

What if the "wizards" and their allies cast a spell on ordinary humans to make them unable to see the supernatural?

And speaking of "wizards", they hardly seem to be any better than the monsters, and how do you know if the "wizard" isn't a warlock in disguise? Take Harry Dresden for example. How many buildings has Harry burned down? How many people are left homeless, unemployed, and/or irreparably traumatized because Dresden decided that to cut loose? What about the law? For all of Harry's talk about helping people, he has no problem violating due process, using intimidation, destroying property, and assaulting people to get what he wants.

From Harry's perspective, all the destruction may be necessary, and if ordinary people don't understand that than it's their problem. But from an ordinary person who doesn't have Harry's power or perspective, the world is a terrifying place where the average person is at worst a meal, and at best utterly irrelevant. I mean, who elected Dresden? What gives him the right to decide who lives and who dies? What gives him the right to kill people, destroy buildings, and start wars that cost thousands of lives? Sooner or later, a lot of vanilla mortals are going to get fed up. They are going to start doing something about it. They want the power. They want to matter. But how? They don't have magic powers of their own or spiffy artifacts? But they do have a lot of money, a lot of manpower, as well as science, technology, and the will to find out just what makes things tick. They've got guns, predator drones, cruise missiles, and nukes.

To the ordinary guy, being a wizard gets a lot of perks. They get to live for centuries, they get to heal from almost any injury, and they get power to threaten whole cities. A lot of ordinary people probably feel inadequate, frustrated, and jealous that they don't get all those cool powers.

In the X-Men comics, many non-mutants are angry and jealous of mutants and fear them because of their destructive capability, and the fact mutants like Magneto regularly flout their powers by disregarding the law and hurting people adds fuel to such prejudice and jealousy. This results in things like the Sentinel program and Weapon X, secret enterprises designed to study, exploit and counter the superpowers of mutants. Eventually, something similar will happen in the Dresdenverse. Maybe it's a secret government initiative run by the US Army or CIA hoping to exploit such powers for their own ends. Maybe it's a group of over-religious zealots who spout "suffer not the witch to live". Maybe it's a consortium of business interests who think magic is a great way to make a quick buck. Or maybe it's an international effort of the world's most powerful governments who have looked at the corpses and rubble, at all the smug and arrogant magicians and monsters, and decided "screw this, we want our world back".

Soon, all out war threatens to break out between mortals and the supernatural community. Now Harry and his friends are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, the White Council, the Faerie Courts and others have a point. Most mortals just don't have the skills and expertise to handle many of the various crises and problems that arise. However, neither wizards nor any of the Faerie Courts or vampires have little respect for mortal law (or mortal lives, when you get down to it. Blackstaff anyone?), and a lot of ordinary people suffer because one of these so-called "immortals" got cranky. After all, nearly an entire continent got wiped out all because Maeve got jealous of her sister.

On the other hand, it's clear that a lot of the mortal activity has arisen because of angry, frustration, and fear. Not the mention there is always the jealousy that the "have-nots" feel toward the "haves". It's clear that these mortal "witch-hunters" also don't use precision, as they are starting to threaten innocent people or benevolent supernaturals like the White Council. Also, many of these mortals are clearly power-hungry, and magic in the wrong hands could be disastrous. Yet the mortals do have a point. Humans are regularly treated as mere natural resources or property under the Unseelie Accords, and their interests are often ignored. It's not like Mab bothered to warn the FBI, NORAD or FEMA, or any other institution who might have been able to help when her daughter nearly destroyed a continent by breaking open Demonreach. Many of these so-called "gods" and "immortals" may claim to be guardians or necessary evils, but from many mortals perspectives they care only about themselves. These "hunters" believe that if humanity is to reap the benefits of magic, than humanity must be the one to do the work, with or without supernatural allies. Also, many of the so-called "witch hunters" aren't monsters, they are just ordinary people who want to protect themselves and their families, and maybe get to use some of that magic that couldn't otherwise use.

What are Harry and his friends going to do?

Lloyd Slate's daughter will threaten Mab.
Why did Lloyd Slate become the Winter Knight? Well, because he was raising a daughter alone and his little girl was in trouble, and Mab, being the manipulator that she is, gave Slate an offer he couldn't refuse. Now, imagine a little girl watching, year after year, as her father slowly loses his compassion and empathy and becomes a drug-addicted, raping serial-killer. Now imagine that the father, in his twisted mental state, decides that raising his daughter means exposing her to all the worst cruelty and sadism of the Winter Court. A little girl who must endure all sorts of cruelty and torment while Maeve, Mab, and Slate looked on and laughed. A little girl who grows up into a damaged, broken, and righteously pissed-off woman. A woman who has determined that no one should endure what she endured. A woman who has decided that the Winter Court, who in her eyes are all irredeemable monsters, has outlived its usefulness and has got to go. Starting with Queen Mab, the vicious sociopath who turned her father into a monster and did nothing to stop it (no therapists, no anti-psychotic medication, no professional help, nothing). There's a line between harsh necessity and sadistic cruelty, and Mab is hell-and-gone over that line. Now, after years of training, practice, and terrific self-sacrifice, Slate's girl has finally got the power to to take Mab out.

Now Harry's been ordered by Mab to kill Slate's girl. The problem is that the girl is in many ways like Harry, a damaged and hardened person who is trying her best to help people and who has made many questionable decisions along the way. Also, every time Harry sees her, Harry sees what his daughter Maggie could become. Not to mention that it's really hard to say that Mab doesn't have it coming. Due to this, Harry is desperate to save Slate's girl, or at least get her to back off for a bit while he figures things out. However, the girl's past experiences have made her very unlikely to trust Sir Harry Dresden the Winter Knight, or any of his somewhat disreputable allies (like Molly the former warlock turned Winter Lady, or Thomas Raith the White Court vampire and sister to self-proclaimed monster Lara Raith, or Karrin Murphy the ex-cop who got fired and is now taking money from gangster John Marcone). Will Harry be forced to kill an otherwise good person? Or is he willing to risk Mab's possible destruction (not to mention her wrath?) on a fool's errand?

Mab's taking of Molly will stir up trouble with God.
Mab knows about Molly's family, part of her over-reaching plan is to pull "the White God" into the fight against the Outsiders by using Molly, and by extension, Micheal and his family as tools to force God to go back to Old Testament ash kicking, and stop being passive. She brainstormed this with Mister Sunshine.
  • Why assume God is dissatisfied with Molly's situation? Perhaps He's not displeased with having a devout Christian embedded in the heart of the Winter Court, keeping an eye on developments and in position to take over if Mab herself goes down.

The Paranet will become the new White Council.
We all know the White Council is not going to survive much longer, and with the rate Harry's been gaining power and influence its fall is definitely going to lead to Harry becoming responsible for all the displaced wizards. Enter the Paranet, a system for connecting and regulating users of magic that Harry has been quietly setting up for many years.
  • Alternatively, the Paranet will supercede the influence of the White Council if The Masquerade falls. After all, it's been available for a while, and even Muggles can reference it (or at least, a certain college-age half-Bigfoot), which means that it can mobilize the muggles and low-power practitioners in a way that the Council cannot.

Everything will turn out to be a very long con by the gods themselves to reconcile with humanity.
It's not just Harry who's being subtly shaped into something powerful by unseen puppeteers. It's all of civilization! In the ancient world, the gods were active, and humans could not stand on their own - either because they relied too heavily on the gods or because the gods themselves selfishly kept humans as a serf class. The White God, with his wisdom and foresight, saw the great Outsider threat in humanity's future, and knew that the it would be the one and only opportunity to let his most treasured creations stand on their own two feet and learn to face their gods with dignity, not grovelling. The White God wants man's affection, not merely their unsatisfying fear. If the gods fought that battle for them - assuming the gods are even capable of doing so- mankind would never become anything worth noticing.

We're told in Heorot that the gods agreed to step back 2,000 years ago. They did this because the White God convinced them if humanity learned to fend for itself and understand its place in the universe, they could then offer the gods a relationship far better than pets and slaves. Mankind was left to fend for itself, with the highest powers agreeing to a strict policy of non-interference, hence the angels' obsession with leaving human free will completely intact. Humans spend the next two millennia developing their own wisdom and their own weapons. They learn to create solutions far more rapidly and insightfully than any of the supernatural races.

In the end, the Outer Gates will be breached, the Outsiders will pour into reality, and they will find themselves stopped cold by humanity. Stupid, brilliant, weak, terrifying humanity. The masquerade will have fallen and mankind will have focused all its warmaking prowess into creating the Outsiders' doom.

The dust will clear, the Earth will remain, and in time the gods will return - not as masters, not as slavedrivers, but as mentors and friends. They will find that the new humanity, with its understanding and self-respect, is capable of giving them what it never could in its infancy - real love, to those gods who earn it.

Harry will end up as the next Gatekeeper.
The Gatekeeper's duty is to prevent Outsiders from entering our realm, and Harry, in White Night, has been told that he has a special ability to affect Outsiders. The (current) Gatekeeper seems to have an interest in Harry's fate as well.
  • That's so lowbrow. We know there's a traitor on the White Council, the Merlin has taken issue with Harry since he showed up, "Merlin" is a title, Elaine says Harry is "the strongest wizard I've ever met," and a number of times throughout the series, Harry is compared to the original Merlin. Although these are usually jokes ("Maybe I should go out and buy you a round table.") they sometimes aren't (Harry is the first wizard since Merlin to be given guardianship of more than one of the Knights' of the Cross swords). He's obviously being groomed as the next Merlin.
    • In support of this theory, Harry's mother's maiden name is "LeFay." Guess who was occasionally connected with Merlin in the original legends...
      • It is stated multiple times that he is the strongest of his generation, so it would make sense that he would be the Merlin when that generation comes into its full power.
      • It is most emphatically not stated that Harry is the most powerful of his generation. One of the most powerful wizards currently operating, yes— but the most he's claimed is that "on a good day" he's one of the thirty or forty most powerful wizards alive. Never has it been said that he's the most powerful wizard of his generation, or anything like that.
      • Actually he is outright stated to be the most talented of his generation.
      • Wait... Harry as Merlin? Hasn't he spent the whole series making fun of any kind of authority figure? He and the White Council get along like oil and water.
      • So? Worked for Sam Vimes.
      • Actually, the thing about Harry is that he hates authority figures he has no respect for. (See his very positive relationships with Michael Carpenter and Ebenezar pre-reveal.) It's very difficult for authority figures to gain his respect, given how many times he's been betrayed in the past, but if his Arthur were someone like Murphy- someone who he could trust and look up to- I can easily see him serving a king and/or territory.
    • Other theories place him as the future Blackstaff, given his willingness to use peripheral Black Magic where absolutely required while remaining (just) on the right side of the Laws (e.g. see the end of Dead Beat) coupled with a strong morality that sees him risking life and limb regularly for little money and less respect. He wouldn't like it, but he'd probably be very good at it - and wouldn't abuse the license to ignore the rules.
      • Harry would definitely turn the job down. Also in Dead Beat, he says that he wants to live his own life, and stay "above the influence" of black magic. He only took Lasciel's help because it was a necessary evil, same with reanimating Sue.
      • This capacity to use black magic when it actually * is* what is needed - and then walk way - strikes me as the qualifying exam for Blackstaff.
      • Except Harry is the sort who would keep walking.
      • Harry might view the Blackstaff as a necessary evil, like Lasciel's help. When driven by anger, Harry is willing to kill with magic, such as in Fool Moon. Odds are, Harry will be forced to pick up the Blackstaff in order to bypass the Laws of Magic (a little more Necromancy, anyone? Maybe some mind control?) as well as get the increased power that seems to come with it. Proof: Ebenezer is old and powerful, but the man RIPS THE LIFE OUT OF OVER A HUNDRED MOOKS. He also pulled a satellite from outer space and directed it with perfect accuracy at Ortega's fortress. No wizard (maybe the Merlin on a good day) could possibly do that with just his own magic. Harry has plenty of people offering him power: Mab wanting him to be the Winter Knight, Nicodemus wanting him to take up a Denarius, his ties to the Leanansidhe, an army of faeries, connections to the Hellhound (Kincaid), connections to Ivy, the Blackstaff as a teacher and grandfather, an apprentice who has shown that she is very good at mind control, a Foo dog, knowledge of the Book Of Kemmler, the ability to trigger the Darkhallows, two of the three swords of the Knights of the Cross, and his own raw magical strength. He has said before that he will take up every power offered him to kill an enemy that harms his friends. I can see Harry taking up everything he has (including the Blackstaff) to destroy an enemy like Mab, Cowl, or the Black Council.
    • Maybe he'll consolidate the entire White Council and be Gatekeeper, Merlin, and Blackstaff all at one! (^_^)b
      • I think it'll be more like "help create something new from the shambles of the White Council" - I don't think the Council in its current form will last out the series.
    • Odds are good he won't be named gatekeeper until he's been performing the duties for at least one book. Harry can't be successful in magic or finance without it bringing more trouble then it's worth. And there is no way Harry would ever be willing to be the Blackstaff, even if they offered it to a man who twice had the Doom of Damocles over his head trained by a warlock, he would turn it down flat.
      • He'd take it if he thought it would be given to someone less responsible if he didn't. He'd grumble, but he'd take it.
  • No, Harry already IS the Gatekeeper. Rashid is Harry from the future, come back to do everything he's already seen himself do, otherwise Time explodes. It's surprisingly plausible.
    • Time Travel is against the Laws of Magic...
      • He uses his position as Merlin to appoint himself Blackstaff, then travels back in time legally to become the Gatekeeper. Problem solved!
      • Given what Jim Butcher said in regards to the timeline of the books and time travel at the signing for "Changes" in Portland, Oregon, on 8 April, I'd say that's not only possible but also a pretty darn cool idea. "Am I gonna make any big leaps forward or backward, well... You know, there is a whole law of magic about messing with time, and given that it's a law of magic, Dresden's gonna have to break it eventually." Video clips of Jim Butcher's Portland, OR, signing for "Changes". Beware spoilers!
      • I think this is actually unlikely, given that Rashid was surprised to find out that Dresden has made a sanctuary of Demonreach. If he was future-Dresden, he would have known that quite well, and there would have been no real reason for Harry to be surprised over him knowing due to his magical knowledge and resources. Also, the Gatekeeper seemed willing to kill Harry to prevent the fight until he found out about Harry's ace in the hole.
      • As an additive to this, for those of you who say he was faking surprise, Harry is a terrible liar as well... he probably couldn't even trick himself.
      • Perhaps Rashid is Harry, with his memory altered by Molly/another mental wizard. Some time in the future, the Outsiders are released and start messing with time. Harry needs to ensure that certain events happen, and since he is the only one capable of harming Outsiders he has to be the one that goes back. He has his memory altered so that he does not remember that he is Harry in order to prevent himself from giving himself away and ruining the whole "causality" thing, but does retain his magical talents and the knowledge of which events need to happen.
      • But Rashid is described as being devout Muslim, with an accent, and darker skin, from what little we see of his face. Not to mention, different senses of humor.
      • Most decisively of all, Rashid is the Senior Council member known for almost never speaking. Do you really think that any amount of psychomantic alteration to Harry's mind or personality could get him to sit there and keep his mouth shut? He'd become a drooling lump before that could happen.

