Harry/Tonks is one of the popular pairing in the fandom but the age gap has always bothered me. In muggle terms. Harry is 14/15/16/17. He's a junior in high school, not quite sure what to do yet with his life. He likely hasn't had much experience with finances, careers, or life outside of basic schooling. Now compare Tonks. She's 24 years old. At that age, she's just graduated college with her degree and decided to enter the workforce. She's been handling finances, careers, and the wider world for several years now. Tonks is seven years Harry's senior. Imagine the differences in life experiences and maturity between 17 and 24. Shipping Tonks with Harry is setting up a high school kid with a police officer who graduated before he was even a first year. But people ignore it so they can give Harry a hot, fun Quidditch girl who is like Ginny but with the ability to look like anyone he wants.

 

No matter how the author describes her, I just can't get my brain to imagine Tonks as hot. Yes, she's a metamorphmagus who can theoretically look like anyone she likes. But the way she chooses to deploy that power in canon is pretty consistent, and it's not to look like a bombshell knockout. She has a strong grunge/indy/punk/alternative vibe going on and I'm just not into that.

Only Harry/Tonks I can get behind are the fics where she uses her powers to transform into other people Harry knows. Like The Metamorph Bet.

In more seriousness, though, I think so long as Harry is 16 it's okay. Probably not going to be a successful relationship, but not morally wrong. The one factor which potentially blurs that line is the fact that Tonks has a position of authority as an Auror, but she's not in a position of authority over Harry specifically, so I think it's largely coincidental to their relationship.

 

I'm a fan of Natalia Tena /shrug

Simple as that

 

I swear we've had this discussion before and it ended in Harry/Tonks smut reccs.

 

Where does one draw the line though? Is there even an 'age of consent' in the wizarding world, or are we solely relying on discretion/libido appeal when it comes to this?

I'm raising this question as what are the consequences in the wizarding world of them hooking up early?

Where does one draw the line? Are there different terms that apply with women vs. men in this instance - and given the relatively gender-neutral nature of magical society, would those rules even exist in the same manner? Is there a rule of consent in the wizarding world, or do Victorian values still remain in effect?

 

We draw the line at the age of consent. Which is 16.

There's a squick factor and all sorts of complications with an age gap beyond that, but generally where it's not specified otherwise we'd assume that moral and legal values in wizarding Britain parallel those in the rest of Britain.

The magical world has a cutesy archaic aesthetic but it's not actually frozen in time. We see social standards change and new laws pass through the course of the books. Using muggle Britain as a baseline is the best we're going to get - anything else is just arbitrary headcanon.

 

Wouldn't this be an issue in the wizarding world? We're talking about a 16 year old Harry potentially dating a 24 year old Auror Tonks who is supposed to be guarding him as she is part of the Order. You see how messy it could be?

Considering the maturity she would have and the emotional mess he is and the age gap? Wouldn't you say Tonks would be taking advantage of him and this might be wrong even if the age of consent is 16 in Wizarding Britain? There are so many wrong implications that make it uncomfortable. You would imagine the likes of Dumbledore, McGonagall, Molly etc wouldn't approve? Is it really healthy for a 16 year old boy especially the emotional mess that is Harry dating another a 24 year old mature women who herself is a emotional mess and looking for an older partner like Lupin? This is what turns me off Harry/Tonks.

 

I'm not commenting on any aspect of this debate other than "where do we draw the line". The age of consent is the hard line.

Being legal does not make something right, but statutory rape is a line we don't want to cross no matter what else is going on.

 

It's not that popular. If you search F/M, exclude Gen, M/M, F/F and multi pairings, and exclude non-harry pairings on AO3 it doesn't even make the top 10 HP pairings I couldn't even find it by excluding pairings because there were too many other pairings.

That said, Harry and Tonks need to be closer in age or they both need to be in their 20s. Which you know, because we're talking fanfic is easy to do.

I keep thinking about a Fem!Harry/Tonks fic where they're both metamorphs and the same age, then I remember I have no actual story in mind but fluff and go back to other things.

I am into that.

Is it weird I've never actually found that interesting myself?

I like a Tonk-centric fic that has undercover stuff. Spies, sneaking into places, killing Death Eaters, etc

 

Using muggle Britain as a baseline is an extremely spurious reasoning. For example, if Rape happened, Wizarding World would have different laws to it. I think that, for the most part, the Wizarding world just does its own thing.

 

For example JKR's Black Family Tree. https://www.hp-lexicon.org/source/other-canon/bft/ Let's have a close look at Bellatrix's year of birth versus her father's. Bellatrix = 1951 Cygnus = 1938. Bellatrix's father was 13 when she was born, and, in all likelihood (3 out of 4 chance), was 12 when she was conceived. No word on her mother's age. The wizarding world also seems to be quite a bit behind the muggle one in terms of legal protection laws, so I doubt there even is an age of consent, or, if there is, it only applies to young girls or something.

 

JKR is famously inconsistent with the numbers in her worldbuilding. I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion of her deliberately writing a 12 year old father over a lapse in her arithmetic.

 

Even putting aside legal and moral issues, having Tonks be romantically interested in Harry seriously damages her character. It makes me think of the kind of person who's still super hung up on their own highschool/teenage life, a developmentally stunted manchild/womanchild incapable of dealing with the adult world and so desperately tries to recapture that time.

 

There is also an example of Bellatrix's grandad (Pollux). According to the Black family tree, he was 13 when Walburga (Sirius's mum/Bella's auntie) was born.

 

Okay, okay, you've convinced me. The Black family are all shotacons.

This conveniently also explains Harry/Tonks, Harry/Narcissa, and Harry/Bellatrix.

 

It is a bit questionable, but as I put it the last time we had this thread...

 

To be fair a 20 something year old girl is stuck in guarding, with little to no entertainment, surely it can't be that hard to imagine that she could develop an interest of a sort to somebody who is probably the most famous person in the world they live in.