Yes, quality does matter. Quite a bit.

 

I´ve been reading Heart and Soul by Sillimaure, which used to be called Alternate Endevours. I remember reading it when it first came out and discarding it, but I´m giving it a second chance.

The plot is essentially a marriage contract fic set post-GoF, moving on to be a more general OotP AU.

The marriage contract part isn´t so bad. For a start, the contract isn´t originally binding: they choose to activate it to utilise the legal ramifications as part of Harry´s defence in his Underage Magic trial.

Other plus sides include technically proficient writing and no sign of ridiculous manipulative Dumbledore. There´s also no soul bond or anything like that. Harry and Fleur are linked legally, not magically. Also it´s quite long.

The main downside is its ridiculously slow pace: chapter 10 is called "The End of Summer", and these are long chapters - over 10k each. That´s maybe 100k words of summer. That on its own would not be so terrible, if things were actually happening. But as well as the pace being slow, the story is just really quite dull. Very little happens given the number of words expended. The author has an extremely rambling writing style, going off on discussions of Veela etc. Which could work, if the various discussions were interesting. But they aren´t. The writing also has a tendency to recap the past in a scaryistit style (sorry scary, but you gotta admit, the first few chapters of your story were all canon recap from multiple points of view). So much of this story dwells on the past. It´s not quite hurt/comfort or angst, but a lot of it is spent talking about how Harry should have had a better life. And then whenever something new does come up, it´s skimmed over.

An example is Harry and Fleur´s first interactions. Their conversation dwells a lot on recapping Harry´s past - again. This happens so much in this fic. But okay, Fleur needs to know about Harry´s past. But then all original interaction after this canon recap is skipped: we´re treated to a two line "they talked about X Y Z" and then the story moves on. That´s completely the wrong way around. The canon recap should be skimmed over, as the reader knows all about it, maybe just picking a few lines of conversation from it to show Fleur´s reactions. The real focus of the scene should have been on original interaction, and Harry/Fleur chemistry.

And that brings us to the second downside: the Harry and Fleur relationship. It´s rather dry, and Fleur isn´t really very interesting. And this is part of the story- marriage contract, things are awkward at first. They´re not going to be best friends immediately. But there´s absolutely no chemistry between these characters that we can see.

And on top of that, we have a very cliched Fleur characterisation that is now very familiar: entirely too much focus on the fact that she´s Veela, entirely too little on the woman herself. All this "I could never make friends because I was so beautiful, so I developed a mask of arrogance" crap. I get he´s trying to explain away Fleur´s treatment of Harry at the start of GoF, but why can´t Fleur be more human? A pretty girl who is quite smart/talented but has flaws - such as treating people she thinks are below her badly? She doesn´t have to be perfect. She doesn´t have to have her arrogance explained away. Her change in attitude towards Harry after the second task is enough, I think, to make her character not a complete bitch (as the start of GoF would suggest).

Harry´s character development is also quite slow, and there are some glaring holes in there (he never thinks to start learning French?) - though maybe this will be remedied. I haven´t finished yet.

The omniscient third person PoV is annoying - mainly because it´s principally used to cover the same material over and over from different perspectives.

The last downside is that it looks like it will become Harry/Fleur/Gabrielle, not just Harry/Fleur.

 

Case in point.

 

I think you mean Harry/Fleur/Hermione. And after the last couple of chapters, possibly Daphne as well.

 

The summary says HP/HG/FD and the prologue says Harry will end up with two women, so I'm not sure how there's any ambiguity over what the eventual pairing will be.

On the whole the story is pretty awful. The 'good' characters are all perfect and far too effective, so there's not really any conflict or drama, and there's not much of a plot, or action. I suppose romance is present, but it's so dry that it might as well not be.

