Title: Euphoria
Author: Anarchy (me)
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
Status: Complete (117,000 words)
Library Category: General Fics
Pairings: Harry/Fleur
Summary: A generic year 4 canon rehash fic featuring eventual Harry/Fleur.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11534019/1/Euphoria

I've put off submitting this story for two years, for a couple reasons:
Firstly, I just don't really think it's DLP's cup of tea. It’s not a timetravelling globetrotting epic written by a scotch-drinking Brit. And, no matter the words that come after this, at the end of the day, it is just a normal year 4 canon rehash, and we've all ready a million of them.

Secondly, and it's kind of admission of my own failures, is that I know how this site works, what it likes and doesn't like. So, for awhile I was kind of at the point where I would rather not have this story on the site at all, than have it end up in the recycling or trash bin. I put a lot of work into the story, and none of it was in the WBA.

Thirdly, after I had originally posted the story to FFN, I had plan to go back and re-edit it one last time, to super-polish it before uploading it here. I had started doing that last year, and got up to chapter 12. Then, I realized that the chapters I was editing were not actually the most up-to-date chapters on FFN, which leads me to believe that I had directly edited the chapters on FFN with reviewer corrections rather than updating my google docs, which means everything is sort of desynced. I kind of lost the will to continue it. Flashback to now, a year after that. I suddenly decided I was going to pick off where I left off, and finish re-editing this thing, but then I rediscovered the whole desynced thing again, and said fuck it. What's up there is what's up there, and I'll fully accept marks off for grammar or whatever. Not to mention, I've been having the urge to get on and start writing the sequel again, but I can't do that if I'm busy going through this story again. Also, I have gotten a bunch of positive feedback from members of this site on IRC, so I figured why not post it.

With that out of the way, on to the actual story. There is truth to the summary. You can call it self-depreciating if you want, but I don’t really see the point of glamorizing it. It’s straight to the point, and you can’t really misconstrue it as anything else. If you get disappointed by the story not being something that it's not, well, the story is exactly as told. And I will never pretend I’m some amazing author - it is what it is.

This fic was written for one sole reason. That reason is that there was no Harry/Fleur 4th year story that was straightforward and to the point, without the gimmicks. This is a story that simply works, and too many people always got caught on how to make the pairing worked, and there's some pre-conceived notion that it simply can't. This story was my attempt at cutting all the bullshit out.

So I guess you can say that this story exists to prove a point. Whether or not the story has proven the point is up for the reader to decide. But the point is that I’ve always hated the idea that no one could write a Harry/Fleur fic without some sort of gimmick. If you read the Harry/Fleur thread here, you will see that there’s like 10 years of debate over how possible the pairing actually was.

In this story, Harry isn’t aged up, Fleur isn’t aged down. There’s no soul bonds, no Veela Allure (and definitely no arbitrary Veela Allure immunity which gets her interest). No Harry gaining his father’s memories. No Harry gaining Voldemort’s memories. Harry and Fleur’s parents weren’t friends from youth. Harry didn’t meet Fleur randomly when he was 10 and become long distance friends. Harry didn’t meet Fleur at the World Cup either. Essentially, that just means the setup is the same as canon. No jumping through hoops, because it’s just not necessary. There’s no need to overcomplicate things.

And, that's kind of the theme throughout. Everything is kind of simplified. There is no major divergence, instead, there's a bunch of smaller ones that add up to something that both is, and isn't a canon rehash.

For example, the story starts off as a normal 4th year story does. Then, the first minor divergence happens when it is revealed that there is no Age Line. So what does that mean? It means that Harry becomes the only Hogwarts Champion. It means that Ron has no reason to hate Harry, and instead, helps him out. Ron and Hermione both become better friends.

There’s nothing groundbreaking in this story. This is a story all about the fundamentals, and everyone has gotten so caught up on the pairing, that a fundamental Harry/Fleur story simply did not exist. So, if you were ever looking for a Harry/Fleur story without all of the nonsense, this is it.

Now, as both the Author, and a reader, there are flaws to the story. I would be remiss if I didn't point them out, especially since I am so quick to point out other stories flaws.

