Title: thé à la grenouille
Author: Moka-girl
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Suspense
Status: In-Progress, steady updates
Words: 80k
Library Category: Alternates
Pairings: None so far
Summary: In which Harry goes to Beauxbâtons instead of Hogwarts. Butterflies ensue, with Voldemort reviving without opposition from Harry, Dumbledore trying to save the situation and Fudge making everything worse. Meanwhile, Harry learns French. (Twist on the cliché and a slow-going Independent!Harry)
Link: FFnet

Copied from the Almost Recommended thread:
Discovered this today while browsing through FFN. Tried it on a whim, and so far it's actually kept my interest well.
The divergence here is that the Dursleys go on a vacation to France when Harry is eight. The French Ministry takes this opportunity to make Harry go to Beauxbatons, and the story goes from there.
Now, there are a few pitfalls the author's managed to avoid thus far: for one, the French aren't portrayed as saints who can do no wrong, nor does everyone look down on Britain. Harry's new life is far from idyllic, as well, and his new minders (parents doesn't really fit) aren't sues, nor do they really take a central role in the story so far. For another major pitfall, Dumbledore is portrayed as a flawed man who tries to do the best he can in his circumstances, which I believe gels with canon. Every character seems to have their own plans and interests at heart.
There's also more going on with the plot than just Harry acclimating to Beauxbatons. The author camouflages having English as their second language well - though it shows occassionally, like 'eating a tomato soup'.

On the other hand, it's far from perfect, which is why I'm posting it here.
The author has a tendency to do infodumps in paragraphs at a time, whether the information he's sharing is canon or not. Most chapters are also rather short, which explains why there are 28 already. There's also a possibility that this'll become slash, but they've said it could go either way. Harry also seems to be a touch too forgetful for my liking.
In general, the story is quite slow going so far.

I'd give it a 3.5/5. First year just finished, and the author's said they'd be skipping ahead to the canon Fourth Year now for the Triwizard Tournament. I'm looking forward to it.

 

This fic features my pet peeve concerning Dumbledore:

Spoiler

He knows where knows that Voldemort used horcruxes, even more than one and didn't do anything because ...insert reason here... . And he planned for Harry to defeat Voldemort. All of this before Harry turns 9.

Also the French school is portrayed as objectively better than Hogwarts. The fic doesn't come right out and say it, but they teach mind magic to 8 year olds so yea.

Also there are stones that pretty much sum up peoples future? I was confused about that, but if Harry had gotten a certain one he would have been the pagan Jesus, or something. It was confusing.

 

Mmh. Well, I thought that was explained decently in the fic itself - Mugwumps can't do anything illegal on pain of death, and laws were passed that make Dumbledore doing anything about the horcruxes himself hard, which puts him in a very difficult position.
Besides, he didn't know about the Horcruxes until recently and has been making efforts to try and destroy at least one through a loophole.

Also, I don't see Beauxbatons as being 'objectively better' than Hogwarts in the fic. Different, sure, but that's not a crime. Mind Arts are just mentioned and don't play a central role.

The stones confuse me too, though. I can't recall anything being said about why everyone has one; one segment goes into a class that deals with the stones, and it's mentioned they have various effects, but as far as I can remember they're not hugely important.

 

Oh common that's a handwave at best. At worst it completely breaks the world. If such laws can be passed why aren't all laws like that? Murder is no longer a problem if the murderer just keels over himself.

But it sure will come useful when Voldemort comes back and tries to break into Harry's mind. Just for Harry do go "Ah mental attack? Let me block this with my French Super Occlomency that I have been though since I was eight and none of you know because you scrubs go to Hogwarts."

 

Well, there are explanations for that too, though they're not mentioned in the fic itself. IIRC Forging the Sword answered that same question pretty well.
An obvious answer and the one that fic gave is that it's against cultural norms. Another is that there are extenuating circumstances that change what the punishment is for the crime. You might ask why the punishment for doing anything illegal is so harsh only for the Mugwump, then, but that's not a question I can honestly answer, as I'm not the author. Feel free to ask them.

I'm sorry, I thought we were supposed to judge fics on what they are, not what they could maybe become. That's just a completely baseless accusation.
It could happen, don't get me wrong. The fic will lose a lot of my respect if it does, but until it does, I don't think that that's something worth noting.

 

The point still stands. In Canon, Hogwarts was the premiere school for magical education and mind magic isn't brought up except in the rarest of circumstances (magical Hitler is trying to invade magical Jesus's mind). In this fic, the French apparently teach some of the most obscure and difficult magic to 8 years olds. Personally, it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

 

I don't really care for how young Harry is (8 years old), and how his perspective reads. It's especially odd with how some characters are weirdly dehumanized, like his guardians whose names he somehow doesn't even know. With how slow this is paced, reading hundreds of thousands of words from this child Harry's POV is rather unappealing, especially give how the character is too young to have any agency in this situation.

 

Bad story is bad.