Flowerpot

In the times after the war, having fought brutally and fiercely, Harry marries Fleur Delacour. They settle down and after years of destruction, both dedicate themselves to creation.

Fleur becomes an Enchanting Mistress and Harry finds his life’s passion blacksmithing and artifice. Heating up, shaping and beating metal, listening to its song, it makes him feel truly alive. Together they craft wondrous items of beauty, purpose and great power. Their competition, goblins, tries to get them out of the business, yet Harry and Fleur make for a formidable pair. In a subversion of the usual tropes, Harry is the hothead of the pair, Fleur often having to cool his temper and offering him sound advice.

Modern, non-magic, circus AU. Harry Potter and Fleur Delacour live, travel and perform with the Fawkes Travelling Circus as flying trapeze artists. They are considered one of the best duos in modern times.

And as a few years passed, Harry began to develop feelings for the French beauty.

But, after Fleur asked for some time to think, and not knowing what to think of his confession, Harry became distracted.

And distractions, as his old mentor Remus Lupin told him, could be deadly.

The next day they have their biggest show yet, with promoters coming from all around the world to see if the small, family-run circus was ready for the big time. Fleur tried to ease the tension between her and Harry, but he didn’t want to talk to her. Instead thinking over the failed confession in his head over and over.

And, as they were executing their most daring feat yet, Harry was distracted…

...and dropped her.

It was only because of the old ringmaster’s demand for a net for the life-threatening routine that saved Fleur’s life.

Feeling like he was to blame for nearly killing the woman he had secretly loved for years, and not being able to bear seeing her in a wheelchair, Harry quit the trapeze altogether while remaining with the circus doing another act as it was his only means of income and his first home.

Years later, Fleur is just now coming out of recovery and physical rehab, returning to the circus and learning that Harry had given up on his dream because of her. So she decides to do something about it.

Fleur returns to the circus to a welcome back party thrown by her found family… only Harry is absent. She asks around the circus and learns that he is now a shell of his former self. No longer a ray of life and hope, but a depressed man who spends more time drinking than practicing his new daredevil routine. A decision that she realizes is putting not only his body, but his life at risk.

And he doesn’t seem to care.

She goes to him, telling him that she does not blame him for her injury, and that she is sorry for refusing to talk about his confession at the time. And that she has since learned how much she cares for him after the years in hospital and rehab.

She foolishly expects him to change back to who he used to be, and becomes heartbroken when he tells her that he honestly doesn't care if he dies during an act anymore, that it would be what he deserves for nearly killing her.

Heartbroken and anguished, she goes to his old mentor Lupin to figure out a way to help Harry.

He suggests the only way for Harry to return to who he used to be is to get him on the trapeze with her again. So she decides to do just that.

Even if she could barely walk, she would get back into shape enough to help him.

Anything for him.

She trains for months to get back into performance condition, nearly giving up because of the pain, but refuses. Knowing that this was the only way to help Harry.

The time comes that she is ready to perform again, and she tells Harry just that. He is against the idea, saying that she isn’t strong enough to do it on her own.

So she asks him to fly with her again

He initially refuses, saying he doesn’t trust himself anymore.

She cups his cheek with her hand, telling him that she’s always trusted him to be there to catch her. And that she would never want to fly with anyone else.

So, with tears in his eyes, he agrees to fly with her one last time.

[If I were writing this, I’d end it right after their performance. Maybe with a short few sentences acting as an epilogue or something. But, as always, feel free to alter it any way you wish!]

His entire life Harry Potter was Defenseless, Vernon beat him, Dudley bullied him, and the entire Dursley family treated him like a slave and a nuisance. Now this towering man named Hagrid promised to take Harry away and that Harry would learn magic, Harry decided he would never be powerless again.

‘You call that foul name everyone of my heritage. Why should I be any different? Go back to your Death Eater friends, Severus. And know that if I ever come across one of you wearing your masks, I will be casting to kill.’

Lily Evans, later Potter, was well educated when it came to muggle history, including WW2. She knew that movements such as the Death Eaters must not be tolerated, because of where their actions lead. Her father was among the soldiers that rescued prisoners from a concentration camp and she well remembered his haunted eyes.

