The Dresden Files/Heartwarming

Grave Peril

 * At the end of Grave Peril, Susan has been . She sends Harry a card. Awwww...

Death Masks
"I hadn't ever pictured John Marcone praying. But I saw him forming the word please, over and over."
 * In The Dresden Files book, Death Masks, we are first introduced to The Archive. Although she's an seven-year-old girl, she's got the sum total of all human knowledge and wisdom, as well as the collective life experience of every Archive before her. She proceeds to unnerve Harry with her maturity and power despite looking like she could almost be his daughter. But when she sees Mister, Harry's cat, she squeals "KITTY!" like a little girl should and starts playing with him.
 * In Death Masks, the very last lines. "I took Susan's picture down. I put the postcards in a brown envelope. I picked up the jewel box that held the dinky engagement ring I'd offered her, and that she'd turned down. Then I put them all in my closet. I laid the old man's cane on my fireplace mantle. Maybe some things just aren't made to go together. Things like oil and water. Orange juice and toothpaste. Me and Susan. But tomorrow was another day."
 * In Death Masks, Marcones' visit to the hospital where  is being cared for. He   The clincher is at the end, as Harry is watching.

""Remember. God sees hearts, boy. And now I see yours. Take it. Hold it in trust until you find the one it belongs to.""
 * lies tortured, broken, dying, his life taken to fuel a monstrous curse, his blood defiling the airport chapel. But the Denarians couldn't take his dignity, nor his purpose.

Blood Rites
"The aching, lonely old hurt was overflowing me. But I suddenly found myself laughing. I had seen my mother with my Sight. I had seen her smile, heard her voice, and it was something I could never lose. Something no one could ever take away from me. It couldn't wholly make up for a lifetime of loneliness and silent grief, but it was more than I ever thought I would have."
 * While it doesn't seem like much at the time due to  also giving selfish reasons to help Harry through the first few books, it all takes another meaning when you (and Harry) find out that   The Reveal via soulgaze was heartbreaking in the good way.
 * In Blood Rites, after Harry and Thomas share the soulgaze where, Harry has a brief but powerful moment:

Dead Beat
"Malcolm Dresden: Yes. I'm dead. But that doesn't mean that I'm not here. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, boy."
 * In Dead Beat, the conversation between Harry and the spirit of his father.

"Malcolm Dresden: Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side."
 * This great line, from the same conversation:

"I stopped and blinked-first at the candles and then at my burned hand.
 * Also from Dead Beat, when Harry is trying to convince an EMT to talk to him, the man is initially worried that Harry will think he's crazy for reporting it, and doesn't trust him...at least until he remembers where he'd seen Harry before, when he and Michael had been arrested for breaking into the maternity ward a few years back. He says the hospital they're in, Cook County, was suffering the highest rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the country, up until that night. Ever since then, they haven't lost a single baby - and he realizes that it was Harry and Michael who "did something" to stop it. It's a small but powerful scene that shows how what Harry has been doing has really been helping people and that his struggles aren't going unrecognized.
 * Butters helping Harry rehabilitate his badly burned hand by buying him a guitar and a copy of Guitar for Total Idiots. Harry settles back to read it, and casually lights some candles using magic.

"What?" Butters asked.

"Nothing," I said, and opened the book to look over it. "You know, Butters, for a mortician you're a pretty good healer."

"You think so?"

I glanced at the warm, steady flame of the candles and smiled. "Yeah.""

Proven Guilty
"Michael: Harry, am I just too old?
 * While it's the type of thing that goes under the radar, there is a very moving moment in Proven Guilty when Harry is using his Sight on one of the victims of the phobophages and he turns to look at Murphy. He sees Murphy with the stains of her life as the head of SI and then: "She smiled at me, a sunny light in it, though her body's face remained a neutral mask." I missed it the first time I read through and it made me do a double take when I reread it because it conveyed faster then almost any scene in the series that Murphy is Harry's friend and loves him.
 * Molly's return home, from the same book. Michael's first reaction on seeing his daughter come home with rainbow-coloured hair, dressed "like Frankenhooker", covered in tattoos and with piercings in pretty much every place where it is possible to have one, is to hug her.

Harry: Hey, let he who hath never stonewashed his jeans cast the first stone."

