Confidence
My response to the Tropes and Clichés Competition. This one was about changing the gender of one character and then exploring how the changed gender influences the story. In my case Fem!Neville is much more confident, since her Grandmother wasn't hell bent on having her be like her father. I don't own Harry Potter.
"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?"
The two Hogwarts students Fleur had asked about her favourite dish turned around to her and Fleur was momentarily taken aback. She hadn't recognised it when she approached them from behind, but the boy was clearly Harry Potter. Standing closer to him now than when she walked past him after arriving in the castle, she noticed that he had rather expressive green eyes. The girl at his side was rather pretty in Fleur's opinion. She had dark blue eyes and short, blond-brown hair and seemed to have a rather athletic physique.
What surprised Fleur the most were that both were smiling back at her warmly. She was used to vacant stares from most boys and insecure or jealous expressions from the girls. It was Harry Potter who answered.
"No, that's fine, take it."
"Are you finished wiz eet?" Fleur inquired, not wanting to appear impolite.
"We are," the girl confirmed with a smile, "it was rather good. Wasn't it Harry?"
The boy-who-lived looked at the girl as if unsure what to say. Finally he settled for a shrug. "It's a bit too fancy for me, I guess." He looked up at Fleur apologetically. "Sorry."
Before Fleur could reply, the girl gave an incredulous snort. "What do you mean, 'too fancy for you'? When you cook back at the Manor you regularly whip up three course meals for my Grandmother and me!"
Harry Potter blushed cutely. "I don't cook that often." He mumbled.
The girl rolled her eyes at him, and Fleur couldn't help but let a little giggle escape. The pair didn't seem to be offended, as both smiled up to her kindly from their seats.
"Anyway, you can take it." The girl repeated, holding out the dish.
"Zank you." Fleur gave them a grateful nod and took the bowl from the girl. "Well, I do not want to disturb you any further. 'ave a nice evening."
With that Fleur turned and went back to her own seat, happily holding her favourite dish. While walking away, Fleur heard the girl ask "Did she seem a little freaked out to you?"
Harry Potter's voice answered. "Who knows? Must be quite an adjustment to come here. Maybe it's that."
"Maybe." The girl agreed, sounding sympathetic.
After that Fleur picked up her pace, not wanting to seem as if she was loitering. When she was back at her table, she put some of the bouillabaisse on her plate before setting the bowl down on the table. On a whim, she turned to the Hogwarts student next to her, an Asian looking girl who was a year or maybe two younger than Fleur herself.
"'oo is ze girl sitting next to 'arry Potter?" Fleur asked.
The Asian girl, whose name was Cho if Fleur remembered correctly, didn't even look. Her expression darkened considerably though.
"That's Ivy Longbottom." A younger Hogwarts student with pale eyes and dirty blond her piped up from a couple of seats away. "She and Harry Potter have been friends ever since first year, and they became a couple this summer." Most of the Hogwarts girls around them took on expressions of varying degrees of jealousy, but Fleur was too surprised about the identity of the girl to think about that. Her eyes went wide.
"You mean zat is Ivy Alice Longbottom?"
"Yes." The young girl nodded. Fleur felt her mouth fall open. She'd heard about Ivy Alice Longbottom of course. Herbology was one of her favourite subjects after charms and Beauxbatons was famous for its Herbology program. Naturally, she'd hear about a Herbology prodigy coming out of Hogwarts. But she never thought the girl in question would be this young.
"C'est impossible! You are telling me zat zis girl is ze co-author of ze paper on crossing Mandrakes and Screechsnaps to produce a form of Mandrakes who grow faster and whose scream is not 'armful to humans? The one zat won the ICW Herbology Prize last year in summer?"
"Oh, yeah she certainly is. It was from back when we needed a lot of Mandrakes because of the wave of petrification amongst the students. I don't know her that well, but she's our live-in Herbology prodigy and the duelling ace amongst the girls in her year group. She and Harry Potter are especially good as a team. I hear that they will take part in the European Youth Duelling Championships in the two against two competition next summer." The girl Fleur was talking to informed her, either oblivious of the worsening mood of the girls around her or not caring about it. "A lot of girls in the younger years look up to her." The blonde concluded.
Looking at the other Hogwarts girls around her, Fleur decided not to continue her questioning. Usually other girls reserved those kinds of expressions for Fleur. It was rather a strange experience for Fleur to see them caused by another girl. She shot the young girl she'd been talking to a grateful smile before starting to eat in silence.
Her thoughts still went back to her encounter with Ivy Longbottom. Her eyes had shone with such confidence when she had looked up towards Fleur. It was rare for Fleur to find a girl who could look at her without a sliver of insecurity sneaking into her expression. It was partially because of how boys usually acted around Fleur, partially because of her looks and partially simply the effect that her allure had on women and girls. But not on Ivy Longbottom, as far as Fleur could tell.
