As we all know HWWBehind could ve killed Harry during the  altercation he had with DuMorne, but he chose not to.

It implies that he also considers Harry's  life worthy, possibly because he knows his potential in the long term [A Starborn that has the chance against the crazed Outsiders]
*Note that it was speculated that the Outsider had control over DuMorne, not vice versa

Any other Outsider Harry encountered, would have had no problems taking him out,[as we have seen with Sharkface and HWWBesides] indicating that almost all of them share the same goal (boiling down reality to nothingness)

But HWWB is different. Could he be the Thomas of the Outsiders? A monster that goes against his instincts and tries to see the bigger picture?

It would certainly be interesting, seeing how HHWB has been grooming Dresden for decades. Hell, he might even have had an influence over Margaret LeFay or even Blackstaff for that matter (Seeing the link Papa Raith had with HWWB) It would make him an even greater 4d chess player than Mab

If an argument has to rely on more than one presumption it is a bad argument, future Harry AND mindwipe.

Alright, then we can assume he is 100s years old and has a vague memory of the competence in his younger days

I'm not sure what to think. Several theories sound plausible to me. I still put my money on Justin or Kemmler or Kemmler in Justin's body Corpstaker style, but this is not the point here.

But @Mira: has his heighth ever been mentioned? I seem to remember this having been a discussion point somewhere. That usually Harry mentioned how tall someone is, when describing the person. His not noting Cowl's heighth could be that he somehow veiled it.

@Marconesque:
The phrase is not uncommon. I've read that several times in completely unrelated writings. Sometimes not in English, so I believe this is coincidence.

The exact same phrase is used only several hours in between. What is more important imo, is when Dresden got shivers when Cowl said it.

So yesterday I have been on my 2nd listen of Dead Beat and noticed a very interesting connection

In the first conversation Harry had with Billy (after Billy implied that something is wrong with him)
Harry replies "If I am going mad, would I be able to tell"


Then later, Cowl tells Dresden

"I do not perceive myself to be mad. But if I were truly mad, would I be able to tell?"


I shivered. Probably from the rain and the cold.

He shivered probably because he (subconsciously) made a connection that he is Dresden from the future (by making a connection between what he said and what Cowl repeated)

Of course there are more clues to this, but this stuck to me the most.