One evening of insomnia, Simona Stallone, real estate agent and content designer in Toronto, comes across a fanfiction devoted to the improbable couple Hermione Granger / Drago Malefoy, a union known as “Dramione”. A few clicks later, she discovers Manaclea dark story based in the universe of Harry Potterbut imagining the victory of Voldemort and an unhealthy romance between Hermione, healer who has become a prisoner of war, and Draco, her jailer and brutal executioner.
“I was completely swept away by this book. I consider that there is in my life a before and after manical ”She says to the New York Times. The text becomes an obsession: multiple readings, tattoos, reading clubs, up to an artisanal edition of more than a thousand pages offered for its birthday.
This could have only been a confidential toquade on the Archive of Our Own site, a lair of fanfiction lovers, nevertheless exploded. Simona is not the only one to get caught up in the game. More than 10 million views for the text, 100,000 five -star notes on Good Adreds: today the novel is about to storm the bookstores. Renamed Alchemedthe story of the author Senlinyu will appear at the end of September at Del Rey editions with a first colossal draw of 750,000 copies and translations in twenty-one languages.
Alchemed is part of the spectacular boom of a literary sub-genre: the romantasywhere dragons, magic or alchemy mingle with stories of love and explicit sexes. A cocktail that seduces a generation fed at Harry Potter And Twilight And who, once adult, wants to prolong the escape with this time a little more chili. “They grew up with these heroes and these universes, the stories ended, but the appetite remained immense. They still want magic, epic quests … and a little more spice ”Leah Hultenschmidt analysis, editor at Forever.
A monster success
The figures for this success are vertiginous: 32 million copies of novels of this kind were sold in 2024 just in paper printing, +47% compared to 2023. Five of the ten most sold adult fictions this year in the United States belong to this category, at the very moment when global fiction sales are stagnating.
The boom is not completely new. He recalls the planetary ascent of Fifty shades of Gray (2012), born at the origin of a diversion of the saga Twilight. Today, the fanfiction is no longer considered as a sub-genre: authors like Julie Soto (Pink in chains) or Brigitte Knightley (The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy) assume both of having based the “Dramione” universe and publish novels “Dramione-Coded”recognizable at first glance. Draco Malfoy is portrayed there as more mature and irresistible, when Hermione Granger is more desirable than ever. An explosive cocktail.
“Harry Potter” without JK Rowling?
But this success questions. While JK Rowling is more than ever criticized for his words about Trans, part of the fans took refuge in fanfiction to continue to make Hogwarts live, in their own way. “Many of us have found refuge in these stories, a way of staying in this universe without supporting our opinions”underlines a New York reader when launching Pink in chains.
Senlinyu, who has not discovered Harry Potter that by the fanfiction (his conservative parents had prohibited it), ignores the ambiguity of his work: “I don’t want us to believe that I try to promote or align myself with his positions.”
Released from its status as “shameful little secret”, the world of fanfiction becomes a pool for publishing. The houses see in these accounts tested online an already acquired and very faithful audience. There is now a route traced for its texts, from dark hidden hidden hidden to the stalls of the largest bookstores. “I don’t think I will never bind Harry Potter. But I will always read fanfiction “advance Simona Stallone.