 

Unless the author has drastically rewritten the beginning of Alternate Endeavours, its absolutely atrocious. The marriage contract was handled in the most hamfisted way possible, the legal arguments for it were absolutely retarded, the characterization of Fudge wasn't even consistent within the same chapter, Mr. Delacour was a faux mysterious unparalleled uber-genius, etc. and etc. It was so bad than unless this is basically a completely new story with just the same basic idea, then I have no hope for it.

 

I think the story is an epitome of boring. This passive let's talk about it, describe it, retell it instead of showing it takes away any kind of suspension. It's like reading about somebody telling how a slug crawls. Another annoying downside was this plot driven training where they invited Luna as if they knew her before. That felt like really lazy plotting. I can't really name one upside for this story.

 

The beginning has been re-written. I remember when I first read it months ago, Dumbledore was at odds with Delacour and something of a traditional manipulative Dumbledore stereotype. He's been rewritten as much more sympathetic, and Delacour's forced awesomeness has been toned down a bit.

The trial scene is still ridiculous, though. Everyone talking out of turn, interrupting other people, issuing insults, not really making any kind of legal argument. It's basically no different to an argument in a pub. Legal systems are places of tradition and procedure. If someone tried to pull the kind of shit in this story in real life, they'd be held in contempt of court within 30 seconds.

 

That was the whole reason I bailed on the story in the first place. JD, JR, or JS whatever he's called was so incredibly awesome especially at the trial. I had to skip virtually the entire chapter, and then he was pretty awesome afterward as well. This is another story I really wanted to enjoy, but was constantly bludgeoned about the head and shoulders with the utter dullness and awesomeness. Maybe if Harry and JS/JR/JD hooked up... nah.

 

@Sesc: I disliked many things about that story, but the plot aspect that veela are...well, you know, appeals to me.

Makes me want to get cracking on that stalker/rapist!Fleur one-shot.

 

For a supposedly Indy!Harry story, Harry was a major doormat up until much later in the story.

When Sirius is explaining to Harry that he just decided all on his own to hook Harry up with Fleur without so much as a 'by your leave', Harry just basically says 'don't do that shit again'. Hell, even Canon!Harry would have had a bigger reaction than that.

It's like JS got so much of the awesome, that there wasn't any left over for anyone else. It doesn't help that JS promised Dumbledore that he'd keep the prophecy from Harry after promising Harry and Fleur a few chapters earlier that he wouldn't keep anything from them

I'm sure that when it's finally revealed that JS kept it from them, Harry and Fleur's response will be 'don't do that shit again', followed by instant forgiveness.

 

I've been following three new H/F stories recently, so I thought I might as well share them here:

Pardon My French by Lyrical Ballads
Post Hogwarts, humorous and looks like it's going to be an affair. Percy's campaign made me laugh

A Debt by desiwizard
GoF, Harry is more mature than in canon and this author has a pretty good handle on romance, i.e. non of this sappy bullshit that's usually present in these stories. I really liked most of the conversations between Harry and Fleur.

His Angel by durararaaa
This is one of those pretty generic GoF fics, lots of fluff, Fleur seems somewhat weak but the author mentioned that he's going to change that. Barely readable time-waster I suppose.

 

That's some pretty lulzy smut right there. My personal favourite:

Fleur wants to be a dentist.

Though this is also up there:

His virile right, lol. Wtf. This shit is gold. Every sentence is completely absurd.

 

Virile right hand?

Does that mean his marriage to Ginny is a bit...you know, dead?

She is ginger, after all.

 

If you lay with the red-headed wench, expect any children she bears you to share her hair and her lack of soul.

 

Compared to the usual FFN stuff, yes. I'm referring to the fact that they actually get to know each other, have meaningful conversations that aren't full of lovey-dovey shit and so on.

Sure, as it is this isn't even good enough for almost recommendable and the romance is nothing compared to what most DLP authors churn out, but at least this story doesn't make me think that it's written by a 14 year old girl sitting in a tub full of rainbow-colored teddybear-vomit.

 

Yeah, it's written by a horny 14 year old boy sitting in a tub full of his own semen.

 

...what is this I don't even