The Dresden Files/Tear Jerker

Grave Peril

• "She only wrote three words in the card. I'll let you guess what they were."

Summer Knight

• Aurora's death at the end of Summer Knight can definitely bring a tear to the eye:

'Wait,' she said, her voice weak and somehow very young. She didn't look like a mad faerie sorceress now. She looked like a frightened girl. 'Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop.'
I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as i said, 'The only people who never hurt are dead.'
The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, 'I don't understand.'
I answered, 'I don't either.'
A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood.
Then she died.

Death Masks

• Throughout the whole story of Death Masks, Marcone went through a lot of trouble to secure the Shroud of Turin. Enlisting the Churchmice, getting extorted into paying millions more for it by Valmont to make sure it's safe, even personally risking his life with Harry, Michael and Sanya to fight Nicodemus, pulling off incredible shots just so he wouldn't harm it. Near the end of the story, we learn why he went through so much trouble: he wanted it to heal a girl in a private hospital in Wisconsin. The real Tearjerker part was Gentleman Johnny Marcone, Affably Evil criminal mastermind, head of the biggest criminal empire in the country, putting a teddy bear in her arms, reading her a story out loud for an hour, laying the Shroud on her, and praying.

I hadn't ever pictured John Marcone praying. But I saw him forming the word please, over and over.

• • Made even more poignant after reading White Knight, where we discover that the girl is the Beckitts' daughter, who has been in a coma for years after being hit by a stray bullet meant for Marcone. Marcone hasn't even told the girl's mother, who now works for him but has tried to kill him at least once, because he doesn't want to devastate her even more if the girl never wakes up. Marcone put up with all that effort, money, and personal danger in the hope of helping a little girl who was hurt because of him. Not only that, but Harry also realizes that it was that event that gave Marcone the drive necessary to because the leader he is; his taking over and organizing of Chicago's crime was less for selfish reasons, and more in order to make the crime organized so that nothing like that would happen again. Marcone might be scum, but it's hard not to like him sometimes.
• The closing paragraph of Death Masks. For two entire books, Harry's been obsessed with researching a way to save his ex-girlfriend Susan, who was half-turned into a vampire. It's gotten to the point where he's almost been evicted from his office and home in his desperation to find a cure. At the end of the book, Harry finally lets go. He takes down her picture and the engagement ring he offered her from his mantle, and instead puts up the holy blade Fidelacchius, given to him by a man who surrendered himself to torture to give Harry a chance to live. The final lines, "Maybe some things just weren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water, orange juice and toothpaste. Me and Susan. But tomorrow was another day", always choke me up.
• The Archive. A seven or eight year-old girl with the sum of human knowledge and endeavor stored in her mind as a safety precaution. Born to a mother who served that same purpose and who, on her birth, was burned out mentally by the passing of that knowledge to such a degree that she was put into a persistent vegetative state. A fate that she will share when, not if, she gives birth to her own daughter. Though she may seem Wise Beyond Her Years, she is still just a little girl who loves kitties and who no one thought to name beyond her function. There is something terribly sad about someone so young fulfilling such a duty.
  • As of a later book, this is no longer the case via retcon. Instead, the Archive passes from one to another on death of the parent. That said, it's even worse--Ivy's mother came into the Archive unexpectedly young, while pregnant with Ivy, grew insanely jealous that her daughter would have a full life that she wouldn't, and killed herself. And Ivy knows all of this.

Dead Beat

• Thomas explaining to Harry what his Hunger feels like by showing him. The real kicker is Harry describing Thomas' "weary" eyes.

Proven Guilty

• Although Charity Carpenter has, up to this point, really been nothing but a Grade-A bitch to Harry^[1], when he tells her how he'd deduced that her daughter Molly has inherited her magical talent, and has been using black magic on her friends, she reacts with complete and total terror, as even though Molly's intentions were pure, any use of black magic is an instant and automatic death sentence in the White Council's eyes. In that moment you really do feel for her.

White Night

• White Night has a moment between Thomas and Justine that really hammers home how much he's given up because he loves her.

In Justine's arms he looked like a man in mourning. But he bent his whole body to her, every fiber and sinew, not merely his arm, and every line of his face became softer, somehow, gentler, as though he had been relieved of an intolerable agony I had never realized he felt - though I noticed that neither he nor Justine touched each other's skin.

