I don't think you need a crutch to make it work. Half the problem is that that's what people do. Jbern's story is essentially James Potter/Fleur. Doing something like that shares the same problems with doing it Post-Hogwarts in that it's only Harry Potter in name. Doing it post-Hogwarts is like taking the easy way out (like doing bonding or changing their ages to be the same), and you pretty much have to build a whole world from scratch using token name drops to remind the reader that this is still Harry Potter, and I find that pretty bleh (and yes, I've read yours and Joes stories as well.) Half of the allure of Harry/Fleur is trying to make it work during Hogwarts (because it's tough to make it work without making it seem contrived), otherwise it's just two people with no bearing on the 7 books of canon, other than passing references.

I think the problem is that people try too hard to make it work, and overthink it. No one is expecting a 14 year old and 17 year old to work in the long term, and once you get over that hump, it shouldn't be that crazy. Don't worry about after the year is over when Fleur is back in France and Harry has 3 years left of school, it doesn't matter.

 

The only way to make a Harry/Fleur relationship work, is to make it not work at all. Harry never feels like he's worthy as she has so many better suitors (in his opinion) and he can never be himself around her because he feels like he has to live up to her beauty, and its reputation. She is eventually put off by the fact that, although he is noble and has lived through many adult experiences, he is still at a level of maturity that is below her at 17.

However, there is no reason that it can't almost work, to the point that for a brief period of time it does work and they do fall in love.

Too often in Harry Potter fanfiction, Harry just ends up with the girl and (A)the author loses interest or (B)there's a happy ending. No nostalgia, no 'I wish this would have happened' and certainly nothing true to our conceived notions of what a romance actually should be. There must be a struggle, an antagonist and I find it even better when there is no (happy) resolution at all. Awkwardness and angst, but they don't show it on their faces or speak of it EVER. Like real fucking people, people.

 

Fanfiction is, in my opinion, wish-fulfillment. Not everyone hopes to read about what they may already live through.

Personally, I'd like to see where Harry goes through those life lessons and come out a bit better off. And maybe sometime down the line he could meet-up with Fleur when the age gap isn't as much of a factor as suggested by Pers.

 

I think a somewhat good example of this is the alternate Letters epilogue.

Spoiler

she ditches him for Bill and eventually marries him by the time Harry graduates. He still kind of feels bitter about it. Wasn't a fan of the fact he marries Daphne at the end; I would've been fine if they were in a relationship, but it definitely felt like a cop-out that he got his "happy ever after"

Incidentally, any unhappy endings to Fleur/Harry fics like mentioned above?

 

WTF would the point of that be. I HATED that ending version of Letters. It'd be like if JKR's 19 years later was just Harry being a divorced alcoholic whose kids hate him.

 

he's 17 years old, Russano. It's kind of idiotic to think that the person you date when you're 14 is the one you'll marry and spend the rest of your life with, happily ever after. Granted, I'm sure there are some relationships that work out this way. But the vast majority don't.

And honestly, your description of the 19 years later would probably be more interesting than JKR's.

 

Fucking this, I just got up from my nap and this is what I was going to say. I have no clue why stories DON'T have Harry dating at lest 3-4 people seriously between years 4 and 7 and not meeting the person he marries until his early twenties. Well I do know, because in the fandom we've slowly adopted the mindset that there is one pairing in a story no matter when it starts and ends and those people will be together forever unless one or both dies (and then we get shitty afterlife scenes of awfulness)

 

There was a two-part fic out that that started as H/Hr in part one then proceeded to H/F in part two. It was kinda refreshing to read that Harry would have reservations with his relationship with Fleur because of his previous relationship with Hermione.

It was also interesting as Goblins played a big part in the story, though I'm not quite sure how much of it was canon and how much was fanon.

BTW, the fic was over in fanfiction.net, something along the lines of Years at War (just search for a H/F fic with 100k+ words, there's only like three there).

 

I'm aware that its not realistic at all. If you wrote a fic where they broke up, and included that or separate relationships, then thats fine. It's where you have a complete story, where all the plots resolved, they are together then you have a throwaway "oh and they break up and move on with their lives" thrown in at the end. What's the point? Does it really add anything?


and the 19 years later bit? Reading about that kind of situation would be fine. But imagine a whole series that finished with that as a throwaway ending? It would be terrible.

