Oh don't get me wrong, I agree completely. I was just surprised that an idea that was both so obvious and so retarded hadn't been used yet, though it turns out I was wrong on that point.

Nothing new under the sun.

 

What if they just met at a concert or whatever and hit it off? Teenagers being teenagers and what not. A week where the Durslays are gone for whatever reason and hes planned this out months in advance as a small escape.

Like if you don't make Harry cartoonishly oppressed, even the bullied usually have a friend or two. Go to a few house parties have a few fumbling make out sessions with cute girls and just be Harry the teenager when he's outside of Hogwarts like he always wanted to. A time to decompress after his fairy-tale like adventures in the school year. Make him a more balanced person. And on one of these very suburban adventures he meets fleur and they click, there's chemistry and maybe a bit of a crush from either end and the story goes from there. Just to distance Fleur from the Triwizard Tournament. she could even not attend at all and just have correspondence with Harry throughout the year. She could be working on something important and not want to be distracted or any host of reasons and the first time they spend any time together in the orbit of the wizarding world could be when the war starts instead of the triwizard tournament.

Kinda like the tone of Krahaes Ganymede Rising in the mix of mundane teenage angstiness and the magical world.

 

Weird, I see that there is a 147th page of this thread. But when I click on it, I get redirected back to 146.

 

Real people set 100 posts per page, so this is actually page 30.

 

This feels almost as contrived as when authors have characters bump into each other and then fall in love instantly after having an instant date as a way of making up for bumping the girl over. Why is Fleur, a French (part) Veela, at an English muggle concert or anything suburban that Harry would go to, this utterly shatters my suspension of disbelief personally. Is there a satisfactory explanation?

Don't forget that Harry is on the younger side of his year mates. His birthday is a couple of months before his school year starts, which means most of the time in the situation you just detailed he is either 13 or just freshly turned 14, and Fleur will most likely be 17 moving towards 18. He isn't going to be taken seriously until he consistently demonstrates his ability to hold himself as her equal, which not only takes time to demonstrate but also since he will need to grow into that person. This is the biggest reason why the relationship in year 4 is so unrealistic. Since Fleur and Bill hit it off at the third task, unless you delay that relationship, Harry is on a clock. I can see a more mature Harry who has seen Cedric die possibly hold a snowballs chance on a summer day, but canon Fleur isn't particularly interesting which makes this a whole lot of effort just for a pretty foreign face. Unless you can characterise a rather compelling Fleur.

 

Maybe it's a concert in London something literally an hour and a half's train ride away from paris?
1. Who the fuck cares.
2. Identifying her as a part Veela is part of the reason we can't have nice things like non bullshit Fleur stories not involving allure and depressedprincess!fleur.
3. She's a fucking teenage girl, let her do teenage girl things.

Not really? As someone previously in this thread has stated giving a real life example a 3 year age gap isn't something insurmountable even when you're 14 even in the real world. You know girls don't go around cataloguing whether guys are worthy of their attention using spreadsheets and pro/con lists right?

They meet, they talk find something in common that keeps the conversation flowing and smiles and impassioned defence of something or other on both sides. Harry's kind of a twig but he's acceptably handsome and witty. He should be fine with that.

The suburban setting isn't the point. The point is having their relationship not intrinsically tied to the tournament.

Maybe Fleur and Bill...don't hit it off? It's a strange concept yeh but also one that allows not all good fanfics to end up with the same pairings in the end.

Maybe she's beautiful and she knows it and is incredibly bitchy and a tad sociopathic as a result and Harry calls her out on it and things spiral from there.

Maybe she isn't as defined by her looks. I personally know some incredibly good looking people that can banter with the best of us.

The main problem I think I'm getting from you is that her looks and her age create an insurmountable power imbalance in any possible relationship that would kill it dead before it got any traction at all.

But Harry probably has a better chance than most. He kills a fucking basilisk when he's 12. You know how absolutely insane that is? I fucking run in the other direction if any snake i see is more than 3 feet let alone 60. He has bravery and selflessness oozing out of his fucking pores. More than enough to balance the scales.

He is Harry fucking Potter. Nuff said.

 

I think Hush's first sentence is what the real problem is. The whole situation of them meeting randomly at some random place is extremely contrived. It's not that different from where Harry's parents were friends with Fleurs so that brings them together, or Harry runs into Fleur at the Quidditch World Cup, and hit it off. It is extremely arbitrary.

