By JBern
Reviews
Rebel Goddess posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 4:35am
I think Harry looking worn out would come pretty easy to him at this point. I like Voldemort's absolute faith in his own abilities when they are so flawed.
Killing Draco was an effective move as it added a nice bit of tension to Narcissa's plight.
Remus's language was a great ending to a magnificent fight scene. I especially liked all the wand trickery and the way they used the brother wand effect.
Even better was Scrimgeour's plans for war against France and the masterful introduction of baby Voldemort, with all the accompanying problems. Excellent final chapter to a thriller of a story. Somehow I suspect Harry will manage to prevail in the future though not without some problems along the way. Oh and I can't wait to read Inner Eye...
JBern replied:
Glad you enjoyed it. Much like the aftermath of a war the victors start to eye their allies in the war with suspicion and begin to pursue their own agendas.~Jim
Rebel Goddess posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 3:36am
Poor Harry, turning into Michael Jackson is not a good thing. I really like the newspaper clippings and the cleverness of how they destroyed the floo system so easily. Classic Voldie not to have contingency plans.
JBern replied:
Hardly anyone else mentioned the MJ joke. Here I figured it would have garnered a few more comments. I forgot to put in the Scrimgeour epilogue that they were reactivating the Floo network with Voldy's control crystal still in place. I kept meaning to add that, but I forgot.~Jim
uthamm posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 2:54am
Wow. Just . . . wow. Nice job setting up the future with nothing really resolved. Harry seemed to be getting it, but he is totally getting played by everyone in this situation and soon to be facing two Dark Lords! He should have realized that what Bill told him applied to him as well.
Should have married a Slytherin.
JBern replied:
We Rufus is a power monger. Voldy Mark 2 will have to gauge his own power level in the future before deciding if it's worth his time trying to avenge his former self. Dunno how marrying a Slytherin would have helped him.
Anyway, much like the end of a real war, there is little resolved and the victors begin eyeing each other in suspicion.~Jim
nezza posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 2:53am
jim
wow just wow loved the story. this was the first one of yours i read when i found it on ficwad.
great last few updates. they felt a little rushed towards the end as if the you sped the plot up slowly after the long drawn out scenarios of the earlier chapters but still it was a very nice way to end it.
cheers for the great fic and i hope there are many more to come!!
JBern replied:
Thanks for following it for so long. I could have drawn it out, but it would have added about 4 chapters onto it and I'm pleased with the results.~Jim
kainboa posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 12:57am
great chapter as usual, love the ending.
keep up the great work :)
JBern replied:
Glad you enjoyed.~Jim
rune1806 posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 8:55pm
what a GREAT battle, loved the real world plots going on in the minds of the "winners". enjoyed the ride ty for writing it.
JBern replied:
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. I hope my works continue to impress you for a long time to come.~Jim
David305 posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 7:03pm
Still enjoying, and seeing your fine writing style emerge.
Notes:
"You have already experienced several Portkeys. You know what the around one feels like." I suspect you meant, "You know what the energy around one feels like."
JBern replied:
Yeah, if you want to make me cringe force me to sit there and read the early chapters. I haven't had a chance to go back and do housekeeping, but I will get around to it someday.~Jim
Darak1 posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 6:43pm
While this is a nice conclusion to this fiction a few things strike me among whom the fact that the traps Harry laid where quite gentle (no explosives and reliant on spells only, He could have gone with putting the tunnel under a flammable solution and set it on fire) the patronum of riddle which stood as strange as the spell typicaly relies on positive emotions, something riddle is quite unused to feeling according to most sources and the fact that nobody bothered with the tracking of his soul despite the fact he already escaped once using a soul split method.
All in all one wonders why the wizarding world is not a whole more thorough in what it does.
JBern replied:
There's a misconception that Voldemort is incapable of positive thoughts. Crushing his opponents makes him happy. Killing makes him happy and so on.
As for the traps, Harry used muggle explosives on the surface to try and collapse the tunnel while one of the people he had outside used the poison to drive them towards the mansion. The poison was obvious and easily countered with a bubblehead charm, but that cut down on their ability to effectively communicate with each other as did the silencing field on the other side.
Given that there is canon support of wizards and witches surviving being burnt alive (Harry's history of magic blurb about the witch who used to enjoy being burnt at the stake back in book 2 or 3) flammable liquid wouldn't have been a showstopper. It would have worked against the Trolls, but not the Death Eaters.
In this story Riddle didn't use Horcruxes, he made a deal with the Dementors to protect him from Death the first time. That Riddle died here. The baby is essentially a clone if you will with Voldemort's memories overlayed on top of his own. He knows he's not the real Voldemort anymore than the Tom in the Diary would have been (again in this story since we're not dealing with soul fragments). Since this baby's soul is different, it has no connection to Harry Potter and they share no link.
Harry no longer feels a link to Voldemort nor the Dementors. No one saw Voldemort's spirit flee his body along the lines of him leaving Quirrell. There is no compelling reason for them to continue looking for Voldemort. I hope that clarifies my position.
David305 posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 5:58pm
Enjoying! Note:
"She has been so happy since she got rid of her mutt of a brother." Bellatrix was Sirius' cousin, not his sister. Says so in book 5, ch. 6 -- remember the tapestry?
'Oh, yeah, her mother Andromeda was my favourite cousin,' said Sirius,
examining the tapestry closely. 'No, Andromeda's not on here either, look'
He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and
Narcissa.
'Andromeda's sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure]
blood marriages...'
Cheers,
David
JBern replied:
Probably the most glaring of my many errors in this story and when I do housekeeping, it'll be the first to get fixed. Glad you are enjoying.~Jim
noylj posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 5:40pm
I hate the "monster that never dies" story and you just did it. Great, until that crap. Oh well. Thanks for writing.
