I think it'd be in character for Harry to avoid talking to them and justifying it because they almost certainly knew by the time he had the time to call. His return in Cold Days wasn't exactly low-key.

Yeah, Nevada:

Checking Wikipedia, no indications that tests in the 50s in Nevada had higher yields than expected. A few candidates if taking out the nagloshii caused a lower than expected yield. But how big a yield would you need?

If the Fairies had been consigned to Oblivion, the rest of the Nevernever might have followed, including the Outer Gates. From Ivy's point of view, what happens to Faerie after that might not matter too much.

I don't know if anything has been said about what a purely materialistic Earth would look like by the rules of the Dresdenverse but even if it's awful, that doesn't mean it isn't the Oblivion War's ultimate goal. It was started by humans who were tired of getting munched on by demons, after all. Sometime we go for cures that are worse than the disease.

Yeah, but in Cold Days Harry was still working out how Soulfire and the Winter Mantle work... He still was kind of intimidated by both and afraid of becoming a monster.   By the end though some of it had gotten through,  from what Kringle told him, Harry is a lot more powerful than he knows.  All I am saying Harry's got weapons, he just doesn't quite have the skill set or confidence to deploy them, so while at that point he may drain his resources fighting HWWB, but by the BAT I bet that won't happen, and he won't need Hell Fire to do it either.  Let's not forget the stash of weapons he got from the vault in Skin Game, Hades said only those clever enough to take them would be able to used them if I remember correctly.

I think this is well supported by the books being very consistent that how you use power greatly effects the efficiency of it. Wizards who are more powerful than Harry almost always show it by using less power to get a stronger effect. Where Harry would use the magical equivalent of a sledgehammer, Luccio or Morgan use a stiletto because they're simply better at using magic than Harry.

A good chunk of Harry's leveling up has been because he had to revisit the basics to teach Molly and to find ways to do things with a much smaller power budget. He's probably got all the raw power he needs for the BAT, he just needs to learn how to use it for maximum advantage.

Throw in Rashid and it would really drive that point home.

To Kurtin's point about Eb being Harry's protector, I think Rashid has done more. Eb gets three out seven votes in Summer Knight to not turn Harry over. Rashid gets the entire Senior Council to give Harry a trial instead of turning him over. The next time we actually see the Senior Council act, it is again Rashid who prevents the Merlin from going after Harry. Michael comes through with the Council's children and brings in the votes to save Molly because Rashid delayed.

I know it's because of dramatic reasons but the Council seems to have a severe problem with succession planning. Eb might be the easiest to replace (from a booms point of view) since any top-level talent could wield the Blackstaff, but Merlin and Gatekeeper don't seem to be so Macguffin enabled. The implication is that the strengths of the other Senior Council members don't overlap much, so there'd be a major capability loss if either of them got hit by a bus.

I think the implication is that the mantle only moved on because of where Aurora was. If she'd been on the streets of Chicago on Sept 8th, Aurora would have popped up somewhere as more or less the same being. It could be that even if the power had returned to Titania like it's supposed to, Aurora would have "survived."

   I have, or I wrote about is a few years back, it was when I did my first reread.  While yes, when
we first meet Lea it is seen though the lens of Harry's extreme paranoia about her, not helped by her
desire to turn him into one of her hounds to keep him "safe."   Having said that, her ambition and thirst for power comes through which ends with her bargaining a Holy Sword for the Knife, which we now know is infected.  The general theory is she was infected by the Knife and was later cured by Mab when she put her on ice.  It was my opinion then that she might have been infected before she came in contact with the Knife.   If she was, it would account for her being okay with Harry going to Justin for his training, then when Harry proved himself by escaping enthrallment, neutralizing HWWB, Justin could be discarded.... So she then supposedly helped Harry eliminate him, what she did was trick an inexperienced sixteen year old kid into a bargain.   We find out later that she did little to aid Harry except perhaps a "confidence boost" as Jim puts it, but it makes Harry obligated to her with the hope of later making use of him.  All this plays into the Enemy's hands, except Mab had other plans.

Lea did have the fairy godmother bargain running at the time which complicates her relationship to Harry.

What's clear from the journal though is that whoever killed Malcom wanted Harry to go into the system. Disappearing someone from the bureaucracy in less than a day is way more work than faking an identity long enough to kidnap a kid with no relatives. Harder to maintain, too, since foster parents/orphanage staff complain if they've got an extra kid so you'd need to create a cover identity that holds well enough so no one asks why Harry's name on the paperwork is different. To my mind, that strengthens Justin's place at the top of the short list.

Other people on the short list: Mab and The White King. Nic and Cowl would be on there but they didn't seem to show any particular familiarity with Harry. Both seem the type to drop cryptic hints while gloating.

I'm pretty sure we're told that turning magic back on its caster is a standard Warden tactic against warlocks.