James and Lily become a well-known and formidable pair, making a name for themselves when they slay a pair of Death Eaters in a 2 vs 2 fight. Lucius Malfoy dies, gored and Severus Snape spent the last moments of his life only half the men he used to be. The Potters’ battle against the Lestranges is still used by the instructors of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as instruction material.

No Death Eater overheard the prophecy and the war took longer. Casualties mounted, but in the end, Albus Dumbledore triumphed against Voldemort in a truly titanic battle in which many perished. Voldemort was given the Dementor’s kiss and the soulless husk of his body was transmuted into a brick, another brick in Azkaban’s ever-growing walls.

Narcisssa, hearing of her beloved Lucius’ death, swore bloody vengeance on the Potter family, vowing to exterminate them like rats.

After a long period of brutal, bloody fighting, the victors were much harsher on the Death Eaters and the families who supported them.

Wizarding Britain looks much different to canon, the surviving Death Eater families find themselves much diminished in status and maligned by the populace, bearing a deep grudge for the casualties and indignities they were (unjustly in their eyes) forced to suffer.

And in these changed circumstances, Harry Potter enters Hogwarts.

Harry is a pianist whose one dream is to play at La Saint Chapelle, the last place his mother took him to listen to live music before she passed away. One day, he meets a silver blonde struggling violinist. Unprompted, and guided by what he can only describe as magic, he joins in on her piece. Together, they just might help make each other's dreams come true.

Veelas, Sirens, Dryads, Nymphs, Rusalki, Lake Maidens, Glaistigs and many more, all-female races one and all, have united in the face of muggles’ expansion and the wizards’ secrecy. They manipulate, lobby and subvert, trying to ensure that their races not only survive and continue into the next generation, but also thrive.

To achieve that, they need a steady supply of men of character, integrity and strength. Magical power is preferable too. In every magical school there are scouts on the lookout for young men that look promising.

Harry Potter seems to be a promising candidate, despite his unfortunate upbringing. The Tri-Wizard tournament was meant to be used as a chance to establish contact with him. The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang include young, promising women, chosen for their desirable attributes and willingness to enter into a relationship with the young man, to convert him to the cause, so to speak.

His entry into the competition complicates matters, a sure sign of somebody else having designs on Harry Potter. And the situation is even more complicated by the fact that he has eyes for the Ravenclaw seeker Cho Chang.

Dumbledore was a lonely soul after Grindelwald. No one had managed to get closer than a friend. The number of people he would consider close friends could be counted on a single hand with fingers to spare.

Dumbledore didn’t want to be lonely it was simply that he found himself rather busy or that others had a hard time looking past the tale of the Defeater of Grindelwald. He had in fact always wanted a child to fully pass on his knowledge and ideals. To know his legacy would live on. Of course, due to his preferences when it came to love, the child would need to be adopted, and he had made peace with this.

Just such an opportunity presented itself one Halloween night.

Dumbledore decided to take in Harry and raise him as his own. It couldn’t be that hard right… right?! The boy would have a tough life and Dumbledore could raise him to handle his fame and power.

Dumbledore needed help. He didn’t know how to raise a child. He also worked too many jobs ugh. He couldn’t go to Minnie; she told him it was a bad idea to begin with, and then she would never let it go. Sucking up his pride, he brought the child to the staff table during winter break and asked for everyone’s help.

This is the story of why Harry calls all the professors Aunt or Uncle and why he calls the big man himself Grandfather.

In this world, the abuse at the hands of the Dursley’s was worse and left Harry with some rather large scars. One of these scars is his inability to speak. Well, it's more like he chooses not to. Harry just hopes the saying, ‘actions speak louder than words’ is true. Read as Harry tries to woo a certain flower without words.

Albus Dumbledore may seem like a senile old coot, but in reality he's the biggest badass out there.

So one day, when he realizes he's getting old (no shit sherlock) he resolves to take up an apprentice to pass down his awesome badassery to.

Enter Harry Potter.

I could see this being titled something like 'Dumbledore's 102 ways to be badass'

He has begun his conquest of the world.

The Prophecy was meaningless.

