This idea just occurred to me during another discussion on the forums. I think a fair bit of evidence, taken together, suggests the possibility that Id Harry and Mab struck a bargain at the beginning of Small Favor. To be clear, by "Id Harry" (IH) I mean the version of Harry in his subconscious, dressed all in black.

First off, was this even possible? Let's examine means, motive, and opportunity:

Means: Molly states in SG that she talked with Id Harry when she was in his head getting Bonnie out, so it seems entirely possible to me that Mab could have met with him when she was in Harry's head.
Motive: IH has shown three primary motives to date: Harry's survival, getting laid, and "protect the offspring." Mab certainly could help with those, by granting him the power of the Winter Knight. And it has the added benefit of making Harry's Id impulses much louder and more powerful
Opportunity: Mab has been inside Harry's head at least once undeniably, at the beginning of Small Favor, after which he cannot remember his blasting rod.

So, it could have happened. What's the evidence that it did? The original basis for this theory grows out of an idea by Ms Duck that has a "Strong Evidence" label on theories list, and can be found in post 2 here.


tl;dr: Harry completely ignores Little Chicago in Turn Coat. He describes it as having a "tarp" over it, which is precisely the same language used to describe how Harry's blasting rod appears in his mind when he tries to remember it after it was taken from him by Mab.

In TC, right after the confrontation with Shagnasty at Raith Manor, Harry was down in his lab beating himself senseless over how he could find Thomas, and never thinks to try Little Chicago:

Two hours and a half a dozen attempted tracking spell later, I snarled and slapped a stack of notepads off a corner of a table in my sub-basement laboratory. They thwacked against a wall beneath Bob the Skulls's shelf, and fell to the concrete floor. "It was to be expected." Bob the Skull said very quietly.

He put time into trying to find Thomas with magic, but neglected to use his single most valuable tool for this sort of problem. He doesn't even mention it as an option, or even acknowledge its existence while running down a description of the room; only how there's a long table covered in a tarp. Ms Duck points out how out of character that is, Harry is immensely proud of LC and name drops it in every other book it exists in. Odder still, Bob is there with him, and he doesn't suggest using it either. It's had quite a few successful outings by TC, so why not?

We also have the "ice pick" headaches when Harry interacts with Mouse in the same period. Mouse also could have found Thomas (This is confirmed by Mouse later on). We know that the ice pick headaches are later identified as the psychic trauma of Bonnie straining in his head as she grows. In both cases, something going on in Harry's head shakes him off the quickest paths he could take to finding Thomas and Shagnasty. But how? And why?

As Ms Duck stated above, the upside of these "delays" is that Harry doesn't confront Shagnasty without substantial backup (and likely end up dead), and he shortly thereafter conceives of his plan to have a sanctum invocation on Demonreach. Both of these developments serve Id Harry's interests. They also serve Mab's goals, amassing power to her would-be Knight.

So, let's imagine a scene, at the beginning of Small Favor. Mab has entered Harry's mind, and is approached by Id Harry, who has the relatively recent task of watching over the newborn Bonnie. And Id Harry and Mab begin to deal. IH wants Harry's immediate survival, protection for Bonnie, and a chance to get laid. Mab wants Harry as Winter Knight, and also wants to earn Harry yet more power by guiding him into becoming Warden of Demonreach. So, the bargain is struck.

Id Harry will guide Harry ever closer to taking Mab up on her offer of Winter Knighthood, and towards a sanctum invocation on Demonreach. Both goals will aid in Harry's survival, amass power to help protect Bonnie, and being WK definitely ups the chances that Harry will finally have some sex. More generally, the WK mantle will increase IH's power over what Harry does, as it encourages Harry to pursue his more animalistic, base tendencies. To enable IH to help further with these goals, Mab will give IH the ability to hide Harry's memories from himself, as represented by the snowflake pin he now wears on his lapel. IH is responsible for hiding the blasting rod for most of SmF, at Mab's behest as part of this deal. He also prevents Harry from confronting Shagnasty directly in TC, by blocking out Little Chicago at a crucial moment and making sure Bonnie triggers a headache when Harry goes for Mouse. Instead he puts the idea in his head to take Morgan to Demonreach, and to perform a Sanctum Invocation. He is Harry's intuition, after all.