Mavra wants Harry to kill Ferrovax
In Grave Peril Mavra helped start the war with the Red Court, while in Dead Beat she prompted him to stop the necromancers from achieving A God Am I status and got the Word of Kemmler for herself. In Blood Rites Mavra showed up, killed a few people and attracted Harry's attention, and pointedly and painfully demonstrated that Harry's shield didn't stop heat. Unless she had a deeper reason for doing that is seems pretty petty compared to her previous appearances.
  • Well, she needed to get photos for leverage...
    • A plan within a plan within a plan? Place your bets for Gambit Roulette.
      • And, Ferrovax did slap Harry around back at the party. Harry has mentioned repeatedly that he doesn't like bullies...
    • This theory is unlikely. Word of God is that Ferrovax is one entity that has a chance killing Mab, Queen of the Winter Court of Faerie, in a one on one fight. Included in his company is Cowl if he had managed to become a god using the ascension ritual in Dead Beat, the entire White Council if they had her true name, the entire Red Court, Drakul, and with a very low probability of succeeding the entire White Court.
    • ...Firstly I think you misunderstand the term "wild mass guessing". But at this point given Harry's rapid and sustained increase in power and contacts and tendency to triumph over things theoretically well out of his weight class (case in point, the entire Red Court ) the questionable part is not "how could Harry ever be in a position to destroy Ferrovax?" but "why would Mavra want Ferrovax dead?"
    • If Ferrovax could take out Mab and now that Harry is the Winter Knight, Mab would have a good reason to manipulate /order Harry to take Ferrovax out as a precaution or if the dragon starts it. Mavra could still be involved somewhere, possibly running parallel to Mab without knowing it. Plus, flamable vampires probably don't like dragons and dragon fire may be connected to Summer fire. Wild Mass Guessing!

We're quickly heading into a Gambit Pileup
So far we know there are at least eight major plans going on, which have had at least a portion unfold on screen. Most of these are also as widely varied and exclusive as winning Illuminati. There's no way these will be able continue to avoid a collision.
  • By extension, causing said Gambit Pileup is someone's Gambit Roulette. Wrap your head around that.
    • From what this troper has seen of the series, it appears that the entire series is a Gambit Pileup orchestrated by people like Nicodemus, Harry, Lara, the White Council, and Mavra, and the Gambit Pileup is a Batman Gambit by the Black Council for everyone to destroy each other which in turn is a Batman Gambit by Harry's Mother orchestrated so Harry can kick some serious ash on the Outsiders who will most likely be at the focal point of the Apocalyptic Trilogy. Because you know everytime a god-like Eldritch Abomination is kicked out of the universe, eventually they will get pissed and try to come back. Is there a trope for that? Not to mention Harry seems to be getting his hands on an awful lot of magical weapons for an average joe. Ability to affect Outsiders, a fallen angel, the Demonreach, Soulfire, the ability to get the Mantle of the Winter Knight, Bob, the knowledge of how to use the Darkhallow, according to many fan theories a Sword of the Cross, etc. It seems like someone is putting a lot of effort into souping up Harry so he can, in the words of Harry to Mavra in Dead Beat, "pick up every weapon he can get. And using them to kill them. Horribly".
      • Harry doesn't know how to perform the Darkhallow, Lash does. Or did, anyway.
      • Rashid the Gatekeeper may be in on Margaret Dresden's plan as well. He doesn't see the future or anything like that, he knows what's going to happen because he helped plan it.
      • But, of course, defeating the Outsiders was a gambit by someone else who needs the Outsiders removed so that s/he/it can occupy their now vacant position and invade only to be defeated by someone else as part of yet another gambit.
  • Better yet. The Gambit Pileup is a Gambit Roulette by Harry's Mom.

He Who Walks Behind is responsible for everything.
  • When DuMorne summoned H.W.W.B, I bet it allowed the Outsider to have more effect on Earth, so H.W.W.B gathered/founded the Black Council, who taught Victor Sells, gave the Hexenwulfen their pelts, only God knows how much stuff H.W.W.B were responsible for at Bianca's party, drove Aurora insane, gave the athame to Mab (unless it's NOT driving her insane...), kidnapped Marcone, and turned Peabody to the dark side.
    • Some part of this has to be true. We don't know how often it is that someone "defeats" an Outsider. What we do know is that killing a demon doesn't destroy them, just sends them back where they came from. And that more than one person has hinted about HWWB still hanging around Harry (including psycho Third-Eye junkie in Storm Front). Logically, having HWWB summoned to Earth to fulfill a task, then being defeated before accomplishing that task, leaves the Outsider with unfinished business — he's "stuck" on Earth until he fulfills his mission. Having tried and failed at the direct approach, the Black Council is his new way of getting it done.

At some point, The Masquerade will collapse
The series has been hinting for a long time that if humans were to realize what was really going on, it would cause here with the supernatural world. There's already hints that some mortal forces have dealings with the supernatural (e.g. Marcone's goons in White Night) and we know there's an apocalyptic trilogy down the line. All signs point to, at some point in the next few books, the Muggles are going to realize what's going on, and there will be here to pay.
  • Alternatively, when the masquerade breaks down the Vampire Courts will sue for full rights in a landmark case called Clark V Addsion and the story will ultimately end up as a prequel to Anita Blake.
  • This may actually the the Circle's master plan: they seem to act much more overtly than other supernaturals, and appear to be making enemies of every side of that world.
  • Some supporting evidence: Bringing in muggle authorities to supernatural problems is repeatedly compared to using nuclear weapons. We are going to have an Apocalyptic Trilogy. An what good is an Apocalypse without any nuclear weapons?

Prior to Small Favor, Nicodemus was not truly trying to end the world - now, he is.
This one needs some set-up: when Nick tried to recruit the Archive, people were less worried about the Fallen controlling the most powerful mage known to exist than they were about her omni-knowledge allowing for the launch of nuclear weapons. But the Denarians have access to master-level Veils and mind-probing magics: there seems to be no reason for them not to simply steal those codes from defenseless mundane humans, then sneak into military bases and fire the nukes directly. Why don't they? Nicodemus, like most old and successful beings, was complacent, and enjoyed working as a supervillain more than he would an actual doomsday. However, Harry almost killed him, and by so doing, has given him reason to try and end the game, rather than just playing for fun. Soon, a nuclear holocaust will descend on a world too distracted by supernatural conflict to prevent it...
  • I disagree, but only in part. I don't think Nicodemus was ever actually trying to destroy the world. You'll notice even back in Death Masks he points out that the plague would've been stopped before everyone was destroyed. Nicodemus is more like Spike than someone who wants the world to end. Not the same, of course, because he wants it to end eventually, but not yet. Now, Tessa on the other hand...
    • Exactly. This theory runs that Nick was like that, right up until a certain professional Wizard showed him he might actually die, after which point...
      • Except that most of the evidence supporting this idea comes from Small Favor, especially when he and Harry are on the boat and end up having a conversation rather similar to the one Buffy and Spike have in season 2. He's downright pissed about Tessa. If he just wanted Armageddon ASAP I think he'd be far less angry.
  • Nicodemus gains nothing by destroying the world. If nothing else, Anduriel's goal as a Fallen Angel is to corrupt and damn as many mortals as possible to fire and brimstone. Can't make that happen if there are no more mortals. Or, for that matter, a world populated exclusively by Outsiders.
  • As of the end of Skin Game, this theory may have a new validity. Nicodemus has been driven to do the unthinkable: kill his own beloved daughter. His power and reputation has been shattered, his squires have abandoned him. He is broken. Now the pain of what he has done is going to haunt him forever, and there is only one way for him to end that pain. He must tear down the Outer Gates and let the Outsiders utterly unmake reality. Then and only then will he cease to exist, and cease to feel the pain.
  • Nicodemus may be the one to kick off the apocalypse for story reasons. If a mortal were to set it into motion, that means that the Lord Almighty and His servants, implied to be the most powerful supernatural faction, wouldn't be able to interfere with it. And Nicodemus is most likely aware of this.

Marcone now has a sample of Ivy's hair, for later use.
He had ample opportunity to take it when they were going up to the helicopter.
  • Of course if he ever used it, Dresden would put him down. Seriously, I doubt Marcone would ever use a child like that.
    • He would never use it to harm her, of course, but it could also be used to find her if she was in danger.
  • Also, the Denarians shaved her head for added humiliation and torture.
    • It did specifically say they left a few straggling bits of hair behind, probably because that looks worse than smooth baldness and acts as a reminder of what she's lost.
    • And Nicodemus is totally the kind of short-sighted idiot that would let the hair of a major Power like that go to waste. </sarcasm>
      • He might've gotten rid of it for his own safety. The Archive is Power. They were only able to capture her at all by seriously stacking the tables against her. You only exercise power over another through that kind of sympathetic link if you can, well, overpower that person. Except in the very specific and planned circumstances of Small Favor, it would take something like one of the Faerie Queens to even match Ivy's power, let alone overcome it. If Nicodemus tries to open up that kind of connection to Ivy, it's going to end very badly for him.
      • Moreover, if you can locate a person using a bit of their hair, who's to say you can't reverse the effect and use the person to find the hair? Keeping Ivy's hair anywhere near him might just be like putting a big "Come Blow Big Holes In Us, Kincaid!" sticker on himself and his minions.
      • Or for that matter, couldn't Ivy simply reverse the usual link between subject and object, and target the hair directly with some manner of heavily destructive spell?
      • Hair is only effective as a magical focus if the person still has hair. Harry's tracking spell fails when Binder shaves his head in Turn Coat. A bald Ivy would negate any use of hair as a magical focus. Now, if they managed to get a vial of her blood and kept it from drying out...

Marcone will go to Valhalla.
This Troper thinks that when and if Marcone dies, he will go to Valhalla, escorted by Ms. Gard of course. Johnny Marcone is already badass enough to guarantee a one-way ticket to Valhalla and a Valkyrie is already around to take him there.

