Wait, Hermione [Redacted] Herself?

Discussing fanfic juggernaut MANACLED with fellow fandom crone Ashley Reese.

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As someone who watches the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy every year around Valentine’s Day, I’m very familiar with the concept of filing off the serial numbers, a phenomenon in which authors of popular fan fiction pull their stories offline, change the character’s names and hopefully a few story details, and re-publish them as original fiction. Fifty Shades began its life as the Twilight fanfic Master of the Universe. Ali Hazelwood’s science romance The Love Hypothesis was originally a Kylo Ren/Rey (aka Reylo) Star Wars fic. It’s been posited (and mostly debunked) that Casey McQuinston’s Red White and Royal Blue began as a RPF (real person fic) about Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, around whom a fandom sprang up following the release of The Social Network. 

Now joining this illustrious canon is Manacled, a dystopian Harry Potter/Handmaid’s Tale fusion centered around Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger clocking in at 370,515 words. It takes place in a grim future in which Harry Potter has died and Hermione, missing memories of the war, is assigned to Draco as part of a Voldemort-ordered breeding program. The sprawling fic has over seven million hits and has spawned a devoted following transcending the bounds of fandom, being touted by readers who have never before engaged with fan fiction. It was only a matter of time before publishers would see the opportunity to cash in on this huge built-in audience, and author senlinyu recently inked a deal to adapt the story into an original standalone novel.

After reading Manacled during a feverish 72-hour stint, I had so many questions about how this could even be possible. How does one unlink the complicated mass of plot and character that is Manacled, a story so deeply intertwined with its source material, into a standalone work? What does this mean for the future of fandom? Is Manacled even good?

To help me answer these questions—and more—I enlisted the help of Ashley Reese, a fellow fic enthusiast and author of the Substack Bad Brain. We met up in a Google doc and had a very long conversation about Manacled, the state of fandom, and Leather Pants!Draco.

When did you read Manacled?

I read Manacled in summer of 2022. I was at brunch with friends that I’ve known since the Tumblr days, and the topic of fandom of Harry Potter fandom came up. At some point, my friend Liri said something like “Dramione fandom is always in shambles, but what do you expect when their most popular fic is the most depressing shit you’ll ever read in your life?” Depressing fic? I was immediately intrigued and asked what it was. She told me it was called Manacled and was, like, legendary, in the fandom. I was going through a really hard time that summer--my now late husband, Rob, was in and out of the hospital due to cancer complications--and a distraction in Dramione form sounded pretty good at the time. I was hooked instantly. It took me about four to five days to read all 370,000 words.

Have you read a lot of Dramione before?

Fun fact: I read Dramione BEFORE I EVEN READ THE BOOKS. was a late bloomer when it came to reading the HP series, and after a few attempts over the years I finally started reading them at age 14. But I did watch the movies, and I was obsessed with the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. Honestly, that’s the one that made me want to pick up the books. But anyway, the dynamic between Draco and Hermione somehow stuck with me enough to venture onto fanfiction.net one day and read some fic about them. Maybe I was really into the idea of enemies to lovers without realizing it lol.

Do you generally like dystopic fanfic? 

This is a big fat It Depends for me. So, full disclosure: When it comes to HP fanfic, I’m a Marauders era/first war girlie. I pretty much never read Harry era and beyond fic, ever, and haven’t really since 2006 or so. Still, the dystopian fanfic I encounter with Marauders era is similar to the ones you’ll usually encounter in Harry era fic in the sense that it’s usually “Voldemort Wins” type shit. I think you can do a lot of interesting things there, but most people tend to resort to “Muggleborns are sex slaves” type shit with dystopian fic which… can get a little old. I tend to avoid that kind of stuff. I don’t doubt sexual violence would be a part of the sort of fascistic regime in a dystopic wizarding world, but woof, it get’s old. With that said, I’ve have read a good fic with a Muggleborns-can-be-bought-and-sold dynamic. The writer ended up getting bullied into not updating it anymore because some people in the fandom decided it was problematic. Shame, really. It was well written!