It's why I hated that Letters ending. The actual story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The plot was resolved then...oh hey Harry lost out to Bill and is bitter about it, The End.

 

Or, y'know, he could not be such a shallow raging dick about it. Canon Harry hasn't shown signs that he believes superficial things give a person actual worth, or he'd be all over Malfoy and his money.

I've had a really hot girl like me twice in my life. Instead of going all angst about it, I thanked my lucky stars and trusted that if she ever wanted to be with someone else or got bored of me, she would simply say so, having the advantage in our relationship. I don't see why Harry couldn't do something similar.

 

Of course he's going to be a shallow raging dick about it. He's 14, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Thanking your lucky stars only gets you as far as the bedroom door, the rest is plunging your shallow raging dick into her. Obviously, we're not speaking of a character that only sees the best in others, and is noble to the truest sense of the word. We're talking about a flawed person who is young, unexperienced in the bedroom and likely to make a fool of himself at some point. That's what I find interesting. It's terribly boring to read about how awesome Fleur is, and how much she cares for Harry -- RIGHT OFF THE BAT, whether it's a marriage contract fic or one of the awful Harry goes to Beauxbatons stories.

 

Yeah, that fake ending was pretty awful. The Daphne one should have just been its own story, because if you're reading 200k words of a Harry/Fleur story, then all of a sudden Daphne is thrown in there at the end instead as an alternate ending... honestly, just don't write an epilogue. Just have it end at the end of the year as to not bury yourself. I can get over that though, since Letters was a pretty bad story throughout, and the ending was just par for the course.



Honestly, I don't think the age difference is the biggest problem (Not to beat the dead horse in this thread for the 100th time). Sure, there's dating experience, or lack there of, that comes from age. One is a female quarter-Veela from France, another a skinny English boy with a lightning bolt scar. They're both still teenagers, and they both still go to school. I'm not sure how mature 17 year old girls were where you went to school, but they're probably not much better than 14 year old girls, or 14 year old boys (facebook this, facebook that, oh, I need to get a tan, do you like my new purse? I need to buy another pair of shoes... Do you thing Blah will notice be if I wear this? I hope my dad get's me a BMW for my birthday!). The difference between us is that we get better at hiding our immaturity as we get older. Sometimes.

Harry crushed on Cho because she was pretty. Fleur took an interest in Bill because he had scars and a dragon fang earring. Everyone has something superficial that catches their fancy, and they might not even realize it until they see it.

The biggest problem is that there's no canon reason for Fleur to be interested in Harry (aside from his fame, but that's a setup for dozens of bad fics). The age difference means that it's going to be up to Harry to put himself out there, but he could barely even interact with Cho, and she's a year and a half older.

Honestly, I think it's much easier to get them started as friends first (though without any cliche bullcrap like them meeting before Harry's fourth year, contracts, bonds, etc). Canon!Harry could probably barely even think about kissing a girl at that point without nursing a semi, let alone actually going the distance. If you just have Harry constantly being nice to her throughout the year with no ulterior motive (or at least him being good at hiding it) then I can see it developing into something more eventually.

 

Hey guys. Mouth on at the money or something blah blah blah

Love Like a Sunset

 

Indeed i do like the plot idea you have and i would very much appreciate it if you could pull it off.

 

Since this has been Necroed (again, this thread always come back to life) already and I lost Lungs story, I had to say, an excelent idea, specially if Harry retain his memories too. Looking forward to this story, really looking forward.

 

While this pairing had been an occasional curiosity of mine, as much as any pairing in general is, the stories that are told about this thing mostly tend to focus on the Veela aspect of Fleur, i.e. some kind of debt or other silly nonsense like that. Mind you, I'm not saying that inherently they're bad because of that.

But then again, there's the other kind, where Harry somehow becomes friends with Fleur either during the Tournament or the period after Sirius' death and those just seem a tad... bland.

"The Lie I've Lived" remains, to date, the best story, IMO, for this particular pairing. I wonder if there's others of similar, if not the same or better, writing quality.

 

Wastelands of Time.

 

Haven't read that, so I can't offer up an opinion on it. Yet.

 

What the fuck is wrong with you?