It seems to me that Mab has probably more than one or two reasons for wanting to marry Harry to Lara.

I'd argue, given what we've seen in recent books, that Mab always tries to protect Harry (despite Harry's objections that she would only care for a Knight who can protect himself, she's been doing a lot to help him or prevent him from doing mistakes). So I assume that her main reason for her to make them marry is to protect Harry. She wanted it to happen right away. Why? Most people thought it was to torture Harry, but what had just happened? Harry had just been kicked off the WC, so he's basically defenseless. An alliance/marriage with Lara would mean one thing to Harry's potential enemies: if you attack him, you attack the WCV. Mab cannot protect her Knight openly, or it would make him look weak, but by giving him an ally who is basically a Chief of State of an Accorded Nation, attacking Harry would mean a lot more to potential random enemies (it's not gonna stop Mavra or some crazies/really powerful enemies, but it can stop others).

Second, Mab has to repay the favors she owes to Lara, and from her point of view, there's no reason not to strengthen Winter's position by making a more permanent and reliable ally out of the WCV, especially since Lara is such a good political player.

Third, the marriage is meant to piss off Molly, and to basically tell her to forget her human emotions and to start acting like a Queen of Winter. Mab said she was lacking and too dangerous to become Mab right now. Considering what we've seen about Mab, it's probably about being "cold" enough to put your feelings aside and do what's necessary. And Molly can't say no to Harry and will always run to help him, even if it means somewhat endangering her duties as a Winter Queen or exhausting herself and leaving her vulnerable.

Fourth, it widens the gap between Harry and the WC. From what we've seen at the end of BG, the Accorded Nations don't trust the WC, or they would have invited them to their private talks. One-Eye and Mab at least know that they're probably at least somewhat directed by either Nemesis or the Black Council (or both). It also protects Harry from the WC, because basically killing Harry would mean waging war on two Accorded Nations, which even the WC might be reluctant to do, especially in their weakened state.

Fifth, it protects Harry from Lara. She might be a "good guy" nowadays, but she still puts her interests or that of her family/Court first. Making Harry part of that family would make her less likely to kill him for political reasons.

Also, I agree that Lara totally knew what she was asking. She's completely in femme fatale falling for the detective mode right now. Freydis told us as much in PT.

And (not sure I have posted that already somewhere) maybe Mab intends Lara to teach Harry how to behave diplomatically on political events. To prepare him for a more politically active role for Winter.

Yes. I'm missing several scenes. Mama Murphy at the funeral for example. The whole Murphy clan.
Harry might have been afraid to inform them yet, but there was not even one name drop in his thoughts.

I don't think she'd understand Harry doing it.

Why not? She certainly noticed Harry eyeing her daughter years ago in Blood Rites. She must have known they were together. And she knew about her husband's job with the Black Cats, SI's predecessor, and Karrin's job in SI, and that she and Harry were working together. I'm guessing, she shouldn't be too surprised, if Harry came to her.

A burning kiss.

Nice. She just has to put on moisturizing lipgloss.

Murphy was the first side character to Harry that we meet in the series.  I'm not even sure we meet Mister before we meet her.

Murphy was in the story before Mister. Even Marcone was before Mister. Maybe because they all have names starting with "M".   ;p

Murphy, Marcone, Mister, Michael, Molly, Mouse, Mab, Maggie, Martin, McCoy, MacAnally, Malcolm, Many More... 

Jim subverted your expectations. He created two antagonists, the coward and the overwhelming threat.  Has her beat the latter and be killed by the former.  The first lifts you high, before the second crushes you.  She should have died a hero.  Instead she died, by what is in effect, an accident. If he has manged to bring you along for the ride to this point, he now owns you.

This.
And for me the moment she died was: "Oh, so this is how it happens. Damn."
But what really got to me was Harry's reaction to her death.
Oh. My. God.
This made me cry and even writing this now is making my eyes flow over. This only happened once before, that I genuinely mourn a character in a book.
As if a real person had died. And I said to myself: hey, this is just a story. I have no right to be in mourning. It's not real. But my feelings are. 

Well done, Mr Butcher.

My thought was, the books PT and BG could have been kept as one with the battle shorter. 
But not less intense. Sometimes I had the feeling, Jim Butcher lost himself a bit in describing the battle scenes.
Don't get me wrong. He wrote them in an excellent way and I enjoyed reading them. But sometimes less is more. I would have wished more emphasis on the storyline.
And I would have wished
But all in all I liked it.
A longer battle would not have made sense. This would have meant less fighting, more siege situations. I.e. less action.
It was OK. I'm looking forward to the next book, but I expect something like Ghost Story after Changes. Something almost completely off, so that Harry has to learn something new. Maybe we won't even see the , if it even comes to that. But I think it does. I try to imagine now how Harry's and Maggie's lives will change because of that. And how they will deal with it.

PS: and I would love to read about Harry accompanying Lara to the mentioned political events. Whatever made Mab say that? Does she really believe he might be a help for Lara being diplomatic? Oh dear. This must be funny to read. Oh, please write that. LOL
PPS: maybe she wants Lara to teach him diplomacy.

Remember our discussions of the sample chapters of Peace Talks? The chapter in which McCoy tells Harry about the Council vote. We sort of thought, Harry would still be on the Council after Battle Ground.
Because the title "wizard of the White Council" is mentioned in the short story "Christmas Eve".

So, I read the short story as it is " printed" in my e-book. It is when Harry tries to assemble the bike and says to himself that it should not be a problem to [tadaaaaaa!!!!!!] "the Wizard of Chicago".
This confused me, so I compared with the older text, the illustrated one from the website. And in that version he indeed called himself "a wizard of the White Council".

I see you, Butcher!

Do you think, Mr. Butcher hadn't decided yet in 2018, if Harry will be thrown out?
Or did he write "White Council" deliberately to not spoiler us readers?
Edit: or to mislead us?

Sorry for the double post.

@Otlan
I just watched your videos. The Jedi song made me laugh. Thank you.

And my father has a guitar. A very cheap one he bought somewhere in Spain during his youth. He has it still. He can't read music notes, but he had three pieces he taught himself. One was The House of the Rising Sun. He played that every day during my childhood.