Many times during the remainder of dinner, Fleur found herself trying to subtly glance over towards Harry Potter and Ivy Longbottom. She wondered if she'd be able to talk to them again soon.
It turned out that Fleur didn't have to wait long to have the next encounter with Harry Potter and Ivy Longbottom. When Harry Potter stepped into the small room she and the other Tri-Wizard Champions had been herded into after the selection she first thought he was there to ask them back into the hall. However, when Ivy Longbottom followed him, Fleur knew immediately it had to be something else. They wouldn't need to send two students just to ask them to come back.
"My name came out of the Goblet." Harry Potter said after a couple of seconds of awkward silence and questioning glances.
"But zere are already three of us?" Fleur pointed out in confusion.
Before anyone could reply, the door opened again and the three head teachers together with the government officials stepped in. Fleur winced a little when she saw the enraged looks on the faces of her own Headmistress and Headmaster Karkaroff from Durmstrang.
"I would like to know what is going on here, Dumbledore? Hogwarts gets two Champions? That seems hardly fair, does it?" Headmaster Karkaroff shouted. "And why did you allow the girl here with us? This is none of her business."
Fleur could see Ivy Longbottom blistering, but before she could open her mouth her boyfriend slightly squeezed her hand and she seemed to relax a bit. Then she heard Headmaster Dumbledore chuckle, before he responded in a calm voice "I appreciate your concern, Igor, but from experience I know that it is not an easy undertaking to separate Mister Potter and Miss Longbottom on a normal day. It becomes next to impossible to do so in a situation where one of them thinks the other may be in danger."
"Miss Longbottom?" Madam Maxime asked curiously, now eyeing Harry's girlfriend with some interest. "Iz your sistair Ivy Alice Longbottom?" Knowing that this actually was Ivy Longbottom, Fleur winced again.
The girl seemed to take it in stride though, as she simply chuckled lightly. "I don't have a sister." She replied calmly. "I am Ivy Longbottom."
"C'est imposible! You are too young." Fleur didn't quite manage to suppress a smile due to the similarity of her Headmistress' reaction with her own.
Headmaster Dumbledore answered again, his eyes twinkling merrily. "You will find, Madame Maxime, that age is a poor indicator of skill when it comes to Miss Longbottom and Mister Potter here."
"The girl's academic achievements are hardly the topic here." The Headmaster of Durmstrang intervened. "The boy cheated in order to enter the tournament. We were assured something like this would not happen, Dumbledore."
Headmaster Dumbledore sighed and turned towards Harry Potter. "Did you place your name in the Goblet, Harry?" He asked calmly.
"No, I didn't." The boy-who-lived replied firmly.
Fleur's first reaction was disbelief, but she decided to keep it to herself. She definitely wanted to discuss some advanced Herbology with Ivy Longbottom if she got the chance and she didn't think the girl would take well to Fleur accusing her boyfriend. Not that she had to wait long for someone else to do it.
"Clearly the boy must be lying!" Headmaster Karkaroff shouted.
Harry Potter just snorted. "Yeah, right. Are you out of your mind? Do you know what Ivy would do to me if I did something as stupid as entering my name into that Goblet?"
There was barking laughter from the ugly man with the magical eye and all the scars. "Ha! At least you got your priorities straight there, Potter." Fleur noticed that Ivy Longbottom was looking mighty proud of herself. The ugly man continued "But Potter's right, it should be obvious he didn't put his name in. You saw what Dumbledore's protection did to those who tried."
"Zere must 'ave been a mistake." Madam Maxime argued.
Suddenly the Hogwarts Champion, Diggory or something, made his presence known. "I'm with Harry on this one. He and Ivy have spent a lot of time in the last two years protecting and helping lower year students from all houses. They continued to help the Hufflepuff first years with homework and everything else even when those in their own year ostracised them in their second year. If they say it wasn't them, then it wasn't them."
Both younger students shot the Hogwarts Champion a grateful smile. Fleur decided that there was no point in continuing this discussion one way or the other. If they were guilty, they clearly had enough support to hide it. And if they weren't, well, then there was even less point in insulting them. So she nodded towards both of them. "Innocent until proven guilty." She stated.
The day after the selection of Champions, Fleur sat by the shore of the lake wondering what she'd gotten herself into. Maybe she shouldn't have entered after all. It was dangerous. Yes, there were safety measures this time, but they failed already, hadn't they? No matter whether Harry Potter entered the tournament himself or whether he was entered, the fact remained that the security around the Goblet had failed. Her parents had already been worried without such an additional warning sign, so what would they say now? Fleur didn't like to make her family worry, especially not little Gabrielle.