Firstly, is the Romance. There is a brief moment in the beginning where Harry dates Lavender. Some people might seem this as heavy handed, to simply get around the whole trope where Harry falls in love with the first person he dates, and they live happily ever after. Well, Lavender is the first person he dates here, and they break up. Now, the break up scene itself is kind of awkward, and not my best work. Truth be told, it might simply be me - Harry is 14 here, and I haven't been 14 in 14 years. So, the breakup scene can definitely be better.

Continuing on, there's a couple other weak scenes. For example, I feel like the scene where Harry and Fleur actually decide to be a couple is a bit weak. And considering the whole story is built around the idea of Harry/Fleur as the end game, perhaps it could have been done a bit better. I'm not saying it's not realistic, because it could totally happen as written, but perhaps it's a bit of a let down? I'm not sure.

Then, there's the Yule Ball scene. Yule Ball scenes in fanfiction are notoriously hard to get right. I can't claim to have done it right here, as it was very hard to not be self-indulgent, and I probably failed in that regards. It could definitely be worse though, but it could definitely be better.

Finally, the conclusion. It's a bit abrupt, perhaps I was simply wanting the story to be finished, I'm not sure. Either way, it does leave it open for the sequel to come in and continue the story. Finale's are never the best part of a story, and this is probably no exception.

There will be a sequel. I've actually written loads for it, but I've restarted it a bunch. It's been about a year since I've actually sat down and looked at what I want to do for it, but I feel like now is a good time to start it again. After all, this story itself is the 6th or 7th revision of the concept, which I had been working on dating all the way back to 2010 probably.

As for a rating. Well, I am biased, but compared to some of the stories that are making the library, I feel like this should be an obvious conclusion. Truthfully, I've been on this site for 8 years and I don't have a single story in the library, and I feel like this has been by best attempt so far at getting one in. There is no pretenses in this story. It set out to do exactly what it set out to do, and is straight to the point. Yet, it has enough to it to where it's not just another year 4 fic with a random pairing of the author's choice inserted into it and still not have anything change. There's plenty of changes to make it interesting, yet it still makes logical sense and still come to the same conclusions that are expected. So, obviously I have to give it a 5/5.

 

Read this years ago, enjoyed it. It's perfectly serviceable, avoids several common pitfalls, and does what it says on the tin.

4/5 for the frequent gratuitous descriptions of Fleur's assets alone.

 

Either I'm remembering this fic, or it's quoting liberally from Goblet of Fire, and I bet it's the latter.

EDIT: I've never read this fic before, so it's quoting canon too much.

 

Pretty good I would say.

Pros-
~Good and engaging writing
~I like the capable Harry and Ron (mostly) not being a prat
~Most of the redo fics involve bashing of some kind, which you've avoided and that's awesome.

Cons-
~I think the things happen too smoothly. It's like you went through GoF, noted down where Harry and co made mistakes, and set out to avoid all of them. But other than being human/natural, mistakes sort of give rise to conflict and plot, which is a bit lacking.
~Your characters seem too accepting of events and new information, sometimes to the point of being unrealistic. There was a scene when Dumbledore casually mentions to Harry how Snape was childhood friends with his mother, and Harry takes that info without comment. I found that completely unbelievable. With how Snape treated Harry, he would have thrown a hissy fit, or at least given some dumbfounded reaction. It doesn't stop it from being good read, but it does stop it from being truly brilliant.

3/5 from me.

 

Fuck this shit, my computer crashed and lost my review.

4/5 because I haven't actually seen this done and done well.

 

Personally I clicked X so many times and come back to continue it after 5 minutes. Like The.Sorting.Hat said above, the conflict is really minimal. Harry has an answer to everything.

Everything is mechanical, there are no emotions in Harrys interaction with anyone.

I like the Harry/Ron/Hermione parts. It reminds me of Forging the Sword. But everything else feels really flat.

2/5

 

The problem that I see with this fic through three chapters is twofold.

1) The story is a canon rehash but with very AU characters.

See, I really don't buy the "Harry wants to be known for something that isn't surviving Voldemort at age 1."

