Elaine is the wizard the White Council should really be afraid of.

[KurtinStGeorge]

According to the Donald Morgan micro-fiction, "That bastard Justin DuMorne got to him before I could.  From then on, we could not be sure that the child (Harry) was not molded to be a creature of Nemesis."  "We" had to be The Merlin, Donald Morgan and anyone else they trusted.  Perhaps it meant the entire Senior Council; who were alive at that time, or just The Merlin's closest allies on the Senior Council.  It doesn't really matter.  It also doesn't matter that Ebenezar disagrees with the Merlin.  The Merlin, Donald Morgan and probably a significant portion of the Senior Council were afraid and are still afraid, that Harry Dresden is controlled by Nemesis, even if Harry hasn't been fully activated by Nemesis yet.

Unless Jim is playing a huge game with the readers, we know this isn't true.  We also know that Elaine tried to help Justin DuMorne enthrall Harry.  Elaine claimed that she was enthralled by Justin.  What if it is much more simple than that and Elaine was and is "a creature of Nemesis."  It also explains why Justin wanted Elaine in the first place.  Why train one potential starborn when you can train two of them.  Harry and Bob have both said that Elaine had more skill than Harry, just less raw power.  That may have made her a better candidate for Nemesis.

I haven't found the original WoJ on what it takes to be Starborn.  The birthdate is all most of us remember; and it is not just one day every 666 years, it is a period that can last a few months.  Something else has to happen.  I could be wrong, but I think the word I'm looking for is activate.  Something has to happen to activate an individual to be more than just have the potential to be starborn. 

Also, I bet the comments Jim has made about Elaine do not rule her out as being Starborn, they are just vague and do not say that Elaine is starborn and perhaps mildly suggest she isn't starborn.  On top of that, we don't know what the final ingredient is that makes someone starborn, but Elaine has had contact with a Queen of Fairie, just like Harry has.  It could be something a major player like one of the Queens, an Angel, Fallen Angel or even a Titan can do, to fully make someone starborn.  Titania may have chosen Elaine to be Summer's starborn in case Mab failed or for other reasons, but didn't know her candidate was tainted.  Lest I forget to mention this, Elaine is the main suspect; really the only suspect we currently have, for who nemfected Aurora.  It certainly wasn't Lea.   

From Jim's standpoint, Elaine being nemfected also explains why the idea that Elaine might be Kumori was set up.  It is a writers version of a slight of hand magic trick.  Create a distraction, a red herring that gets the audience looking in one direction while the real chicanery is happening elsewhere.   

Elaine claims she has hidden from the Council because she doesn't trust them.  It makes sense.  Elaine can see how Harry has been treated, but it can also be something more than that.  Nemesis doesn't want Elaine to reveal herself until the moment is right.  The moment won't be right until Harry is faltering for some reason, or being hounded by the Council to the point he is ineffective or at the very moment when Harry thinks he is facing the final big boss fight one on one.  Plus, keeping Elaine under wraps keeps the White Council looking in the wrong direction, looking at Harry, not knowing he is a distraction and is actually the starborn they need if the want to fight Nemesis. 

Finally, Elaine might not consciously know about Nemesis.  She might believe that Justin enthralled her and she came out of it when Harry killed their teacher.  At the moment Justin DuMorne died, Nemesis relinquished full control of Elaine to reassess the situation and decide on it's next course of action.  Eventually, Nemesis suggested Elaine go to Summer for help and gave her the means to nemfect aurora.  We may find that Cowl physically gave Elaine what she needed to do the job, but Nemesis is what drove Elaine's actions.

[Mira]

Elaine claims she has hidden from the Council because she doesn't trust them.  It makes sense.  Elaine can see how Harry has been treated, but it can also be something more than that.  Nemesis doesn't want Elaine to reveal herself until the moment is right.  The moment won't be right until Harry is faltering for some reason, or being hounded by the Council to the point he is ineffective or at the very moment when Harry thinks he is facing the final big boss fight one on one.  Plus, keeping Elaine under wraps keeps the White Council looking in the wrong direction, looking at Harry, not knowing he is a distraction and is actually the starborn they need if the want to fight Nemesis. 

I remember her saying that, but one has to wonder how did she arrive at having that opinion?  Until he killed Justin, was arrested by the wardens and went on trial before the White Council with a sack over his head, Harry had never heard of the White Council.  For whatever reason Justin taught him nothing about that body, you'd think Justin would have kept Elaine in the dark as well.  But did he?  If we can believe Elaine after Harry killed Justin she fled to and hid in the Summer Court for a period of time, was her opinion of the White Council formed there?  There is also the theory that it was Elaine who carried Nemesis to the Summer Court and infected Aurora.  At some point supposedly Elaine returned to the real world and attended college.  We know that Mort stays off the White Council's radar, was Elaine in contact with him?  Something doesn't track here, wizards unlike Harry don't advertise that they are wizards and don't talk about the White Council.  Yet Elaine seems to know about about the White Council, where is she getting her information? 

