really like the start, and I love Epee too

Evil versus Evil at its finest.

It's great that Harry has found a way to practice his sport. Strange ending and thanks for sharing!

Very nice update! A pleasant surprise to see this notification.

Cool! please update soon!

Finish this story. Take a godsdamned decade if needed, but finish it.

Nice story so far! Great bout descriptions! Your blade bias and fidelity is... very transparent, but I'm a foilist so I don't really mind that much. Please finish this story, it is among the few well written (ish, compared to the really great ones, but you still write better than 95% of others) and thus must not die.

I like the premise, but unfortunately, I'm not really following or envisioning what's going on while they're fencing.

Cool! please update soon!

Never commented on the final lines of this chapter, for a few reasons.

"That day, Harry Potter met the love of his life.
He also met Fleur Delacour."

? "ALSO", sort of implies Fleur won't be the love of his life, or that he loves fencing more. As without "also met a greater love, a future love of his life". The joke or play on words maybe, that he met fencing in a new light, because of Fleur, winning because of her help, perhaps the meaning is, fencing became the love or his life because of finally winning...EXCEPT he already LOVES fencing or at least Fleur asking if he "enjoys" it, he replied, "more than anything else". if I recall. So maybe from liking it to loving it.
But unless it read something like "That day, Harry Potter met the love of his life, when he met Fleur Delacour.".
Or "grew his liking fencing more than anything, to loving fencing, due to meeting who would become the greatest love of his life. Upon meeting she, who helped him shift, from enjoying, liking, to loving fencing, Harry had met that day, she who would eclipse even fencing, as the greatest love of his life, and SHE, who Harry met that day, she was Fleur Isabelle Delacour."

ARGH! See how awful even a short version goes, trying to make the text say, what you probably mean it to say.

It's like your phrasing gets the meaning OUT, even if literally, it doesn't say what readers probably take it to mean, that it means "That day, Harry Potter met the love of his life.
When he met Fleur Delacour."

But THIS:
"That day, Harry Potter met the love of his life.
He also met Fleur Delacour."

Maybe since she is NOT YET the love of his life,
you meant by "also" to imply THAT UNKNOWN
to him he had met Fleur, not knowing he had met
the love of his live.

Perhaps some rephrasing?

I tried to offer up an OMAKE, week ago, wrote one, it was meandering, rambling, redundant, and PARAGRAPHS, really LONG.
So I later got an idea, to shorten it, which also turned into a long long, too long mess.

Anyway, even though the lines are understood, for me, reading them NOT literally is what I guess you mean.

As literally I would read as Fleur won't be the love of his life, that Harry loves fencing and Fleur is not a romantic "love pairing" of the fic, just a plain pairing, another major character.

Most probably won't take "also" to mean Fleur is "additional", so not "the love of his life" Harry met, but ONLY someone else he met. Even if not written as most read it, it is a hell of a lot more EFFICIENT in length. I probably "get" the meaning, even if it doesn't quite say what I take it to mean. Weird how something so small, can make a big difference, but NOT if one "gets" what is meant, rather than what was "said" [written].
And for "said", I suppose in everyday communication, "getting" the meaning, rather than taking everything literally, is a needed skill, for people to understand what people mean, and that it is not always what they said.

Pathetic Harry.

Awesome.

Nicely written. :)

Welp. That escalated quickly. Interesting story, but I must ask - why the disdain for sabre? You mentioned how Bob skipped over the topic of sabre and whatnot.

Nice twists on the penpal Fleur fic, "Letters" plot gag, most just sort of copy it, a school summer assignment, write your randomly chosen penpal. The whole gag of fencing, for meeting earlier than canon, pretty much makes them writing your gag, not truly borrowed from other fics like "Letters", since their writing to each other follows logically from them meeting, and so what, if Harry's fame might be why Fleur would write to a boy that much younger.
One easy angle on that, is though younger, he is "safe", not chasing her skirt, and she can "get to know a boy", without it being related to being wooed or seduced, romanced, but friends.
I'd worry a bit, if long term is to be a romantic pairing, as somewhere there needs to be a drifting off, that Fleur doesn't remain a "big sister" advice giver, but a confident. She can be a mentor and advice giver, but over time, Harry needs to come into his own, to not be the "leetle boy", or any turn to a more romantic pairing, will not work as well.

Considering the common logic of fanfics that Dumbledore warded off mail from all of baby Harry's "fans". There is that possible detail you might wish to address, like Fleur having to use her fencing coach, perhaps hand letters off to Harry's fencing coach. If she uses muggle post, did YOUR Dursleys actually let Harry open his mail, or seize it, read it and throw it away?

Nice twist on meeting Draco. Although it thought it went a bit far, Harry thinking of so much Fleur advice, it came out almost like she was a seer, anticipating so much of what Harry will encounter, and how MUCH advice Harry kept thinking of in his head when meeting Draco.
Lol, swallowed the retort when Draco insults his muggleborn mum, but NOT when Draco insults sword fighting.

