The "well" never really had anything but a shallow puddle to begin with.

 

Clemence is kinda of hot.

 

Shallow Well

The problem is that Fleur is often used as a one dimensional babe in a Harry/Massive-Harem setting instead of a deep character in a true Harry/Fleur ship.

I have an idea floating in my head for a very non-standard Harry/Fleur ship that might have some promise if worked out well. The idea is that Veela are not as human like as they are so often portraied in other fanfiction works.

Veela started out as a symbiotic relationship with an elemental spirit (attuned to a certain element) and one of the races around back in the old days, namely Elves, Merfolk, Harpies and the Elder Dragons).

Basically, the earth started to cool, magic became less volatile and the true elemental spirits had to bond with a magical being with a physical body to maintain themselves. An unexpected result of the Union was that only females had the correct magical build to accept such a bond, any males bonded would die. When such a symbiont mated and had a child, however, an infant elemental spirit would be formed as well and join the embryo, which causes early abortion in the case the embryo is male (hence only female Veela), exept for the male dragons, whose bodies were strong enough to survive.

The male mate of a symbiont had to be magically strong to be able to create the infant spirit to bond with the embryo, so evolution caused the inherent affinity for glamour magic that all elemental symbionts have (outside of their own elemental magic affinity) to increase, as beautifull symbionts have an advantage in finding a magically strong mate. This went on to the point where the Veela would have a basic charm they were unable to fully suppress.

Then the race war between the elves and the humans started and things became so bad that Merlin had to sunder the world, splitting the homelands of the elves from the rest of the world (leaving only rumours of their capital city, Atlantis). The unfortunate elves that were left behind were now cut of from their source of magic (the world tree) and had to form a slave bond with humans to sustain themselves, creating the race that would later become the house-elves. The Veela elves (earth element symbionts) were less dependant on the world tree because of their symbiont form, and although weakened were able to mask themselves to appear human with their glamour. There were no mates to be found anymore though, so to survive they wove a very powerfull magic, which needed a heavy price, and sacrificed their ability to love in order to be able to mate with humans. They now have two forms, one human (base) and one elven. The genes of their mates and them do not combine well though, causing children to be almost fully genetically equal to their mothers, with only very minor changes over the generations.

The harpies, being a warlike species, pissed off the humans once to many and were exterminated because the humans thought of them as beasts. Harpy Veela (air element symbionts) had to mirror what the elven veela did and used a very similar ritual to continue their line with humans as well.

Merfolk Veela (water elemental symbionts) and Dragon Veela (fire elemental symbionts) never had to mate with humans and keep to themselves in their respective species (although the dragons mate so rarely and are so selective in their mate that by the current age, all dragons are veela symbionts, hence the ability of a dragon to breathe fire, althought nowone, even the current intelligent veela, know this fact in the current age). To hunt, sometimes merfolk veela use their glamour to appear more human and lure seamen with their bodies and voices to their deaths (causing the rumours of mermaids and sirens).

End result: Veela are genetically, and emotionally very different from normal humans. More extreme in their anger and rage, unable to feel love and thus keep to themselves in enclaves. They normally only go out to hunt a mate, which means they try to get pregnant and then leave the guy to raise the child (they have no emotional connection to their mate) by themselves. The slavic veela are the air aligned veela (with a harpy second form, canon), the western european veela are the earth aligned veela (an elven second form, which means much smaller, sharp face, pointy ears, dappled skin, to better blend into forests).

Dragon veela are just the dragons, no other form, their glamour evolved to only make them seem more threatening to other species. Merfolk veela seem just like merfolk, no other form (although they can glamour themselves to appear more human like).



That being the whole background story, Fleur's family is a tad odd for a Veela family in that her family was chosen to be ambassador's for the western Veela with the humans. To Ensure Veela influence, her family inserts themselves as mistresses to important political figures and influence the world through their mates. As such they sometimes raise their children with their mates if the mate's wife (if any) allows it.

Women hate them because they 'steal' their husbands, important men love them because to have one as your mistress is a sign of political importance and magical strength (Veela still need a magically strong mate).