The Black Court is about to come stomping in like a big old dinosaur and make its comeback.
  • The Red Court is gone. Completely. The main reason the Blacks were being kept down was competition. Before, they were able to compete, and were only knocked down by everyone learning their weaknesses. But, as Buffy has proven, that's not quite enough. The Red Court was really the only barrier against their comeback. Blacks reproduce fastest. They ignore any kind of mortal systems, the White's specialty. The White's can't hope to match them physically. The Red Court could have competed with them, but its gone. So, Blacks are gonna come back, and because of their reproductive speed, they're gonna do it faster than you can say "Like Rabbits".
    • Some of the Red Court could be alive. The Curse got whoever was turned by the same vamp that turned Susan, but not everyone who was turned by those siblings; everyone that that was turned by the same vamp that turned Susan's "parent" but not everyone turned by those "uncles and aunts" and so on. I think the Red Court has been dealt a crippling blow, and all of their enemies are going to be taking advantage to try and wipe them out, but at least some of them will survive. And the ones who do will be strong and really, really smart and deadly, and hate Harry so very much.
      • The Red Court is completely gone. The bloodline curse kills entire generations in order starting with the youngest. Since Susan was literally the most recent Red, all other Reds came before her and therefore died or reverted back to human if they were particularly young.
      • Actually, all the full Reds died. It's the half-Reds like Martin who reverted to human; out of those, all but the youngest promptly died of old age, having already exceeded the natural human lifespan.
    • I thought the Reds reproduced faster? In fact, I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated how the Black Court reproduce. The Reds use the Dracula method, the Whites reproduce sexually (and how!), but what about the Blacks?
      • I think anyone who gets killed by a Black comes back as one. Reds have to go out of their way to turn someone.
    • The Blacks are also kept down because everyone who's read Dracula knows how to kill them. Competition isn't as big a factor, especially since the Red Court was mostly active in South America and the Black in Europe.
    • Also, don't forget the Jade Court. They'll probably take a much more active role now that the Reds are gone.
  • The Vampires (of any color) are not the only things out there. The Red Court dying doesn't mean the Black Court gets to come back, it means the Fomor get to come back. Now, the question is, now that the Fomor are taking over the Red Court's old territory, who gets the Fomor's old territory? Also, Wo J states that the Jade Court is going to a great deal of trouble to stay out of the limelight.

Margaret intentionally passed anything she could to Harry that she knew wouldn't be required for her Death Curse to stick.
Part of the "circumstances of [Harry's] birth" are that he got a lot of power and a few abilities passed down to him, particularly something Grey-Council-ish that Margaret might have been working on that would be useful in battling Outsiders, and possibly a nerfed version of the Intellectus she got from impressing Demonreach at some point? She knew that even a death curse from someone as powerful and skilled as her would be unable to kill off Lord Raith, especially if some aspects of that power weren't truly hers to put into a death curse but were transferrable in some small way, and that she wouldn't survive much longer without having to make a Deal With The Devil/Fair Folk/Sheer Dumb Luck to take the entropy curse off of her, so she settled for giving Raith a lifelong torment (which would inevitably shorten his life), while giving Harry whatever she could to make it possible for him to continue at least some of her work and survive without any magical live-in family.

Justin will reappear AS A GHOST!
  • What? It fits with the specifics. He's D-E-D dead. However, a ghost/echo of him could appear. Or, better yet, he may appear in a visit to the afterlife, or some sort of afterlife. He's a major character in Harry's background, after all.
    • Butcher said at one point that Harry was as "dead as Justin." Make of that what you will, since Harry is clearly not going to stay dead.
    • After reading Ghost Story, this theory might be true...

Molly will make new foci for Harry.
  • Harry actually died at the end of Changes. He'll also come back, but it may take some time - perhaps a year or so. In the meantime, Molly maintains perfect faith that Harry will return, and makes sure things are ready for him. It's doubtful she can get him a new car or apartment, so she does what she can do, as his apprentice: she refurbishes him with foci. Possibly, this also involves her getting to know Ebenezer in more detail, since she has to get the wood for the staff from him.
    • Unlikely as of Cold Days, as Molly has other problems like becoming the Winter Lady to deal with.
    • When we last see Harry, he's preparing to craft a new staff for himself. Whether he'll have help replacing his other gear is still unstated, however.
    • As of Skin Game, Harry still hasn't replaced any of his gear besides his staff, as he doesn't have the needed tools or materials on Demonreach to work metals and had to devote months to crafting Bob the second sanctuary he'd promised him. He did incorporate his force-ring effect into his new staff, but it's a (very powerful) one-shot effect.
  • It's very dangerous to accept gifts from the Sidhe and Harry knows it. Not that Harry can get in a whole lot deeper with the Winter queens than he already is.

Harry will soon take a sabbatical from the Chicago-legwork to learn the 18 charms of Odin.
He'll probably have to come back early, both to stop him from being a Game-Breaker and because there's trouble, but it's possible that under the circumstances he'll try to pick up to about the eighth charm or so, then skip ahead to a nerfed version of the (or at least his) last charm which allows time travel or true self-resurrection. Quitting early, skipping ahead, or most likely the fact that Harry is (probably) just an unusually powerful human will mean that most of the charms he does learn won't work to full capacity, but with his power, they (at least the ones that don't rely on finesse) will be enough.
  • Because a series where the protagonist is just 'unusually powerful' is so exciting and satisfying. /sarcasm
    • That's exactly what Harry has been the whole time, though. We're constantly reminded that he's in the top 1% of human practitioners (all White Council members are), and in Changes he estimates himself in the top 20 or 30 wizards in terms of power. That's even before we learn about the starborn business or him becoming the Winter Knight. It's just that he's "unusually powerful" and going up against "absurdly, monstrously powerful" enemies.
  • As of Skin Game, Harry is quite possibly out of the detective business for keeps, as he's now independently wealthy for the first time in his life. Learning Odin's charms is still a possibility.

Harry isn't going to fight Outsiders, he's going to command them.
A popular theory is that Harry is going to break or at least bend all seven of the laws at some point. In White Night, Lash said that Harry has the "potential to wield power over Outsiders" (emphasis added). Note that she didn't say "overcome" or "destroy" or anything like that. We've seen him take control of a demon summoned by another wizard, so he wouldn't even technically have to invite them to the party himself.
  • That would be in line with Harry's usual style
  • Alternatively, he won't command them, but he was intended to — remember when Aurora says he was "meant to be a destroyer?"
  • Or maybe he won't command them outright, but he'll take a cue from Molly's tactics and find sneaky ways to make them fight each other.

Thomas knows something important about Maggie Sr. he hasn't divulged yet.
  • In Blood Rites, he gives a summary of "almost" everything he remembers about her. Either he's keeping a secret or hasn't realized he has important information.

Who cares who wins in the Fomor infighting in Chicago?
  • Because they're all forked when Harry gets back.
    • Verily with Harry coming back as Winter Knight with the Winter Lady in tow with Mab's personal handmaiden revealing herself as the (actually one of the people playing the role of) Ragged Lady, Chicago has gone from "Dresden's Stomping Grounds" to "beach head of the Winter Court's power on Earth".

Bob and the Parasite will have a relationship that parallels Harry and Molly.
A daughter with incredible potential will enter a mentor-relationship with someone who works closely with their father and develop strong feelings for him, while the mentor will struggle furiously to keep things professional out of respect/fear of the father.

If nothing else, it'd be hilarious to see Bob trying to keep it in his pants for a change.

The fact that "John Marcone" is not Marcone's real name is going to be a big deal later.
In his novella, Marcone says, "My name is something I rarely trouble to remember, but for most of my adult life, I have been called John Marcone." Given the importance of true names to the series, This Troper can't help but think that fact Marcone's kept his real name so well hidden is going to come into play at some point. Or perhaps his real name will be revealed and will be a massive WHAM Moment?
  • Harry is alluded to have more than just Thomas as a relative (and this is before Maggie was conceived)...so Marcone is a relative of Harry's. Probably another half brother. It explains his 'wouldn't hurt a child' and reasonably regular Pet the Dog moments, as well as the fact that he is seriously hardcore.
    • Explicitly Jossed.
  • Marcone's birth name might prove important for other reasons, however.
  • Or, maybe he's been using John Marcone for so long, and has so thoroughly disconnected with his original Name, that "John Marcone" is becoming or has become his true Name. He'd still have to tell someone his name explicitly for someone to learn how to say it properly, just like Harry can shout his name at dramatic moments without giving away his Name.

John Marcone will undergo a Heel-Face Turn.
  • Or, well, an antivillain-face-turn. Redemption Equals Death is optional. Aforementioned trip to Valhalla is certainly on the table. My money's on him picking up one of the Swords.
    • Marcone getting one of the swords would require a mind boggling Heel-Face Turn from Harry.

Murphy will become a Valkyrie
In Heorot, when we first learn Ms. Gard is a Chooser of the Slain, she mentions that she's descended from a Geat (probably Beowulf). She also laughs a bit at being called a "Daughter of Odin," implying such nomenclature isn't entirely accurate. This means that at least some Valkyries, if not all, aren't originally divine, but are instead chosen themselves, like the Einherjar, to carry on their task, as Ms. Gard seems to have been.

And then in "Aftermath", not only does Murphy earn the respect of Ms. Gard (one gets the feeling that "Hail, Warrior," coming directly from an honest-to-gods Valkyrie isn't something to be taken lightly), but Gard offers her a job with Monoc securities.

With Murphy stepping into Dresden's place as Chicago's protector, she and Gard are more likely to find themselves fighting side-by-side.

So maybe somewhere down the line, after Murphy has put down the Sword of Faith (because you know she's going to take it up), she'll get another visit from Ms. Gard, who'll offer her a chance to keep protecting the innocent and smiting the wicked.

  • I have to chime in that Gard was laughing at Harry calling the Valkyries Odin's virgin daughters. Not laughing that she was the daughter of Odin, but that they never got down with the Einherjar. She did offer Murphy a job though, so the WMG is still viable.
    • It is not at all clear which she's laughing at, and could easily be laughing at both. The way she says her line about how he sometimes likes them to call him "daddy" suggests they're not related in that way.
  • Sorry to be a killjoy, but Murphy would make a terrible Valkyrie. Sure, she's plenty tough enough, but remember that a Valkyrie's job description entails standing back and letting brave warriors die just because fate decrees it's time for them to do so. Murphy would never accept a duty that barred her from doing everything in her power to protect people, even if it means she has to Screw Destiny to do it.
    • On the other hand, it seems like that isn't entirely what the job is about and that Valkyries do have some degree of freedom to do what they wish in their own time. Consider why Gard's role in Heorot and how she was monster-hunting in her own time, outside of her current duties as Marcone's muscle.
  • a shield maiden or "einherjarenette" perhaps? There could be ranks in the organization.
    • More palatable than a Chooser, at least. Still, it might not be ethically tenable: double divorces aside, Murphy is a practicing Catholic. Signing on to the military service of a pagan deity is not going to sit well with her faith, even if said deity does moonlight as Santa Claus for part of the year.
  • On the other hand, Murphy uses Valkyrie as a call-sign with the Chicago Alliance and was described as "a monster-hunting Valkyrie" way back in Death Masks. That's an awful lot of foreshadowing. Besides, given Harry's love of Conan The Barbarian, wouldn't it just be perfect for a resurrected Murphy to show up to save him from certain death and ask if he wants to live forever?

Murphy will become the next Summer Knight.
Cold Days reveals that the purpose of the Summer Knight is not to kill for the Summer Court but to protect innocents from the Winter Knight. This role would be ideal for Murphy as she would have the power to protect innocents and also as a check to prevent Harry from going off the deep end. More importantly, Harry was earmarked for Winter Knighthood after killing the Summer Lady , and now Murphy has killed the Winter Lady...
  • Of course, Fix himself already has a pretty good bit of leverage to keep Harry grounded with, because he now knows Dresden's daughter is in Chicago. And Mab's motive for recruiting Harry may have more to do with him being a "starborn" (whatever that is) than with what happened to Aurora.
    • I can't really picture Fix threatening harm to a little girl.

