So. Very. Good. Kara, this story was great--the presence of a curse after all was a great touch, and I love the surprise (at least for me) that Natasha was a thief! I was beginning to think Marcus was involved in some way, but you really got me with Natasha. One of the real strengths here is the detail you've created in this world of curse-breaking, and the overwhelming presence of magic in the story. Loved how much the characters relied upon it... though far from Hogwarts, this was just so very magical and so very Harry Potter. LOVE. The canon tie-in at the end is perhaps my favorite of all the fabulous small touches... what a brilliant way to ground this fic and this curse-breaking universe you've created into Harry's known world. Really, really enjoyed this, Kara.
Karaaaaaaa. :) Hello there. Seems I've been sucked into the vortex that is your author page, but I don't mind it a bit. I'm enjoying this a lot, halfway through now, and so impressed with the curse-breaking world you've imagined here. Such attention to detail and layers of mystery and questions... it's fab! I love your Bill almost as much as your Charlie, and there are still six chapters for me to read! Just really hooked on your storytelling, Kara. Good stuff. I hope to finish in the next day or so.
Kara,
This was a great mystery. Action packed, emotion packed and secret packed. :)
I loved it..
Somehow I though that Marcus would be involved.. without any logical deduction though... you have kept the story interesting till the end.. I thoroghly enjoyed it...Thank you so much..
-- Aaicha
Author's Response: Thank you very much for reading and taking the time to review! :) I'm very glad you enjoyed it. I suppose there was something shifty about Marcus's character all along, wasn't there? It's great to know that you think the story was interesting till the end... nothing worse than dropping to a boring point before the big reveal!
Again, thank you a lot for this review. It means so much to me.
:OOOOOOOO
:OOOOOOOO
-sigh-
What a fabulous mystery! You have definitely had me on a leash ha ha ha. I should have picked up something when I read the convo with Pilliwickle in the last chapter. But I'm happy I was wrong about most things :D
Now, I need to know what the secret is and pester you to write the next one!
Author's Response: Thank youuuu for all the reviews. You know what the secret is now.... But it'll be a while before the next Bill story, sadly. Thanks again, and mucho love!
:O :O :O :O
O: O: O: O:
:O :O :O :O
O: O: O: O:
DEVERILL AND PILLIWICKLE ARE IN IT TOGETHER! ALTHEA FOUND OUT WHAT DEVERILL WAS DOING AND SO SHE WAS MURDERED!
Though, what did Mahon have to do with it? Did he see something? Or was it part of the curse ruse?
What does Marcus have to do with this???
GAHHHHHHH.
Author's Response: eeeeek. Deverill and Pilliwickle... That would have been an interesting combo. WHAT exactly would they have been in though? hahaha. Glad I could lead you on for a brief while...
Marcus.
Interesting character. Very interesting.
Now, why the hell don't wizards check for fingerprint? >.>
I want to know what Pilliwickle ha to say.
Author's Response: You know the thing about fingerprints is... As soon as they became very popular as a method, mystery writers found a way around them. So in Agatha Christie's books, Poirot always waved the idea of checking for them off, arguing that any criminal with an ounce of cleverness would have worn gloves. I doubt wizards ever checked for fingerprints in the first place, since there's a lot you can do with a well aimed Wingardium Leviosaaaaa, if Ron can whack the troll on the head in his first year. Thank youuuuu for the review!
Wouldn't it be glorious if Stadwell was behind this? Haha!
Okay, motive. Motive. Motive.
I keep thinking Marcus because he's the only one with obvious benefits. What if this curse thing he's working up is a ruse? What if the people really believed the curse is there and abandons the tomb? All that gold!
(Oh, I really don't know how it works, though. If there's a curse on the treasure, are they abandoned? Or do the goblins take them anyway?)
Am I focussing only on the gold as a motive?
Are Deverill and Natasha together?
GAHH.
Author's Response: If there's a curse, it has to be broken. If it can't be broken, I'm thinking it might be taken to a sort of research facility with specialists. Someone like Bill wouldn't leave a curse lying around for anyone to stumble across, and the goblins wouldn't leave the gold lying around.