Now enter the 4th year at hogwarts, where Fleur finds a very interesting magically strong boy who could very well become politically very important and wishes to insert herself as his mistress. Harry is a fourteen year old boy who only just discovered his sexuality and although he is attracted to Fleur sexually, he just wishes to find someone to love. Fleur aggressively pursues Harry, teaching him a thing or two about politics and being more his own man, while Harry is unsure about the whole thing, because Fleur doesn't seem to want to connect emotionally with him. Add in a possible true love interest for Harry and let the drama commence!

Sadly, my writing skills are not up to the challenge, but I think you can make a very interesting mentor / coming of age / drama story out of it if anyone is up for the challenge. Note that Harry doesn't have to end up with Fleur in the end (it would even make more sence that Harry is just unable to keep up a relationship with a woman that is unable to love him truly and the relationship based on sex strands).


Sorry for the ridiculously long post

---------- Post automerged at 16:38 ---------- Previous post was at 16:22 ----------

Fleur would, in this case be a very independant, strong, sexually agressive character (which causes hilarious clashes with Harry's sheltered shy character) that basically tries to 'use' Harry for her own ends, although she isn't malignant in her approach. She just doesn't understand the concept of love and why one would need it, her attachment to Harry is only one of a magically strong mate and a possiblity to influence the British political landscape to be more Veela friendly, although she comes to respect him in a friendly way for his tenacity and his fierce loyalty later on.

She is slightly manipulative, has no problems using her sexuality to achieve something but does not actually sleep around. Sex is something done only on her terms (in fact it is entirely up to an author if any sex will take place between Harry and Fleur, although Fleur will be interested in it). She is intelligent, driven and very competitive, because she always had to compete with her half sisters (out of her fathers marriage) for her father's attention. She both enjoys and hates the attention she recieves from males, enjoying riling them up, but sometimes needing time away from males because she tends to get crowded. The only kind of love she knows is the familiar love between mother and daughter and sisterly love for her younger sister (she hates her half sisters and their mother).

Although she is intelectually aware she likely has to share her mate (being never more then a mistress) and emotionally detached from any feelings of love and jealousy, Fleur is a bit possesive and therefore a bit reluctant to share Harry (not to mention her competetiveness causing her to rise up to any challenge from a possible suitor of Harry).

Harry's suitors have no wish at all to share him with a possible mistress (what woman would?), causing friction. Fleur does have her female Beauxbaton friends (although there is a larger than average percent of the female populace who hate Fleur for her charm), because not all woman are vindictive jealous beings (weird as this may sound).

 

Harry is so severly outclassed it isn't even funny. Except the various veela species setup, which seems a tad complicated, it might be interesting - except, what is the endgame? Fleur can't love Harry (fuck power of love), because the feature just isn't there, so Harry basically can't end with Fleur. Unless somebody third enters the picture, right?

So technically, there is no win-win situation in basic setup - Fleur mates, Harry has love - unless something other changes, or some third person, some glue, enters the picture. Or sappy power of love changing creature that has been this way 100s of years.

Interesting, still.

 

Didn't I explain that the relationship wasn't likely to last anway? I started with the idea of the origins of the Veela, came up with this theory, much later I began thinking about the implications for Fleur. Then it isn't much of a stretch that Fleur would be interested in Harry under such circumstances. I think it would be fun to read about the struggles that will arise as Harry has to deal with this very hot girl (nearly woman) pursuing him and dragging him out of his shell. It will by no means be a smooth sail, but that's the whole point of an interesting story. There needs to be friction. This is what is lacking in about 80% (that's the gentle estimation) of romance fanfiction about the Potter universe.


On hindsight the whole thing with the elemental symbionts might be a tadbit complicated indeed, but it's kinda how that thought went when I was thinking about the Veela origins. Trying to explain why there are only female Veela without resorting to the standard 'magic' answer is bound to get complicated.

Either way, the likely ship is for Fleur to go after Harry in some way, as the other way around is the "Ship that never sailed", as mentioned in this very thread somewhere.

In my opinion Fleur would be an alternate mentor to get Harry up to higher standards. The likely outcome is for them to still end up friends, but for Harry to be unable to maintain a loveless relationship. Fleur will be slightly disappointed but will find a mate with less compunctions. Harry will however have gone through the necessary experience to woe his own dreamwomen perhaps?