Lord Raith is about to make a comeback.
He was seriously hyped up power wise, even without the magical immunity, able to kill with a touch if he wanted to. The only thing holding him back was the fact that he couldn't feed. We see other White Court vampires getting desperate to eat after one short fight, he lasted more than THIRTY YEARS. With Harry dead the curse on him is likely weakened. Probably no where near enough for him to feed properly, but even if he can only feed a tiny bit at a time.....
  • I'd rate this as pretty likely as well; while we know Lara's reasons for sparing his life, I can't help but think that out-of-universe he's being saved up for a final reckoning between Harry/Thomas and the man who killed their mother. Honestly, he was on top of the White Court for centuries; for all we know, he's been playing everyone ever since he was introduced, in pursuit of some hidden goal.
  • Thomas AND harry have to die for his curse to be broken, and Harry was never actually dead.
    • Moreover, since it's a bloodline spell Maggie Dresden would keep it running, even if Harry's semi-death broke it.
    • Makes me wonder whether bloodline spells go the other way, too — would Ebenezer keep the spell going, not through his direct connection to Margaret, but rather through his being related to Harry?
  • You also seem to be forgetting the bit where Lara literally ate his mind. He is a shell under her control; there is absolutely nothing left.
    • Although, Justine managed to get her mind back after Thomas whammied her(as far as I can tell).
    • Thomas was desperate not to destroy Justine, and restrained his demon's Hunger as much as possible. Lara wanted her father to become a mindless husk, and eagerly gobbled him up. That's bound to make a difference.
  • That's assuming there's not something out there capable of restoring his mind, something Raith may have already had dealings with, something like Nemesis, whose true capabilities we've probably only seen the tip of the iceberg of, perhaps? Or, depending on how exactly Nemesis possession works, we may get what initially looks like a restored Lord Raith, but is actually Nemesis or another Outsider taking his body for a ride.

Michael will kill Lea.
As early as Grave Peril, Michael has made it clear that if Lea messes with Molly, or any of his children, that he will destroy her. Yet Lea has been tempting Molly, if only a bit...and, well, a father's fury is a sight to behold. Especially when that father is the Fist Of God. Lea will attempt to tempt Molly, and then all heaven will break loose on her.
  • With his injuries and retirement from being a Knight of the Cross, it's unlikely.
    • As of Cold Days, Molly is now the Winter Lady, and Lea's tutelage of her seems to have played a role in making it possible. Somebody in Winter is almost certainly going to have some explaining to do to either Michael or Charity...
  • Possibly the case. On the other hand, it's doubtful that Molly would even be alive if Lea hadn't taken over Harry's teaching duties after Changes, because she'd either have been captured by the Fomor as a valuable magic talent or hunted down by the Wardens. However much a bench Lea might be as an instructor, she did motivate Molly to beef up her abilities tremendously. So possibly Michael might (grudgingly) spare Lea for that reason.
  • Molly may well think like the original poster, because as of Skin Game, she hasn't told her parents about her new status, presumably to avert undesirable confrontations such as this one. Could still happen, though.

In a future book, Chicago's Tribune Tower will be the epicenter for an attempted globe-spanning curse.
Butcher likes using Chicago landmarks in these novels. The Tribune Tower is the ideal site to act as a focal point for an epic magical ritual, because its structure incorporates donated fragments of historical and natural landmarks from all over the world. A ritual targeted at the Tower could therefore spread across most of the planet, to every source from which one of those fragments was collected, in the same way that thaumaturgy can home in on the source of blood or hair. Given the nature of the series, it's a safe bet it won't be a pleasant ritual either, so Harry will have to disrupt it before its effects can spread across the Earth.
  • This is slightly brilliant. I hope it happens, ideally without Harry "accidentally" burning down the whole Tower.
  • My vote is that this is saved for the Apocalyptic Trilogy!

If and when Harry dies, he will go to Valhalla.

Harry has already impressed Odin with his defiance of powers greater than he and ability to turn the tables on them. At the end of the Big Apocalyptic Trilogy, Harry will suffer a fatal injury, yet still drag himself through to finish his objective and save the world, before succumbing to the injury surrounded by his friends. The book(and series) ends with a note from Harry explaining that he knew his death was coming, Shiro-style, and that he accepted it, before one of his friends closes the book, which has just been sent to them via mail, yet again Shiro-style. As one of the theories above states, this is the last of his Journals; the scene then cuts to Harry whinging about the stairs as he climbs up to Asgard in a call-back to Summer Knight, escorted by Gard.

At one point Harry will meet his future self
  • As of Cold Days we have a confirmation of time travel being possible ( since we know Merlin did it, in order to create Demonreach). It is highly probable (Word of God hinted similar probabilities in one of interviews) that Harry will at one point run into the future version of himself. If so, it is almost certain that future Harry will be Future Badass. And yes, it means Badass in relation to Badass enough current Harry. The plot of this meeting can basically go two ways - future Harry is either back in time to stop one bad guy or another from tampering with past (and thus will ally with his past self) or he has snapped and became monster, who is to Make Wrong What Once Went Right (and thus Harry will have to put an end to this version of his future and try even harder not to become a monster).
  • This will be the plot of Mirror Mirror. Justice League Chicago will run into Bad future versions of themselves. In said Bad future Harry will have the Blackstaff and use it to transport him and several of his allies back into the past. They will form a morally ambiguous Five-Bad band for the book, possible members include:
-Blackstaff!Harry: The Big Bad he will be older and more experienced than Harry but may have found a way to rid himself of his winter mantle.-White King!Thomas: possible dragon, he will have embraced his vampire nature and become just as badass as his father.-Winter Lady!Molly: possible dragon, dark chick or man behind the man. Molly having given in to her winter mantle-Denerian!Will/Andi: brute if Will/dark chick if Andi. A former alpha who picked up a coin and now has a much more dangerous battle form-Evil!Bob: Evil genius-Zombie!Murphy/Butters: One of them will have died and raising them as a zombie was Blackstaff! Harry's start of darkness.

Major league (non-Outsider) demons will make an appearance some time before the final trilogy.
Demons posed a serious threat in the early books, but have mostly faded into the background by this point, or even been demoted to Running Gag status (e.g. all those fungus demon references). Presumably Harry is more than a match for the class of demon that Shadowman or Kravos could summon up, but there have been passing references to creatures called "archdemons" here and there, which have yet to be expanded upon. With several more novels to go before events converge on the apocalyptic finale, there's bound to be room for conventional demons that aren't Fallen or Outsiders to make a reappearance, and show how their threat isn't limited to eating the upholstery out of Volkswagens or hurling fiery monkey poo.

Molly will become a Big Bad at some point in the future.
Think about it. Harry's already said she has the potential to become the most frightening wizard of her generation, and in Ghost Story she's had a little Sanity Slippage already. Combine that with the fact that Unrequited Love Lasts Forever, and love can make you both crazy and evil and you've got a recipe for a very scary Big Bad. Plus, Harry had her help him stage his own murder, which involved her using mental (read: dark) magic yet again. In theory at least, she doesn't have that far to fall.
  • Well, Molly is now the Winter Lady, which doesn't confirm or deny this, but does open up a whole bunch of ways it could happen in the future.
    • Hey, everyone knows Molly REALLY likes Harry. Molly also has real problems not screwing around with people's heads. Maybe, now that she's the Winter lady, she'll decide that those pesky things like "Laws of Magic" and "Morals" and "Ethics" don't apply to her anymore. Maybe she'll decide that Harry just needs some convincing...

Harry will learn astral projection into the ghost-world as one of his future skills.
While hanging around with Sir Stuart in Ghost Story, Harry learns that ghosts can manipulate or sabotage working machines, but he never gets the chance to use this ability himself. Every other occult skill or secret Harry learns has generally wound up being used by him to defeat the bad guys, sooner or later. To use what he learned from Sir Stuart, Harry would need to return to the ghosts' shadowy plane of reality. Butcher already used two other excuses to send Harry's shade into the ghost-world, in Grave Peril and Ghost Story, so short of killing him off permanently, having Harry learn to astral project there voluntarily is the best option to let him go back and try out what Stu taught him.
  • This may be a skill that will be important because of someone else becoming a ghost and making use of it. Justin, perhaps? Or Margaret? Or someone like Will...or Elaine...or Murphy....

Harry and Fix's next duel will be settled with a mundane competition
Mainly because the Winter Knight and Summer Knight facing off in a thumb war would be the most hilarious thing ever. But also because Harry is exactly the kind of person to exploit a loophole to not have to hurt Fix. And he's also exactly the kind of person who would think that would be the most hilarious thing ever.

Luccio having researched computers will be important
Although it's doubtful that the laws of magic will change so rapidly as to allow wizards to freely use technology such as computers by the story's end, the science behind computers isn't necessarily confined to conventional circuitry. In particular, spells and magical foci could be loosely described as a prepared magical "program", which "runs" (casts) when a "command" (magic word) is "entered" (spoken). So, what happens when one of the most powerful enchantment specialist wizards on the planet is deprived of much of her power, being forced to use her power efficiently, and has studied computer science?
  • Jim Butcher did reverse himself a while ago on the Archive being able to "read" electronic text (as of now, she can) and implied that the Information Age is causing problems for the Archive. Luccio's understanding of both magic and computer science could be crucial in resolving such a problem.
  • Or maybe, if the White Council collapses and the Grey Council takes its place, Luccio will have enough influence in the new order to have a big magic-free sanctum established beneath Edinburgh, where a combination of suppressive circles and piped running water grounds out all magical energies. Then she can have computers and communications gear installed in that room, allowing the new Council to take full tactical advantage of 21st-century technology. Also allowing Harry to screen all those movies his pop-culture references come from, and the new generation of young wizards to use their long-missed iPads and smartphones.
    • It's a place for minor talents in the White Council, with a vital job ONLY they can do. And I like the idea of someone hiding a laptop and projector inside a little copper circle to show movies in the break room.
  • You know who understands technology better than Luccio and has access to even more knowledge of the nature of magic than Luccio? A certain Waldo Butters, thanks to his new roommate Bob. If he can leverage his connection to Molly to get some basic training in magic-tolerant tech from the Svartalves, he could end up either bringing the White Council into the internet age, or going the opposite direction and creating automated magic. He's already constructed a concrete piece of magitek - the ghost flashlight in Ghost Story.
    • This is literally my favorite WMG on the page and I really hope it comes true. It could also tie in with the Masquerade being lost completely, as "automated magic" would presumably mean vanilla mortals can use it, too.
  • Perhaps this will simply be something Luccio and Butters bond over? Before he became a Knight, she would have objected to how much he knows of magic, but I get the impression the Knights get a pass in that area. If Luccio sees some of Butters's magitek and wants to know how it works, then has suggestions for improving it....maybe this could even be a way for her to figure out how to make swords for the Wardens again. (Butters would have to be discreet about Bob's role in everything, though...I hope Harry has impressed the importance of that on him! Luccio would likely recognize the skull, having been a major Kemmler-hunter.)

Butters will change the nature of mortal magic
Butters is a geek. He knows computers. He knows biology. He knows magic (thanks to Bob). He's already begun creating magical accessories, discovered the wizardly healing factor, and has established very convincing theories regarding the Winter Knight's mantle. He is in the unique position to be the first straight to actually analyze magic to the point where he can eventually:
Isolate the "magical force" and integrate it into a scientific physics model.
Find a solution that will counter the Murphyonic Field emitted by practitioners.
Discover the genetic sequence that allows a mortal to have access to magic, as well as the rules of inheritance.
Integrate magic into complex technology.
Create treatments that can:
Give straights access to wizard's senses.
Take magical ability away from practitioners.
Counter black magic taint, providing a possible rehabilitation path for unintentional warlocks.

The Blackstaff is the Winter Mother's lost walking stick
And sometime in a future book, Harry is going to have to return it to her.
  • Word of Jim says that "the White Council stole it from someone.  And they really want it back." Mother Winter anyone?

Ivy the Archive hits puberty. Hijinks ensue.
There's a reason that, traditionally, the Archive is passed on to a woman in her 30s that's already formed a strong personality of her own and has even had a kid or two, and that's because, for one thing, one rarely hears the phrases "developmental/maturation period" and "emotional equilibrium" in the same sentence.

Ivy's smart, scarily intelligent and very composed... but she still indulges in age-appropriate behaviors, such as rendering official documents in crayon and taking time off from the set up to a meeting with a Big Bad to go watch the otters at play.

What's going to happen when all those hormones start gushing through her system? I'll tell ya: at best, Kincaid will have a moody, cranky, pain-stricken force of nature on his hands. Oh, and Heaven help any male that she fixates on.