 

^ that is definitely very true, but is it any more contrived then say... Time travel? Or any version of badass!indy harry? It's a fairly obvious plot device to force interaction but a lot of what writing is is just hiding the strings. Newcombs flying camp meeting between the two is a pretty good example of that working quite well.

The focus shouldn't be on how they meet but on creating well fleshed out characters that have chemistry and can stand on their own to justify them meeting in such a way.

We know so little about fleur and there's so many ways you could possibly write her.

 

If you can write it as good as Newcomb, please, go right ahead.

 

Newcomb's example is a great one because they are both attending something magical that has multiple nations there. The focus shouldn't be on how they meet, but goddammit if I would like a setting that I can believe would actually happen. You are right, we do know so little about Fleur, so if you are going to rework a character basically from the ground up why pick someone who only sees Harry as a leetle boy?

 

^well at first right? Not to mention she had just gotten sucker punched with the fact that there was a fourth champion, she probably felt at least a bit cheated. She's much more hospitable after the tournament.

Why do I like harry/fleur?

Well she's incredibly loyal to the ones she loves for one, not only did she stuck by bill after he was mauled she also stuck by him through the entire war despite having little stake in its outcome.

She's incredibly talented and smart, she did manage to charm a giant dragon to sleep not to mention the fact she was chosen as a champion in the first place. No matter how much smarter or no matter what avenues of esoteric magic you may want harry to explore, the groundwork is there for her to be on the same level as him or greater every step of the way.

Despite my inherent dislike of fics that revolve around fleurs veela nature, there is something inherently magical about her, subtle hints to her beauty, the entire French magical culture that she comes from. There's so much you can work with.

Ofc that's definiitely not the reason why I started liking the pairing though, nah that was almost definitely because she was a hot older chick of stupfying beauty. It is probably why I still like the pairing though unlike h/hr or h/g that have slowly lost their appeal for me.

 

Are there any good stories out there where Fleur just never ends up going out with Bill? Maybe she goes back to France instead of working at Gringotts in London? Harry could decide to keep in contact with her and Krum over the next few years and maybe she comes back into his life sometime in future for some reason?


I had the idea for a story (DH AU) where either Ron and Hermione can't come on the Horcrux hunt for some reason or Harry just realizes that they need more help and doesn't trust the Order to not try and stop him from being involved. I thought then maybe he could get in contact with Fleur and Krum who he has now stayed in contact with for over two years and they come and help. Maybe Harry and Fleur hit it off after reconnecting now that they both a couple years older.

Does this still seemed too contrived? From what I've seen on this thread it seems that Harry/Fleur stories are going to either live or die based on how Harry and Fleur meet/get together. It doesn't matter how well it is written people seem to need a realistic beginning which makes sense.

 

Realism is obviously going to improve any story, but it's not the be all end all. Let's be real - if you had Fleur appear in Harry's bedroom at the very beginning of the story and say "Hey, I'm here to be the romantic interest of the story" and then proceeded to write the Mona Lisa of HP fanfiction no one would care that much. Except for Anarchy and Odran, of course.

Either way I think your idea sounds pretty interesting, definitely something I'd be keen to read. Horcrux hunts aren't generally terribly compelling but the Harry/Fleur/Krum dynamic has potential. If you're willing to do some world building with it, you have the perfect excuse to have a sprawling adventure across continental Europe what with the other two living outside of the UK. Maybe even change up where Voldemort hid his horcruxes.

So to answer your question, no it doesn't seem to contrived as long as your reason for Harry seeking those two out and leaving all the others behind is good enough, which shouldn't be too hard. It's too dangerous for him to be in England, maybe Voldemort has expanded his Taboo past what it was in canon. Snape sells out the Order/Weasleys and they all get arrested/killed. Harry finds out the rest of the horcruxes are in Europe and needs to go find them, the rest are needed to stay and resist Voldemort in England, etc.

 

Hey, I'm all for simplicity. So, if there's a story where Fleur just walks up to Harry gets the ball rolling without having to go through arbitrary nonsense, I'm all for it. My one constant complaint is that people overthink the pairing way too much.

 

Thanks. I've always wanted to do my own take on the Horcrux hunt and try and make it more exciting somehow. I could do away with the Horcruxes completely and have them searching for something else as well? If I do keep them though, I'd most likely put them in different locations or make them different objects.