• The shadow of the fallen angel Lasciel spent multiple books living in Harry's head, alternating between being a dangerous annoyance and really helpful when things get desperate. Then Harry starts treating her like her own person. He gives her a nickname and, like Ivy and Bob, it changes her. And then in White Night she shields him from a psychic attack and it burns out the parts of his brain where she lives... except for the part of her that helped him play the guitar better.
  • It becomes especially hard-hitting when Harry is talking about it with Bob, and Bob, being Bob, starts wondering if he "took a ride before the carnival left." He then stops, and then this exchange happens:

Bob paused, and his eyelights blinked. "Hey, Harry. Are you crying?"
"No," I snapped, and left the lab.

• White Night, the scene where Harry soulgazes Ms. Demeter and he sees the moment when her daughter was shot years ago. This troper has never cried at anything in any form of fiction he has ever seen. But this scene made me start to tear up. In public, with literally hundreds of people around. The part that did it was when the daughter starts repeating "Mommy" over and over while she bleeds in her mother's arms.
  • James Marsters' reading of that scene, especially after "Persephone" gets shot, and starts saying "Owie" over and over, had this troper tearing up.

Small Favor

• There's a moment near the end after Michael has been badly wounded and is in the hospital, Harry tries to leave Charity and Molly to wait for news without him, given that he thought they would be mad at him. Charity grabs him and tells him that "family stays." Given Harry's relationship with Charity (one of unmitigated anger from her towards him) its pretty touching.
  • The line that always gets me is Molly going, "They hurt his heart." She's lived her whole life with her father as this invincible Knight in Shining Armor, and the realization that he's really, truly mortal is just shattering to the young girl.
• Michael has been terribly injured and is on life support in the hospital. Harry and the patient's family are waiting for news, and the doctor comes to say they're bringing him in. And Harry and Molly, Michael's daughter have to leave the room because just their being there could mess up the equipment and kill him. Ouch.
  • Right before that, when Tessa takes the machine gun from Harry, and shoots Michael with it. He goes limp, hanging from the underside of a helicopter.
    • Which is what makes Harry's retaliation a CMOA. He knows that using fire, especially without the blasting rod, will be like a signal fire to Summer. Fuck that shit. A bar of white hot fire, straight through Tessa's buglike chest. Hell yeah.
  • The Denarians torturing Ivy.

"I got your letter. Thank you."

• • Also Harry writing the letter, because he's powerless to do anything more for Ivy at the time, but still has hope of bolstering her courage.

Turn Coat

• Turn Coat has a small but poignant scene toward the end when Harry is talking with Luccio, after they both realized that she had been mind-controlled into being attracted to him. They both realize that the relationship, which had made them both happy and content, was now broken off, likely for good. It's especially bad for Luccio, as she's both confused and angry, and is crying. It's quite clear that this scene is very painful for both of them.
  • It is surprisingly cruel that the author had wrote this. Harry and Anastasia had both been out of the relationship game for a long time relative to their own years spent on Earth, so when they entered their's, it had been very fulfilling for the both of them, physically and emotionally. They trust each other, work well together, and for god's sake, make each other very happy, then the author just had to Yank the Dog's Chain by stating it was all a lie, leaving poor Anastasia sobbing and angry, and Harry, to a lesser degree as well. Despise this outrage however, one potential silver lining makes a reference to what Molly had earlier stated in the book, that whomever could had fiddled around with more resilient wizards' minds, they would had only needed to nudge them a little bit, heavily suggesting that although Anastasia was not completely herself, she was (is) still at least attracted enough to him for her to hit on him multiple times. So hopefully the author can give them a chance to reconcile their relationship, because what happen to them was pure dickery on the Author's behalf.
• In Turn Coat (heavy spoilers for this magnificently beautiful passage): Morgan's death. Since the very first book he has been relentlessly looking for a reason to implicate Harry/find a way to have him executed because he believes that Harry really is a bad, bad man. Then, finally, eleven books later:

His eyes became cloudy. "Do you know why I didn't? Why I came to you?" I shook my head. "Because I knew," he whispered. He lifted his right hand, and I gripped it hard. "I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens." It was the closest he'd ever come to saying that he'd been wrong about me. He died less than a minute later.

• • The end of Turn Coat. The Gatekeeper tells Harry that his relationship with Luccio was partly the result of psychic manipulation.
  • On top of that, Morgan admitting that he took the blame for the crime from Luccio, who had originally been set up, because he still loved her as his teacher.
  • The final lines of Turn Coat:

"See, here's the thing. Morgan was right: You can't win them all. But that doesn't mean you give up. Not ever. Morgan never said that part- he was too busy living it."
"I closed the door behind me, and life went on."

• • Morgan's speech inside the bubble.

Changes

• The majority of the book.
• There's also a part of Harry's conversation with Ebenezar in the last chapter of Changes.