Pompus Draco, LOL, it was quite reasonable, your Draco, especially him being 11, to believe how SIMPLE using a sword was, and of course why he couldn't win had to involve "cheating". The getting the diary reminds me of my OLD OLD idea, Harry wondering if not writing to Narcissa might be fun, telling her about the danger her husband put Draco and every other student. I've yet to read a fic where the basilisk, a wild, perhaps bit insane, at least bloodthirsty monster, does NOT follow so much, the CONTROL of the diary or possessed student, and EATS Draco one night, LOL. Poetic justice. And so much for "You'll be next, mudbloods." LOL.

Fleur, fencing, sword fighting, not bad, good counter to the not uncommon Fleur the ballet dancer. I recall only ONE fic, with a sword fighting Fleur, who trains in using swords.

I am SICK of recent years of Fleur following it seems, the slide of cliche ice Queen Daphne into ICE BITCH, Fleur without proper context, being the arrogant selfish shallow French bitch witch.
I also HATE the cliche following canon, of CREATURE VEELA.
I dislike the kneejerk anti-Fleur or Fleur bash simplistic fics, of a weak Fleur. I guess, her failure to "mere grindylows" in the second task, has a kneejerk tendency of many fics to portray her as untalented, weak, or Beaubatons inferior, like a finishing school for witches entering careers of being wives.

I'd like a WITCH Fleur, witches which magic and evolution, evolved to seem similar, but are NOT bird-creatures in sexy human form seductresses, any more than Sirius is a dog who likes wearing the form of a wizard. Give us a complex COMPETENT POWERFUL sexy HUMAN Veela WITCH Fleur, PLEASE.
I avoided the fic a while, the summary just didn't attract me.
But I found it having a LOT of potential, and well done.
I do like a pre-Hogwarts letter Harry, to, like Tom Riddle, begin actively exploiting and mastering some magic, to improve his life at #4, whether through trickery or intimidation, via some wandless magic. IT is reasonable, your beaten down bullied young Harry. I would have not minded though, a bit of early backbone BEFORE Hogwarts, though your presentation was reasonable, as has been written. But Harry evolving to refuse to take abuse when at #4, would be NICE.

After QuirrelDeMort, I can sort of give in, to an emotionally distraught Harry portrayal, appearing a bit like blood in the water to Dursley sharks upon returning to #4, after his first year, for a few days, or a week, shell shocked Harry, vulnerable, seeming weak, targeted by the Dursley bullies bastard scum.
But compared to the horrors, from Voldy drinking unicorn blood, QuirrelDeMort, Voldemort, Fluffy, like below, after the basilisk, would even a post first year Harry NOT find Dursleys not all that intimidating after what he faces during the average school year?

IMO, even before turning 13, before blowing up Marge, a post basilisk, post diary Voldy, THAT Harry I think would no longer find his "relatives" very intimidating.

And until after year 4, when Fudge is trying to destroy Harry and Dumble's reputations, really, the FEAR of Hopkirk, underage magic shit, and being EXPELLED, REALLY, the Boy-who-lived fearing being expelled, willing as in many fanfics, to just take a beating and abuse, than use magic to defend himself, BLEAH.
Besides, underage magic is a PLOTHOLE mess of JKR's, probably around using Harry to recruit Slughorn, Dumbles in short, explains the whole underage magic shit is a ruse, that mainly muggleborns and Harry are monitored, the Ministry unable to distinguish WHO, only to BLAME if ANY spells are detected. So DIG UIP whatever enchantment is buried out in the yard of #4, simpler than ?Lordvar?"Summer of Change", finding and disabling the receiving enchanted thing in Hopkirks offices.

I was both surprised and impressed with the start. I wish you luck and creativity, I can think of many branches and side plots and twists from canon, and downright tangents off to non-canon plot paths. A Fleur worthy of Harry, a Harry both DESERVING a worthy Fleur, and a Harry worthy of Fleur. That would be SO MUCH better than the recent ICE BITCH Daphne and snob arrogant bitch Fleur characters, that I suppose, are THE witch to chase, BECAUSE they are of course, ATTRACTIVE... but not much else, just sexy and pretty.

If you have an interest beyond fencing.
If you never rented it, LOL, me who has seen about 6 movies the past ten years, but ONE I did see, my late sister's DVD, of Tristan Isolde [I actually remembered the name and spelled it, "Isolde" and googled it.
ALL the EXTRAS on the DVD are quite interesting, the LOW budget struggle to make a movie that NO BIG MONEY would back, making it "cheap", the stunt people in a small economically depressed country, doing outstanding work with the melee weapons, to even circling those "extras" to pass by a camera shot multiple times, as they didn't have the budget for LOTS of movie extras.
Though brutal and bloody, the melee weapons, the battles, were, IMO, impressive.
There is also a LOT of interesting bonus shit on the DVD, about their take on oral story telling, legends, what the movie combined and twisted in historical legends and tales. The bonus shit on the DVD was very interesting.
Bonus DVD stuff good to watch after the movie, for the sour mood, since it AIN'T a happy ending tale. In part, it was frustrating, the plot that bent it into an ruined romance, that could have been fixed if one thought about it./