Mab will work towards Harry becoming the WK as well, and will see to it that Bonnie will be protected. She compels / arranges with Bob to get a vessel crafted for Bonnie, and to not point out how Harry is ignoring Little Chicago in TC. Furthermore, she helps guide Molly towards the skill level and power she will need to perform the "delivery."

The only bit of hand-waving I see in any of this is the timing on Bob being clued in / compelled, not to talk about LC. Mab could've done that at any point in TC though, Lea was still a Sidhe-sicle after all, so Mab could come and go from the lab as she pleased through Lea's garden, assuming she meant no harm. And Harry only goes into the lab the one time in that whole case.

It seems to hold together. You may begin poking holes, let's see how long it lasts.

Does he even mention Little Chicago in Changes or beyond? During Changes, he mentions the new summoning ring, but I don't remember specifically if he describes the giant model in the middle of the room. After Changes, he laments the loss of a lot of his stuff, but I can't recall if he brings that up specifically. In fact, given the amount of energy it contained, wasn't that in danger of exploding with all the fire? If he'd stopped maintaining it to the point that the power drained out over time, that would indicate that this is correct—that Mab took the memories from he and Bob and never returned them.

I just checked, and Harry does in fact note Little Chicago in his run-down of the lab in Changes, right before the FBI chases him out. So it wasn't deleted from his mind permanently. I like the thought that the magic on it degraded during that time, preventing a huge boom during the fire. We've got precedent for that kinda thing not being an issue though. In SmF, Harry comments that the Denarian's circle to contain the Archive could have "blown the top off of Demonreach" if something had gone wrong during set up, but he's able to smash it to bits with no such explosion. Apparently, for whatever reason, the energy of a working does not release quite so violently when it's being unmade, compared to when it's being built and not yet stable.

Let us not forget the text Jim spends after Harry's talk with Mab at the end SmF, where he ponders whether or not Mab just took something else from him:

I spent a little while poking at my memory, and trying to see if there were any if there were any holes in it that hadn't been there before. Then I spent a while more wondering if I'd be able to tell if she had taken something else. "Jesus Christ" I breathed.

Jim wouldn't spend text on this without paying it off. In his own words, he's too lazy. But it can't actually have happened right then, because LC gets mentioned in the short stories in between SmF and TC. There are a couple ways to explain this. Either Id Harry / Bonnie did it without Mab's direct intervention during TC, or Mab did it at some point around TC and took the memory of the entire encounter along with the memory of LC.

Mab getting to Bob is no problem, she had free access to the lab whenever she wanted, since Lea was a Sidhe-sicle during this period. What I would need to listen back for is if Molly presents a problem to this theory, if she was in the lab at all during TC, and was in a position to somehow bring LC up with Harry. The lab is only in one scene in the whole book I believe, so I'd guess not, but I'm unsure.

Harry isn't looking for Thomas in Small Favor because he's off pretending to be Harry most of the time; he's looking for him in the next book, Turn Coat. Harry uses Little Chicago shortly after Mab messes with his head, to send the Gruffs on the wild goose chase with Mister's help, so I don't think they could've removed that. What led him to the island was Nicodemus setting the meet there.

There's no real need to use Little Chicago in Turn Coat; Harry finds out that Thomas is missing, gets the lead from Vince Graver, follows it directly to the lawyer, soulgazes her, finds out that the White Court was involved, and heads to see Lara with Luccio. That's when the Skinwalker tells him that he's got Thomas, and gives him all the contact information he needs to set a meeting later on. He mentions that it would be near impossible to find the skinwalker with magic as a handwave, and has Lara try to trace the cell phone instead. Meanwhile, Harry's balancing dealing with Morgan and keeping him alive while finding the traitor. Little Chicago would just have taken him valuable time (I recall it taking him something like an hour or two to get ready to use it each time) when he's got other stuff to do.

