So,

Being in quarantine day in and day out, I've finally gotten around to editing the next chapter of Taking Umbridge. While I was doing a little background research, I stumbled on something that really kind of struck me. Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if several of you have already thought about this, but I'd thought I'd post it here and get your thoughts.

Since Fleur Delacour means flower of the court, I wondered what the French court flower really was. Probably the easiest answer to that is the Fleur de lis as it is a French heraldic symbol (even if someone might argue it's not the correct answer, it would probably be the most popular).

And that got me thinking. Since it translates to flower lily, is there a connection between Fleur and Harry's mother, Lily, in how they treat Harry. Now, I know that there are other reasons for Fleur to act the way she did in situations I list below, but if interpret them from the perspective of type of mother figure, it does get interesting.

• 1. In their first interaction, even though Harry was affected by Veela just like everyone else at the world cup, he exhibits none of those reactions the night Fleur asks for the Bouillabaisse, but others around him are affected to some degree. Read from the perspective I noted above, this could touch on the "Stacy's Mom" trope. While Harry reacts to a "mom" figure, everyone else reacts to "Stacy's Mom."
  
  
• Halloween night. When Harry walks back into the side room, we get Fleur interacting with him first, which I've always found interesting since Cedric would have known him better. But, we also get her infamous "little boy" comment. Was she just being nasty towards him? On first read, yes. But, again, interpreting through the idea of "Lily," we get a different feel. Fleur is not only complaining about competition, but that he's too young and it's absurd for someone so young to be put into danger.
  
  
• Skipping to the next big event where they interact, we are at the Second Task. There, she fails to save her sister, but Harry and to a much lesser extent, Ron did. Her reaction to her sister is typical for any big sister, I would hope. But it's also typical of a mother, as is her reaction to Harry as she swoops down on him and showers him with platonic kisses for saving her sister. It is a very similar action I would expect a young mother to take (although growing up in the US, I'd expect her to almost hug her son to death).

It's getting late, so I want to hit only two more.

• When she is staying at the Weasleys, her reception of Harry is a bit strange as she is pretty friendly with him. Again, that could simply be because the rest of them don't treat her well. But the dynamic it sets up is interesting. Moreover, there's also the interesting play where Harry thinks Hermione, Ginny, and Ron are talking about Mrs. Weasley rather than Fleur. In my professional life, we look for those types of connections as a sign from the author to the reader that something more is being done with the text. Beyond that, however, she brings Harry breakfast in bed and is almost overly excited to see him. But, again, the author seems to go out of her way to negate any kind of sexual feeling in the text.
  
  
• Finally, we see Fleur in a role that when read normally, is actually confusing. She fulfills the "Housewife" trope rather well, right down to the apron. In Deathly Hallows, she no longer works at Gringotts that we can see, and she welcomes any and everyone into her home without complaint. Moreover, she's able to help Hermione recover from the Cruciatus curse, heal Griphook (skele-gro), and generally nurse Dean, Luna, Mr. Ollivander, Ron, and Harry back to health in whatever way they needed. Why is this confusing? Because a traditional reading of Fleur is that she's a witch with a future. Strong enough to be picked by the cup (doesn't matter where she placed in the tournament, the cup chooses by magic), intelligent enough to work at Gringotts using a second (and perhaps a third) language for no other reason than wanting to learn a language better. So, why strap her down as just another, albeit beautiful, housewife? Might it be because she was caste as a type of younger mother figure for Harry, representing a mother who like Lily, wasn't there for her son, but unlike Lily, could at times influence him and care for him?

 

Definitely. For example, he encounters Lily about as often as he encounters Fleur.

 

Just what is this. Are we still doing the Sunday thing? But its not even Sunday I'm so confused

 

Okay....

 

Joe’s been dipping deeper into his stash again I fear.

 

So what you're saying is you want to make the Fleur/Harry pairing... Even kinkier? I approve.

 

I'm intensely confuzzled, especially given OP's own fic Harry/Fleur fic mentioned.

Anyway. I don't really see why a girl three years Harry's senior would be a mother figure to him. More like a MILF figure.

 

I know this was probably a smartass remark (being DLP, that's a safe bet). But, there's actually something to this. Part of the theory in this type of interpretation is that similarities must occur in more than one place. So, the fact that Fleur is seen very little in the overall story line of the book, and interacts with Harry even less is precisely one of those things that would make a connection. For instance, any representation of Lily interacts with Harry what, half a dozen times at the most throughout the story? There's the mirror during his first Christmas, the picture Hagrid gives him (I don't remember how often Harry looks at it in the seven books), when Voldemort's wand starts spitting out shadows or shades of people he's killed, and then when Harry is walking to his death in the last book. Except for one or two I may have missed, those are the only times a form of Lily interacts with Harry in the books. Fleur does so a few times in book four. Then, we don't hear from her again until book six when she brings him breakfast. I don't even remember if they have any interaction over Christmas the sixth year, at the end of that year, or at their wedding. Then, of course, there's Fleur mothering them back to health in the final book.

So, there's actually quite a bit of similarity there.

That's okay, don't worry your pretty little head about it. (And learn what Shit posting is).

Naa, they have nothing to do with each other. One is just fanfiction and the other is bring methods of interpretation to the series and asking questions of the author.

That's pretty simple. How old is Fleur when we see her in her final role as noted here? She's about the same age Harry's mother was when she died. Remember, something like this isn't necessarily dependent on age. It's not that she is a mother to Harry, rather, she simply acts in ways similar to how a mother would act at different stages of the storyline.

Also, if you've never seen a girl three years older than someone act like a mother to a younger boy or girl they have affection for (plutonic), then I wonder how many girls you've really been around... or perhaps it's something that happens more in Britain-based cultures? That's possible.