JBern replied:
Sorry you didn't like the ending. As a person who had cheated death once, Voldemort would have been looking for a contingency plan the moment the Dementors turned him down for the same arrangement they had previously. (Remember no Horcruxes in this story.)
The other ending I considered (besides Voldy winning - yes I actually thought of writing it) was Penny in some school somewhere with a room full of children and they were all reading a copy of the Diary of Tom Riddle which would have been a true "Boys from Brazil" ending.~Jim
skulLXeon posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 5:12pm
That really was a good ending. I'm glad i spotted this story when i did. Good job as usual and yeah, i'll be on the look out for your book. =D I figure, that if you did a kickass job with a HP fic, you can do better on an origal story.
Well, this was a great read and so, I bid thee Adieu.....
AGX[TAIL]
JBern replied:
That's what I'm hoping as well. Thanks for the review.~Jim
LoggingInSucksAss posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 4:26pm
Dare I say it? This was an almost tame ending to such a garish amd violent tale. The final battle was top notch but painfully brief, shockingly so in light of all the deaths that preceded it in earlier chapters.
That said, you've wrapped everything up quite well, right down to horrible kids names a la JKR. Dana katherine, though? Do you have a closet X Files fetish we need to know about? : )
JBern replied:
Dana was for Susan's mother. Katherine was to honor Katie Bell. Not really much of an X-Files fan. After the first few seasons lost a bit of interest there.
Sorry you felt the ending was tame, I went with the concept of Harry throwing his sum total of his experiences at Riddle. I wanted to show that as far as Harry had come, he was still outclassed by Voldemort and needed to do all that to win, thus trying to stay true to the realism that a teenager would acquire the necessary skills to overcome a master of the dark arts - if that makes sense.~Jim
Fishburne posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 4:20pm
Brilliant as always, Tonks death was extremely apropos, and I do so enjoy a delacour getting put in its place.
Interesting bit there with Penny and ickle voldie moldies.
Nice turn of phrase, and I can see Sawyer in that statement.
Love your work, can't wait for the next exciting mutterings.
Fish
JBern replied:
Like I said in a review reply above, my original idea for an ending was Penny teaching in front of a classroom and every student reading a copy of The Diary of Tom Riddle...a real "Boys from Brazil" ending. Glad you enjoyed the story. Don't really watch Lost if that's the Sawyer you're referring to so the reference is "Lost" on me. Next mutterings coming soon.~Jim
Sonicdale posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 4:16pm
A fitting end.
And, of course, you'll have the fans screaming over the cliffie ending. ;)
Loved that Harry outsmarted everyone, including Hermione. Great, that.
Good work. Looking forward to your other works.
JBern replied:
Well as a reviewer over at ff(dot)net pointed out Voldy Mark 2 will have his hands full bending the Native Americans to his will and his different upbringing will undoubtedly affect him more than he can conceive. Glad you liked the ending.~Jim
Alex00 posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 4:13pm
Awesome stuff.
JBern replied:
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.~Jim
Jim_xinu posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 2:48pm
Good couple chapters, and a good story overall. Thanks for sharing it with us. And good luck with your original works.
JBern replied:
Thanks. I appreciate it. I hope my works continue to impress you in the future.~Jim
mjc posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 1:15pm
Well, that's all?
For some reason, I don't know, but I keep thinking that little Anthony should be named Damian...
In some ways, this final chapter was a bit of a let down. All the carnage in the story and it comes down to a well placed trap and a slightly over powered blasting curse. Oh, wait...there was the troll flambe, the Banshee Crush, exploding corpses, Dawlish kabob...yeah, I guess the overall carnage level is what we've come to expect.
And for some reason, I just don't see Narcissa really going all to pieces of the demise of her little dragon turd. Yeah, the initial shock of it, but a little later...no.
JBern replied:
Well remember in the early books Draco was getting a care package from his mummy most every day and a few chapters ago she was partially blaming herself for how Draco turned out. So yeah, that's all. Though Bungle was completed first, this was my first real attempt at novel length fanfiction and I think it came out pretty well. There were parts where it got muddled and what not, but overall I'm very proud of the completed story.~Jim
warpwizard posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 1:13pm
Good stuff. Okay, I take back what I said about Narcissa. :)
I like the "people have agendas" ending. And the creepy Voldemort ending.
Yeah, it was good, especially Violent Neville, but I'm looking forward to more TML. MOAR! With more Luna. ;)
What genre is your novel?
JBern replied:
I thought you might. The Lie I've Lived is up next, but I'll be alternating with TML for the forseeable future.~Jim
PerfesserN posted a comment on Monday 12th November 2007 12:14pm
VERY nice ending, ending?
Well, maybe. . .
I have the image of Darth Vader's crippled TIE fighter spinning away from the exploding Death Star here for some reason.
Who was it that said "Good will triumph over evil, but for how long?"
The blatant open-endedness of this story makes it that much more satisfying. We know several story lines can emerge from the foundation of TFtCD and if you never write another line of story or dialogue in this world that you have created that'll be okay too.
Your faithful readers do not lack imaginations.
Here’s to your continuing stories, your next epics, and best of luck in your writing goals.
I'll be first in line at my local bookstore.
N!
JBern replied:
Like I said a few reviews above this one. My original ending was Penny teaching a bunch of children in a school somewhere and each and every one of them reading from a copy of The Diary of Tom Riddle - real "Boys from Brazil" style ending, but I figured that Voldy Mark 2 wouldn't want that kind of competition.
Glad you liked the open ending. Maybe I'll write that 19 years down the road short story/one shot someday, but if I don't it'll leave much to the imagination.~Jim
mathiasgranger posted a comment on Tuesday 13th November 2007 6:17am
JBern replied: