Katy Weaver Photography/Del Rey Books
- "Manacled" is a popular, dark fan fiction by SenLinYu.An adaptation of the fic called "Alchemised" will be published as a traditional book in September.The original text is based on "Harry Potter" and "The Handmaid's Tale."
"Harry Potter" fan fiction is going mainstream in 2025.
In 2023 and 2024, fan fiction about Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger — or Dramione, to their fans — went viral. Stories long beloved by the fic community reached wider audiences through social media, particularly TikTok, but few got as much attention as "Manacled," a dark romance by SenLinYu.
Following the frenzy of attention, Del Rey will publish SenLinYu's "Alchemised," a reimagination of "Manacled" with original characters and a fresh plot, on September 23, 2025. The novel is also set to become a movie, as SenLinYu just secured a reported seven-figure deal for the film rights to the novel.
Here's everything we know about "Alchemised" so far, from how it will differ from "Manacled" to its release date.
'Manacled' is a dark romance between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy
Enemies-to-lovers fanfics about Hermione, Harry Potter's precocious best friend, and Draco, the morally gray Slytherin, have been popular online for years.
However, SenLinYu's "Manacled" has a darker tone than many Dramione stories because it also draws inspiration from Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."
It imagines an alternate universe in which Lord Voldemort killed Harry Potter and the Death Eaters defeated the Order of the Phoenix in the battle at Hogwarts. "Manacled" diverges from the canonical "Harry Potter" plot after the events of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
Warner Bros.
After fighting alongside Harry in the war as a healer, Hermione is imprisoned for sixteen months and robbed of her magic through enchanted handcuffs by Dolores Umbridge, one of the most loathed characters by "Harry Potter" fans. Hermione also has magical gaps in her memory about her life during the war that even she cannot remove.
Following the war, witches who fought for the Order are forced to become surrogates for dark wizards to repopulate the magical population (à la "The Handmaid's Tale"). The Death Eaters give Hermione to Voldemort's second-in-command, known as the High Reeve, as a surrogate in the hopes that he can also help uncover her lost memories.
Hermione is horrified to discover Draco is the High Reeve, and she goes on to live out a waking nightmare trapped at Malfoy Manor. However, the more time they spend together, the more Hermione finds her repressed memories hold truths about her relationship with Draco — and her impact on the war — that she could never have imagined.
SenLinYu published "Manacled" in installments over 2018 and 2019 on the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own (Ao3). The work amassed millions of hits, becoming particularly popular in 2023 when it blew up on BookTok.
In 2025, "Manacled" was removed from Ao3 ahead of the release of "Alchemised."
'Alchemised' is a reimagined version of the fic
In a February 2024 interview with Today, SenLinYu said they wanted to turn "Manacled" into an original novel because of how viral the fan fiction had become.
"Using this opportunity to reimagine it felt like a way to leave the original version to fandom so that they could keep it, but that I could take back the rest of the story and rework it in a way where it became mine again," the author told Today.
Katy Weaver Photography/Del Rey Books
According to the book's description, "Alchemised" follows Helena Marino, an alchemist and healer who fought in the Resistance before she was captured by the necromancers when they defeated the rebels.
Helena can't remember the months before her imprisonment, which alarms the necromancers. They send her to the High Reeve, Kaine, hoping he can uncover anything suspicious lurking in her mind. She isn't the only one with secrets, though, leading Kaine and Helena down a dangerous path.
Because "Alchemised" is an original novel, it cannot exist in the universe of "Harry Potter" or "The Handmaid's Tale" due to trademark laws, so the author had to make some substantial changes to get the new version published.
According to The New York Times, the magical elements inspired by "Harry Potter" have been replaced with necromancy and alchemy in "Alchemised," and although much of the novel is similar to the fanfic — even including some identical lines — SenLinYu removed over 50,000 words from the text.
Del Rey Books
Likewise, the surrogate aspect of "Manacled," inspired by "The Handmaid's Tale," appears to have been removed from the story. However, the book's cover features a woman walking toward a mansion in a red cloak and hat, which resembles the cloaks handmaids wear in Atwood's original work.
"Alchemised" is also set to become a film thanks to a massive deal between SenLinYu and Legendary Entertainment, as the media company announced on Wednesday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Legendary paid seven figures to secure the film rights to "Alchemised."
"I'm honored by Legendary's incredible enthusiasm for the project and can't wait to see the world of Paladia come to life," the author said in a press release shared with Business Insider.
SenLinYu's work wasn't the only Dramione fan fiction adapted into a traditionally published novel in 2025. On July 25, Julie Soto released "Rose in Chains," inspired by a fan fiction she wrote called "The Auction," and Brigitte Knightley published "The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy" in the same month. The novel takes inspiration from her beloved fic "Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love."
Soto and Knightley's works debuted at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on The New York Times fiction bestseller list, respectively, highlighting how eager audiences are for Dramione-inspired works in mainstream publishing.
SenLinYu shared some sneak peeks of 'Alchemised' over the summer
SenLinYu is set to go on a formal book tour the week "Alchemised" is released, but on June 29, the author participated in a pre-publication event at The Strand in New York City.
At the event, the author offered new insight into "Alchemised" and read an excerpt from the novel.
For instance, SenLinYu discussed the importance of healers in their fictional world, how being a mom of two affected the creation of "Manacled," and why the main character's name is Helena, as shown in a clip shared on TikTok of the event.
"Helena was always Helena," SenLinYu said. "It was actually funny because initially, I had several people tell me I needed to come up with a different name for her. And I, actually, I really did try to give her several other names, and I always ended up coming back to Helena because of the different kinds of meanings to the name."
"Helena means light, but then she also gets nicknamed Hel, which is the Norse goddess of death," they said. "I kind of liked this kind of duality within the character of having a name that both means light and death."
In addition, on July 21 and 22, the author offered insight into "Alchemised" by posting illustrations of two maps of the novel's world on Instagram, both of which were created by Francesca Baerald. One map spotlights Paladia, the city-state where Helena and Kaine live, while the other shows the entire "Known World" of "Alchemised."