  • Ten bucks Kincaid acts like a Knight Templar Parent. I truly pity any boyfriend Ivy gets.
    • Or girlfriend. I'd love it if Ivy was gay or bi just because it would screw with the Council's expectations so MUCH. "But...but she has to have a child so that the line of the Archive can continue! Otherwise all of mankind's recorded knowledge will be lost!" (And of course there's no reason why a gay or bi woman couldn't have a child. I just think the Council is rather hidebound when it comes to considering possibilities.)
      • Prepare Ivy/Maggie shipping to occur.
      • Better yet, what happens if she falls in love with Kincaid? How well will the Knight Templar Parent hold up against that?
      • Most likely with Squick
    • She was twelve as of Small Favor. We've had about 3 years between that and Changes. Place your bets, people!
      • Ten bucks says it's Nicodemus! That way, when she gets pregnant with his child, he can have his cake and eat it too since Diedre's dead now.
    • Dresden and Luccio had a discussion on this near the end of Small Favour, after Dresden rescues Ivy from Old Nick and the Nickleheads. They talk about how Ivy needs to be as little emotionally involved in things as possible so that, when she hits puberty, all those emotions won't affect her and turn her into an insane bench.
      • To which Harry quite firmly states, "Screw You."
      • Which, really, seems pretty valid. The whole fear of the Archive going insane is based on the fact that she can't cope with having memories of emotions, despite the fact that the Archive would also have all the memories of how to cope with said emotions. If anything, Ivy may handle puberty better than your average teen: been there, done that, thousands of times over.
      • Ivy is not to be confused with the Kwisatz Haderach (from Dune). She doesn't have the memories of her thousands of past lives, she has complete perfect recall of anything anyone has ever written down. Granted, this means she has memorized every self-help book ever written, but it's not the same as having lived it all before.
      • Except the part where it's specifically explained that she does in fact have the memories of all of her past lives. It's why Harry is told not to give her any emotional stimulation.

Harry will not technically time travel...
He is making a great trend so far of not quite breaking the Laws of Magic. Murder? It was self-defense. Necromancy? It was a T-rex, not a human. Whatever he does with time travel will prevent him needing to time travel. Only he and a couple others will even remember any of it happened. One of them, of course, will be either a Warden or a member of the Senior Council, with whom he will have a conversation identical to this WMG.
  • Vaguely related: When Harry time travels, he will need some sort of focus to preform the required time magic. Whoever is with him will be skeptical of it's power/logic/appearance, and he will respond, "I know, it's no police box."Bonus points if a) the skeptic is Murphy, or b) when explaining the above paradox, he mentions "wibbly wobbly timey wimey ball".
    • Harry's marginal notes in the RPG books suggest he's barely glimpsed the new Doctor Who episodes, so "timey wimey" probably wouldn't mean anything to him. He does remember the old Tom Baker era fondly, so a TARDIS crack would certainly fly.

Someone will mention that the Jade Court vampires can be vanquished by, among far more difficult means, putting a mushroom in their left sock and throwing the sock in a river.
Sarcastically, of course. My money's on Molly, since she would have been the right age to see the show before Power Incontinence would have set in and she's gotten to be quite the snarker, but Ivy may develop a snarkier sense of humor by the time we next see her and the Fae tend to pick up all sorts of pop culture.

Harry's ability to repel outsiders is not a Chekhov's Gun; it merely explains how he defeated He who Walks Behind, who is the real Chekhov's Gun.
I know it's a One In A Million- nay, a One In A Hundred Billion Chance that his outsider-anathema isn't a Chekhov's Gun in and of itself, but it's possible.
  • It would appear both of them were Chekov's Guns- HWWB sets up the Outsiders, who are now heavily implied as the Big Bads of the entire series, and you know that means that Harry's power over them will be coming up...

Wormwood is going to have some connection to the meteorite that fell in Russia early 2013

There is going to be a book where the main conflict is a deadly, magical disease called Wormwood.
The jars on the shelf in Mother Summer and Mother Winter's hut were labeled things like cholera, Black Plague, and malaria (in Latin)…and Wormwood, about which Mother Summer said "That one's time has not yet come." This has got to be a Chekhov's Gun. Harry will return to the hut and beg them to take it back, but of course the fae won't help. He may need to get the Shroud of Turin back again.
  • "Wormwood" is a Biblical reference to the end of the world, from Revelation 8:10-11: "The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. The name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter." If Mother Summer's jar does become relevant, it'll be in the apocalyptic end trilogy.
    • So it's magical super-typhus? From that description I'd have gone with radioactivity from a meteor over disease if we hadn't seem it on Mother Summer's shelf. Wait...meteor plus disease? It's The Andromeda Strain! The real question is why Mother Summer would release it during the end of the world. A bioweapon against the Outsiders and their Fomor allies?

The third outsider walker is female
Just to mess with our expectations. We have "He Who Walks Behind" and "He Who Walks Before", so we're expecting something like "He Who Walks Beside", but nobody said the naming convention included the gender pronoun.
As an aside, the outsiders may have no real gender, similarly to skinwalkers. But then, their names use "He" in the first place, so they at least present themselves as male.
  • Does gender apply to outsiders? The "He" in all three names may just be a kind of default possesive.
  • And "He Who Walks Whatever" isn't what their actual names are, anyway: it's what their dying victims sometimes think of them as. He Who Walks Behind's real name was a sickened, doomed feeling that young Harry suffered during their encounter at the gas station. The "He" may simply be a presumption on the human victims' part, based purely on the creatures' voices being deep.

Molly will figure out how to safely rid Harry of the Winter Knight's mantle.
Now that she's the Winter Lady, she's in a position to learn a lot more about how Fae mantles are passed over, and could potentially find an alternative to death which shifts a Knight's mantle from one person to another. Presumably it won't be an easy or obvious method, or Aurora wouldn't have had to kill the Summer Knight to appropriate his mantle.
  • Though considering that that Knight seemed to be very happy with his job, it's possible that all you need is for both the Knight to want to give up the mantle and for the Queen to want to take it back.
    • Unfortunately, though, it's impossible to remove the Mantle from Harry safely without Mab-grade mancy at the very least, considering that the Mantle is currently covering Harry's broken back. Even if Harry's wizardly regeneration is working on it while he's "healed" by the mantle, it is mentioned in Changes that regenerating that bad of a wound takes decades even for a wizard. So even if Molly could remove the mantle, she'd also need to be able to heal the wound for this to be viable.
    • The theory is still possible as Harry didn't experience any problem whenever he was hit by an iron nail in both Cold Days and Skin Game which should have made him unable to move his lower body. Jim also implied in a Q&A when asked about this that someone hadn't told Harry the full truth about the mantle and his back.
    • Actually, we know it's possible for the mantle to be removed by another mortal because we have confirmation from Mab that Tam Lin was real. Though we obviously don't have the whole story of what happened there, since it's just a folk song, the whole point of that story is a Winter Knight being freed of his mantle by a mortal.
    • Keep in mind that Kringle mentioned in Cold Days that mantles are worn and discarded on Halloween. Perhaps a hint?

Rumors will spread about the Wizard of Demonreach Island
And some years from now, a group of schoolkids will have to spend a night on the island for a dare, and Harry will realize that one of them is his daughter.
  • Not likely, given that the very existence of Demonreach is obscure to most people.

Thomas will marry Justine, thus allowing them to be together without the "wax on, wax off" routine.

We know that the "searing" effect only manifests when Thomas tries to feed on Justine and she's marked by love. The problem is that Thomas is so attached to Justine, and fed on her so often before she became protected, that his Hunger instinctively tries to feed whenever he touches her. Now, we also know that when two people are married, they are bound together on a spiritual level (see "Something Borrowed" from Small Jobs). My theory is that this bond will cause Justine's life force to "feel" like Thomas's, and since the Hunger obviously doesn't try to feed on itself, it won't try to feed on Justine either. So Thomas still won't be able to feed on Justine without her removing the protection of love, but he'll be able to kiss her, hug her, boink her, and all the other things husbands and wives are supposed to do that involve skin-to-skin contact.

  • Alternatively, marriage might be such a powerful confirmation of love that it will kill Thomas's demon entirely and make him a human again - which will take one of Harry's major allies out of the game, of course, but Butcher has never shown himself to be averse to that sort of thing..
    • Why would losing his demon take Thomas out of the game? He'd still have all his old skills and weapons, and he'd still have the strength and speed of a very fit human (though he'd now have to exercise to keep it).
    • Marriage didn't kill Lara's demon when she was briefly wedded to Mr. Romany. Granted, she probably didn't love her ex, but it still shows that being married isn't, in itself, toxic to Whites' Hunger.

Lara will kill Shagnasty the Skinwalker

Either personally or (more likely, considering both her favored MO and the power disparity between them) by proxy. Because she promised she would in Turn Coat, and Lara doesn't seem the type to make idle threats, especially not to a creature that invaded her home and nearly killed a couple of her sisters. Alternately, she'll try and fail to kill Shaggy, and set events in motion (either for that book or further down the line) in the process (honestly, this would probably happen even if she succeeded).

The Nevernever side of Demonreach is the Outer Gates
Convenient, no? That's why Rashid got there immediately.

The Nevernever side of Demonreach is (for now, at least) Arctis Tor
Stronghold/physical location of a powerful force against the Outsiders? Check. Hostile to outsiders? Check. Hosts a powerful claim upon the loyalties of one Harry Dresden, professional wizard? Check.

Justine is going to die.
Because is would break Thomas, and Butcher has shown no regret about doing things like that.

Harry's Daughter will become one of the Winter Queens.
No, not Maggie. The one he got on Mab when she healed his back in Changes.

Ivy is going to make Nicodemus' life hell.
Given that he's made it a point to burn everything on him every few centuries, she's probably the only source of mortal knowledge on the man. And now, given that he's burned all his bridges in the supernatural community as well as attacked her personally, thus violating her status as a neutral party, she can freely distribute any and all information he's tried to hide over the centuries.
  • As of Skin Game, Ivy's too late: Mab already beat her to it.

The plot of one of the future books is Harry being hunted by the Erlking
  • You know you want it. And tying in to another theory, if he succeeds in besting the Erlking, the Erlking will be impressed for a third time and something will happen.
    • Actually, in Cold Days Harry goes hunting with the Erlking. For Outsiders. After beating up the Erlking and Santa and taking over the Wild Hunt.

Nicodemus will find out about Harry's Thanatos Gambit in Grave Peril and be pissed.
Given the knowledge at Anduriel's disposal and Nicodemus' own resources, he probably could have simulated whatever Harry did when fighting The Nightmare. Admittedly, it probably wouldn't have worked, given the territory they were in, but the fact that he could have at least tried to save Deidre will make him even more bitter.

The divergence point for Mirror Mirror is Harry's choice to rescue Susan.
  • Ok, as mentioned above, Word Of Jim is that Mirror Mirror is going to be the result of one change to the timeline, that takes place somewhere in Grave Peril, and that must leave Harry alive, since he's going to summon himself into this new timeline. So what event fits that criterion? Harry's choice to try and rescue Susan at Bianca's ball, thus violating his guest rights and starting the Red Court War, certainly does. So suppose that the Mirrror Mirror timeline is the one in which Harry does not break hospitality. Susan is turned and the Red Court war is delayed for some time. But when it does hit, it is much more catastrophic. (Remember, multiple characters have commented that the Red Court wasn't quite ready to start the war when it did.) So the Red Court war has once again broken out, and the Council is losing. In desperation, Harry calls for help from a him that had won his Vampire War.

The Blackstaff (as in the stick) is currently bound by a geas.
The Blackstaff is a living supernatural entity of considerable power and malevolence. At some point in the past, a member of the White Council tricked it into accepting a geas that prevents it from using magic not approved by a particular wizard. The reason the Blackstaff (the wizard) can use black magic without being corrupted is that they technically aren't the one using the magic; they just give the staff permission to use the spell they want to cast. While the staff hates being kept on a leash, it's too malicious to pass up an opportunity to harm others, so it can be used reliably.

The terms of the geas allow for the position of the staff's keeper to be transferred between people. The White Council has a contingency plan in place to ensure that, should anything happen to the current keeper, the staff will pass to another wizard immediately so the staff is never unsupervised. However, the council would only ever trust a select few wizards with that sort of power, so the number of possible "candidates" would be very small at any give time. For the modern council, dealing with serious issues of infiltration, they may have only one or two people they could trust the staff with. Meaning that, should anything happen to Ebenezer and his planned replacement, the council would be forced to pass the staff to someone they wouldn't normally trust with it, e.g. Harry, simply because letting the staff do as it pleases would be even worse.

Molly will become the new Mab.

We know from Cold Days that when one of the elder Faerie Queen dies, the younger one takes her place. One of the potential outcomes of Maeve's plotting was that Mab would die and Maeve would take her place as the "mother" and primary queen of The Winter Court. It seems highly unlikely we'd have that possibility brought up unless there was a chance that somewhere down the line we might see it happen.

  • There may have been some foreshadowing of this in Proven Guilty, when Harry soul-gazes Molly and sees all the potential future versions of her. One of them is described as wearing all black clothing, with black hair and black eyes. Harry specifically describes her as looking "like Molly, like a human being" but being neither. Think about Harry's description of how Mab looked and dressed in her most vengeful aspect and quail in fear.

Luccio will teach Charity to forge the silver warden swords.
Charity was a practitioner and later a smithy for Michael. Luccio's new body doesn't have the aptitude, but she is willing to teach if she finds someone with the knack.