"Hell of a hard thing to do."
"It wasn't hard," I said quietly. "Just cold."
"Oh, Hoss," he said. There was more compassion in the words than you'd think would fit there.

• • In Changes, Harry has been paralyzed from the waist down, and is succumbing to despair, and prays to the archangel Uriel to help him. Uriel arrives and says he can't, but then reminds him that he does have a couple of other avenues open to him to save his daughter. Finally, he makes the choice he's been avoiding for years.

"For you, little girl. Dad's coming. Mab! Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, Queen of the Winter Court! Mab, I bid you come forth!"

• • When Harry that he has to kill Susan to win the day at the end of Changes, Butcher makes clear how horrible it is for him.

I used the knife
I saved a child.
I won a war.
God forgive me.

• • What makes it extra powerful is that for the majority James Marsters' reading of the audiobook, he's fairly calm. Sure, there are scenes where he tinges his reading with the anger, disbelief, weariness, pain, and fear that Harry has to be feeling, but when he gets to "God forgive me," the line is delivered with a heartbreaking half-sob. It almost sounds like Marsters himself was breaking down crying while reading that chapter.
• Hell, Marsters' reading the entire last chapter. Especially when Harry asks Murphy to take Maggie to Father Forthill and put her someplace safe, and that he doesn't need to know.
  • A small but powerful moment afterward: the Leanansidhe says that she will bury Susan with all the respect and honor that Harry would wish to do himself, and even gives her word that she will do so without expecting anything from Harry in return - something incredibly rare among The Fair Folk. But the hammer comes from Harry's thoughts immediately afterward.

But maybe I shouldn't have been surprised: Even in Winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel.

• When Harry is cradling Maggie:

I looked down at the child, a sleepy, warm little presence who had simply accepted what meager shelter and comfort I had been able to offer. And I thought my heart would break. Break more. Because I knew that I couldn't be what she needed. That I could never giver what she had to have to stand a chance of growing up strong and sane and happy.
Because I had made a deal. If I hadn't done it, she'd be dead--but because I had, I couldn't be what she deserved to have.

Ghost Story

• Mister's reaction to Ghost Harry.
  • And Mouse's
• "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't a wizard's ghost standing beside you with tears in his eyes."
• Harry finally realising the depth of Molly's feelings for him and that he does not reciprocate.
• In fact, just how devastated both Murph and Molly are by Harry's death.
  • More specifically, at the end after Mort rescues the day, Murphy breaks down in tears. Its heartbreaking.
• Sir Stuart's breakdown from being a mighty ghostly warrior to just another shade. Fortunately, by the end of the book he's recovered a measure of himself and agrees to join Uriel's organization.
• The entire sequence where Harry finds out just who he's looking for. He was sent back to find his murderer, which it turns out was him. He arranged to have Kincaid shoot him and then had Molly wipe his memory.
• The goodbye sequence, when Harry asks Uriel to show everybody will be okay. Seeing Thomas, cope failing, and his Beauty Is Never Tarnished self all messed up and disheveled was one thing; but then seeing little Maggie sleeping peacefully in the home of the Carpenters guarded by Mouse was enough to turn on the waterworks.
• I literally teared up at Thomas and Justine. In making herself available to him again, she also makes herself vulnerable to every other White Court vampire. And she does it without batting an eye.
  • Thomas's love protecting her wasn't a one-time effect. It will be renewed each time he has her, so she's not at any risk unless some other WCV happens to break in right after Justine does it with the girl but before she does it with Thomas. She's as safe as she ever was.
  • On the other hand, think about what happened the last time she and he got intimate. She knows that she's risking that every time she's with him, but she does it anyway.
• The point where Harry realizes just how far gone his apprentice is, and the scene in the restaurant where he witnesses her breakdown.
  • Molly's just a walking Tear Jerker. She's so much more broken than even she realizes, as evidenced by her Battle in the Center of the Mind.

Short stories

• The end of the short story 'Love Hurts", when Harry and Murphy realize they have to end the spell and go back to the way things were.
• A subtle but very, very dark one in Backup: Thomas confronts the Stygian at the end, and, while horribly poisoned, he rapes her and feeds her to his Hunger, killing her and letting his Hunger fight off the poison to keep him alive. The worst part is how simple and understated the scene is. Thomas has been fighting his demon for so long, working to not abuse others around him, but is forced by both the poison and his enemy to consume her life force. It is dark and subtle and quiet and incredibly tragic.

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1. ↑ For reasons that you soon find are actually pretty understandable, if still a little unfair on Harry.