I once started to write this story (my very first) only to discover I am no writer, I'll stick to reading thank you very much

---------- Post automerged at 18:52 ---------- Previous post was at 18:38 ----------

I mean, imagine the hilarity of Fleur trying to 'subtly' woe Harry only for Harry to be totally clueless.

Fleur wouldn't start 'politics lessons', but she would try to make Harry more aware of the political landscape and his influence in it. And training her mate to make sure he survives the tournament is a given as well.

Therefore like I mentioned before you get a nice blend of a turning of age story (Harry's turning of age). The groundwork of a mentored more impressive Harry (he is a bit of a dunce in the Original story to be honest). And the relational struggles that would make a romance story be worthwhile reading for a change.

Not to mention a reasonable, somewhat believable reason why Fleur would want to pursue Harry.

The problem is, this story will rise or fall by the skill of the writer to make these nuances "pop". I am not up to the task myself sadly.


P.S.

If you'd like to make sure that the relationship would work out, remove the whole unable to love part, but that would either mean Fleur is shallow (only going after Harry because of his fame at first, and not because she loves him) or would mean the story becomes sketchy (Hot Babe Fleur falling madly for young malnourished Harry).

 

Ok, that's a good aproach.

No. God fucking no.

Geology and evolutionary history of life hates this. Also those elemental spirits had a vast choice from all the single-celled organisms.

Maybe drop this kind of a needlesly complicated explenation and make it more mundane, more human - for example, Veelas are a magical experiment in hubridization that has gone way out of hand and is kinda running wild. This somehow fits the HP world, as we know that wizards are known of creating and breeding strange and bizare creatures.

Just drop the entire backdrop explenation with the spirit elementals - it doesn't add anything meaningful to the story, is confusing and quite frankly is boring as hell.

This just stinks of "magical core" bullshit and also is illogical. Why would Veela seek a "magicaly strong mate" if they literally have 50% chances of birthing a living child? If you want to keep this idea, Veelas should screw around and lay eggs to maximaize the chances of producing living offspring. or does the "magicaly strong mate" increases the chances of birthing a female?

 

The whole point was not to 'humanize Veela', and it got needlessly complicated, that I can agree with.

I completely agree with your allergy for magical cores. I see it more as an affinity for magic. It 'flowing more freely' if you will through certain individuals. Almost like how certain people are just more creative and hence able to make better art or some such unmeasurable quantity.

All in all I agree the whole origin is too complicated as of yet.

It's all a train of thought that has not solidified itself into a believable origin story. The dragons were only there to complete the cicle of elements (fire had to find itself a likely symbiont as well, and unlike the other elements aparantly didn't care about higher thought processes (hence choosing an unintelligent species), which I found to be a believable reason for dragons to breathe fire. Note that I meant it more like primordial dragons then Elder Smart Old Wise Dragons. Dragons are still and will ever be just that, firebreathing lizards, somewhat attuned to magic (or why else are so many parts of them magical ingredients).

The problem is that Veela turn into birds and mate with humans.

Why birds. Why if they are a seperate species look just like humans, why are there no males visible? I guess everybody has made their crack at the explanation. This, however convoluted as of yet is mine

In mine Veela originate from before humans were even remotely looking like primates, circumstances made them resemble humans because they needed males to mate and they are unable to birth their own.

P.S. I just noticed the whole origin story also got tangled up into the origin story I had for the house-elves. Namely that there were elves and humans. They got into a fight. Merlin (being the awesome bastard that he is) decided to just split them up so they would stop fighting, but some elves got left behind. Not being tuned to their place of origin, they needed to bond to humans to sustain themselves and humans said: Sure you can but you're gonna be my slave then, a couple of hundred years turned them into miserable things that live only to work for their masters.

The whole 'but they love to work' angle just doesn't work for me.

 

Making it "more human" ment making their origin story more mundane, more real-world like. For example - the veelas are a result of experminentation with harpies/Greek sirens. Wizards wanted to create something be interbreeding sirens with humans - it could be some servant race, slaves, or he just had a fetish for birds - it suceeded and then it wnet wrong with veelas escaping/being sold to other wizards and escaping or just being steealed away by some other wizards.

