Molly Carpenter

Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter, also called Molly, is the daughter of Michael and Charity Carpenter. She used to be a human wizard, until the end of Cold Days, when she assumes the mantle of the Winter Lady of the Unseelie Court; Molly first appears in Grave Peril and is properly introduced in Death Masks.

Biography
Molly is the first child of Michael and Charity Carpenter.

During Death Masks, Molly is fourteen years old. By this time she developes a rather Goth scene look in clothes, piercings, and make-up when not at home, but changed back to conservative clothes in the treehouse before going home.

Molly first manifested her magical power about two years before the events of Proven Guilty, when she instinctively created a veil. After coming home from school she had entered the house while still wearing her Goth clothes, confident her mother was out. When Charity, who had stayed home sick, happened onto her in the living room, Molly, in a panic, unconsciously veiled herself. Shocked to discover her mother did not acknowledge her, she went to her room to change her clothes, now aware that she might have magical talent.

Molly was arrested for possession of marijuana and ecstasy, which she was caught holding during a police raid at a party, and sentenced to community service. Her father thought her apparent repentance was enough, but her mother insisted on further actions and restrictions. In the spring before Proven Guilty the familial situation escalated, resulting in Molly leaving home and dropping out of school.

Personality
Molly is a lot like her mother. She is selfless and brave, but sometimes unable to see other points of view. However, unlike Charity, Molly seems to be outgrowing this trait. She is a loving daughter and big sister, and a hard-working, well-organized apprentice to Harry. When Harry Soulgazes her, he sees many different possibilities in her future. It may be that the black magic she used will either affect her for the worse, or teach her better control.

Harry nicknames her "Grasshopper"  or "Padawan", both references to her promising apprentice status. After coming under the Doom of Damocles she has seemingly grown to understand that mental manipulation is off limits. She volunteers to come to Chichén Itzá, despite her unsuitability for combat, and Harry correctly agrees to take her along, seeing that she has matured to the point where she can help. As Harry realizes, he himself gets into plenty of dangerous situations he only gets out of with the help of friends, so why would Molly be different?

Molly has a serious crush on Harry and has unsuccessfully hit on him a number of times. She has also Soulgazed Thomas Raith, expressing a great deal of empathy for his inner pain.

Molly is severely hurt by Harry's rather callous decision to have her help him with his suicide, which lasts until Lea tells her that Harry is not dead.

Molly thinks of herself as much less capable than Harry, but this is actually untrue. She suceeds in keeping the Svartelves and the Fomor from signing a non-aggression pact, which would have led to other nations of the Unseelie Accords to do the same, and to allow the Fomor to become a major supernatural power. Because forcemagic is not her strength she often uses quick, tricky thinking, and illusion to get through dangerous situations. In this way she is exactly like Harry. Although she thinks that she is not ready to face dangerous situations, she handles them no worse than her mentor.

Abilities


Compared to those of her mentor Harry Dresden, Molly's magical abilities are more sensitive, finely tuned and delicate, though less powerful, allowing her to easily perform many fine magical tasks, such as illusions and veils, while making much more difficult for her to perform combat magic, due to her lesser brute magical strength and greater sensitivity to magical (and emotional) energies.

In Small Favor, it is mentioned that Molly is extraordinarily sensitive when it comes to various magical energies. It's what makes her so good at: psychomancy and neuromancy.

Unlike her mother Charity, Molly has been noted to possess very poor cooking skills; though she is very good at making coffee.

After training under Lea, she has become capable of shielding, adept at using illusions, and tricking enemies into killing each other. Molly also has a sleeping spell that can safely incapacitate several people at once.

After she put a dozen or so Big Hoods to sleep way too easily—with Neru—Harry thought that what she had done was hard and something to be expected only from a White Council wizard.

She is adept at veils, verisimilomancy, psychomancy, holomancy, neuromancy.

As of Changes, Molly has at least one named spell, Hireki, which is used to reveal anyone under a veil. She is also able to cast what she calls her "one woman rave," a display of dazzling light and sound. In Ghost Story she reveals a few more.

Proven Guilty
In Proven Guilty, after attempting to help cure her friends, Rosanna Marcella and Nelson Lenhardt, of their addiction to drugs through magic, Molly was found guilty of breaking one of the Seven Laws of Magic by the White Council in Proven Guilty. Harry Dresden spoke in her defense and pleaded for her to be sentenced to the Doom of Damocles instead of a capital execution, accepting her as his apprentice, and both were placed under the Doom with Dresden being held responsible for the future actions of his new apprentice.

Ghost Story
In Ghost Story, six months after the fall of the Red Court, Molly is in her mid-twenties and has become jaded and cynical, and perhaps a touch insane. She is potentially an official warlock and is currently wanted by the Wardens since the Doom of Damocles has fallen after Harry Dresden's death and her death sentence is now executive. After Lea's training, she became the "Ragged Lady" occasionally switching places with her, in the hope of keeping Chicago safe by creating a reputation similar to the one that Harry once had—to make the bad guys think there was a White Council wizard still in the City. The other members of the Chicago Alliance have tried to reach for her, but she used her illusions on them and most of them are now too frightened to even be in the same room as her. Molly used illusions to trick a Fomor Servitor who had kidnapped a little girl and a corrupt cop paid off in gold to look the other way into killing each other.

Two child ghosts brought Molly to Harry by the Big Hoods and Corpsetaker's hideout. He needed her to open a way for him and the ghost army. She reacted strongly when Harry said: "You're one hell of a woman, Molly." Corpsetaker and Molly soulgaze and do mind battle; Molly's complex mental defenses resemble the the Enterprise star ship. Harry followed Corpsetaker into Molly's mind. Just before the battle was about to end, Harry sent out an SOS and then reclaimed his memory of who really ordered his murder and realized how that damaged Molly. Uriel showed Harry how Mortimer helped free Molly of Corpsetaker.

Cold Days
In Cold Days, Molly has begun to get her life back together. By this time, she's a full-fledged adult and, Harry notes, as capable as any White Council member (though renegade). It has also confirmed that she's still in love with Harry.

Following the death of Maeve, Molly becomes the new Winter Lady.

Skin Game
By Skin Game, Molly hasn't yet told her parents about her new position. She talks to Dresden about her new life, and mentions that she has "about one hundred and fifty years of backlog" to catch up on because Maeve neglected her duties for so long. Later, Molly helps Dresden deliver his spirit child of intellect that was stuck in his head - the parasite. She also accompanies Dresden to visit John Marcone and Mab, and convinces Marcone to take a box of diamonds as retribution for the death of one of his employees.

After Nicodemus uses mortal servants to attack her family, Molly tells Dresden that she is using her new wealth as Winter Lady to buy a house near her parents and fill it with bodyguards for them.

At the end of the novel she pulls out a cell phone, frightening Dresden; like most technology, cell phones don't work around wizards, and only nonhuman spellcasters can use them properly. He thinks of everything that Molly is hiding from her parents, and wonders what she is hiding from him. He resolves to watch her closely.