This was excellent. I love the historical value of the piece and how you integrated Gaunt into it. It's also quite amusing that Voldemort's downfall was predetermined by the curse, shame he never researched his ancestry more thoroughly.
I do not know any Spanish at all and when i saw your fic i was like... ok this is unusual but then i read it and what did i find? read on below (i like to keep people in suspense).. Your descriptions are really well done and you managed to convey the atmosphere in Valencia beautifully though i do not know where that is. I have to agree with ladyalesha, what was the spell on the locket? Also you could add a bit more action to speed things up a bit! But overall an excellent peice of writing!
Author's Response: Valencia is actually a coastal city in Spain. :) -- Hmmm... guess I still haven't fully fixed that description of that locket spell ...I know what you mean ... but I still haven't figured out how to speed up the pace when using 1st person POV - especially when dialogues were avoided (because it was written for a Monologue Challenge)
What first caught my eye was the title of your fic. Although I can't speak a word Spanish and didn't know what it meant at all, the title made your fic stand out to me and I just had to read it. Now that I know what the title means in English, I have to say it's a good thing you translated it to Spanish. I probably wouldn't have read the fic if it had the English title and missed out on a real treat.
I was hooked on your fic from the first line on. Your descriptions are really well done and you managed to convey the atmosphere in Valencia beautifully. I felt as if I was there, seeing the city with my own eyes, hearing the people talk and wail. The battle scene was very good as well. I lived the line about strategy and psychology winning a war, not numbers.
I have to admit that I'm still not sure what exactly the locket did to Ximena. What kind of spell did it put her under? Some kind of imperius? I loved her curse at the end, though, and how Niccolo believes that the locket will protect him and his descendants. The bit about the unicorn in disguise and calling up an inferius were also very nice touches, especially since both species play a role in Voldemort's life and are used by him.
Last but not least I love the character of Niccolo. His ambition and cunning are traits I associate with Slytherin and his descendants, while he still manages to make me feel for him and hope that he will achieve what he sets out to do. You created a completely likeable villain, which is one of the hardest things to do. I like the way he looks down on the mudbloods around him and thinks he is superior to them. - Are all the people of Valencia really mudbloods (witches and wizards) or are they mere muggles? Their reaction to the inferius and how readily they believe him to be a corpse tied to the horse suggests that they are muggles but you keep referring to them as mudbloods. So I was just wondering what they actually were. - Niccolo's decision to leave Valencia rather than ruling a doomed city without magic is very in-character for him and a nice ending for your fic, although I'm curious where he will go and what adventures lie ahead of him. I don't think his story is really over there;)
Brilliant story you have there, perhaps you might consider writing a sequel?^^
Author's Response: *lol* I do like that it sounds exotic :)Hmm... will have to work on clarifying that locket's purpose ... I haven't thought about that ... I did thought that Mudbloods would refer to both Muggles and Muggle-born. I'll have to go find a rude term for Muggle. Thanks for pointing that out.
BTW have you ever though of joining SPEW? because honestly that's on hell of a contructive critic. And it truly helped me a lot ... I didn't realise those loopholes and tahnks for reading. Glad you enjoyed this :)