The Brownie cleaning service is a nearly series-long Chekhov'sGun
Butcher has mentioned Harry’s cleaning service in every book since they’ve been introduced, usually in off-hand gags about no one knowing why Harry turned into a neat freak around Summer Knight. Until Cold Days, where there was a decent amount of discussion about the idea that fairies can enter a mortal dwelling without an invitation as long as their intentions are benign and they leave it at least as well as they found it, as Cat Sith says. This is also the book where we learn that Nemesis can allow the fae to act against their nature. This is also also the book where Harry reminds people several times that the Little Folk most supernatural heavies dismiss can do serious damage working together. It might turn out that getting so used to the brownies being in and out of his home comes back to bite Harry at the worst possible moment.

Mab is going to get bits of her soul back
This is foreshadowed by the ending of Battle Ground, that by empathising with Mab, Harry can reawaken long suppressed mortal aspects of Mab.

However this will not be an entirely positive thing since it will also weaken Mab's abilities, which may well lead to her death or some greater disaster...

If this theory isn't crazy enough, let me propose:

Mab will be the next wielder of Amoracchius

The true meaning of “Die alone!”
Ever since Cassius cast his Death Curse on Harry, Harry has always worried about the meaning by that curse. He’s been talked down from it, but it now seems that we might be seeing the true force of Cassius’ curse unfolding and wreaking havoc on Harry’s life. Consider what has happened to all the women that Harry had gotten into relationships (or who were interested in a relationship) with over the course of the series since Cassius’ curse was cast.
  • Susan was forced to complete her transformation into a Vampire of the Red Court so that Harry could sacrifice her to kill them all.
  • Harry’s relationship with Luccio was revealed to be the result of mental manipulation by a mole on the White Council.
  • Lash took a psychic bullet for Harry
  • Molly has become the Winter Lady, and is gradually becoming more and more distant from her humanity.
  • As of the latest book, Murphy was killed by Rudolph.
  • And even though Harry was never romantically involved with her, you could also technically count Justine, who’s now been revealed to have been possessed by Nemesis.
Of course, as dangerous a life as Harry lives, and given his tendency to charge headlong into said danger for the sake of others, and his tendency to attract people who are willing to do the same by his side; it can be easy to overlook these as casualties of that lifestyle. However, all of that is a mask for the insidious nature of Cassius’ final curse, as it continues to wreak havoc on Harry’s personal life, whether by driving people away from Harry, or ultimately convincing Harry to isolate himself from others so that they don’t die from association with him, until Harry truly does “Die alone.”

Mab will punish Rudolph on Harry's behalf...or push Harry to seek revenge.

Nothing is said about Rudolph's fate at the end of Battle Grounds, but it's highly unlikely he'd face justice for his murdering Murphy as there was no body and the only witnesses to what happened (Harry, Butters and Sanya) can't credibly testify against him in a human court, even if the cops were inclined to move against Rudy. However, Mab liked Murphy and has done things on Harry's behalf before when it suited her. It's possible she'll offer up Rudolph on a silver platter so Harry can exact whatever justice he thinks is appropriate; either in a bid to further get Harry to give in to his darker nature or as a wedding present. In either case, it's highly unlikely Mab didn't notice how Rudolph almost managed to get Harry to go over the edge in a way she never could and will seek to exploit that.

Latest Theories Go Above

Confirmed:

Demonreach is a Prison.
Demonreach was originally the prison of the White Council for unspecified nasty things. This is supported by the comment in Ebenezars' diary that 'He [Harry]has no idea of it's original purpose' (it being Demonreach). Then we have this quote from Butcher at the 2009 Independence signing:Q: Can the skinwalker access the Nevernever and use the Ways? If so, why didn't it?A: Yes. All I'll say now is that it's important to know that ‘wardens’ wasn’t always plural. (He did add later that there are certain places it can’t cross over, like the island).If the Nevernever side of Demonreach is a prison for nasty things, it makes sense that the Skinwalker might avoid crossing into the Nevernever there. And, of course, the term Warden usually refers to a guardian of a prison and prisoners - would it not make more sense, if there was no prison, for the Wardens to be called Guardians, Protectors etc.? Maybe Warden was originally a position on the Senior Council, like Gatekeeper.

At some point, Harry is going to tap into the confluence point of a Ley line.
  • Just because of how built up it was in Turn Coat. Also because it would be an awesome way to end a book. Possibly the one on Demonreach.
    • And indeed, in Changes Harry taps into the Chichen Itza confluence for a nasty bit of earth magic against a mob of mooks.

At some point, Harry will be able to count the Erlking as an ally
Twice now, the Erlking has met Harry and left impressed, once by his audacity in raising a T. Rex and returning a great hunter to the world, and once by his cleverness, likening Harry to a wily fox. Remember that the number three is a big deal with Faeries: If they promise something thrice, they're bound to it. Call their name thrice, they appear. One gets the feeling that impressing the Erlking a third time would be very significant.
  • This essentially happens in Cold Days. Except that technically, Harry's in charge of the Wild Hunt, not just allied to it.

There will be at least one The Princess Bride reference in the next book.
Harry and Murphy (Or Molly.) will come across each other. She (Which ever she it is.) will say, "I thought you were dead." To which Harry will respond, "Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here was only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do."
  • Harry has a penchant for defusing situations with humor and movie quotes, he's quoted The Princess Bride before, and it fits perfectly with his situation.
  • Alternately (or additionally), Monty Python references. There's plenty to work with there, and Harry does seem to enjoy running with a gag until it drives whoever he's talking to mildly insane.
  • Yep: “Hell’s bells, you’re back from the dead?” “From the mostly dead.” (Not Murphy or Molly, but still.)
  • Subverted with Mab, whom Harry only thought was quoting The Princess Bride when she said she'd probably kill him in the morning.

Harry will return to life in Oktoberfest
  • Because POLKA WILL NEVER DIE.
    • Actually pretty close: he first returns to mortal Chicago on Halloween, right around Oktoberfest.

Jossed by recent books and/or Word of God:

The next book will have Mab concealing Harry's existence from the other factions
Because everyone thinks he's dead, and why give away that sort of information? Also, she kept him on Demonreach instead of bringing him back to Arctis Tor, the seat of her own power. She's plotting something, and she needs to keep her trump card secret.
  • Jossed; Mab makes no noticeable effort to conceal Harry's existence, and once his body and soul are back together she does indeed take him back to Artcis Tor for "physical therapy".

Fix and Harry are going to square off
It's going to happen. Harry's the Winter Knight now... and Fix was extremely worried about this happening in earlier books. Fix is going to confront Harry, which Harry won't want. Fix will be Crazy-Prepared during the fight, while Harry will be holding back... until he knocks Fix down, and gives him a lecture about how stupid he's being. Fix will probably fire one right back.
  • Fire one based off of.. what, exactly? What right does Fix have to call Harry out on anything if he does something like this?
    • Fix and Harry face off in Cold Days, but it's nothing like described here.

More of the Carpenter children will be magically active, and Harry has to train them.
Molly's just the oldest child, among a set of seven; there are six more up at bat to see if they won the genetic lottery (pardon the mixed metaphors). However, they've got a lot going for them in that department: their mother carries the potential, although she refused the power and it has since withered away, and their father is the "Fist of God", and implied to be descended from kings. Oh, and they've got Harry Dresden keeping a close eye on them, so if they do go magically active, they'll get the training to keep them from going Dark.
  • Of particular interest is Harry's namesake among the Carpenter clan. We know that Michael has siblings, so if Michael is a seventh child, what does that mean for his own seventh child?
    • It means he's a werewolf.
    • It means plot devices.
  • There was some speculation about Harry taking up Amoracchius, which would be particularly awesome given his wizard powers. Any of the seven Carpenter children have the potential both for magic, AND the potential to wield any of the Swords of the Cross. At least one of them will take up a Sword of the Cross augmented by their magic abilities.
  • Wordof God has said that Molly will be the only magical Carpenter child. Jim Butcher explains that Charity Carpenter began neglecting a not very impressive magical gift as soon as she was rescued by Michael. Basically by the time she had Daniel (the second oldest) it had been three years since she had used her magic and it had atrophied to nothing.
    • So for magic to be passed on, it has to be in use? That seems not right. Not everyone uses their magic or even knows they have it, but practitioners are still being born. Also, it doesn't always run in families, it just tends to, like schizophrenia or something; genetics not required, just ups the chances. Besides, Butcher is a known liar.
      • I can't disagree with anything you just said, but I'll play devil's advocate. I think there could be a difference between not using a gift/not knowing you have one and actively denying it, as Charity did. Also, there's something to inherited ability, as it was important enough for the White Court to consider it a viable means to remove wizards from play.
    • The Carpenters are all under God's protection. If Charity was really that convinced that being born with magic would doom her children to darkness, it's possible that the family's angelic protectors skewed the odds of them having another child with magical talent, the better to avert her fears. Molly wasn't shielded in this way because she was their first child, and the couple hadn't rated enough angelic guardians to do this until they had a helpless baby at home.
    • Or it can be that during the pregnancy the child has to be affected by magical energies in order to develop a magical talent. This would explain why magic is mostly passed down from the mothers side as the father has to stay near the mother while using the power while that happens naturally with the mother. Though this is either not the only factor or it just gives the child a higher chance to develop magical power as Thomas didn't develop any power beyond what anyone could do and nowhere near as strong as Harry's (or it could just be that the Raith blood in him stopped any development of magic).

Cassius botched his Death Curse
  • When he yelled "DIE ALONE!" to Harry, he thought that he was condemning him to the obvious: A death isolated, alone, and friendless. However, he didn't know about Harry's relationship with Lash. As long as Lash is in Harry's head, he can't die. The voice at the end of Changes was Lash returning, and the light at the end of the tunnel being a freight train was her way of saying "Hi!"
  • Last part Jossed.

Cassius' Death Curse has already been spent
  • Cassius' curse was for Harry to "die alone." Well, that happened at the end of Changes. Harry was alone in the literal sense, as well in the more metaphysical sense that all his possessions had been taken away from him over the course of the book. So Harry no longer has to worry about the death curse coming true, it already has.

Harry starts the next book in Asgard.
  • aka Monoc Industries. Old one-eye might have not been responsible (or he might have ordered it), but he's impressed enough with Harry that the voice that Harry heard was a Valkyrie coming to get him. If he is able to return to anything resembling his former life is unknown.
  • Remember Harry visiting Odin? And him saying that he gave him exactly what Harry needs? HE GAVE HARRY FOOD AND INVITED HIM TO DINE IN VALHALLA. Harry's gonna be an einharjar.
    • The first chapter of Ghost Story is here. Harry met an angel, but nothing Norse. Odin could scoop him up later, though.
    • Jossed by Ghost Story, but it could still happen.

The main antagonist in the next book will be...
  • Kincaid. Royally pissed off at having, for the first time in his career, failed a hit. Kincaid will do what he can to fulfill his contract, and Harry has to find a way to talk him down.
    • Highly unlikely. Kincaid never shows any emotion whatsoever in relation to his jobs - being an assassin is "just a job" to him. His most likely response will probably be something along the lines of "One favour, one shot. If you want me to try again, pay me." Kincaid is, above all, the consummate pragmatist.
    • Word of God essentially confirms that from Kincaid's pov, he did what he was hired to do: Harry died. The fact that he didn't stay dead isn't Kincaid's fault. The main antagonist of Cold Days is Maeve, anyway.
    • Plus, if a failed attempt to whack somebody obligated Kincaid to keep hunting his target, he'd still be off chasing Mavra.

There will be a Time Skip between Ghost Story and the next book
Thus Changes really brought many more changes than those depicted. Harry will spend Ghost Story in a limbo, watching things from the sidelines and influencing them, but once he gets back, a year or more will have passed, and everyone's gone on with their lives: Murphy is now a full-fledged Knight of the Cross, Molly has taken Harry's business, Mouse has puppies, Thomas has disappeared, etc. And while in Changes he called on every ally, and Ghost Story will be a solo operation, the next book will be about Harry reuniting his Nakama. Thus it'll follow comic books tradition and the events will be referred as either Pre-Changes, or Post-Changes.
  • Ghost Story spoiler: There's a time skip in Ghost Story that Harry doesn't notice until it's happened. Apparently, time is a fuzzy subject on the other side. He skips forwards six months in the hour or so he spends in Chicago-tory. However, everything else above is Jossed - Murphy is getting hardened and bitter, Molly is slightly loopy and pretending to be a mass-murderer, Mouse is guarding Maggie, Thomas and Justine work out a way for him to feed off of her, and the nakama is in full swing on Harry's side, if a little distrustful and broken.
    • Pretending to be a mass murderer? She and Lea together ARE a mass murderer. Molly may be beloved, but you can't deny she IS killing people.
      • She's getting them to kill each other. Not quite the same thing.

