I also don't read post-HBP, but you can already see some clishes being formed:

Ginny and love potions
RAB = Sirius' brother
Horracrux in:
Gryffindor's sword
Sorting hat
Harry's scar
Ginny

But like I said, it doesn't matter really, even those who liked HBP don't like post-HBP fanfiction. There are only several HBP fics even worth mention and Here I Come is one of them...

 

Ginny = Whorecrux? ...Yeah, I know, bad pun and probably been used before, but I couldn't help it. :wink:

 

I agree on the idea that some ideas can be cliche on practically their first usage. In logical terms, that is to say, how good and clever an idea is, coupled with how obvious it is, cross-referenced to how often it has been used before gives it a level of acceptability. RAB = Regulus Black was especially obvious and every usage of it is cliche. Same with Harry as Gryffindor's heir. Things like the magical trunk are good for the first dozen or so interesting uses. Rosswrock's was early enough, since then... it's pretty tired. But especially in a genre that's only a few months old with only a handful of decent finished or near finished stories, sometimes it is better to use the obvious ideas because they haven't been used yet, even knowing they're obvious. The first fanfic that made him an animagus had to know the idea was a million times more in the coming. But still was worth doing. Some ideas are so obvious, they're not worth doing. But like Harry as a horcrux is one idea, I've yet to actually read in a fic (though I'm sure there's one somewhere), and is still cliche right out of the gate.

That said I have no problems with any of the ideas in this one so far. Maybe a couple years down the road, when many of these ideas have been driven into the ground, this fic won't seem as amazingly fantastic and unique as we remembered it. Enh, what can you do? Choosing not so obvious things at this point wouldn't work near as well as they would in a year or two after we're sick of the 'cliches', so it's a catch-22.

But agreed, fine start, and looking forward to more here.

 

Aye with them finding a locket in OOTP that was mysterious, then needing to find a similar locket, b/c the horcrux was swapped out by RAB.. ug.. there's no way in hell it won't be Sirius' brother.

Then again... we are talking about a woman who named a close neighbor of Harry's EVANS, and didn't think anything of it relations wise. (google it, she forgot her own characters names, how pathetic) So maybe she won't go for the obvious, and she'll introduce yet another character with zero backstory who knows Harry's parents.

 

Not to excuse the drunken character planning or cheapness of borrowing friend's names and forgetting you already used that one, but by canon's logic it would be doubtful they'd be related. If they lived close and were family, it would have come up in a decade or so. Canon's Dursley's are not the vicious vindictive abusers fanfic makes them out to be (they aint saints but most fanfic exaggerates our perception of it). But if they were ashamed of that familial relation they would have moved, gossiped about them, etc... in my opinion. JK's all persistent on the only living relatives, blood protection stuff.

And I don't think RAB has been confirmed yet. It seems extremely likely but I didn't think JKR admitted who RAB was or wasn't.

 

What I don't understand about that whole RAB deal is: how the hell did he managed to replace the locket?

Think about it - to cross the lake using that boat one has to posses roughly the same ammount of magical power as Voldemort. Then, Dumbledore as one of the most powerful wizards alive (at the time) was brought to the brink of death while removing the locket. If there weren't for Harry, he would have been killed by those zombies (I refuse to call them inferos or whatever the lame name she pulled out of her arse). And then, even if RAB somehow miraculously managed to pull this off, he then had to conjure exactly the same locket as the one he had just puled out, write that depressing message and then somehow replace that liquid inside the bowl. Hello, reality anyone?

Judging by this, there are only 3 possible conclusions to the whole RAB deal:

- RAB is some super-powerful wizard who suffers from a serious case of depression and unworthyness complex.

- RAB had a lots of help with drinking water from the bowl, crossing the lake etc... maybe there is no RAB-guy at all, and each letter is actually designating one of the people who participated in that quest (3 DE converts?)

- There is no RAB at all - the whole thing was set up by Voldemort himself. Harry will follow RAB initisls to some tomb or something, where he'll be attacked by various defense mechanisms...

But yes, RAB will probably be Regulus in the canon. Since when did JKR give shit about logic?

 

I only just managed to read the latest chapter of this. I've not been doing much reading at the moment (and even less writing, but that's neither here nor there). I really like this fic, along with your other one of course.

As for the sorting hat being a cliché I personally couldn't comment on. This is the only post HPB fic I'm reading (I avoid all others like the plague) so I don't know what's been done before.

Keep up the good work.

 

Like the fic, not bothered about cliché Sorting Hat thing - I haven't read many post-HBP fics so its all the same to me. Update soon please.
Aekiel