Don't make their origin story complicated mess with elemental spirits, magical abortions and other such stuff - just make it simple and mundane as well as brutal and gritty, justl like the real world.

 

So, I was doing some research for a Harry/Fleur idea I had ages ago and said I was going to write, and I had a sort of odd thought while looking over the books. Has anyone ever done a story where Fleur is actively trying to get Harry's attention?

I mean she is what 17 in the 4th book which would have made her around 4 years old when he survived the killing curse meaning she would have probably grown up hearing stories about him. Then when they first come to Hogwarts, she is the one who walks over to his table and asks for the bouillabaisse. What if she was doing that to try and attract the attention of her childhood hero? I mean she got Ron's attention, but Harry just laughed at Ron and handed her the dish she wanted. I could see her being a little miffed at that and her subsequent attempts going worse as she ends up being mildly insulting at times, and Harry is just completely oblivious.

She would still need to maintain her personality. You wouldn't want to turn her into someone like Ginny was introduced as. She is a bit arrogant and full of herself at times so you could risk losing that if you aren't careful with the balance.

I've seen loads of stories where she is the poor ostracised veela that has very few (if any) female friends and no male friends because they just want to shag her, and I've seen stories where Harry chases after her, but I don't recall ever reading one where she is chasing him at least not without losing her arrogance and general traits that make her well her.

 

I can remember one where Fleur notices Harry right from the start, when she exits the Bouxbaton carriage, but for the love of god I can't remember the title, or the plotline. It is quite possible the story got discontinued.


There was another one where both Harry and Draco get transported back into their teenage bodies (4th year ofcourse) after the whole world population was already exterminated etc. etc. because Voldemort wanted to still have some people to Lord over and does a ritual to go to an alternate dimension (and to get away from that pesky Harry that just wouldn't die or leave him alone). In that one Fleur tries to dominate young Harry with her aura just for the fun of it only for Harry to tell her to piss of or regret the consequenses. After that Fleur is suddenly very interested in Harry. I believe that one got discontinues before anything truly happened as well.

 

Basically what I'm hearing is that anything approaching quality gets discontinued most of the time.

 

Is it this one? It last updated in September, so there's still hope.

 

I think it's still WIP. Just a bit on the slower side.

 

Fleur is planted at Hogwarts by the French during the Tri-Wizard Tournament in an attempt to get close to Harry and kill him.

It's not exactly Fleur/Harry romantically, but it's definitely a type of Fleur/Harry.

 

Isn't that sort of what Dagger & Rose does? Been a while since I read it.

 

I wish there had been a sequel to Dagger & Rose. There were so many fantastic character-driven plot strings left dangling there. And that's the central problem with Fleur/Harry. Most fics seem totally unable to make plot advances character driven. To a certain extent, this makes perfect sense. After all, despite those few fics that succeed (I'm thinking The Lie I've Lived, Dagger & Rose, and the only just burgeoning What You Leave Behind), Fleur/Harry is a ship that is very difficult to make character driven. She is at least a solid three years older than he (mileage may vary, re: a fic like What You Leave Behind, which ages Harry a year, and The Lie I've Lived, which sort of ages Harry seven). Three years is a huge gap in teenage terms, and so most of them end up just mashing the two together and then writing a story that one hopes will hold but rarely does. You can even see it in how the ship is written: Harry/Ginny, Harry/Hermione, Harry/Daphne, Fleur/Harry.

I think the best bet for a good Fleur/Harry fic, for those who wish to write one going forward, is to set it post-Hogwarts.

 

3 years is not a huge gap. Anyone who has ever attended high school has probably met some freshman who dated a senior, and in that case, one of them wasn't internationally famous like Harry is.

The problem with Harry and Fleur isn't the age gap or the fact that they are in school. It is shitty authors who want to be lazy. Instead of working with what they know of their canon personalities, they go the lazy route and change the personalities to help make the transition easier. Then they write scenes that are way too pushy in forcing them together that leave readers feeling like the only reason it was written was to force the two characters together faster. You need to put them together, but you can't overdo it just so you can get to writing the fun stuff once they are together.

