What do we think Fleur's motivation was for relocating to Britain after GoF?

She hadn't really met Bill yet, so it can't have been that. And during the year she had made no secret of her disdain for British food, architecture, and the climate.

It just seems rather odd that she would choose to live in Britain rather than France - odd enough that it needs a good reason to justify it. "To improve my English" feels a bit weak on its own - she still needs a reason to want to improve her English specifically.

So what do we think that reason is?

Pure coincidence of a job offer from Gringotts?

Something related to Voldemort?

 

I got the impression Bill started laying pipe immediately.

 

I would guess it just seemed like the place to be. There's no indication of anything else going on in the rest of the magical world in the canon. Whatever it is, it probably makes everything seem quite boring after the time she entered a competition only for there to be an extra competitor, who was supposed to be too young to enter, and ended up bringing the man who killed his parents back from the dead, and got back in time for exams. The same teenager totally thrashed her in the point totals, and handed his prize money off to his friend's brothers. Like imagine going back to the Delacour Estate and asking your parents what's gone on since you left and they say that the neighbors lost their dog and got a new one.

 

Obviously she wanted to be closer to Harry and once she figured out he's into redheads she married into a family that he was definitely joining too.

More seriously, I suspect that there wasn't any planned reason. It's actually a good question why Rowling wanted her to be with Bill, but not as good as why she decided to have Tonks be with Remus because both are random and not based on their earlier interactions.

 

They’re not random at all, just plot/theme driven rather than character driven. Having Harry end up as godfather to a Lupin/Black mix who’s lost his parents closes the circle neatly, and Lupin struggling with Tonks’ age and becoming a father is a nice bonus.

For Bill and Fleur it’s probably more that Fleur was a character that had more to offer than just a 1-book appearance. Bill’s entire identity is being ‘the cool one’, so obviously he lands the hottest girl in the series.

On topic... I have no idea what possessed Fleur to take a job at frigging Gringotts if it wasn’t to be with Bill.

 

In Crimes of Grindelwald Queenie described magical Britain as really progressive compared to magical North America, it could that for a witch with Veela Blood the UK is simply a place with better job prospects than France, or that she has more rights in general.

 

Maybe, but that's the seventh book. In the sixth it felt very random.

If she had more to offer then it definitely wasn't used.

 

I believe the first time Fleur saw Bill was prior to the Third Task. Or at least that seems to be the case:

 

She might feel she owes Harry a debt for saving Gabrielle in the lake, maybe? So decides that being in the same country as him for the upcoming war is a good idea.

Although I suspect JKR's reason would solely be Bill.

 

France probably has crappy Magical Education/Access to Magical Knowledge that is darker due to their more 'soft' nature. So if her job was curse-breaking it would follow that she would actually need to know about Curses.

I doubt Bill is an actual possibility considering the fact that she barely knew the man, it would be pretty unrealistic if she just went to a completely different country in order to maybe/possibly come in contact with someone she knows nothing about. Unless Fleur is a stalker and she orchestrated this whole thing.

 

Her personal interest in Bill is the only thing that really makes sense. Potentially more relevant job opportunities at Gringotts (excavations in Egypt etc) may have played a role as well.
I doubt British progressiveness was a factor, considering that her headmistress was a half-giant.

 

Nobody knee she was, she was very intent on keeping that a secret.

 

... She's 3 meters tall.

As boring as it is, I concur that Bill is the most likely reason for her going to England and Gringotts in particular (I mean, even if she really wanted to work on her English, working in the one place where the bosses speak another tongue doesn't seem a smart choice). She stared at him intensely enough that even Mr "Never noticed that my best friends I am with 24/7 are into each other" noticed it, in front of her mother no less, so she probably crushed pretty hard on Bill.

Which is obvious, since he's her Veela Mate and all that /s.

 

I honestly do not believe that J.K.R. put that much thought into it. I think she got to a point in writing book six where she wanted Remus to have a love interest as a mostly off-camera sideshow (maybe with the thought that he would have a kid that Harry would be godfather to down the line), but picking Tonks for that role? I'm pretty sure she'd just written herself into a corner and didn't have any other half-ways age appropriate female characters who'd gotten any "screen time". She could have gone with someone like Hestia Jones or one of the female Hogwarts Professors, but those characters were basically just names, not anybody readers would recognize or identify with.

That's setting aside how manifestly bizarre the Tonks/Remus pairing really is when you consider that their personalities are so wildly different. Tonks was always upbeat and entertaining, while Remus was a huge downer and a disappointment as a character. Shit, any time there were serious problems and his friends/loved ones needed him, the dude took off running. Frankly, Remus was kind of a piece of shit, and it still irritates me that a fun, underused character like Tonks got saddled with his flaky ass.

As for Fleur, yeah, unfortunately the only motive we see any hints of in canon is that she was getting plowed by Bill.

 

So? Hagrid is just as tall and nobody had any Idea about his heritage, instead people assumed that his size is a result of some spell or potion getting wrong.

 

Plenty of time of time for Fleur and Bill to start progressing towards dating.

 

I think I always just assumed she got the offer at Gringotts due to being a Triwizard Champion, and that it exceeded her other prospects so she decided to take it. I'd never really thought there was more to it than that.

 

Perhaps since the countries are so close together and the way that Floo Magic and Apparition works, moving from Magical France to England isn't actually that large a commitment?

Newt didn't exactly have a mountain of bureaucracy to deal with when he moved to America.

Could just be the equivalent of moving to a different suburb because why not?