What did you think of the sexual assault aspect of the story?

I’ve always been okay with reading sexual assault in fic as long as the story that is attached to it is compelling and well-written enough. I think that anyone who has galaxy-brained enough about the HP universe and its politics has deduced that life for Muggleborn women must be especially trying and violent. They’re regarded as second-class citizens due to their blood status and being women. Put the two together and you get a demographic that is dehumanized. Sexual violence goes hand in hand with that sort of dehumanization, so--and I’m sorry if this sounds weird--I almost don’t take fics that feature Muggleborn women very seriously if there isn’t at least some acknowledgment of rape culture in their sexist, blood purist society. That doesn’t mean there has to be on-screen rape to legitimize a story, but I don’t necessarily shy away from stories that feature it in some way. That said, a lot of fic is not that great, and I’ve maybe only read a handful of fics that handle sexual assault in a way that doesn’t feel ham-handed or gratuitous. 

Would you read a non-HP version of Manacled?

I’ll be honest, it wouldn’t be something I would gravitate toward. Even if it wasn’t HP, I’d assume there’s a fantasy element to it, and I generally don’t read fantasy, actually. I’ll put it this way: I’ll pick up a Sally Rooney book in a heartbeat. Sarah J. Maas? Not so much. I just… don’t understand how she’s going to file the serial numbers off this thing. It’s one thing to change character names, but the magic element is pretty essential to the story, you know?

How did you feel about the characterizations of Draco and Hermione? 

So here’s the thing: It had been so so long since I read something with either character that I was kind of up for anything as long as I didn’t get Leather Pants!Draco or Emma Watson!Hermione. Manacled avoided both characterizations, and I was satisfied enough, I think. It’s been a while since I read it so I don’t remember all the crying from Hermione, but I sometimes remember struggling with Draco. If anything, I was more pissed off with Harry and Ron’s characterizations from time to time during the flashback sequences, but eh, I rolled with it.

Were you satisfied with the ending?

Honestly, yes, in the most bittersweet nauseating way. I always figured Ginny was alive. I’m glad she had Harry’s baby after he was murdered. But Hermione and Draco’s child having to keep her parentage a secret because both Hermione and Draco were thought to be deceased in the wizarding world killed me. Like, it made sense from a safety perspective, but God. Few things I’ve read in my 20 years of reading fanfic have gutted me more than the final line of Manacled being “[Hermione] was a non-active member of the Order of the Phoenix and did not fight” after we just went through hundreds of thousands of words of her fighting as a member of the order and also on her own. GUTTED. The definition of a bittersweet ending. 

I suppose since you read mainly Marauders-era fic, you’re used to unhappy endings. Is Manacled the bleakest fic you’ve read?

God, lemme think about that for a second…honestly, it might be. The only other one I can think of is this one fic I read where James and Harry die but Lily survives and she has severe memory loss and is living in Snape’s fucking house and then she remembers everything that happened and makes it her mission to kill Voldemort. It’s one of my favorite fics ever, made me cry like a baby, but the ending is similarly… bleak but bittersweet I guess. Still, Manacled was ten times longer and a lot more people died. Sometimes it felt like torture reading this fic.

It is kind of gratuitously terrible. Every time some new awful thing was revealed I was like, COME ON!!!! Like when Hermione is being tortured by literal Voldemort and possibly shits herself? Why do people write this? Why do people read this?

OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THAT! I mean, it’s telling that the thing I remember the most about this fic isn’t even necessarily the plot itself, but just how people were tortured and died. Like, finding out the way all the Weasleys in particular were murdered. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Ron basically turned into like… something molten? 

