One of the most talked-about fanfics in the Harry Potter universe—author Senlinyu’s Dramione AU Manacled—is being reworked for publication as a book in 2025.
On February 5th, author Senlinyu announced that she has signed a deal to publish a book based on her hit fanfic, Manacled. The book will be published with Del Rey (Penguin Random House) in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK.
The novel will have a new title—Alchemised—and will be what Senlinyu calls a "reimagined version of Manacled." In her announcement on Tumblr, she explained more about how the publishing deal came to be:
"I began redrafting the concept privately around Christmas 2022, and then as if the universe had aligned, just as I was finishing, Caitlin Mahony and Rivka Bergman of WME reached out to me and were delightfully enthusiastic about concepts and ideas for my new alchemical world and the ways I had reimagined the story."
The original fanfic was a dark retelling of the story of Harry Potter in an alternate universe where Harry dies and Voldemort wins. It follows the aftermath of the war in an incredibly grim dystopia similar to A Handmaid’s Tale, where surrogates are forced to bear children for pure-blooded wizards. One of these surrogates is Hermione, who is assigned to Voldemort's right-hand wizard, Draco Malfoy.
The fic was incredibly popular with readers, with 7 million hits on AO3, thousands of positive reviews on Goodreads, and over 13,000 members of its devoted fan group on Facebook.
Despite its loyal fan base, the story has still been very controversial among readers. It heavily features rape and forcible sex between the two romantic leads, Draco and Hermione. Some readers feel the book romanticizes sexual assault, slavery, and Stockholm Syndrome. This kind of content is undoubtably disturbing, but readers disagree as to whether or not it was handled with the appropriate sensitivity.
While the story gained temporary traction on Wattpad at one point, it was deleted from the platform in February of 2021 due to violation of Wattpad's content guidelines.
Like other fanfictions-turned-books After and Fifty Shades of Gray, the story and characters of Manacled will be reworked to remove elements associated with the Harry Potter fandom. It's probable that the characters will get new names and some of their more fandom-specific traits will be changed.
Senlinyu describes the updated version as "a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them. It will grapple with themes of trauma and survival, legacy, and the way that love can drive one to extreme darkness."
Have you read Manacled? Tell us what you think of this news in the comments...