How does Marcus benefit though?
OH NO!
Well, Chubbs was a red herring. :O
This was such a spine-chilling chapter, though! I mean, the suspense was so bloody thick. Ha. Pun.
Okay, Marcus. What if this is set up to look like a curse? Did he really see a shadow pass near the sarcophagus?
CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT!
Author's Response: I wrote this at uni and got myself into quite the panic while writing... This is also the first part I wrote of this story. I'm really pleased that it seems to create some semblance of suspense, because I was so desperately going for that. Thank you :-*
I need to reprocess my thoughts.
Is Natasha involved?
What's the connection between Althea and Deverill?
Is the attack on Pilliwickle staged? If so, why?
Is Marcus genuinely paranoid or is this an act?
Questions, questions.
Author's Response: Answers shall follow! Love you for doing this love love
:ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The smut has got me all hot and bothered, but OMP! Mahon's dead!
I don't want Natasha to be evil.
BUT I don't want to suspect Althea either because that is so obvious :/
Author's Response: EEEK reaching territory of stuff you haven't read yet now! AAAAH... Well how COULD Natasha have done anything while she was doing the nasty with Bill...
WHOAAAA! So many things happening!
Okay, Chubbs gets more suspicious with each word written about her, and Papadoulopos seems like one of those "as long as you're bringing the gold in, I'll be laughing" characters. It's, of course, too early to make any concrete judgments.
Right now, I can't help but feel that something bad is going to happen to Marcus D:
But before that, some sexin', eh?
Author's Response: Eeeeeek.... Yeah, you've got Papadopoulus about right. He's cool with everyone as long as all the gold is there in the end.
When I read your draft, this was my favourite section.
It still is.
I am so envious of how you've written Bill's work. I've always wanted to it myself, but I just never had enough imagination (or the will to research). It was so exciting to read all this.
Onwards!
Author's Response: Well you have written about Bill's work, though, haven't you.... albeit in a slightly different manner. Thank you thank you thank youuuuuu for all the reviewing!
The plot thickens!
What I find most impressive is the amount of detail you've put into this line of profession. The goblins' unflinching scrutiny, the curses, the distribution of fees. They could easily be canon.
I need to know what's up with poor Marcus.
Author's Response: Eeek thank you. All of that wasn't even in my original plan but felt reasonable as I was writing. It's a totally fascinating profession, isn't it? I want to do iiiiit!
Follow thislink quietly if you value your life:
http://fanfiction.mugglenet.com/reviews.php?type=ST&item=88898
Author's Response: I was truly hoping that this would lead to me finally being recruited for a secret service...
First chapter in. It's as good as the first time I read it. :D I love the sense of adventure that has already set in. Who's Chubbs and what's her real goal? Is Natasha good or evil? Must read on to find out more!
Author's Response: OMP it has begun :x can't wait for more reviews /greedygreedo. Love love love you. Thanks for taking the tiiiiiime!
Finally, I get a moment to myself and can read this properly. Thank you for such a splendid story. You're so good at mysteries and this was so intriguing.
I didn't work out who it was, and am kicking myself because the clues were there, but I did suspect Natasha and had an inkling about the artefacts, mainly because it was her word only and also - unless she died - we have prior knowledge of Bill and Fleur, so I knew it couldn;t work out. I was totally fooled by the fact that she and Marcus were in it together, although when they were working togetehr on the sandstorm I did start to wonder.
I didn't want it to be Marcus, and that's a strength, my Karador, because I cared about him. I cared about an OC you created and the fact that he was Bill's friend *sigh*. Natasha ... hmmm, well, I like Fleur, so obviously I'm going to twitch a little at any woman who gets their wicked way with him, but I did love the character and was very impressed at the clear way you wrote her. She was easy to picture and the final scenes when she's spilling everything were written so very well.
I do hope you write more Bill mysteries. (There could be a witch he meets who is good but they part because um ... I ... I mean she ... I'll leave it up to you, but she's quite short and with mad hair - hee hee.)