Yes, I think his blood was replaced with acid or something. I did find it interesting how creative the author got with the ways magic would be used in a war, because yeah it is kind of ridiculous that in the known HP universe, there are only three bad spells. But Jesus, some of the stuff in Manacled was insane. I HATED the potion that made Hermione horny. I knew the basic premise of the story going in but didn’t realize how descriptive the violence was going to be. That’s not necessarily bad, I like reading violent fiction—I’m currently shoulder-deep in a Hannibal obsession. But Manacled was trauma porn.

Oh, you know, the magic element of Manacled was probably one of the best things going for it. It really stuck with me, the creative ways in which magic was used not just for violence for even for run-of-the-mill diagnostic stuff. Hermione was a healer, so seeing how the author imagined magic being used in that field was particularly interesting. I mean, everything was sort of like, floating screens or whatever--a bit of a sci-fi vibe honestly--but it was pretty fun to read. And yeah, it definitely makes JKR’s range on the magic front look embarrassing. But that’s sort of what fic is for in a lot of ways, right? To make the bare bones of that world a lot more interesting with a little extra thought LOL.

Totally, and that makes me even more curious about how this will be adapted into original fiction. Because the author did so much world-building that sometimes Manacled is unrecognizable from the world we’re used to, and yet the only reason it’s able to function is because of the reader’s existing knowledge. The summary literally starts with the sentence “Harry Potter is dead,” and that fills in so many gaps right from the jump. You understand the weight of that, you understand the basics of the world and politics and the magic system. How can you possibly unwind this story from that? Maybe you’re onto something and she’ll go in more of a sci-fi direction.

At this point, I almost hope that’s more of the direction she goes into, because if she maintains the magic element, it’s going to be too similar to Harry Potter from the get-go. If there’s no magic, I don’t know how half of this shit works. But even if she deviates from the original genre… girl, how is this going to work? Like you said, starting off knowing that Harry is dead sets the stage in so many ways. We know that Voldemort won, and because we read those stupid books, we understand what that entails. We’re already emotionally invested. So how is she going to translate that to characters with backstories we’re not supposed to know?

YES! So much of what happens works because we the reader know things Hermione doesn’t. How do you do that in a non-fanfic story? And how do you make Draco a compelling love interest/anti-hero, because he was so opaque to me for most of the story and I just filled things in with fanon. This wasn’t even Draco in leather pants, this was…something else.

That’s why I said I struggled with him in this fic. Even doing a quick rereading, I found myself less emotionally invested in him because I truly couldn’t get much of a read on him. And not because he was oh so mysterious or whatever. It’s Draco, I’ve read the books, I have a general idea of what to expect from his character--fanon aside--and I just failed to get a grasp on this version of him. I’m not even saying he was written badly or anything just--I don’t know, maybe I’m too Marauders pilled LOL. Is this because I don’t read much Draco fic? Is this a skill issue on my part? Sometimes I wish he was more of a leather pants Draco caricature because then I would at least know what I’m dealing with and how to react. I just didn’t find him as compelling as Hermione, I guess!

I’m Drarry-pilled, so I’m used to a much different version of Draco. It almost felt like the world and plot were created first and this Draco had to be engineered backward to fit into it, leaving him very different from any recognizable version of the character. I never even thought “Hermione, you better step away from Harry’s man” because he didn’t feel like the Draco I’m used to reading. Fan fiction is so weird!

Like, I guess I can just shrug it off as him being hardened by the war. The sarcasm felt pretty realistic for a more mature, war-weary Draco I suppose. But I guess I wanted a little more…Jesus Christ, the first word that came to mind was zest. No, I don’t want a zesty Draco! But I suppose I wanted a little more…pizzazz. Is that stupid?