I'm not saying it's totally impossible, but that the motivation and means behind it is sketchy, in my opinion.

I was incorrect about the timeline of events, yes. The original theory I was referencing is by Ms Duck, has a "Strong Evidence" label on theories list, and can be found in post 2 here.

Small Favor
     
 Now this is where life gets interesting. Mab outright (she admits it) takes Harry’s blasting rod and then makes him forget she took it. What she leaves behind is the image of a tarp, and a splitting headache. SF 212:
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“pain stabbed into my head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words.  I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I could not find anything. I knew the memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp…”

   The second thing that happens in this book is Harry meets the isle for the first time.   There is also a small in-joke here; when researching gruff, harry find a Calvin and Hobbes book. For the non fans, the last strip of the comic had Calvin ( the too bright smart alleck) and Hobbes ( his wiser but snarky and horny friend only he can talk too) head off into a eternal winter wonderland of snow, magic, and snow goons. (yes, Mab left him a book)(that has a beware of Hobbes in joke)
 
Turn Coat and the two clue bats:

The first clue is on page 211   
After Thomas is taken, Harry searched for him magically, but never uses or mentions Little Chicago. (although damaged in WN, it is fixed by this time, note SJ).. all he describes is:
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“a long table in the center of the room is covered by a canvas tarp.

.   
  Now it is important that not only does he not mention it ( he does in every other book, whether he uses it or not, he is very proud of it.) but Bob does not mention it either.    And almost the very first thing he mentions in the books is his splitting blinding headache.

The second clue is on page 215   
  Mouse come over to talk to him, gets Harrys attention, and then when Harry bends down, harry gets a second blinding headache, and loses his train of thought. This is important because it is shown later that Mouse could have found Thomas, and he certainly believed he was a match for shaggy, or at least that harry and he together were.So someone covered the table, removed the memory from Harry and Bob, and gave Harry a headache just in time to prevent him from rescuing Thomas.   

 Why would Mab do this?
  Two possible reasons: First, she believes Harry and Mouse were not a match for shaggy, or she needed Harry to bond with Demonreach for another later purpose, and Thomas being in trouble was the goad she used to get harry to do something this drastic.

The clue bats she is referring to are a WoJ about two hidden clues in TC:

The clue bat is a tough thing to guesstimate.  I mean, I hit y'all with at least two other major things in this book that no one seems to have picked up on at all, so far.

What is relevant to our specific discussion here is that Bob was in the room with Harry, helping him go through tracking spells in the lab, trying to find Thomas, immediately after he learned of his capture by Shagnasty:

Two hours and a half a dozen attempted tracking spell later, I snarled and slapped a stack of notepads off a corner of a table in my sub-basement laboratory. They thwacked against a wall beneath Bob the Skulls's shelf, and fell to the concrete floor. "It was to be expected." Bob the Skull said very quietly.

So he did put time into trying to find Thomas with magic, but neglected to use his single most valuable tool for this sort of problem. He doesn't even mention it as an option, or even acknowledge its existence while running down a description of the room. Ms Duck points out how out of character that is, Harry is immensely proud of LC and name drops in every other book it exists in. And it is just as odd that Bob doesn't suggest using it, it's had quite a few successful outings by now. So why not?

Restating my theory with the proper timing, I think Mab has influenced / made a deal with Bob, Bonnie, and/or Id Harry by this point, agreeing to nudge Harry toward Demonreach in exchange for hiding Bonnie's existence from Harry for now. And if Bob was in on Bonnie's existence, it paints his request for a backup vessel in a whole other light, doesn't it?

One more stray piece of evidence, Harry's intuition (aka Id Harry) is the one that comes up with the idea to take Morgan to Demonreach, after brainstorming with Murphy in TC Chapter 34.