Muggle-Borns and Half-Bloods began life in Hell. The Veela were regarded as little more than creatures, and Harry is spirited away from this lost world by a Stag and a snowy white owl.

"We will protect you. Always," said James, and watched as his beautiful wife retake her human form, emerging from white feathers.

"We have spent too much time...too long..." panted Lily, her eyes, to James' alarm, more yellow than it's usual bright green, "J-James...I'm...forgetting..."

"We will always watch over Harry, no matter what." said James, with utter conviction.

"You do not have to do it alone," said a stranger. When the frantic parents and toddler looked up, there were two red phoenixes, one larger than the other.

In the next instant, the phoenixes were replaced by a beautiful woman and a child, a toddler really, with iridescent silver hair. Veela!

"You are in the realm of Oberon and Titania," said the adult Veela, "if you but ask, we may offer a boon upon you."

Dark Fantasy fic where Harry grows up in the Fae Wilds, and an unpredictable young man returns to Wizarding England with a phoenix, stag and owl, and woe to any who stands in his path as he sets about restoring light to a land starved by shadows for too long.

Gabrielle Delacour hates being a Veela. She wears tattered beanies, ratty old clothes, denim jackets that are too big for her, and hides behind a pair of fake glasses. She died her her black as soon as she left school and spends almost all of her time hiding in the muggle world. One day she runs across someone she knows. He doesn't recognize her, how could he, but she will always recognize him. Harry Potter.

All magicals have the ability to live forever; immortality, as it were. However, this immortality is intrinsically linked to one’s soul, which is split into three pieces at birth. When someone falls in love, a true, deep love, one of those pieces is given to the person they have fallen in love with.

You die once you’ve run out of pieces of your soul.

Many people have lived long lives, falling in love, falling out of love, and then falling in love again, sometimes with the same person. Eventually, no matter how many times they fall in and out of love, every single magical, without fail, falls in love one too many times, and breathe their last.

Every single magical, that is, except for two.

Harry Potter, the man who has never fallen in love, and Fleur Delacour, the woman who leaves a trail of broken hearts and souls in her wake, making others fall in love with her in order to prolong her life. These two have never crossed paths, only knowing each other by virtue of being the only two immortals, until one day, they bump into each other as spectators in the 283rd Triwizard Tournament.

What follows is a story of love, of the inevitability of death, the heart-wrenching pain of falling in and out of love with the same person for centuries, and the slow, inevitable march of one of the two eventually falling in love with the other for the last time.

I wish you all a short and happy life.

Inspired by Aeternum, a Percabeth PJO fic by Fangirl Shrieks

Write a story entitled, "On a Raft of Driftwood and Dreams"

The unthinkable has happened. The Bubble has been broken. The assasination of Empire leader Aisling Duval by a supposed Federation Agent has plunged the bubble into all out war. As humanity is torn apart by the all out combat between the two superpowers, sides are taken, lines are drawn, and humankind is pushed further and further towards crippling devastation. Independent powers take advantage of the conflict, and pirates and raiders run rampant in the chaos, stations, outposts, worlds and entire systems are lost each day. At some point it becomes too much. And people decide to leave. Individual commanders, Fleet carriers, even entire stations jury rigged with FSDs take to the stars, venturing outside the bubble in a mass exodus of billions of souls. Yet it is an uncharted, unexplored, lawless void beyond the fringes of the Bubble. And the fate of humanity has never been more uncertain. Amongst the escapees are Harry James Potter, a disillusioned member of the Empire Aristocracy, and one of the few embers of the far flung, dying magic wielders, who hopes to escape the madness and bring back the disappearing magic, and Fleur Delacour, a Federation CMDR escaping the enforced conscription, searching for the any knowledge of the fate of her parents, of her sister, lost in the hell of the war. Forced together by circumstance, brought closer by hardship, and intertwined by their goals, they explore the bubble and beyond. Yet the void between the stars is not empty, and the Galaxy is home to much more than just Thargoids or Human raiders. And their destinies are much greater than they could have ever imagined.

Ok, so this might be a tad crazy and I'm not even sure if it works in writing rather than as a movie, but imagine the following.