She was shaken out of her thoughts when a voice appeared beside her. "Hello Fleur."
Fleur turned around and was surprised to find Ivy Longbottom standing there. Sure, she'd taken some notice of the girl, but she couldn't fathom for what reason the girl would just come up to her to talk.
"'ello, Ivy." Fleur replied cautiously.
The younger girl smiled at her. "Harry wanted me to tell you that he's very grateful for your help yesterday. Many students of our own school seem to think it was him who cheated, so even the assumption of innocence you gave means a lot to him."
Fleur raised her eyebrows. If that was the case, then why didn't Harry Potter tell her himself? Maybe she had misinterpreted the situation two days ago and Ivy Longbottom was susceptible to the allure after all and she had stopped her boyfriend from talking to Fleur alone. Fleur couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness. She'd really hoped that she might have finally found a girl who's different from most others. Who, judging by the jealousy in the expressions of the Hogwarts girls when Fleur brought up Ivy's name, might even understand what Fleur is going through with other girls. But probably that had been too optimistic.
"I see." Fleur replied simply. "It was nozzing."
"No, it really means something to him. So thank you. From both of us." The girl smiled brightly.
"Why didn't he come with you then?" Fleur couldn't help but ask.
The other girl blushed and looked down to the ground. At least she was ashamed of her prejudice then. "Well…, it's hard to explain. But, do you remember when we first talked two days ago?"
"Yes?" Fleur confirmed in confusion.
"You seemed a little freaked out. Maybe we misinterpreted it. But… anyway, Harry is really uncomfortable around people who freak out about him being the boy-who-lived. That's why he asked me to come. It's nothing personal, he's really grateful, it's just…"
That was when the girl stopped or rather Fleur interrupted her by starting to laugh. Harry Potter was uncomfortable because he thought she had been freaking out about him. That was too good. As Fleur continued to laugh, Ivy Longbottom looked at her questioningly. Finally, when she managed to calm down enough, Fleur explained herself.
"I may 'ave been a little… 'ow do you say? Confused. But it wasn't because of 'arry's fame. Eet is rare for me to find students 'oo do not react to my allure, you know? When ze two of you did not react at all, eet just caught me off-guard."
The other girl's eyes widened. "Oh, so that's what it was. I'm sorry then. It's just, we didn't really know what else it could have been, so we thought…"
"Perfectly understandable." Fleur granted. After all, if a boy freaked out after seeing her she would assume it was because of her allure and her looks, not because she was great at charms or something like that.
"Well, in that case I'll let Harry know that he has nothing to fear from you. I think he'd like to have some sort of relationship to all the other Champions, you know?"
Fleur chuckled. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Of course, why not?" Ivy Longbottom asked with a confused voice.
"Eet is just, well, usually other girl's do not encourage their boyfriends to talk to me, much less to have some sort of relationship…"
The girl looked confused for a moment longer, then understanding dawned in her face. "Oh…" Her face fell further as the implications of what Fleur had said seemed to become clear to her. "Oh." She repeated.
"Yes." Fleur confirmed.
Then to her surprise, the girl shrugged. "Well, I'll trust my gut feeling, which at the moment says you're not a girl to steal another girl's boyfriend. And Harry is immune to nearly all mind magic, so your allure probably wouldn't work anyway, even if you tried." She stopped for a moment seemingly considering what else to say. Then she grinned. "And if it worked, then I'd just win him back from you." She pointed her tongue at Fleur.
Fleur couldn't help but giggle at the younger girl's outlook.
"Hey, do you want to join us? Harry and I are doing some training. Might be a little too easy for you, but I'm sure if we duel two against one we could give you a run for your money." The girl suddenly asked.
Fleur looked at her in surprise. "You are being serious?"
"Sure." The girl shrugged. "If you want?"
After a brief moment of consideration, Fleur stood up and nodded her head. "Lead ze way." She didn't have anything else to do and if she was honest duelling and defence were not her strongest subjects anyway. If it was true that Harry Potter and Ivy Longbottom would be participating in the European Youth Duelling Championships soon, she was sure she could learn a couple of things from them. Maybe she'd teach them some advanced charms in return. At the very least she could get a feel for her competition. And this whole tournament ultimately was meant to foster friendships, wasn't it? Fleur could use one or two of those.
She and the younger girl walked up the hill towards the castle side by side. Half-way up, Ivy Longbottom turned around and grinned. "Seriously though, Harry is mine." She said, once more pointing her tongue. Fleur chuckled a little, happy that the girl could take the situation with humour.
Many years later, Fleur (then Weasley) would look back at this moment as the beginning of her friendship with her best friend Ivy Potter. It was a good day.
Thank you for reading, I hope you had fun.