Though the title protagonist is first an adolescent and then a teenage boy, the Harry Potter series is filled with smart, accomplished, compassionate women and girls to admire. There’s Hermione Granger, of course – she is the entire inspiration for my sex blogging alter ego, after all – but also Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, and Luna Lovegood, to name a few. Many Tumblr posts, Buzzfeed listicles, and tweet threads have been dedicated to these beloved characters, but there is one woman in the Harry Potter universe who does not get enough love, both within the fandom and the series itself: Fleur Delacour.
Ms. Delacour is of course beautiful, but she is also intelligent, bilingual, magically skilled, and deeply devoted to and fiercely protective of her family and friends. Despite these admirable qualities, she is often seen by others as merely snobby, vain, shallow, and rude. Unfortunately, some of my otherwise very favorite characters – Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley in particular – treat her horribly at certain points in the series, in a perfect illustration of femmephobia and internalized misogyny. By the end of the final book, Fleur is a key member of the anti-Voldemort resistance movement, harboring fugitives and fighting Death Eaters – all while performing the brunt of the unpaid domestic labor, as is so often expected of women in both the magical and Muggle worlds.