The fic starts with the regular "welcoming feast" (preferably HBP). Fleur is announced as defense teacher, things look normal, but as Harry leaves, he catches a glimpse of Diary Riddle. Just for a moment, and when he looks again, he's gone.

Harry thinks it's just his mind playing tricks on him, goes to bed, all is well.

After the first defence lesson, Fleur asks him to stay back and arranges extra lessons. Those are somewhat similar in concept to occlumancy lessons with Snape, only without the abuse. A lot about projecting your magic and an "intuitive" control of it.

However, afterwards, Harry catches another glimpse of Riddle. So he rushes to his dorm, grabs the map and finds... Nothing. Well, maybe one of the Slytherins got a new haircut or something, he's clearly just being paranoid.

So Harry continues to have the lesson with Fleur, but they are pretty much the only noteworthy thing which happens. No crazy assassination plots, no creature rampages, the only unusual thing is that Harry continues to see glimpses of Riddle, but before he can ask anyone for a second opinion ("Hey Hermione, who's that guy over there who looks like teenage Voldemort"?), he's gone.

Harry continues to grow closer to Fleur (who has no ongoing relationship with Bill, this is not supposed to be a HBR ripoff) because the lessons get quite intimate, especially as they dissect the lessons Snape has taught him (and the general mind reading/link).

There are more and more inconsistencies. Some of the first years remind Harry of the previous batch, not that he pays much attention to them. Alicia Spinnet replaces Snape as potions teacher, Fleur mercilessly teases Harry for having had a crush on her even if he has never acted on it and moved on.

Also more general weirdness which still could be explained with Hogwarts being Hogwarts (random holes in the stairs level). Harry also can't remember the summer at all and there's a lot of fog around Hogwarts.

Eventually, after more lessons with Fleur, Harry manages to confront Voldemort and it develops into a big fight which Harry barely wins after applying the lessons about magic which Fleur had taught him.

Now here's the big twist, Harry wakes up in St Mungo's, it's only around his 16th birthday, he has been in a coma since the DoM and Voldemort's possession attempt. After Harry showed no signs of waking up, Dumbledore consulted experts but they could do nothing. So he hit research mode and found something about Veela magic and linked fates (I want to avoid tropes like life debts and Veela bonds, the actions of Fleur should be completely voluntary), which have a certain mind-link interaction (requires initiation and is only active while maintained, no passive/permanent bond). Fleur agreed to go through with it, there can be a certain sense of "he saved me/my sister, that's the least I can do", but it should not be an obligation.

So Harry wakes up after what he thought was half a year but actually just a few hours (plus a month of previous coma without Fleur involved), and it is pretty shattering since none of what he went through has happened. And well, given that he fell in love...

I'd end the story with Fleur talking to Harry and telling him that just because things happened in his head does not mean that they were not real. She was actually in there with him and not just his brain projecting stuff. And all of her actions were actually her doing them. So happy, fluffy ending

A King was losing a war, so he went to a Wizard and had him create an army. The wizard only knew of golems, but their thinking was rather simple and the runic mark on their forehead was a glaring weakness, so he was forced to create something new. Automatons were created and thus changed the tide of the war. They could be made to look human to blend into the enemy army, they were also far stronger and faster than a normal human, and some of them could even perform specific spells. The King didn’t trust the automatons, after all they were loyal to the wizard, not him. Now he didn’t do anything drastic like some in his position might do and try to kill the Wizard, instead, he simply phased them out with human soldiers over time. Eventually, to humans, automatons became myth just as wizards and dragons did.

While the innovation of automatons had a rather small impact in the muggle world, outside of the war, the wizarding world was another story. Suddenly a new source of labor was introduced. Jobs that could be done with magic but were tedious were now allocated to automatons. There was a large influx of automatons that pervaded many homes the quality of which depended heavily on the wealth of the families.

Automatons were even more dangerous because they had an artificial intelligence of sorts that golems did not. Wizards however often viewed them as beneath them because they required magic from their master to survive. There are a few stories about automatons killing their master, but of course it's rarely mentioned the automaton was often abused.

[3:10 AM] Fighting had also changed due to the introduction of automatons. Wizards often stayed in the back to provide cover and long-ranged attacks while the automatons specialized in protecting the wizard and close-quarters combat. Some automatons like a dragon model had the ability to perform fire attacks. A fight would be over if an opposing wizard was subdued. Most aurors only had 1 automaton, a partner of sorts, but it was not uncommon for others to have more. However, this required significantly more magic power from the wizard.

The strength of an automaton depends on experience, materials they are crafted from, the craftsmanship of their parts, and the amount of magic given by their wizard. A wizard can boost the magic they give an automaton increasing their abilities. Too much magic power can damage parts, hence the need for better parts.

Harry found more than just gold when he visited his families vault for the first time. An automaton stored in the vault activated upon his arrival. According to Hagrid it was a Veela model; mainly ment for child care or maid work. The weird thing was that Fleur, the designation given to the automaton, didn’t even know how to properly eat or how money worked let.

Harry took it upon himself to teach her how the world worked. It wasn’t until Harry got to Hogwarts and was promptly challenged by Malfoy that he learned Fleur specialty was fighting.

So Fleur is either an animagus or gets cursed for a bit before Harry's first year at hogwarts. She ends up in eyelops owl emporium, and guess who sees a snowy white owl and gets it? Harry via Hagrid. Enter the reallt convoluted way to get them to be friends and set up more.

It's exactly the same but Harry does the thing because he sees that Fleur is sad/lonely and wants to make her smile, and/or because he has a James Potter level of crush on her and it goes the way of the RomCom

It was her eyes, he decided.

They looked nothing like hers of course. his companion had brown eyes that sang of home, whereas she had eyes as blue as the sky, but they shared a fire, a fire that brought an aching familiarity that tore at his old memories and his long since dead heart.

They were both beautiful beyond compare, the Thief acknowledged, but even that was in different ways. The Witch was supernatural in beauty, a form so perfect that it betrayed her inhuman nature, whereas the Dancer was sculpted, her form shaped from years of exercise, full of flaws that sought to emphasis the beauty of the dance.

Their allure was different as well, the Veela was a siren's song, a mystical draw that a man could drown in if he was not cautious. The Azelhart heiress drew men in with a purely mundane, albeit very practiced and quite effective presence.

Primrose did not deserve to be compared to his flower, it was not fair to either of them...so why did Therion long to have Prim call him Harry, like his Fleur used to?

(and this is what happens when i remember that Prim's path ability is called Allure, plus they are both flowers in name)

Harry and Fleur's love is like something out of a storybook, what was cold dismissal turned to a warmer acceptance that in turn, became relentless passion, by the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, it wasn't unusual to see both of them together, it caused some divide between Harry and his friends, but nothing that wasn't fixable, especially when Hermione found out there was more to Fleur than a pretty face(the fact the french woman got Harry on a complete improvement of his study habits, including a new language, may have helped), Harry got invited to spend his Summer at France, but wasn't willing to risk Fleur and her family now that Voldemort was back, he did, however snuck away more than a few times, with the help of his Cloak and a clandestine portkey.

In one such escapes, everything changed.

It was on warm summer day that Harry felt something different while at Privet Drive, but ignored it, a few days later, he was shocked to see a teary eyed Fleur at the door, with a confused and concerned Tonks coming from her survaillance hideout to talk to her while casting Privacy Spells, Harry caught his girlfriend in his arms, he noticed he was already a bit taller than her, he had never seen her cry this way, it sounded like joy and sadness were fighting.

Fleur kissed him, hard, and said. "Est devenu, bleu, 'Arry, bleu!".

"Blue, Fleur what has turned blue?" He didn't notice Tonks gasp and almost drop her cloak.

To answer, Fleur lifted a small glass vial for him to see, with a swirling blue substance inside it.

Harry was completely bewildered until Fleur turned to him and said the words that would change his worldview forever, "I am pregnant, 'Arry."

The couple didn't notice Tonks repeating 'Fuck' under her breath, nor Petunia dropping the tray she was carrying behind them.

They did notice a desperate Dumbledore appearing with Fawkes in a flash of fire, coming to see why the wards had fallen.

A little father's day prompt. Consequences of Love, I call it.