Ivy

Ivy, usually known as the Archive, is a human female. She first appears in Death Masks.

Description
In Death Masks, as The Archive, she is the neutral emissary for the Duel between Dresden and Paolo Ortega under the Code Duello outlined in the Unseelie Accords.

She is a little girl (seven in Death Masks, twelve in Small Favor, a teen in Changes) with blond hair and within the average height deviation for her age group. Ivy speaks with a faint British accent. She prefers calculus to magic though she is very powerful. She likes cute animals.

Harry is her only friend and Kincaid is the closest thing to a father she has ever known.

Biography
Her bodyguard and driver is Jared Kincaid, who has also become a dear friend. As she has no name other than "The Archive", Harry Dresden nicknamed her "Ivy".

Ivy was born to a long line of women holding the Archive and passing it from mother to daughter. Her grandmother was killed young; Ivy's mother, still young, could not handle her new role and killed herself, thereby passing the Archive on to Ivy.

In Small Favor, it's told that since Ivy was born, she has been The Archive. She's never had the chance to develop her own identity, her mind, her own personality.

Death Masks
In Death Masks, The Archive pays a visit to Harry Dresden in her role as neutral emissary for the Duel. Ivy outlined the rules and told Harry to get a second by sundown or forfeit and be killed by her. Harry gives The Archive her name: "Ivy", derived from the "ive" part of Archive. Ivy is totally captivated by Mister, fondly petting him and Mister likes her back.

At the duel, The Archive, Ivy, provides a Deathstone, a Mordite sphere for the Duel of Wills.

Small Favor
In Small Favor, Harry asks for The Archive to be the moderator between the Denarians and Harry on behalf of Marcone's representatives: Ms. Gard and Hendricks. The meeting is set up at the Shedd Aquarium where she is kidnapped by the Denarians. Harry writes her a note letting her know he's coming to rescue her, she's not alone, The Archive should get it.

Harry frees Ivy from an elaborate greater circle created by Polonius Lartessa of the Denarians on Demonreach. Later, through hugs and tears Ivy tells Harry that she got his letter, and thanked him.

Anastasia Luccio later explains to Harry that the power and knowledge of the Archive is passed from mother to daughter, and ideally only after the new Archive has had a life with a family and children to insulate herself when she gains all the memories of her ancestors. In Ivy's case, her grandmother died unexpectedly in a car accident when she was middle-aged. Her teenage mother was young and in love, and when she became the Archive she hated her mother for dying and forcing her to become the new Archive, and she hated her unborn daughter for having a life of freedom ahead of her. She committed suicide, and Ivy became the Archive as an infant, knowing exactly what her mother had done and what she thought of Ivy.

Changes
During Changes, Harry contacted her through writing a note, asking for information on where Maggie was being held. Ivy was initially unable to help due to the limitations imposed on the Archive, but after Harry threatened to turn to demonic aid, she was able to summon up enough willpower to temporarily override the Archive, just long enough to help Harry by pointing him in the direction of Johnny Marcone, who did have useful information.

Ghost Story
In Ghost Story, Ivy would have found out that Harry died the moment anything was written, it would shatter her since Harry was her only friend. She's about twelve or thirteen now.

Word of Butcher
In 2012 the author stated on his forums that Ivy is in charge of the Oblivion War.


 * I knew I wanted to do "creepy little girl." Because creepy little girls are a great character. But then after I figured out what her powers were and how she would behave, I had to start working out the extended consequences of what that character would be like. Originally she was supposed to be "creepy little girl, ok but why does she get any respect. Ok she knows all this stuff, now she's creepy little girl who knows everything. That's bad. That's scary.
 * But then she was another character that was only supposed to show up for one book, but wound up being interesting enough and having enough of a vibe with Harry and his latent father impulses to be worth showing up again and again. So she's another one of those characters that sort of out grew what I originally cast her for.