Fleur Delacour had the most impressive performance in the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, imo, and it is a Crime that she came in last place. Like, sure, maybe what she did took awhile and it wasn’t flashy, but imo she did by far the most impressive, difficult, and most humane piece of magic.
Like, there’s this pissed off dragon mother, right? It’s been boxed up, taken to this strange place, then stuck in a noisy arena where its eggs are being threatened. This dragon is probably Unbelievably scared and angry.
It can take 4-8 adult wizards working in tandem to Stun a dragon, especially a pissed off one, but Fleur “fairy princess” Delacour walks into that arena, stares down an angry apex predator, and somehow manages to single-handedly enchant it to sleep. This Common Welsh Green is surrounded by hundreds of people, needs to protect its eggs, but Fleur Delacour’s magic manages to override all of its fear and anger? That is an incredible feat of powerful and probably very complex magic.
Like, no wonder Fleur Delacour can come off as condescending, that is mind-blowingly impressive. That is the work of 4-8 adult wizards. You cannot tell me that the watching dragon-handlers were not LOSING THEIR MINDS.
Between sexism and Fleur being part-Veela, it is unfortunately very realistic that she faces a lot of prejudice, but come on, Professors Sprout and Hagrid and etc. must have been going wild. It’s only some very bad luck that her skirt was accidentally set on fire. She got the golden egg. There was zero damage to the dragon or to the real eggs. Even if Madame Maxime and Fleur worked together to prepare it, Fleur still had to do it, and Madame Maxime would have been so rightly furious that Fleur’s bravery and magical skill wasn’t recognized.
Anyway, part of where I’m going with this, is that this injustice also creates some choice eldest Weasley brother reactions. Like Bill Weasley is writing his regular letters to Charlie, right? And he happens to mention, “Hey, I met this woman at work, with that guardian beast problem with that tomb I was telling you about. Do you remember the Beauxbatons Champion, Fleur Delacour?”
And Charlie Weasley writes back like, “DO I REMEMBER FLEUR DELACOUR? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WE HAVE A POSTER OF HER ON OUR WALL! I HAVE HER GRADUATING CHARMS THESIS ON CALMING MAGICAL CREATURES AND I WANT IT SIGNED. SHE REVOLUTIONIZED OUR DEALINGS WITH DRAGONS HERE. INJURIES ON THE RESERVE FOR DRAGONS AND HANDLERS ARE DOWN BY LIKE 75% SINCE WE BEGAN IMPLEMENTING HER SPELLWORK.”
“Uh, alright then. Well, you can send that to me and I will ask her to sign it for you,” Bill Weasley, an extremely successful Curse-Breaker, writes back. (It isn’t that he doesn’t find Fleur Delacour accomplishments very impressive, it is just that the poster on the wall thing is a Bit Weird.) “That’s not going to be weird when I ask her out or anything. Wish me luck.”
And Charlie writes back, “LUCK? LUCK?! WILLIAM WEASLEY, IF YOU DON’T MARRY THAT WOMAN, I’LL DISOWN YOU. TELL HER THAT IF GRINGOTTS DOESN’T APPRECIATE HER, SHE CAN COME TO ROMANIA. WE’RE BROKE, BUT I HAVE A DOZEN MUSCLED WIZARDS, WITCHES, AND OTHERS READY TO PROPOSE TO HER ON THE SPOT.”
“I was thinking dinner first,” Bill writes back. “But I’ll let her know?”
So, Fleur initially has to deal with a lot of crap from the Weasley Family, but at least she’s always got Charlie “Number One Fleur Delacour Fan” Weasley in her corner. You’ll catch Uncle Charlie excitedly telling the story of Fleur Delacour in the First Task to Bill’s children forever.
(Charlie: “IF YOU DON’T MARRY HER THEN I WILL!”
Bill: “Charlie, you’re not even into women.”
Charlie: “WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE MOST IMPRESSIVE DRAGON-HANDLING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE?!!”)
