This is great! I've been looking forward to this story ever since you mentioned in on your journal, and it doesn't disappoint. I think you strike just the right tone, because I imagine this is just how someone like Isolde would view her actions: she wouldn't see it as monstrous or dark at all, but just as something dictated by necessity -- hers, of course, because no one else is quite real to her.
I love the way you worked in the snuff-film aspect: a clever and imaginative use of magic. Each husband is sharply-characterized, and as others have noted, each killing becomes a little more detached, each one less defensible (not that any of them are really defensible, but in the beginning, she does at least try to excuse herself -- she can tell herself she had nothing to do with Luca's death; Alvise had to die so she could protect Blaise, etc. But by the end, it's basically just for the hell and money of it. She's like a kid who tires of a toy, because what else are these men to her?
"I could tell you," Isolde says lightly. "But then I'd have to kill you."
Hahaha! (Laughing heartily at dramatic irony at the expense of the next victim, Kelly has now become as much of a black widow as Isolde; such is the fun and power of literature.)
It's an excellent narrative choice to include Narcissa: it keeps a necessary link to the HP world (since so many of the characters are more or less outside it or are minor players); it offers a nice twisted-Greek-chorus dimension of external commentary; it does a fine job of contrasting different types of inhumanity.
Adding Kingsley is an inspired touch, too.
I'm so glad you decided to take on the "snuff film" prompt; you've done a fine job with it.
I love the way you worked in the snuff-film aspect: a clever and imaginative use of magic. Each husband is sharply-characterized, and as others have noted, each killing becomes a little more detached, each one less defensible (not that any of them are really defensible, but in the beginning, she does at least try to excuse herself -- she can tell herself she had nothing to do with Luca's death; Alvise had to die so she could protect Blaise, etc. But by the end, it's basically just for the hell and money of it. She's like a kid who tires of a toy, because what else are these men to her?
"I could tell you," Isolde says lightly. "But then I'd have to kill you."
Hahaha! (Laughing heartily at dramatic irony at the expense of the next victim, Kelly has now become as much of a black widow as Isolde; such is the fun and power of literature.)
It's an excellent narrative choice to include Narcissa: it keeps a necessary link to the HP world (since so many of the characters are more or less outside it or are minor players); it offers a nice twisted-Greek-chorus dimension of external commentary; it does a fine job of contrasting different types of inhumanity.
Adding Kingsley is an inspired touch, too.
I'm so glad you decided to take on the "snuff film" prompt; you've done a fine job with it.