Finally back to the first chap, eh, jbern? Fabulous chap, as usual, hope you update soon.

My opinion: If Bill does die, make sure he takes somebody with him...like Ginslut.

 

good work jbern I'm really looking forward to more
of this fic, I have to admit I was confused as hell while reading
the beginning of the first chapter. But it turned out to be a
great fic. Keep it up.

 

Bill: “We’ve got an agreement – eighteen percent of the gold and first selection of magic items contained in the vault areas. The goblins get the rest and first choice of the items from the ruins of town.”

It would be really interesting to discover that the damn Horcrux isn't inside the bank, and that the goblins want it. Voldie hasn't got much of a thing for goblins. Why would he put part of his soul in the home of what he considers as below humans. It would be a sign of self-disrespect. He wouldn't do that. He would place it somewhere where blood purity is high.

Consider it. The diary was given to Lucius Malfoy - blood purist, member of his inner circle and most probably top large'n'open pocket and the top Imperio-casting-guy. The ring was in residence (however run-down as it was) of the Gaunt family, of the Slytherin line. The locket is in the place of birth of Lord Voldemort, the place where he first showed his true power to the disgusting muggles, where he begun to torment them.

This is Amazon. Snakes everywhere. It would be improbable that there wasn't a parseltongue around. One that didn't care much for the ideals of a parseltongue Dark Lord. One who defied Voldie. And got him in such a rage that he massacred a whole city.

My opinion is that the Horcrux is in some manor, not in the goblin bank. I may be wrong, but the goblin bank simply does not fits the blood purist Dark Lord profile.

Thoughts?

Boghi

 

I think it would provide some good conflict for the next few chapters. Of course, should this happen, things will move like they would during a bad drug deal. Painfully, with lots of violence.

 

If you went to some city that was lost for thousands of years, or where about to put under the fidileus curse where are you going to put it, in some unsafe place within the city because you are not a paranoid darklord and like to leave things in the open or within a safe which is guarded by goblins and under the best protections known to wizard kind!!

 

Short answer, Pride.

 

Reverse psycology maybe. Or maybe he's so certain that no one will get past all the other things that he wouldn't think putting it into a bank would be needed. Besides, someone managed to break into Gringotts in the first book...

 

That was voldemort who broke into grigotts in the first book, not someone else.

I'm sure that whatever Jbern comes up with will blow everyone away like usual. No Pressure

 

The city wasn't lost for thousands of years:

Lone Thundercloud: “I was there in my youth. It was a nice magical city. Thirty-five years ago, the city disappeared. There were rumors of a Dark Wizard, who slaughtered the population and was powerful enough to hide an entire city from the world. Many have tried to find it. There are rumors that at least one succeeded, but he came back missing a limb as screaming about it being a Necropolis and that his entire expedition was slaughtered.”

Though it was probably created before the "discovery of America" by whichever magical people were around.

 

Never said someone else, just someone.

 

Warning! Rant incoming!

I just realized something. What if we never get to see/read the Weasley Family Reunion (i believe it will be worthy of the capital letters) or Harry's meeting with his former friends? It is possible to bug out of it with a few abbreviated flashbacks.
Like H: How did it go?
B: We all got out alive, if that's what you mean.
That's not what i want. I need a blow-by-blow of that, because Grand Master Jbern is an amazing narrator of Quarrels.
Or, worse
B: And how was your class reunion?
H: We're not talking. Buy me a beer?
I want to read Bill declaring himself as the only redhead with a scrap of decency. I want to read a capslocked Molly SPEECH, where she defends herself to absurdity, just to be promptly deflated when she hears her own stupidity. I want to read about when Ron and Hermione happily shouts Harry's name and fall mute when he takes a battlestance and pours a Firewhip out of his wand in sinous coils.
Hell yeah.
Hell, hell yeah.

Sorry about the rant, but i just imagined these scenes, wondering how Jbern would do them to outdo anything i imagine again, when it struck me that he can choose not to. This is just panic talking.

I'll just take my pills now.

g

 

gadriam, this is Jbern we're talking about I cant honestly see him doing that. I fully expect a Weasley brawl.

 

As to the above posts about where the Horcrux is located, I have to say that it will fall into one of two categories. Either they are going to:

A.) have to rip apart the bank to find the damn thing, plowing through a bunch of nasty Goblin wards, not to mention whatever else Voldemort has stashed away (I can just see another necrodragon like he has in To Fight the Coming Darkness), and then prevent it from killing whoever holds onto it (remember what the Ring did to Dumbledore's hand...). I vote for Collins getting possessed by the Dark Lord!
or
B.) not find it in the bank, forcing them to branch out into the city. Once they find it in the local branch of the DMLE's courtroom, the manage to remove it but not before triggering some sort of massive ward cascade when it is removed, leading to a massive escape chapter with the city's wards imploding around them. When the remainder escape, the survivors have to high tale it out of the area to prevent the goblins from realizing that they flitched one of the magical artifacts even though goblins had first pick. Hence Harry's (and hopefully Kwan's, Bill's, Thundercloud's, and Hack's) quick departure from South America with Goblins hounding at their heels for failing to escape with the gold.

At least, that's my two cents. I think that if I were a betting man, I would have to put money on the second option, as it leaves a lot more storytime for inside the city. I think it would be great if they were kept down there until mid-November... can you imagine how messed up they would be upon release? hehehe... I can't wait to see what he does with the alarm tied to the horcrux like the one that "activated" the inferi in book 6. The cursebreakers should be able to disarm it, but what if things were going to hell around them anyway?

 

In the Bungle!Universe goblins don't have wards of their own.
If the rumor about dragons guarding the high security vaults are true than Harry & co are in deep s#!* .
Collins is not one of the curse breakers and isn't "stupid" either (though in the ch18 tease he's way too trigger happy). After all, they were all briefed upon the thing they were after.

The smart way about looking through the city would be to open the door halfway and to pick the incoming inferi at their own pace. but that would take time. And it seams in the teaser that they don't have time. I mean if a trigger happy Collins is bad enough, if Kwan loses his wits at one time or another it will be much worse.
Another thing is Harry's position in the group. First he was "stupid cook", then he saved Maria, Bill and Kwan and outflew a dragon, but he was still the "stupid lucky Cook". Later he was "stupid lucky kitty Cook". At the end of the last chapter Kwan said to him "Good luck. Fight well. Don’t be stupid.". He was no longer stupid, he no longer relied on luck, but on skill, and he was no longer Cook. He was a member of the team.

What I'm trying to get to is that Jbern is building Harry's character towards a position of respect and authority in the team, and Harry kind of likes goblins. I don't see him pulling a fast one on them for several reasons. First, he compares himself to them in first chapter. Two, he would not like them as enemies. They could rant him to those that are looking for him or, worse, start getting friendly with Tom, with all that it implies.

Do they need the thing intact? I doubt it. By then they would be all a bit trigger happy and would like no more than to destroy the damned thing. And though I know it isn't very original they could conjure propane or methane and blow the place up. It should destroy the horcrux. If not it should at least play
havoc upon the wards guarding it, whether organic or not.

Anyway, I'll settle for anything Jbern gives us.

 

i doubt an explosion will be enough to destroy it, remember it's magic

beside if they could conjure a highly flammable liquid i'd immagine they would do so just to take care of the inferi (flamethrower anyone?) so i guess they can't (otherwise this would get silly )

 

I'm certain that it is possible to conjure propane. But they mentioned that fire wasn't as effective as it was supposed to be.

Really looking forward to the next chapter.

Edit: Rereading, I find Luna to be a bit too bitchy for my taste. I get that she has problems, but Harry's are worse. He doesn't need that shit.

 

Can she see that? How much does she know about Harry's problems. Does she have enough distance from her own problems to evaluate them and Harry's in comparison?
She only knows what Harry tells her in their correspondence, has to try and guess what's going on from how he is wording his replies and how long it takes for him to reply.
Then, she also has to directly live with the fallout from Harry's disappearance while Harry is far removed from that and the situation in England and faily able to conentrate only on his current own actions and problems.
He may not need that shit but neither does Luna.

 

it might not be that effective as a scaring tactic but trust me, dousing someone with kerosine and then setting it to light works wonders when your trying to kill someone.

Now imagine that on a slightly larger scale and they wouldn't have a problem with those pesky undead anymore

 

There are a couple of problems with using fire...

1. They (Harry and the rest) still need to breathe. Burning up all the air in an enclosed space is a BAD IDEA.

2. It has been mentioned that the air quality may not be very good to begin with and that fire was not a 'first choice' because of that. While the area they are currently in may not have enough methane in it to be explosive, that isn't to say other parts of the bank (read vaults) may not have high enough concentrations to go BOOM...methane is heavier than air and tends to go down (collects near the floor, etc), so setting off a fire of their own may just bring the whole place down on their heads.

And as far as physical forces acting upon magical items to destroy them...yes they can. If a wand can be destroyed by snapping it, almost anything can be destroyed by applying the same idea. Dumbledore never really admitted how his hand got cooked, but implied that it was a protection on the hiding place and not the destruction of the Horcrux in the ring that did it.

 

true, but considering that they are talking about a city there should be a street outside the bank with open air, so they probably could use fire out there.
The concerns about methane buildup are clear for the inside of the building but out there it shouldnt be a problem.

Trying to mix magic with logic usually gives me a headache, but considering that flame-freezing charms are common, it would be pretty silly if Voldemort had not protected his Horcrux as well as he could (including a whole bag of charms to protect it from the elements and whatnot)