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"It was my father's." Harry Dresden held the polka-dotted silk scarf in the palm of his hand, showing it to his teacher. "Stage magic. They use lots of scarves. My father used a set of plain colored ones and matching polka-dotted ones."
Hrothbert of Bainbridge nodded, looking at the blindingly… teal green?… silk square. It wasn't an offensive shade, exactly, but it was the sort of color and pattern he hadn't seen much in his life – or in his death, come to think of it – since a few run-ins with Gypsies in English forests. It might even have been a Romany woman's head scarf or a wrapping for her deck of cards.
"I never realized that you saved these," he told his student, who was wrapping a dark blue scarf around a set of divination cards that Hrothbert – Bob – had made him design and execute according to Bob's specifications. Bob had explained that certain magical tools should be wrapped in silk to insulate them, and a personal deck of divination cards was one of those tools that should never be affected by the energies of any other person without the owner's permission.
"They're pretty much all I have of him," the teen told Bob. "There may be a few other things of his around I might be able to get once I leave here, but these were all I was able to take with me when Uncle Justin brought me here. I mean photos, stuff like that, yeah, but these are the only things I have from his stage kit."
Bob looked down gently at Harry, who sat at the library table under his gaze. "Then you should certainly use them for wrapping your tools," he advised. "Your father loved you very much. That makes these particularly valuable to you, and not merely sentimentally. They have magical properties in their own right that only you can use."
Harry tied a cord around the carefully-wrapped cards. "Really? I never thought of that. I guess you're right." He picked up the green scarf and held it carefully. "Let me try something."
He stood, taking the scarf between both hands, and began muttering slowly under his breath. Bob could feel magical energy flowing from his pupil, and could see an indefinite glow coming from the young man's hands – yellowish, bluish, greenish, varying in energy and scope as Harry worked his magic on the scarf.
When Harry released his hands, the scarf fell directly through his palm and onto the floor. "I thought that might work."
Bob blinked. "You just magicked that scarf into – "
"Ectoplasm, yeah. I've been working on it at bedtime for weeks. I figured it would be cool to be able to give you stuff."
"But Harry – your father's scarf?" Bob bent down and picked it up easily. It had weight, heft, fine weaving of the silk – all of which he was able to judge by touch, as he could anything else made of the substance of his own dimension. "Why?"
"You just told me," Harry replied. "If it's from someone who loves you, it has powers you can use."
Bob paused, taken aback. It had been years – no, centuries – since anyone had suggested anything of the like to him, whether the love was romantic or platonic. It felt… it felt… it felt like the scarf; warm, tingling, soft, and as if he could wrap it around himself endlessly. "You…"
"Love you? Yeah." Harry moved closer to Bob, not quite close enough to brush into his energies. "Problem?"
"I…" Bob looked down. "You have no idea how it feels to hear that, from anyone. Harry. I can't even begin to tell you."
"If –" Harry thought after he had begun speaking. "If I, uh, moved into your energy, and yeah, I feel weird when I do that… would I be able to feel what you're feeling?"
His mentor nodded. "Yes, dear boy, you could. I would also be able to feel what you feel inside."
Harry scuffed a sneaker across the Persian carpet. "I want you to know that." He drew in a breath and slowly moved his hand against Bob's hand, and then down into it, almost as if he were holding it. Bob relaxed and tried to let his mind wander, allowing feeling and not thought to be felt by his charge. Then he made contact with Harry's feelings, and nearly broke contact from his surprise. He took a deep breath of his own to still himself, so that Harry could withdraw from the moment without a jolt from Bob's own momentary shock.
Bob looked in wonder at Harry as the young man withdrew his hand. "And did it work?"
Harry nodded, gaping. "It's really like that? Wow, I…"
"It's a very intimate form of contact, dear boy. You know a great deal more about me than I might have wished, but I couldn't refuse you. And I know more about you… and I find myself obliged to remind you of your age."
"Bob, I'm not too young."
His teacher shook his head. "Perhaps not – not in past centuries, and not to many of us… but we have a culture to conform to. Wizards may believe themselves free of the constraints of the public culture of their times, but we are not. You need to wait. Not long, however." He began to fold the charmed silk square to fit his breast pocket. "Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation. I see that I have a green pocket square. I shall wear it because of you, and that is all the magic I need of it." The square went into his pocket, and he tugged at it slightly to fluff it out at the top.
Harry looked at Bob with an expression that could have melted the polar ice cap. "You'd better promise."
"Dear boy, I shall be with you as long as you'll have me. You needn't fear that. I have learned patience over centuries – I think that three years will hardly destroy you. Meanwhile, I think you should put those cards to rest and review your astrology homework."
"If I give you another scarf, will you let me fudge over the math calculations?"
"I love you, Harry Dresden, but you have three years left to study, and not even love excuses learning mathematical calculations for astrology and spells. Let me see you do that chart without a calculator this time." Bob walked across the room, smiling fondly at Harry, and watched a beetle nearly the same shade as his pocket square crawl on a vine outside the window. "Half an hour, Harry." The beetle crawled up the vine, making its way toward the sun.