My big problem with a story like this or really any story I write is how to make Harry more powerful and or more competent overall without completely destroying the character or making the way he becomes like this seem contrived. Does anyone have any ideas of how to do that properly. I don't usually like to mess too much with canon before the fic starts. Most of my fics are canon until a certain launching off point.

I really like fics where Harry is more of the classical fantasy "Chosen One" where they are obviously more powerful than the average character but not so OP as to be able to easily kill Voldemort. Even at the end of the series, Harry was no where even close to Voldemort in skill level and that sort of bugged me. I loved how the series ended but I always wanted just a bit more from Harry. I remember reading Prisoner of Azkaban for the first time and Harry conjures the patronus (which we find out most adults have trouble with) driving off over 100 dementors (which is also unheard of). I remember thinking that this was the start of Harry coming in to his powers but it never really happened, he just sort of remained average for the most part for the rest of the series.

Thats exactly what I was thinking, either killing off Ron and Hermione because the Order got sold out or at least having them arrested but I was just worried that would be more of what was discussed earlier in this thread where I killed off characters just to get Harry/Fleur together. I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

I reading a really interesting abandoned story recently where Dumbledore left some sort of device that transferred many of his memories into Harry after his death. It had a big impact on Harry and obviously gave him a crazy amount of magical knowledge. This is like an example of one of the most contrived ways to give Harry extra power but I can't get that idea out of my head. Do people really hate that kind of stuff? Its sort of similar to Lie I've Lived in a way where Harry has many of James' memories and people seem to love that story. Thoughts anyone?

 

I second that, but it would need a bit of build up in sixth year for Harry to leave his friends behind. The tasks ahead remind him of the Ministry debacle and he doesn't want to drag his friends into what he perceives as suicide mission, yet he's desperate and confident enough to go through with it alone.

Maybe he overheard Hermione's Australia-plan for her parents and it drove the point home, that unlike him they have so much to lose.
He could use the Imperius Curse on Hermione so that she steps on the plane with her parents and stays with them.

Two or three chapters of Harry's preparation and showing his situation. Basically setting the stage for Victor and Fleur.

You could use a Deathly Hallows-Grindelwald-Durmstrang connection for Krum. Maybe Harry pins his hopes on Grindelwald's knowledge about the Dark Arts and the Deathly Hallows to give him an edge against Voldemort and the only wizard he knows that has the slightest connection to Grindelwald is Krum (He told something during Tri-wizard tournament).

 

I don't think killing off Ron or Hermione would really be required, it could be simply that Hermione accurately believes she's better suited to researching than participating in the hunt and Ron stays with her to help provide security. The trio has a nice dynamic and it's a shame to see it dynamited just for a pairing.

 

I remember there was a rash of Susan Bones/HP fics that killed off Hermione and Ron right off the bat so Harry could focus on his One And Only (plus all the Hurt/Comfort nonsense that comes with it). There was always something uncomfortably predatory in those particular fics considering most of them had Harry getting over his grief by hooking up with said love interest. I didn't like it then and I positively hate it now. Hell, I think there was a Gabrielle/Harry fic a couple of years ago that killed off a good chunk of the HP supporting cast to justify Gabrielle living with Harry for a summer (because there was no one else, you see).

OCs are fine. I'm down for any non-slash paring, really. But use all the tools at your disposal and don't get lazy about shit, simple as that.

 

That's the theendless7's fic "Vitam Paramus" where Harry is a quidditch star. I think it's about twenty chapters of Harry and Gabrielle doing absolutely nothing and then going their separate ways.

The point is though no one has to die to get Harry and Fleur together. I don't want to read canon rehash besides there is two whole years where Fleur is working for Gringotts and isn't about to shack up with Bill. Why can't Harry meet her there for some reason and kick off some sort of relationship with her?

Harry Potter and the Cursed Summer was a good fic where Harry met Bill Weasley after an incident with the Dursleys and then proceeded to have a fun adventure. Have Harry meet Fleur and have an even more interesting experience.

 

That's it... I think I've read one of their other Harry/Fleur stories. He's a soon-to-be Quidditch Star (woof, that author sure is fond of that premise) in his fourth year, Daphne takes him on a pity date to the Yule Ball, he ends up with Fleur... and not much else happens. It's a pity their writing is so dry.

Yeah... I think more characters running around makes for more interesting interactions. Harry is kind of a shut-in with a small social circle to begin with - there is no need to whittle that down further!