I can't review very well, but just so you know, I really did enjoy reading this and it's not because you're a flister, it's because it's a bloody good story and very different from the usual fanfic.
Blooming brilliant. Well done, Karador, just ... well done. *sigh* ~Carole~
Author's Response: Carooooooooooooooooooole
How do I reply... uhm. OH well, I think I remember you saying a while ago that you suspected Marcus (when I hadn't posted yet but you betaed for me) and that threw a bit of a stick between my legs because I thought -- damn, she's already figured it out. I considered changing it all, but then decided to just run with it, and work harder to still have it be a surprise in the end. His motives were part of the mystery, as they always are, because even if he had means and opportunity, as long as he isn't a psychopath, he'll need a motive too.
Natasha wasn't meant to be evil when I started planning, but after a while she just screamed art thief to me, and so that was her. And it just made a lot of sense that Marcus would be a person who can be talked into that sort of thing because he's so worried about his financial situation and it seems like a safe thing really.
Oh dear Carole, Bill's next... adventure has been planned weeks ago. Just wait and see -- hahaha. It's all planned out. And I do love all of your reviews, so they're brilliant no matter what you say! HA.
thank you so much for all your help and encouragement and everything you've given me while I was writing this and fretting.
OK, now I've finished and I think it was very good.
I had suspected Marcus from the start, though not for the motives you gave him, but Natasha being an art thief (my favorite kind of thief, BTW) was a complete surprise. The emotion-heightening curse was ingenious and the effects nicely described in the early chapters.
All-in-all a nice piece of work.
(Now I'm off to your author page to see what else you've written)
-MM-
Author's Response: Thank you very much for reading it all and reviewing! The motives were part of the mystery, because really, he was behaving too oddly not to be suspicious. I do love art thiefs too -- they're so wonderfully glamorous somehow. They know about art and its worth and are still devious enough to steal it. I might write about an actual art heist some day, because I think there are just too many possibilities not to explore one or two of them...
I'm very glad that you liked this story. I hope my author's page isn't too disappointing -- I took a bit of a break from writing for a while, so there are a lot of stories that are still unfinished. I will get back to most of them some day, but I've been sucked up in this mystery thing lately, so I'll probably write one or two new stories before returning to the old ones. I really hope you'll be back when I submit something new though, and not put off by the out-of-date-ness of my author's page!
Thanks again. I really appreciate the reviews!
OK, just a small correction to make. A SABLE is an animal from the weasel family that is prized for it's black fur. A SABRE is a curved, single-edged sword often used by cavalry. Unless you want people picturing someone being murdered by a stuffed black ferret you may want to change that.
Author's Response: OH thank you for the correction, I'll change it right away. English isn't my first language, and here, we spell it with an l. It only gets a tad confusing when words are similar, but not identical... Anyway, thanks! It does make for an interesting picture though, doesn't it...
Hi Karaaa
I really enjoyed this story! Your plot was really well thought out and interesting. I never warmed up to Marcus though so I wasn't overly surprised at the end, but have having both Marcus AND Natasha be the bad guys was unexpected - poor Bill!
I loved your characterization of Bill. He was the perfect mixture of super cool guy and Head Boy.
Thanks for writing this! I'm in Egypt at the moment actually, and am flying to Luxor tomorrow. I'll connect this fic with my stay here from now on. =)
Andi
Author's Response: ANDI! I haven't heard from you in forever. You're in Egypt, that is so exciting! I'm very jealous. I'm also extra glad you liked it then, and didn't think the setting was wildly off. Thank you so so much for your kind words. I think Marcus was a bit too obvious, but I'm still learning, so...
This review was such a surprise, I'm so glad to hear from you. And glad that you seem to be doing well. Have a ton of fun while you're staying in Egypt!
Cliffhanger addict! I'm glad I decided to wait until you had this all finished before reading it. So far it's a good read.
Author's Response: Hey! Thank you very much for your review. Yeah, there are rather a lot of cliffhangers, especially towards the end of the story. They just make such good chapter endings! ;) Glad you're enjoying it so far.