Not at all! I agree, but I think we’re in the minority. Manacled is SO HUGE, in a way that’s kind of hard to wrap my mind around. I’ve never been actively in a fandom where a fic has been pulled to publish, so it’s been really interesting to see the phenomenon from a closer vantage point. But it’s not even very insular. I’ve seen so many TikToks made by people who have never read fanfic in their lives but are obsessed with Manacled and buying bound editions of it on Etsy—which you should not do! I thought we’d already reached the fanfic tipping point, but this is a whole new level. I almost wish people knew about fic less than they do now. It’s so weird when I find out someone in my life actively reads fanfic, like this thing that used to be just for me isn’t anymore. It’s amazing, because it leads to conversations like this or my friend and I making a deal where I read Manacled if she would read All the Young Dudes, but I also want my counterculture back! Manacled is the new Stanley cup!

You know what was absolutely insane to me? So there’s this woman named Kiera Lewis who is documenting herself reading the Harry Potter books for the first time. Pretty funny stuff. But I read the comments of one of her early recap videos and saw someone recommend that she read Manacled! First of all, this woman is crying at little itty bitty shit like Harry feeling sad about something. I was like “Manacled might land this woman in the hospital, how could you even suggest this to her? Let alone before she has finished the books!” Fandom in general has become mainstreamed to a point that is still hard for me to come to terms with. I don’t really care if this sounds gatekeep-y or not. I’ve done my years, I’m earning my fandom AARP benefits. But it’s at a point where I’m like… why are we talking about fic in front of company? 

I’m right there with you. Let me lock the door…

Like, on the one hand, I guess it’s good to not be embarrassed by fandom activities? But on the other hand, maybe the embarrassment is sort of the secret ingredient that made these spaces so incredible in the first place. The girls that get it get it. Now too many girls get it! Get out of here! WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MANACLED TO A CIVILIAN?

Bring back shame 2024! I am standing with you at the gate, sister, with a heavy padlock in hand. At least GAY fanfic is still kind of on the down low.

Girl i don’t know bout that. ALL THE YOUNG DUDES WAS WRITTEN ABOUT IN SLATE. Like, here’s another thing. The idea of making a video about a fanfic or some pairing fantasy or whatever on the internet with your government name attached is still shocking to me. We don’t count…we’re culture critics and shit. But these random sixteen year old girls making videos about Remus and Sirius fucking? For all their classmates to see? Map out this scenario to my 16-year-old self and she would have passed OUT. No shame. They’re so brave LOL. 

But is it bravery or just youth? I will never reveal the fandom, but I was in a deep ship hole last year and would watch TikToks of people making fanfic recommendations where they would DRESS UP AS THE CHARACTERS AND ACT OUT THE SUMMARIES!!! They are our bravest soldiers but I also think in 10 years they will wish they could have been as anonymous as we were in the early aughts.

Honestly, you might be right on the youth front. Most of my loudest fandom activities are trapped in friends-locked posts on Livejournal. We used to have communities where this sort of chatter was exchanged in-house, not for millions of people from the outside to stumble upon. Clashes happened, of course, but it was still so insular. It’s just not like that anymore which, again, isn’t inherently a bad thing, but as a fandom crone I’m still not used to it. Even during the Tumblr era when I would see fandoms I wasn’t involved in come across my feed, there was still something insular about it. I don’t know, maybe I’m not being fair. TikTok has its “sections” too, but things are so much more liable to get out now, there’s so much identifying information attached…it just doesn’t feel as exclusive anymore!

FANDOM CRONE! See you at the nursing home, girl. Ultimately I’m glad fanfic exists and that people who put thousands of hours into writing things without ever thinking they might make money off it are finding a way to get paid. I will absolutely read the non-HP version of Manacled, but if I find out the author is 22, I will kill myself.

Yeah, I have to say, good for her. She has people making fanart about her fic. There was a Business Insider article about her fic. I find that terrifying, but it’s impressive! She’s obviously not the first one to do it. Cassie Clare did it with The Mortal Instruments series. That was based on the Draco Trilogy or whatever.

But did SHE write about Hermione shitting herself? I think not.

Follow Ashley Reese on Twitter.