The Fomor seem like they might have numbers but lack heavyweights. Or at least lack heavyweights willing to reveal themselves yet. They've shown very wide reach but haven't flexed much muscle yet. Maybe they have it in reserve, or maybe they don't have it at all. I'd guess the "former."

I can kind of see meetings happening on demonreach, due to the sheer security in such a location. Anyone who starts a fight here will deeply regret it.

I could see that happening in the third act, a sword of Damocles over everyone present at the talks. So many possibilities with that idea. But something would have to go seriously wrong first, for the powers that be to choose to allow all those beings onto Demonreach as guests. And Alfred would not be amused.

I'm going to be interested to see how the Merlin responds to Harry after a few years free of Peabody's mind-altering ink. He had a rather radical shift in character in Changes, and seemed like he actually wanted to win the war he was fighting for a change. That was just, what, a year of clarity later? He probably won't be Harry's biggest fan, but I think he's going to be much, much more reasonable, and less obtusely conniving and self-destructive.

It is a tremendously relevant point that we have barely seen anything out of the council when they weren't under the BC's corruption. Peabody and his ink were there from the very first time we saw the WCW, in Summer Knight. Our conceptions of the council's motivations may be far more outmoded than we realize.

I can't really deny that I wouldn't be theorizing about Small Favor if we had something new to process

And in going back to the scene, it is true that Harry gets soulfire before the second greater circle goes up. However, Harry has been feeling the buildup of the energies being shaped for a fair bit of time before he creates the silver hand. It would be reasonable to assert that Lucifer had already taken his second action (specifically, sending his power to Earth) before Uriel did. If you buy into this interpretation of events, then this whole debate is moot. Also worth mentioning was that Harry was about to be casually killed by Thorned Namshiel when Uriel made his move. In addition to the long term gift of soulfire, Uriel also got the short-term reward of saving Dresden's life.

Uriel explicitly says the other archangel, Lucifer, invested his strength "in this situation."

Letting Harry hold onto the Swords is not an investment of power, overt or otherwise.

It's exceedingly clear what two actions Uriel is referring to in that passage. Why are we muddying the waters here?

I posted this topic because there are four actions here, and Uriel's quote only covers three of them. The first two actions are unambiguous:

• Lucifer empowers the Greater Circle at Marcone's Safehouse ==> Uriel Gifts Harry Soulfire

The third action is also very clear, but the response isn't:

• Lucifer empowers the Greater Circle at Shedd Aquarium ==> Uriel does ??

The second circle cannot be pooled in with the first action/balancing action because the gift of soulfire happened before the second circle, and Heaven is a major rules-lawyer about responding to an action, not preempting it. The question at hand is how the scales were balanced for that second action by Lucifer

Uriel implies that another archangel entirely was responsible for the second act. Or the first act. Strictly speaking, we don't which Sign Uriel responded to, as Dresden only gains Soulfire after both Signs are lifted.

Uriel also says the other archangel responded "overtly and immediately." Mab then goes on to say how Uriel is by nature the most subtle of the four archangels, and that when Michael and Gabriel in particular operate, they like to be noticed.

So if this other act was so overt, executed by an archangel generally less subtle than Uriel... then how come we didn't notice it?

I think the answer is simple: It happens somewhere Harry (and thus the reader) cannot see it.

If we pull up the greater context of that quote, the archangel who acted "overtly and immediately" is Lucifer. Uriel is contrasting his own style with Lucifer's. And Dresden got the soulfire right before the second circle goes up, not after. He did a drive by routine on Namshiel while he was running full bore to get inside the circle. Using the soulfire hand, he holds Namshiel in place such that bits of the molten aquarium walls fly through him when the circle goes up:

Thirty feet from me, the walls exploded in light and hellfire... Bits of molten rock hissed through the air, deadlier than any bullet. Spiny boy caught a bunch of those. They flew out his back and left gaping, smoking, cauterized holes in it