[Snark Knight]

Yet Elaine seems to know about about the White Council, where is she getting her information?

That much is explicable by her making low-powered contacts pretty quickly after leaving Aurora's protecting ... she probably heard about the Council being a bunch of trigger-happy Inspector Javerts from the forerunners of the paranet.

The wizard the Council should *really* be afraid of is Simon Pietrovich having faked his death to become Cowl, though.  Elaine is just the apprentice.

[KurtinStGeorge]

One last detail I forgot to mention in my original post.  If Nemesis is using Elaine, when everything comes to a head, it might resemble the Babylon 5 episode Divided Loyalties, where it was revealed that the Psi Corps telepath Talia Winters had a secret personality hidden inside her, spying on the command staff at the station. 

When Winters was exposed, she started screaming, "The Corps is mother. The Corps is father" and some other gibberish.  I don't know what Elaine might shout at Harry, but it might look something like that scene.   

[Mira]

One last detail I forgot to mention in my original post.  If Nemesis is using Elaine, when everything comes to a head, it might resemble the Babylon 5 episode Divided Loyalties, where it was revealed that the Psi Corps telepath Talia Winters had a secret personality hidden inside her, spying on the command staff at the station. 

When Winters was exposed, she started screaming, "The Corps is mother. The Corps is father" and some other gibberish.  I don't know what Elaine might shout at Harry, but it might look something like that scene.   

Intriguing!  Yes, and yet again Harry might be forced to kill one of the women he loved..

[LordDresden2]

I remember her saying that, but one has to wonder how did she arrive at having that opinion?  Until he killed Justin, was arrested by the wardens and went on trial before the White Council with a sack over his head, Harry had never heard of the White Council.  For whatever reason Justin taught him nothing about that body, you'd think Justin would have kept Elaine in the dark as well.  But did he?  If we can believe Elaine after Harry killed Justin she fled to and hid in the Summer Court for a period of time, was her opinion of the White Council formed there?  There is also the theory that it was Elaine who carried Nemesis to the Summer Court and infected Aurora.  At some point supposedly Elaine returned to the real world and attended college.  We know that Mort stays off the White Council's radar, was Elaine in contact with him?  Something doesn't track here, wizards unlike Harry don't advertise that they are wizards and don't talk about the White Council.  Yet Elaine seems to know about about the White Council, where is she getting her information?

The existence of the White Council seems to be no secret among the magical community.  Opinions about them vary widely, but Elaine would learn about them simply from being in touch with other practitioners.

Now that does touch on how little we know about the way Justin raised Harry and Elaine in detail.  Obviously he didn't tell them about the Council, the Wardens appear to have come as a nasty surprise to Harry.  But he must also have kept them both pretty much out of touch with the rest of the general magical community as well, or they would have heard of the White Council.

It would be very interesting, and probably very revealing, if we knew just who Justin permitted H/E to have contact with in their teenage years.  I would think he would have had to tell them something about why they never met up with other magic users, or else he must have made sure their only contacts were 'controllable'.

I'd really like to know more about that period.  The more I think about it, the more important it seems.

[LordDresden2]

According to the Donald Morgan micro-fiction, "That bastard Justin DuMorne got to him before I could.  From then on, we could not be sure that the child (Harry) was not molded to be a creature of Nemesis."  "We" had to be The Merlin, Donald Morgan and anyone else they trusted.  Perhaps it meant the entire Senior Council; who were alive at that time, or just The Merlin's closest allies on the Senior Council.  It doesn't really matter.  It also doesn't matter that Ebenezar disagrees with the Merlin.  The Merlin, Donald Morgan and probably a significant portion of the Senior Council were afraid and are still afraid, that Harry Dresden is controlled by Nemesis, even if Harry hasn't been fully activated by Nemesis yet.

Unless Jim is playing a huge game with the readers, we know this isn't true.  We also know that Elaine tried to help Justin DuMorne enthrall Harry.  Elaine claimed that she was enthralled by Justin.  What if it is much more simple than that and Elaine was and is "a creature of Nemesis."  It also explains why Justin wanted Elaine in the first place.  Why train one potential starborn when you can train two of them.  Harry and Bob have both said that Elaine had more skill than Harry, just less raw power.  That may have made her a better candidate for Nemesis.

I haven't found the original WoJ on what it takes to be Starborn.  The birthdate is all most of us remember; and it is not just one day every 666 years, it is a period that can last a few months.  Something else has to happen.  I could be wrong, but I think the word I'm looking for is activate.  Something has to happen to activate an individual to be more than just have the potential to be starborn. 

