This is one of the more unusal fics I have read (and that's really saying something, given my penchant for rarepairs!), and I applaud you on a job excellently done.
In no particular order, here are some of the things I thought worked really well:
- The opening. The rays of light that were prodding Arthur awake was a poetic and really interesting way to start.
- Arthur's pain and desolation came across really clearly. It was almost too painful to read, at times - but that is just further kudos for your descriptive writing :-) To balance that, the fact that he found peace and comfort with Arabella was so very welcome.
- The way Arabella interacted with her cats! You must have cats yourself - or at least have lived with them in the past. That sense of love, responsibility and dotage was just spot-on.
- Muriel was wonderfully formed and three-dimensional; a very believeable product of her generation and her predjudices. I can't say that I exactly liked her - although your rendering was sufficiently nuanced to give her plenty of good qualities as well as the more obvious overbearing ones. A really sharp portrait, there; she felt like a real person.
- Your exploration of goblin-lore and culture made so much sense with what we know from canon. It was wonderful to see Griphook's home, and Bill's explanation of different Goblin races and nations rand very true.
There were many superb lines, but these are the ones which absolutely stood-out for me:
The symmetry of: “I should have known that our family treasures are what a goblin would be interested in!” Muriel said triumphantly. - and - “I can see that it is my family treasures that you are interested in, Miss Prewett,” said the goblin - followed by “I can offer you something better, Miss Prewett. I can tell you that it is not the material worth, but the knowledge of worth in your possession that you love; and that gives you worth in the eye of a goblin.” - A wonderful progression there, in those few lines.
...and then, just summing up the 'climax' of the thing:
Muriel almost howled at the sheer animal lust of the indignity of being fucked by a goblin. Ha ha ha ha!
All in all, thank you very much for this. Thought-provoking, and strikingly 'different'! :-)