Mab wants Harry to kill Titania as her last favor.
Fact One: We have not seen Titania once in the series. Even in Summer Knight, when Harry's rounding up the various Queens of Faerie, all he sees is the imprint of Titania's power, not her. Fact Two: Titania really hates Harry. Fact Three: Mab is a scheming witch. Fact Four: Mab is most likely batshirt crazy ever since taking the black athame off of Lea. Lea as much as says it in Proven Guilty, and every appearance by Mab thus far has had her speaking through proxy so the rage in her words doesn't kill someone. Fact Five: Harry is now the Winter Knight, and if his status at the end of Changes doesn't alter that, he's beholden to kill whoever she wants. It suggests that Mab, driven mad with power (or something else), may wish to institute a regime change in Summer using the perfect proxy.
  • Becoming the Winter Knight WAS the last favor.
  • And as of Cold Days, we know that Mab is sane (or at least the Faerie Queen version of sane) and has much, much bigger things on her plate than screwing around with Summer. Maeve was the corrupted one trying to shake things up, and realizing that her daughter had fallen under the influence of the Outside is what was causing Mab's Epic Rage(tm). Also, Titania has now appeared and is explicitly reiterated as an exact equal of Mab; Harry, even with the Winter Knight power mantle, wouldn't stand a chance against her.

Harry will get out of the Winter Knight position after only one task.
This first, of course, requires Harry to be alive, but considering the number of books yet to be written, I think we can be moderately safe in making that assumption. Second, the exact bargain he made with Mab was that after three tasks his obligation to her would be done. Considering the broad use of the word obligation it's entirely reasonable that this would conclude all obligations to her, including that of Winter Knight.
  • Except that Harry specifically exchanged his remaining favor to Mab by becoming the Winter Knight, with the lone caveat that he would be allowed to go save his daughter using the additional power before he started taking her orders. He became the Winter Knight, and thus his debt to her was void outside of being the Winter Knight. Then he died, and is now no longer the Winter Knight. He's gotten off on a technicality, especially if he's come back. See my "At the end of Changes, whoever shot Harry did so to do Harry a favor." WMG for more.
    • Except he's still the Winter Knight.

Mouse will join the Alphas.
When in hound form during Changes, Harry was able to understand some kind of telepathy from Mouse. And in the RPG, a margin comment suggests that the power "Echoes of the Beast" allows Billy and the Alphas to communicate with dogs. Obviously, Mouse will pick up where Tera West left off: "You've learned to be wolves. Now, I'm going to teach you how to be magical monster-killing dogs."
  • Except becoming "magical monster-killing dogs" isn't something that's learned. Mouse is powerful like that because he was born with it.
    • Jossed by Ghost Story; he's with the Carpenters protecting Maggie.

Changes in the Fairy Courts
  • Okay, Changes might have jossed this, but...By the end of the series, Harry will have caused Lily to become the Summer Queen, and someone else to become Winter Queen. Let's say, for fun...Toot-Toot. Thus, he'll have the fairy courts working for him! Oh, and Harry will run the White Council.
    • Toot-Toot....turned into a Fairy Queen?
    • YES!
    • There's a better candidate anyways. The Leanansidhe.
    • There has to be a new Winter Lady more sympathetic to Harry by the end of the series, both for the symmetry and because Maeve really needs someone to kick her ass.
    • As of Cold Days, Lily becoming Summer Queen is Jossed, as she's been Killed Off for Real and replaced with Mab's changeling daughter Sarissa. Maeve has also been Killed Off for Real, and replaced by Molly...

Toot-Toot will become a wildfae lord like the Erlking
With his position as supreme leader and spokesperson of the Za lord's guard, and his tendency to get in over his head and grind for those badass XP, he will soon be powerful enough and influential enough to become a force to be reckoned with in Faerie. One suspects he's not quite sly enough for the big leagues yet, though.
  • Hate to break it to you, but the Dresden Files RPG does not allow for grinding XP like that.
    • The game mechanics might not, but Toot-Toot has been consistently growing in size, in fairly close parallel to the amount of Wildfae sworn to the Za Lord's Guard. It's never really been established WHY, and we don't really know how the fairy queens or the Erlking came to power in the first place...
    • Alright, then. His tendency to get in over his head and ''pick up a lot of major milestones''. Seriously, how many refresh points must he have by now?
    • Not a wildfae lord. He works for the Winter Knight, after all.
      • Both of the major Wildfae Lords are the summer and winter Kings.
      • So unless Toot-toot is out to whack Santa Claus and take his stuff, not plausible.
      • There are other wyldfae lords besides the summer and winter kings. King Gwynn for example.
  • Support for all that pizza doing something to the guard and Toot along with them; In Cold Days Lacuna is horrified when she sees all the Za lord's guard chowing down on pizza. She tells Harry (exact words) "You can't do it!" she cried. "You can't just give them all that pizza! Do you have any idea how much harm you're doing?"... "...and now they're going to get that awful pizza all over themselves without the least regard for properly protecting themselves, and I'm going to fight them for the pizza!” Could just be Lacuna being weird around pizza, but that really does sound like Harry is too, um, innocent to realize he's doing something more than paying off contract labor by feeding them every month for years. It's possible that Harry is slowly creating a new wildfae court, just by having a group come together consistently for a common purpose.

Harry will politely ask Mab to remove the mantle of the Winter Knight from him and absolve him of all his debts
  • She'll say "no", and come to greatly regret that decision in the book's climax.
    • Come on, Harry's not that stupid, especially considering he told her explicitly that he would not try to weasel out of it through any means.
      • Well, Harry said he wouldn't try to weasel out. The OP says "politely ask," which I don't think counts as weaseling out. And to be fair, no one's going to expect Harry to just ask politely about anything and not be a wiseass/try to blow something up.
      • Semi-Jossed: At the end of Ghost Story, Mab is revealed to be one of the three powers that has been keeping Harry's body. She even explicitly says that since his body never died, her contract with him is still in force. Harry accepts this, but thanks to the Seven Words from Uriel, realises that this does not mean she can change who he is, and he promises her dumb literal exact obedience if she tries it (which, given why she values him as her knight, is quite a threat.)
      • Completely Jossed, actually. Faeries literally can't do any living creature a favor without an equitable exchange, and simply letting Harry go would be a gift rather than a fair trade.

Harry is eventually going to be the equivalent of Demonreach for Earth.
His mother gained a sort of intellectus for the Ways, and he seems to be picking it up from her little gift. He has a habit of messing around with major ley lines and nodes in ways that could break them, empower them, send their power coursing through him like a ten-cent fuse in a lightning storm, or all of the above, and may wield power combinations unknown to any human at one time (Sanja prevents me from being less specific), and then some. Eventually, Harry ends up a ghost with Intellectus who can affect energy, and thus matter, on Earth's mortal plane.
  • Highly unlikely as Cold Days shows us what Deamonreach is: It's not a spirit, it's a prison powerful enough to confine gods.
  • Also, he's no longer a ghost.

When/if Harry finally dies, he will get his body cremated.
  • It just seems the sensible thing to do. He doesn't want any of that reanimation shirt going on again. (And we all know how much he loves fire.)

Nicodemus will be defeated in book 20.
  • This one relies on patterns so far: Nicodemus and the Denarians played major roles in books five and ten, and are set to be a major part of the fifteenth. If the pattern holds true, they'll show up again in book 20, and finally be defeated.

Harry will get dragged into the Oblivion War - when the Venatori target Ivy.
  • Think about it. She's the sum of all human knowledge ever written. Created to be a neutral force, the Archive will naturally not side with either side in the Oblivion War. But the Venatori are nothing if not thorough, willing to kill their own if there's even a chance that someone is going to spread information they shouldn't. A Venator will target Ivy, Kincaid will ask Harry for help (more more likely, Harry will have some other reason for being nearby), and shirt will hit the fan.
    • Even though Ivy is firmly on the side of good and the Archive is neutral, the fact is her human - and very much mortal - mind holds dangerous information. The Venatori simply won't be able to take that chance, no matter how convincing Harry and Kincaid are.
    • No. Jossed. The Venatori will never target the Archive because Butcher has stated that the Archive isn't neutral. She runs the Venatori. The Archive was created specifically for the purpose of leading the Oblivion War.
      • I'd love to have the source of that, mostly because... how? The Archive is literally the antithesis of the Venatori; she acts to preserve knowledge while they act to (selectively) destroy it.
      • Word of Jim on the official forum. The whole "preserving knowledge" thing is just smoke and mirrors to conceal the Archive's true purpose.
      • I dunno about the specific source, but it seems rather logical to me. She's a universal backup, but doesn't freely disclose information. One person knowing about something probably isn't enough to give them an access route and no one else would find out. Since the Venatori win by not knowing about entities, they risk developing a knowledge gap if they prematurely declare something gone, so the Archive is a useful insurance policy. And even if literally all human knowledge of an entity needs to be gone to get rid of it, there are still options. Technically, the Archive itself is a powerful magical construct, not a human. There is thus a potential for a shell game. When the previous host dies, there is an infinitesimal window when no one has it, so that would totally sever any connection with an entity that has otherwise been erased, and one person knowing might not reestablish the connection. Alternately, Ivy might not technically "know" what's in the Archive. She can instantly access any information inside it, but if she never accesses information it might not count for anchoring supernaturals. So info on eradicated entities can be indexed under "Oblivion War victories" and never accessed again. Lastly, the Archive officially preserves everything, but that might be a lie. It may be possible to erase information from it, and if every single text containing that information has been destroyed it will not be relearned.
      • Which, among other things, puts a whole new spin on Ivy's mother's suicide. Allegedly she killed herself when her own mom died in a car accident and the onslaught of thousands of years of Archived memories drove her to despair. But what if Ivy's grandma never got the chance to warn her daughter about the real purpose of the Archive, and convince her it's a good thing in the long run? If so, Ivy's mom might've been horrified to realize that her legacy wasn't preserving knowledge, but wiping it out — even though this sometimes entails killing a whole bunch of people, innocents among them, because of what they know — and committed suicide while pregnant in an attempt to break the chain, ending the Oblivion War once and for all.

Harry Dresden made Choices (note the capital) that lead to the current predicament with Molly Carpenter becoming the new Winter Lady
.
  • Bear with me on this one, think back to White Night. There was a scene in which Harry turns a trashcan into molten metal and then slowly, dramatically moves a tiny ball of fire about as hot as the sun towards Molly's face between major events. It's as a way of making sure the character listens to him and realizes how unprepared they are for the current situation. Think further back. Proven Guilty. "...One was an emaciated version of Molly, as though she’d been starved or strung out on hard drugs, her eyes aglow with an unpleasant, fey light. One was her smiling and laughing, older and comfortably heavier, children surrounding her. A third faced me in a grey Warden’s cloak, though a burn scar, almost a brand, marred the roundness of her left cheek. Still another reflection was Molly as she appeared now, though more secure, laughter dancing in her eyes. Another reflection showed her at a desk, working. What didn't Dresden do that day? Thus was one path closed. He, according to Mab, “You told yourself lovely, idealistic lies, and you had a powerful, talented, loyal girl willing to give her life for yours who also had nowhere else to turn for help.” We also have the girl herself closing off at least one or two of those paths through her previous choices. Thou Shalt Not Swim Against The Currents Of Time, perhaps, but Dresden created a very specific future regardless.
    • This much seems fairly obvious to me. However, where you're making a mistake is taking Mab at her word and acting like what she's saying is pure fact. Mab is not the most straightforward person Harry has ever met - far from it, she's got to be one of, if not THE most, manipulative ones out there. If by predicament, however, you mean Molly having a crush on Harry, that wasn't any of his doing, and it certainly factored considerably into events. Mab is insisting that Harry manipulated her himself, but Molly did a good portion of it through her idolizing of him.
    • Moreover, Maeve's choice to manipulate and then murder Lily and Murphy's choice to shoot her in response were no decision of Harry's. Nobody foresaw what was going to happen during that confrontation, because none of the participants knew all the players who were going to be present for it. Even Maeve herself didn't know Molly was there, to take her place if anyone killed her. Harry's choices did help bring the situation about, but so did Murphy's, Mab's, Lily's, Maeve's, Molly's, Fix's, the Outsiders' ... heck, you could theoretically blame some of it on Nicodemus, for bringing Demonreach Island back to everyone's attention four books ago! Even Harry isn't self-critical enough to lay all responsibility for what happened that night on himself, alone, no matter how Mab might spin it to try and exploit his guilt complex.

Power Vacuum created by demise of the Red Court filled by...?
I left the title incomplete because I've got a few theories about what will happen now that a major Big Bad of the Dresden Universe has been completely wiped off the maps.
  • Jade Court vampires or Black Court vampires may find it helpful or offending that part of their family has been exterminated.
  • Harry might become a power equal to that of the fairy queens or the Erlking, he's got contacts on both sides of the fence and he even has a fairy army in the wings. While they're small now Toot-Toot has been growing the more powerful Dresden gets and with him stepping into the Winter Knight's mantle Toot-Toot might just have gotten a power boost.
  • Prime time for the Black Council to step in considering the fact that a lot of power has just been cut loose.
  • Heck, even the church or the Denarians might step in considering that one of their respectively major threats and major competition has been taken out of the game.
    • Nicodemus specifically says that the Red Court would need to be eliminated as part of his long-term plans. Who wants to bet that half of those revolutions in South and Central America were his doing?
      • Aren't most of those done by the Red Court to keep things unstable so that they can maintain control?
      • No, the revolutions only really started after the Red Court was wiped out. Before then, they just kept the region in a permanent state of Third-World hellhole to keep the people under control to make it easier to feed on them.
  • Black Court? While their weaknesses are common knowledge, they're still incredibly dangerous and can reproduce faster than probably any other type of nasty in the Dresdenverse. Mavra's quite the Chessmaster; I could definitely see her leaping into the gap to set herself as the master vampire of a worldwide network.
  • Even Hand and Aftermath strongly imply that the major vacuum-filler will be a new faction previously unrecognized - the Fomor, a race of powerful sorcerous fish-men, who make their move for dominion in the chaos.
  • At this point, it doesn't look like any faction has clearly supplanted the Reds in the Dresdenverse's power-structure. Rather, all sorts of power-blocs, large and small, are contesting over the pieces: an even worse option, so far as vanilla humanity is concerned, as disorganized supernatural factions have no higher authority to reign in their depredations.

Lash will possess "Persephone"
  • Lash is gone from Harry's mind, presumably dead. However Word of God says we haven't seen the last of her. If she's truly out of Harry's mind, she might need a new host, and through Harry he knows exactly the one good for the job: Helen Beckitt's daughter. If it's truly impossible to cure her any other way, Lash can move in and make use of the body for herself.
    • Anyone mind if I steal this one for a fanfiction that crosses over with Castle?
      • As long as you provide a link
  • Jossed by Skin Game: Butcher'd said that Lash's story wasn't over, not that she wasn't dead. Lash is, indeed, dead; the proof of that is that her Heroic Sacrifice left Harry with Something To Remember Her By - a baby spirit of intellect, aka "the Parasite" - growing in his brain. Only a self-sacrificing act of pure love could conceive such a being.

Lasciel will possess Elaine
  • Not Lash, the construct in Harry's head, but the Fallen herself. Jim's said we've not heard the end of Lasciel and having the Fallen pop up in Harry's old flame, without any of Lash's character development, sounds like something Jim would do to rake Harry over the coals.
    • In Skin Game, Lasciel turns up in possession of Ascher, a new character who's one of the heist team. If Ascher and Lasciel made it out of the Vault is unknown at this time.

One of Harry's major foes will be destroyed for good by Harry realizing he can send Bob out on destructive missions, as DuMorne did before him.
Luccio calls Bob a "miniature Archive," Harry himself was terrified by Bob's power when Kemmler!Bob attacked him, and Bob clearly has no ethical compunctions to stand in the way. It would have to be a non-human target to sneak past the First Law, but Bob's use in combat could be devastating.
  • In Changes, Bob accompanies Murphy into battle to shield her mind against the elder Red Court.
  • In Ghost Story, Butters let Bob out to beat the crap out of a trio of wraiths, which he did with ease and o small amount of satisfaction. He also got to come out into the Nevernever and help fight Evil!Bob - who is still out there somewhere. That fight will probably get an encore.
  • In Skin Game, it's implied that Harry was always aware of Bob's destructive potential, but avoided deploying him this way for fear of losing control of the spirit and having his sparkly buddy turn evil. He sees Butters using Bob to empower his Batman-style gadgetry in the field, and is horrified by the thought that the little guy is carrying the skull along with him, risking its loss to an enemy.
    • Except that Butters found a loophole around that risk. Near the end of Skin Game, Butters tells Bob to return to the skull, and tell Andi he loves her. Bob flies away, likely back to Butter's apartment. He did not have the skull with him, yet he still had Bob's loyalty!

Lasciel is going to come back... in Harry's daughter.
Word of God has it that Lasciel's—not Lash's—story isn't done. Also: see the conversation in Small Favor where Harry and Michael discuss Nicodemus' throwing the coin at Michael's son. Jim Butcher states that he's a lazy author; anything he writes is going to be important.
  • This Troper heard the exact opposite via Youtube, where Butcher said the Lash's story wasn't done. He initially said Lasciel, but clarified when a fan asked him which he meant.
  • Lasciel comes back in Skin Game, but gets buried in flaming rubble if/when she returns is currently up in the air, but considering Harry was able to get our of a similar jam in Changes...
    • Ascher doesn't seem able to raise a shield or open Ways, so wouldn't have the same means of survival as Harry did. Also, even if she survived, she's trapped in Hades's vault when the ghosts arrive, and the Gate of Ice is shut now.
      • We've only seen her on offense. I would think Lasciel can weave a shield long enough to get a Way open though. The ghosts/ice gate is moot. She would have had to have created the Way before the rubble settled. Her portal out would have opened up to a different place entirely. The only reason the others went back through the Gates at all was to wind up in the relative same spot (Marcone's vault.) Harry could have popped a Way inside the treasure room itself, but it would have probably opened up into Fort Knox or a volcano or something.

We'll be seeing Harry and Susan's daughter Maggie again in a few books, around the time she hits puberty.
  • Because around then it will become apparent she's inherited her dad's wizard magic, her mom's vampirism, since she seems to have been conceived after Susan was turned or, with Harry's luck both.
    • However, after Harry sacrificed Susan he killed all the Reds and cured all the half-vamps, so even if she did inherit it, she wouldn't have it anymore, but yeah her being magically talented is ridiculously likely, the way these books are going she's going to turn out to be a super-Warlock that Harry will have to protect from the Wardens.
    • Unfortunately, she won't inherit any magic. In White Night, Harry said that the reason the White Court was killing female practitioners was because magic is inherited from the mother.
      • Often inherited from the mother, not always. Plus, it's the freakin' White Court! They know damn well that there's no guarantee they could root out the magical bloodlines by following male lines of descent, because of Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe.
    • The curse only worked sideways or upwards, meaning that if Maggie got any vampire blood (which might not even be possible), it should have been fine. In this light, Maggie might in theory be capable of starting the Red Court, or at least something similar, up again if she gets careless- because if something can go wrong in Harry's life, it probably will, in the most spectacular manner possible.
    • Actually, Maggie inheriting magic from Harry is very likely. Maggie Sr. inherited it from her father (Ebenezar) since Wordof God says that Harry's grandmother was a vanilla mortal.
  • Ghost Story spoiler: We see her again at the end of Ghost Story. Harry's exact instructions were to find Maggie a good home, and that was exactly what Father Forthill did - as the new ward of Michael and Charity Carpenter. It's the least they could do for a man who has saved and cared for their own children like they were his own. However, by that point Harry is out of the game, and has other obligations to fulfill, so no happy reunions.
    • Also worth noting, however, when Harry laments that Mouse, as a dog, won't live more than a decade or so, Uriel mentions that Temple Dogs such as him have been known to live for centuries, and thus he'll be able to stay with Maggie during her whole life. He specifically says that Mouse should be around for a wizard's lifetime as well. Take that as you will.
      • He said Mouse could be around that long "if need be". That corollary rather implies that Uriel either doesn't know if Maggie is magical or not, or is obligated not to tell Harry about it either way.
  • In Skin Game, Harry and Maggie do meet face-to-face, and she's still in grade school. No overt sign that she's magically talented yet, although her remark about Mouse defeating the boogeyman under her bed could be a teaser in that direction.

Nicodemus will return...
...but brain-damaged from his strangulation, with Anduriel in total control.
  • Anduriel never spoke up before Small Favor and it spoke up to have a little debate with Nicodemus about whether or not to take the Sword, I think Butcher was attempting to draw attention to the fact the Nicodemus and Anduriel were not one and the same, and would not always work in total concert.
    • The shadow that we see whispering the seven words to Harry in a Ghost Story flashback was probably Anduriel, acting alone. It probably wouldn't have undertaken some payback solo if its host were up and about. Did Nicodemus suffer a paralyzing stroke as well?
      • Nope. As of Skin Game, we learn the shadow was Lasciel. She's not happy her seven words didn't work, either.
  • Skin Game features Nicodemus as a prominent character, with Mab lending Harry's services to him. His voice is a bit rough, but he's otherwise recovered.

If Mab is usurped, replaced, or killed, the Leanansidhe will become the new Winter Queen
  • She is directly beneath Mab in terms of power, and you have to admit it sounds like Harry's luck that his godmother would become a Queen of Faerie.
    • Alternatively, Maeve, as Mab's Queen Who Is To Be, will become Winter Queen, and Lea will become her Winter Lady.
      • Or Maeve gets what's coming to her, and Lea becomes the new Winter Lady.
      • Well, as of Cold Days Maeve has indeed gotten what's coming to her, but her replacement is Molly...
    • Lea doesn't seem to be in the Winter line of succession. In fact, that's probably a big part of why Mab can treat her as a trusted (for a given value of "trust") comrade.

At one point, Harry will take up Lasciel's coin and become evil or maybe even a Big Bad.
  • Harry has said before that the temptation to take up the coin is extremely strong. Word of Jim says that the story of Harry and Lasciel isn't over - not Harry and Lash... Harry and LASCIEL. Feasibly, for Harry to have any further interaction with Lasciel... he'd have to take up the coin. Even if Harry is eventually redeemed it would be an interesting insight into his 'dark side..'
    • Not necessarily. Someone close to Harry could take up that coin. Molly would be an interesting choice...but Butters would be better.
      • I disagree. I said the story of HARRY and Lash, not Butters or Molly and Lash. Ergo, Harry will become involved with her again. Not to mention that Mab might well order Harry to take up the coin to increase his power. I look forwards to Harry whooping the ash of at least one of his friends(The Alphas/Molly/Murphy) and later having a My God, What Have I Done? moment. Maybe I'm just sadistic that way.
      • Jim Butcher, is that you?
  • Resolved in Skin Game, in which Lasciel appears with an all-new character as her host, and Lash's story has its denouement with the appearance of her daughter: a spirit of intellect, aka "the Parasite", that's been gestating in Harry's brain. Harry may not need a coin to regain access to Lash's knowledge, if this spirit becomes his new Bob; also, Lasciel is either still tied to Ascher, or her coin is buried under molten rock in Hades' treasure room, leaving her out of commission for the foreseeable future.

Whomever received the bag of Denarii in Small Favor didn't do it to unleash the Fallen.
They did it so they can devour the Fallen inside the coins and claim their power, in an Ascension Ritual to end all Ascension Rituals. As if Harry didn't already have enough mega-baddies to worry about...
  • Some of the Fallen that were bagged in Small Favor reappear in Skin Game, so if such a scheme ever existed, Nicodemus and/or Tessa foiled it and got the coins back.

Harry, once resurrected, will live on Demonreach
  • His place is broken
  • There are at least two Ways to and from the island (Rashid's and Peabody's), which means the commute would not be that bad with Harry's newfound knowledge of the Ways
  • Look at the defenses Harry had spelled into his apartment : one big-ass group of wards and an early-warning system to give him a little time to plan if Harry gets attacked. The lighthouse on the island already has a set of Wards bad-ass enough to stop the Nagloo... Shagnasty, and Harry's intellectus would only require a small but constant mental effort to act as a warning system. Harry has been shielding his thoughts from Lash for years, so a "small but constant mental effort" should be a piece of cake.
  • Frankly, after the red court, Harry has moven up a few weight classes. I don't see him endangering civilians by living amongst them with what will likely come after him next.
  • The island is tied to Maggie, and therefore to Harry. While there is kind of a creepy vibe to that connection, there's nothing specific enough to deterr Harry from setting up shop here
  • It would fit with Harry's premonitions that the island would play a big role in his future
  • Harry would be able to draw on the Ley line to throw punches more in accord with his new weight division.
  • It's also possible that the Fomor regional headquarters will turn out to be located on the bottom of Lake Michigan, in which case Demonreach isn't a bad place to establish a beachhead against such aquatic baddies.
  • Cold Days implies he'll be living on Demonreach, and also establishes he has his own suite in Arctis Tor.
  • As of Peace Talks, Harry's living in Chicago again, in the apartment Molly made for him.
  • At the end of Battle Ground, Harry got his basement back from Marcone... along with the rest of the castle.

Note: New entries go above the "Confirmed" and "Jossed" ones, not here.

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