If Harry really wanted to be famous by his own right, he could've already done so, whether with the basilisk or perhaps through Quidditch. There's no reason that Harry wouldn't follow Dumbledore's advice of not entering unless 16/17. He's generally amenable to Dumvledore's suggestions and he should be deterred from potentially fatal tournaments because of previous brushes with death. So I'm not buying the fundamental reason for Harry putting his name in. I think it'd be a much better story if Harry's name comes out without him putting his name in, much like in the books, except he's the Hogwarts sole champion.

Ron- I really believe Ron's jealousy of Harry stems from the fact that he gets all the glory. I don't think that he'd actually be happy with Harry's name coming out. Maybe he wouldn't get into a fight with Harry, but I doubt he'd be helpful.

Sirius- Signing letter as Sirius, while mentioning where he's heading, is remarkably bold and unlikely for a fugitive.

Moody/Crouch Jr.- He's too impassioned against the Dark Arts. It's his fourth day there, and he probably doesn't know too much about Moody yet. the man's also probably still a bit loopy. I don't see him faking being that against the type of magic that he loved to use.

2) The characters don't act 14.

They don't. For example, take the scene where Harry stares at Cho in the Great Hall. Harry spends like three lines musing to himself about when he started to think about girls in a romantic/sexual sense. 14 year olds don't do that. They probably just stare at her assets and just fantasize about them rather than wonder what's happening to them.

I also don't think 14 year olds like Ron can be self-motivated enough to really try to enter the tournament beyond rudimentary practice and putting their names in.

A small pet peeve of mine as well is that you sell this as a canon rehash but not everything strictly follows canon pre-divergence. (Water Balloon scene right off the top of my head.)

It's an okay story, but it doesn't sell anything special.

3/5

 

In this AU, Karkaroff didn't know Barty Jr was a Death Eater.

 

Nor did he in the books.

 

Yes he did. He gave him name to exonerate himself.

 

That's movie only. What was in this fic was pretty much exactly the same as canon.

 

Came by this on Scryer by accident - was a fun read.

It did have its moments though where things seemed a bit off, like how Dumbledore just casually lets Harry in on Barty's capture. Or how accepting Harry is of Fleur suddenly wanting to be an Auror and stay in Britain.

Voldemort's insanely long dialogue was something I just scrolled past.

Overall, this story wasn't bad at all. I love me some Harry/Fleur stories.

3/5

 

This is correct. In the books, Snape is the last name Karkaroff gives. The penseive switches to the next trial immediately afterwards, which is Bagman's, and then a few paragraphs later to Barty Jr's.

 

So, I think the major flaw in this fic was dialogue. In all other things, it was exactly what it says on the cover, and I enjoyed that.

All of the characters vacillate wildly between dialogue that feels fairly natural for who they are and overly formal language that is feels extremely scripted, overly prosaic, or entirely too adult.

Seriously? For a guy who doesn't like his fame and has never given an interview...

In fact, pretty much that entire section was a good example of the times that the dialogue just does not fit. It doesn't sound like the characters and doesn't fit with the premise of operating on otherwise canon rails.

 

What they say: I'll keep to the canon.
What they do: no age restriction on the tournament, and now Harry wants to prove himself and so starts training from day one.

I'll do a proper review once I've read some more, but I'll say right now that the entire chunks ripped word for word from the books are really throwing me off.

 

As mentioned a few times, there seemed to be passages just lifted from the books. Maybe they'd been altered a bit, but it was really weird reading them. However, I also think I might have started reading this a while back and given up on it - the break up scene with Lavender felt really familiar too, as did a few of the other earlier scenes, but the dragon scene was definitely something I hadn't read before.

Another thing is the use (and lack of) "not". There were three or four instances before chapter 8 (ish, I think. But I didn't notice any later) that seemed to either use "not" when they shouldn't, or fail to use it when they should. I can't recall exactly where they were, and it could just have been a reading comprehension fail on my part, but it was a bit jarring. Apart from that, I didn't notice any technical issues, typos, or the like.