If you are looking at a 4th year fic, Harry is shit with girls, and he seems to have very little awareness of how he could use his fame. He also has zero experience in dating a girl. Those are things that must be addressed in some way, and you can't just wave it off by making Harry older or giving him memories of another life. He needs to stumble and fuck up on dates because that's real.

Similarly, Fleur is older. She's also a bit arrogant and condescending, but more importantly she is passionate and cares deeply for people who are close to her. She is not some poor ostracised girl who doesn't have friends or hates being attractive. Fleur is confident and we see her going for guys in the books. You can't just ignore that experience or part of her personality either. You have to find ways around it, and somehow strike a balance while continually moving the plot forward.

It's not something that is easy to pull off if you are sticking to canon, but that doesn't make it impossible. It just means you have to put in a bit more effort and creativity into it. Lazy writing can lead to horrible impressions of stories, but I get it. It's really tempting to try and rush your way to a scene that you've been planning especially if it inspired the idea for your story.

 

Best news I've heard in a long while

---------- Post automerged at 17:33 ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 ----------

Hence why it is more likely that if anything would happen between the canon Harry and Fleur, it would be Fleur seducing Harry. I don't see the canon Harry having the confidence to do it. It would be a slow development though, we know Fleur doesn't care one whit about Harry in the beginning. Perhaps she has a change of heart after the second task (he does save her dear sister), or perhaps we leave canon behind and something else makes her interested in Harry (with her still having a canon personality).

Three years of good food and quidditch(?) should have done much to counter his underfed scrawnyness, so perhaps a summer with his new godfather (since when was Sirius ever responsible enough to ask others for permission?) who teaches Harry some confidence and woeing tricks?
Harry would never be a seduction master, but he might be interesting enough for Fleur after his heroic effort in saving her baby sister.

All just speculation though. Fact is that Harry would need someone to pull him out of his shell, as he tends to keep to himself, I think Fleur has the personality to match him well, regardless of her being 3 years older.

On a sidenote, though people may dislike this, it's also why Ginny isn't such a terrible matchup for Harry, and one of the reasons I think Harry ended up with her in canon.

 

Few things here. One, we don't know that she doesn't care about Harry. It can be reasonably implied, but we don't know that for sure. Like I said in a previous post above it's possible that she went over to ask for food specifically because she wanted to get his attention, and when it failed her pride could have gotten the better of her in subsequent interactions. She is of the age where she probably grew up hearing stories about him. It's not that far fetched.

You might even be able to make the case that while she clearly has experience in dating and going after what she wants that she might actually be complete shit at flirting because most guys would kill to go out with her. Leaving her awkwardly trying to make attempts but failing due to a mixture of seeing a potential childhood hero and her own lack of experience in actually having to try to get most guys. When her pride gets the better of her, she actually makes him think she doesn't like him. Plus, he is a bit thick and would never consider it a possibility. That's one way you could choose to make it work by interpreting her actions a different way in canon. It's still a slow build up, and there is a good chance that once they get together there will be fights or they may even break up, but it could work reasonably well.

The other way which is the one I'm currently working on for my story is to simply not have either one of them going after the other. Try to find an organic way to bring them together and just sort of let it happen. All relationships don't start with one person chasing the other. The trick here is to not get carried away with forcing the two together too quickly which is a bit of a struggle. Too many scenes revolving around them can lead to readers getting the impression you are pushing it. What I'm attempting is a few slight changes and maybe coming up with something interesting for the plot so it feels more natural.

I feel like changing Harry's age, giving him past dating experience, giving him more memories, having someone else give him dating tips over summer, bringing Fleur back when Harry is older, etc. are all used to make life easier for the author. You shouldn't use them unless they serve some higher purpose such as if you are completely rewriting his history and going massively AU, but Harry and Fleur probably aren't the focus of a fic like that. It could be important or something the author plans, but it isn't the only goal of such a fic. Well, it shouldn't be at any rate. That would make for a pretty bad fic in most cases.

 

Knowledge is Power by Fettucini did this actually (or whatever the fic was called). Harry literally ignores Fleur most of the time and Fleur is the one actively pursuing him.