""Greater love hath no man," he said. Nothing I can say would be enough. Thank you.""
 * Also from the same book, the scene in which Harry finds out that  Harry states that the mission has just gotten more difficult, and he doesn't expect   to still come. Without a word, they step up to his side, willing to do it anyway. To quote Harry: "A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand beside you without flinching- they are your family. And they were my heroes."
 * Later on in the same book, after  a weary Thomas asks Harry and Murphy why they just went through all of that. Harry and Murphy exchange a smile and draw Thomas' attention to  . Thomas' response: "Oh. Right."
 * Michael's reaction after learning that Harry was

White Night

 * White Night has Harry's final conversation with Lasciel, where  And then,   Redemption is, indeed, a beautiful thing.
 * Minor clarification: It wasn't Lasciel the Fallen, but Lash, the "shadow" living in Harry's head. Harry actually gave her a portion of his soul, and her sense of self in the process, which just makes it more heartwarming.
 * The final conversation of the book between Ramirez and Harry, with Ramirez saying he's with Harry 100%, especially when Harry watches over him sleeping the whole night because "you don't leave an injured friend alone."
 * terrified and more than a little scarred, finally learns why Harry fights, and still steps forward to fight as well.

Small Favor
""People are dying, John. Help me save them. God, please, help me."
 * And then in Small Favor, when she's an eleven-year-old, she, Harry and company are meeting the big Nasties at the local aquarium when she goes missing for a few minutes. Harry quickly figures out where she is, though: watching the otters at play.
 * Also in Small Favor, when and Dresden.
 * "....I got your letter. Thank you."
 * Gentleman Johnny Marcone gets one when, after having been tortured by the Denarians for a week straight, he silently demands that Harry and the Knights save  first. Then he turns around and shelters her and makes sure she is the first one to get on the rescue helicopter.
 * Glimpses of Marcone's inner good nature always end up being CMoHs. The best is in White Night, when Harry responds by going up to him and saying:

"Who do you think I am, wizard?"

"Someone who can help them. Maybe the only one."

He stared at me with empty, opaque eyes. Then he said very quietly, "Yes.""

"“They tell children stories about you guys, you know,” I said.
 * Michael gets these all the time but one that really stands out doubles as a moment of awesome as well.
 * One in Small Favor that really got me: during the hob attack in the subway, Harry and Michael burst into a room where an attendant ushered some trapped travellers to protect them, and is furiously praying for help and protection. When Michael, Knight of the Cross, busts in with a shining holy blade emitting pure white light, she begins crying tears of shocked, hopeful joy, to which Michael replies, "Of course He is there. Of course He is listening. Granted, He doesn't always answer this quickly..." The quiet power and beauty of that one scene, where amidst all the horror and Grimdark of the Dresden Files, the heroic Knight in Shining Armor really does show up to save the day, and the effect he has on the ordinary people, always makes me want to cry. That one paragraph summed up everything you need to know about the Knights of the Cross and what they do, and firmly and forever cements them as the unquestioned Good Guys in an otherwise very grey setting.
 * Later on, when Harry is having his mental breakdown when he learns that, Michael leans down over him and prays to break the enchantment....and the power of either God or simple faith in that prayer is enough to utterly shatter the  . Really shows both the power of Michael's friendship toward Harry and the strength of his faith, as well as the raw power of good in a setting overrun by evil.
 * Another from Small Favor: There's a moment near the end after
 * Not all heartwarming moments must be between friends. After the chaos on the island, after all the mind games and traitors and manipulating, Harry's conversation with is so gloriously honest it melts the heart.

“Still?” he said."

Turn Coat
"She reached up with both hands, put them on the sides of my head, and pulled me down a little. Then she kissed my forehead and my mouth, neither quickly nor with passion. Then she let me go and looked up at me, her eyes worried and calm. "You know that I love you, Harry. You're a good man. A good friend."... "My world would be a scarier place without you in it."
 * Turn Coat has a bunch, but my particular favorite is  in Chapter 35.

Then I bent down and kissed her forehead and her mouth, gently, and leaned my forehead against hers. "Love you, too," I whispered."


 * Another one that got me in Turn Coat happens
 * Considering how Morgan was the one who had dogged Dresden the most in an effort to prove him being a warlock, it made the moment of empathy all the more striking to me.