Some of the slang used was weird. I know I'm not fourteen, but I'm pretty sure I never referred to anyone's boobs as "lovelies" except in jest, or referred to a penis as someone's "old chap". Either it would have been much cruder (tits and cock), or really stupid euphemisms that were funny because they were stupid (sweater puppies and trouser snake). Hermione is the daughter of medical professionals, so I would have thought (perhaps incorrectly) she'd probably just use the word penis. Again, it was a minor thing, but it bugged me.

Others have already touched on people perhaps acting out of character, so I won't worry too much about it. Most of it seemed okay, some of it seemed overblown. But not a major issue.

Otherwise, the story was... fine. Like you aimed to do, it was a near-canon story that didn't add much to baseline. Some interactions seemed a bit mechanical, some speech seemed like it wasn't quite right to be coming from the speaker, but overall, it wasn't bad. I wanted there to be a sequel, but wasn't too cut up by the lack of one, either.

3/5. I enjoyed reading the story, and it was nice to see something that's not incredibly outlandish, but it didn't feel like it had a spark.

You know what, I did actually enjoy the story. It wasn't the best thing I've read, but it was good. Changing to a 4/5

 

A few chapters in now, and it's slowly moving further away from canon, which was the major weakness of this fic. I agree that all issues seem to be resolved to easily, but I'll stick with it.
---
Okay, having now finished it, I honestly can't say that I enjoyed it. It had generally good writing, but I never seemed to go anywhere. Yes, there was a relationship with Fleur, but it never really seemed that was the main focus, as it all came together at the end. Then it turns to the final task, and there's an entire chapter where nearly all of it is just a repeat from canon, and then the fic ends. No intention of going further, though I understand that it was the purpose of the fic. I can understand that it may just be not my kind of fic, but I just don't understand the point of this one. For a fic about Fleur, she's not really a focus for most of it. You may as well just read GoF and add "and then he kissed Fleur for a bit" at random intervals.

3/5. Nothing overtly wrong with it, but it's too close to canon and adds nothing new. Forgive me if thatms a personal bias.

 

I liked it, it had everything I'd like in a canon compliant story: skilled Harry, good relationship with his friends and Dumbledore, non existent bashing, humor. I found myself skimming a lot, but it's not the author's fault, I'm a bit tired of the rehash, I was focused sorely on the H/F relationship.
I'll rate it 4/5 and my congratz to Anarchy who has certainly grown as writer.

 

This story needs a bigger disclaimer. It's interesting. I personally enjoyed it very much. The biggest issue is that it's a very by the books retelling of GoF, to the point where I was convinced I had read this previously.

As someone who enjoys Harry/Fleur this felt like a fulfillment of a certain part of me. The part of me that wanted a simple rehash of GoF with them ending up together.

It's simple, competently written, and achieves the purpose set out by the author. Congrats on putting this altogether Anarchy. My biggest complaint is that it lacks conflict in places, everything happens nearly perfectly, and their isn't a perfect scene that I could post and make someone intrigued.

What you've done well in my opinion is the character voices. Your worries about the Yule Ball are overblown. I found almost all of the Fleur interactions to be passable to great, none of them stood out as egregious. The relationship works, and reads as mostly believable. All of the characters have the right kind of feel. Ron feels like the best friend, Harry feels like a teenage boy with a bit too much on his mind, and Dumbledore feels like a mentor. The only character that felt underutilized or lesser was Hermione.

The hype train builds inside me for the development of this sequel you seem to be pondering. This is a great set of bones, and it's hard for people to be excited about calcium. The relationship you've established between Harry and Dumbledore alone would've made me excited, but the other character writing is something that reminded me strongly of why I loved the original books. You brought your versions of these characters into a very good light. Also avoiding the annoying fandom cliche of writing out the shitty french accent was a very nice surprise.

In my opinion this is an easy 4/5. I'm a big fan of the characters, and even though I'd appreciate a bit more conflict, this hit a certain slice of life sweet spot that I got into after the first two or three chapters. This is an easy read for anyone whose a fan of Harry/Fleur. It has some nitpicks that keep it away from a 5/5. The biggest being the lack of tension, and staying a bit too close to canon. Spread your wings and experiment with your plot a bit in the sequel, keep the good character dynamics, and build an unassailable fanfiction gem.

 

Hello,

Is there any chance for sequel?