Also, I bet the comments Jim has made about Elaine do not rule her out as being Starborn, they are just vague and do not say that Elaine is starborn and perhaps mildly suggest she isn't starborn.  On top of that, we don't know what the final ingredient is that makes someone starborn, but Elaine has had contact with a Queen of Fairie, just like Harry has.  It could be something a major player like one of the Queens, an Angel, Fallen Angel or even a Titan can do, to fully make someone starborn.  Titania may have chosen Elaine to be Summer's starborn in case Mab failed or for other reasons, but didn't know her candidate was tainted.  Lest I forget to mention this, Elaine is the main suspect; really the only suspect we currently have, for who nemfected Aurora.  It certainly wasn't Lea.   

From Jim's standpoint, Elaine being nemfected also explains why the idea that Elaine might be Kumori was set up.  It is a writers version of a slight of hand magic trick.  Create a distraction, a red herring that gets the audience looking in one direction while the real chicanery is happening elsewhere.   

Elaine claims she has hidden from the Council because she doesn't trust them.  It makes sense.  Elaine can see how Harry has been treated, but it can also be something more than that.  Nemesis doesn't want Elaine to reveal herself until the moment is right.  The moment won't be right until Harry is faltering for some reason, or being hounded by the Council to the point he is ineffective or at the very moment when Harry thinks he is facing the final big boss fight one on one.  Plus, keeping Elaine under wraps keeps the White Council looking in the wrong direction, looking at Harry, not knowing he is a distraction and is actually the starborn they need if the want to fight Nemesis. 

Finally, Elaine might not consciously know about Nemesis.  She might believe that Justin enthralled her and she came out of it when Harry killed their teacher.  At the moment Justin DuMorne died, Nemesis relinquished full control of Elaine to reassess the situation and decide on it's next course of action.  Eventually, Nemesis suggested Elaine go to Summer for help and gave her the means to nemfect aurora.  We may find that Cowl physically gave Elaine what she needed to do the job, but Nemesis is what drove Elaine's actions.

Interesting, but there's one big potential issue:  Harry and Elaine have soulgazed.  Unless she was nemfected afterward, I'd think it would have shown up.

[KurtinStGeorge]

I think the answer is whatever process or tainted item was used to nemfect Elaine wasn’t introduced or occur until the day she stayed home sick while Harry went to school. (Info taken from Harry’s discussion with Lea in Ghost Story.) It is also possible Justin did something to Elaine the day before but it didn’t take old until the next morning.

So, Harry and Elaine may have soulgazed days, weeks or even a couple of months earlier.  In theory, Elaine and Harry could have soulgazed on a Sunday morning, then Justin did whatever was needed to infect Elaine that afternoon or night, and the next day when Harry came back early from school, he found Justin with a nemfected Elaine.

[Mira]

I think the answer is whatever process or tainted item was used to nemfect Elaine wasn’t introduced or occur until the day she stayed home sick while Harry went to school. (Info taken from Harry’s discussion with Lea in Ghost Story.) It is also possible Justin did something to Elaine the day before but it didn’t take old until the next morning.

So, Harry and Elaine may have soulgazed days, weeks or even a couple of months earlier.  In theory, Elaine and Harry could have soulgazed on a Sunday morning, then Justin did whatever was needed to infect Elaine that afternoon or night, and the next day when Harry came back early from school, he found Justin with a nemfected Elaine.

Or like a good child abuser, Justin groomed and then infected Elaine little by little... Then again would young, 14,15, or even 16 year old Harry recognize Nemesis in a soul gaze?  I really doubt it, 16 year old Harry had no clue it was an Outsider that was trying to kill him, all he knew was it scared the hell out of him and he acted accordingly to survive.

[LordDresden2]

Or like a good child abuser, Justin groomed and then infected Elaine little by little... Then again would young, 14,15, or even 16 year old Harry recognize Nemesis in a soul gaze?  I really doubt it, 16 year old Harry had no clue it was an Outsider that was trying to kill him, all he knew was it scared the hell out of him and he acted accordingly to survive.

Yeah, but even if he didn't understand what he was seeing, I suspect the presence of Nemesis would look bad.  Harry might not understand what kind of bad, or what it meant, but I suspect it would still just look wrong.

But even if he didn't recognize what he was seeing, we need to keep in mind that you never forget what you see in a soulgaze.  It's there forever, engrained on your memory.  So if he learned the signs of nemfection later, he would still remember seeing them in Elaine at that time, if she was infected then.

Elaine might have been nemfected after they soulgazed, but it's hard to see it happening before.

[Mira]

Yeah, but even if he didn't understand what he was seeing, I suspect the presence of Nemesis would look bad.  Harry might not understand what kind of bad, or what it meant, but I suspect it would still just look wrong.

But even if he didn't recognize what he was seeing, we need to keep in mind that you never forget what you see in a soulgaze.  It's there forever, engrained on your memory.  So if he learned the signs of nemfection later, he would still remember seeing them in Elaine at that time, if she was infected then.

Elaine might have been nemfected after they soulgazed, but it's hard to see it happening before.

However we don't know at what point they soul gazed, did they even know what they were doing at the time?  He hasn't soul gazed her since, so who knows what he would see now.  Another thought, Eb did soul gaze Harry after or just before he took him in under the Doom, if the presence was there or the taint, he should have seen it. 

[Tinfoil hat]

However we don't know at what point they soul gazed, did they even know what they were doing at the time?  He hasn't soul gazed her since, so who knows what he would see now.  Another thought, Eb did soul gaze Harry after or just before he took him in under the Doom, if the presence was there or the taint, he should have seen it. 

I think we can be sure Eb saw the taint. The 3 eye junkie saw it. I have always suspected that part of the reason tge WC hates/fears harry is because of it. I agree with the guys who think its why people panic after soulgazing harry. One way to think of the taint is that it is a brand ( the type placed on cattle). Brands indetify cattle has belonging to someone.  In some cases if  owners of the cattle are scary enough no one will steal their cattle cause just because you know who they belong to and what they will do to you.  Everyone sees it and knows that an outsider marked him. Could be for purely nice reasons but probably not. In Harry's case people scary themselves to death just thinking what it means. Is he an outsiders pet, food, friend or lover noone knows

[Mira]

I think we can be sure Eb saw the taint

If he did, he never mentioned it.. So we can't be sure.

I have always suspected that part of the reason tge WC hates/fears harry is because of it. I agree with the guys who think its why people panic after soulgazing harry.

Since the ones who panic have been vanilla humans, it is safe to bet they never saw magical power in the raw before, and it would scare the hell out of them.  However soul gazes with Marcone and a couple of other people have not produced panic, in the case of Marcone, I think he scared Harry more than the other way around.  As for the others, they were reassured, even comforted by what they saw.

In some cases if  owners of the cattle are scary enough no one will steal their cattle cause just because you know who they belong to and what they will do to you.  Everyone sees it and knows that an outsider marked him. Could be for purely nice reasons but probably not. In Harry's case people scary themselves to death just thinking what it means. Is he an outsiders pet, food, friend or lover noone knows

I doubt that Harry is marked like an animal or is owned by the Outsiders.

[Tinfoil hat]

If he did, he never mentioned it.. So we can't be sure.

Since the ones who panic have been vanilla humans, it is safe to bet they never saw magical power in the raw before, and it would scare the hell out of them.  However soul gazes with Marcone and a couple of other people have not produced panic, in the case of Marcone, I think he scared Harry more than the other way around.  As for the others, they were reassured, even comforted by what they saw.
I doubt that Harry is marked like an animal or is owned by the Outsiders.

Im not saying he is owned by the outsiders only that he is tainted and no one has a way of telling what the taint or mark means. From the perspective of joe wizard dude has taint that marks him if he is seen under the Sight.
My WAG IS that any wizard that a) soulgazes him or b) Sees him sees the taint. And has no way of knowing what that means exactly.
Ps my guess is that the taint is part of the reasons no one seems to fully trust him.
He could be a spy and have no way of knowing

[KurtinStGeorge]

Unless Harry looked into a mirror while using his Sight, there is no way he should know what the sign of HWWB looks like or that he even carries it.  I picture Harry learning about it in one of two, maybe three ways, the last one being the most likely one.

1. Lea might have mentioned it as part of her pitch to 16 year-old Harry to get him to make a deal with her.  She could have said something like this:  "I see the mark of HWWB; the demon that was called up by Justin DuMorne, is upon you.  That you survived meeting this creature is impressive..."  My guess is Lea would see that mark every time she saw Harry.  She doesn't need to call up a special power like wizards do.

2. Justin DuMorne might have mentioned it to Harry before their final fight.  It could have sounded something like this:  "I see you have met HWWB.  His mark is upon you."  The problem with this scenario is Justin would have to have been using his Site when he was looking at Harry, and I can't think why he would want to do that.

3. Warden Morgan used to use his Sight on Harry after Harry was captured by the Wardens or just by Morgan.  While Harry was bound he overheard Morgan describe the mark and name HWWB.  Did anyone else on the Council use their wizard sight to look on Harrry.?  Hard to say, but I don't see why anyone else would do that, except perhaps Ebenezar.

This scenario fits in nicely with Morgan using his Site to check for possible spies hiding under a veil at Mac's in Dead Beat, but avoiding looking at Harry while do so.  Morgan wouldn't want to see that mark again if he could simply ignore looking at it.