Changes
"Harry: "Tell you what,grasshopper. You ever need rescuing, I'll handle that.""
 * Several lines from Changes, including most of Harry's conversation with Uriel (in a weird way) but especially, "Whatever you do, do it for love. If you keep to that, your path will never wander so far from the light that you can never return,"  and a few lines from the end,
 * Lea's bit, while small, is significant because it comes right after Harry  This act of kindness, from a being who is usually anything but, demonstrates that life and love go on. It's stunningly effective simply because it's Lea; it wouldn't have worked half as well from, say, Ebenezar, because it's just what we expect from him. We don't expect it from the crazy death Sidhe lady.
 * A crazy death Sidhe lady who genuinely loves Harry - in her own weird Faery way - and probably loved his mother too.
 * Also from Changes, Harry's conversation with Molly--she has always known that Daddy would Show Up when she needed him. But


 * In Changes when we get to hear  thanks to Lea, and he tells her that Harry didn't.

Ghost Story
"Uriel:"
 * Ghost Story has Harry learning that Mouse is now protecting Maggie. Just the mental image is enough to make one want to sob happy tears--especially when Harry speculates that he's "probably spending half his time pretending to be a pony." And this is before we learn that the "home" that Forthill found for Maggie is
 * The most touching part is Harry watching Maggie sleeping peacefully; it shows that all of the hardship that Harry endured, all of the choices he made, did have a positive outcome.
 * And even more touching when you realize that this is the way Father Forthill and Michael chose to repay Harry for all the things he's done for them. Harry asked Forthill to find her a good family. He did.
 * Uriel offering Sir Stuart's shade the opportunity to  Made even more poignant by the fact that Stuart turns and looks to his descendant, Mortimer, who has steadily been becoming more and more badass throughout the book, and deciding that the once-cowardly ectomancer can stand on his own, and agrees.
 * The seven words Uriel says to Harry in order to balance what was done to him form a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming crossed with Crowning Moment of Awesome.

"I opened my eyes, standing on a random Chicago sidewalk, immaterial and unseen. I turned my right hand palm up and focused upon that sudden kindling of light and hope, crystallized by the memory of that moment of triumph and joy.
 * Minor in comparison to some of the others, but in Ghost Story, when Harry is trying to prove to Murphy and company that, yes,, Mister wanders into the room. The cat stares at him and looks shocked for a second, then barrels into him and starts purring.
 * Doubles as a Tear Jerker, but Murphy's utter denial that Harry is dead. She refuses to believe it, despite all accounts to the opposite, and when she finally accepts it, she holds her emotions in until after everything has simmered down.
 * And while she's breaking down in tears, Mortimer Lindquist, cowardly ectomancer who took 50 bajillion levels in badass shields her grief and attempts to hide her so her pride is not damaged.
 * Harry barely even thinks before possessing Molly to help her fight off the turtlenecks.
 * A quiet one for Marcone. In the six months since Harry's death, he essentially built a functional monument to everything Harry stood for and fought for on the ruins of his house.
 * It's a small one, but the scene in Ghost Story where
 * Yes, we know -- and Harry finds out later -- that he's an utter bastard, but there's something genuinely touching about Justin Du Morne giving young Harry a baseball glove and going outside to play catch. It's all in how Harry describes it. He grew up an orphan, the only gifts he'd ever gotten were given anonymously and randomly. Seeing little Harry's joy at being given a gift that's really meant for him is enough to bring tears to your eyes.
 * Course this is kind of destroyed when we remember that line about Justin teaching him about shield spells by throwing baseballs at him.
 * The tiny scene that follows, where Harry recovers his magic. Jim Butcher is really coming along as a writer.

"Flickum bicus," I whispered.

The fire was every bit as beautiful as I remembered."


 * Father Forthill's  in general, and not just Harry's interactions with her.

Short stories, and general
"Harry: "That was a year when I really, really wanted to give those stupid plastic robots to my brother."
 * From the short story It's My Birthday Too, Harry gives Thomas Rock'em Sock'em Robots for his birthday. Why? Because when he was at the orphanage, he saw a Christmas commercial of two brothers playing with the toys.

Thomas: "Because it would mean you weren't alone.""


 * In the short story Love Hurts, Harry and Murphy are hit with a love curse,
 * In the short story The Warrior,
 * It really hits home when Given Harry's frequent musings on how often it seems that in spite of his best efforts he can't make the world a better place, he has a tremendous impact all the same.