In case you have never heard of “Dramione” before, get ready. It is the couple’s name for Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s foe and friend.

In the realm of fan fiction, romantic and steamy encounters between the two have become a trope so popular it makes Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and Bennifer (Ben Affleck and J.Lo) pale in comparison.

Fan fiction, or fanfic, are fictional works based on, or inspired by, existing works of fiction. Co-founder of fan fiction internet HQ Archive Of Our Own (AO3 for short) Francesca Coppa defines fanfic as: “Creative material featuring characters from works whose copyrights are held by others.” In her 2020 PhD thesis, Júlia Egido Lorente elaborates: “Fanfic authors borrow original worlds and characters to explore the universes they love, or to explore issues that were not dealt with in the original, usually regarding identity, gender, sexuality or mental health.”

Because the copyright is not held by fan fiction writers, their work cannot be bought or sold. It is freely available on the internet, on sites like AO3 and FanFiction.net. Fanfic provides an outlet for writers and fans to explore alternative storylines and outcomes from the books, films, and series they adore.

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Fanfic is not exactly new. You could look at ancient Greek tragedies and conclude that all derivative works are, in fact, fan fiction. Authors and artists have had their ways with these works for millennia, they just aren’t copyrighted. By adding or removing characters, devising new adventures and challenges, or positioning the story in another universe, a good story knows no limits in the ways it can be told.

Fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would get together to write their own Sherlock Holmes stories. Some London enthusiasts even strapped black bands of mourning around their arms after Doyle killed off the great detective in his 1893 novel The Adventure of the Final Problem. The Baker Street Irregulars, the first “Sherlockian society” that was founded in 1934, exists to this day. 

Inexpensive pulp magazines became a popular outlet for sci-fi fanfic in the first half of the 20th century. Up-and-coming authors could submit original work or draw on other authors’ worlds to write the stories they wanted to read. The universe of fanfic has been expanding ever since.

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I spoke to London-based BookToker (Book TikToker) Lauren, whose account Lauren's Little Library gained a following of more than 150.000 bibliophiles. Running her TikTok isn’t Lauren’s day job. She works full-time at a tech company and manages to do all her reading and content creation on the side.

“I've learned how to read multiple books at once,” she explains, saying: “I have gotten big into audiobooks, which is a huge help. Audiobooks allow me to be walking my dog, do the dishes, or cook.”

Ironically, Lauren fell back in love with reading through TikTok, estimating that she read more in the last two years than the decade prior. Reading a 150,000-word Dramione epic called Breath Mints / Battle Scars by Onyx_and_Elm changed her reading habit at the core. The 50-chapter fic was written between 2018 and 2020, its author posting a new chapter every couple of weeks.

Lauren adored Harry Potter growing up, even building up a dubious reputation as an “HP-connoisseur” with two school friends. She read some fan fiction back in the day and even tried her hand at it. But it was nothing compared to the rabbit hole she would tumble down years later.

“There are many joys that I experienced because of fan fiction. But the ability to be dropped into a world that requires so little worldbuilding, and yet is so rich. For lack of a better word, it's magic.” Lauren describes fanfic as “using an established piece of media as a jumping-off point for further creative work and exploration.” 

In this process, the “canon”—fanfic lingo for the original work—can either be upheld or rejected. A story that is “canon compliant” takes the original storyline and characters to heart and works from there. The author of a “canon non-compliant” fic borrows worldbuilding and characters from the original work, but proceeds to turn the dials in whatever way they please. This might result in different intrigues, alliances, and outcomes. Can you guess where Dramione fits in?

Once you find a “fandom” you like—a fan fic community surrounding a specific trope, like the Dramione stories—a new world opens up. AO3 uses an elaborate tagging system which allows readers to look specifically for a read that fits their mood or interests. From “canon non-compliant” and “Draco/Hermione” to tags like “drunken kissing”, “light angst”  or “aged-up characters”. 

When Lauren discovered her fondness of Dramione, she found an almost bottomless well of stories to dive into. “Draco and Hermione are oil and water characters. I don't know if I will ever get sick of reading stories about these two falling in love.” They are not the first “star-cross’d lovers” that made an impression on Lauren. “I was obsessed with Romeo and Juliet growing up. My mom loves Shakespeare.” 

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.

From the introduction of Romeo and Juliet

But there is more to Dramione than the inevitable conclusion of impossible love. Putting “the wrong characters” together creates what Lauren calls “moral greyness”. To find each other, Draco transcends the template of a two-dimensional villain, and Hermione needs to shed some of her holier-than-thou temperament. For Lauren, it makes both characters more interesting. Fanfic explores all the things that didn’t happen in the original work.

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And then there is the “smut”. Smut is one of the most popular tags on AO3 and shorthand for anything sexually explicit. Staying in the Harry Potter universe, there are countless fics about Draco and Hermione getting it on in a wide variety of ways. Or Hermione and Snape (Snamione), an explosive combo of Nymphadora Tonks and Tulip Karasu (TNT), or Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter himself (Nevarry). You’d be hard-pressed to find “a ship”—where two or more characters get romantically or sexually involved—within the Harry Potter fandom that hasn’t yet been explored and named.

More than just indulging in fictional worlds, fanfic allows its creators to make the story more appealing to themselves and even critique the original. Your favourite fandom’s cast might lack diverse representation, or perhaps you disagree with the creator’s moral compass. The realm of fan fic being a predominantly female and queer space, challenging the status quo is at its core. 

An informal 2013 survey among 10,005 AO3 users found that 90% of fic fans identified as women, 4% as men, and 18% selecting other gender(s), like transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer. The total doesn’t add up to 100% because respondents were allowed to check multiple boxes. In terms of sexuality, only 38% of respondents identified as heterosexual.  

Júlia Egido Lorente explains that historically marginalised voices use fanfic to insert themselves into the mostly white and male canon of Western literature. In her aforementioned thesis, she explains: “Fan fiction can be considered a tool to advocate for all the narratives that are being silenced or ignored in traditional media and publishing.” These new narratives reverberate in the publishing space, she continues, “[Fanfic] affects literary trends and promotes inclusivity and diversity in new literary releases.”

Lauren points in a similar direction when I ask about smut in fanfic. She proposes a thought experiment: Imagine a professor asking the lecture room if there are any questions. Students feel hesitant to stick their neck out and be the first to ask anything—until the first person raises their hand. This is called “psychological safety”, she explains. Lauren came across the concept for the first time as a psychology major. According to psychologist William A. Kahn, “Psychological safety is the ability to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career.”

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Seeing other people read and write what they want online creates a safe environment for others to do the same. Lauren takes the stereotype that women are less interested in sex than men as an example. The endless catalogue of sexually themed fanfic paints quite a different picture of women’s desires and fantasies, doesn’t it? 

Fandoms provide an extra layer of insulation within the fanfic community at large. Fans of a wholesome, cutesy fandom don’t go after fandoms involving violence and gore for being cruel— the latter refraining from calling the former’s wholesomeness boring. Fans stick to what they like and engage with those who feel the same. Fandoms coexist in their passion for storytelling and story sharing. 

Once it became clear that society’s dominant norms and expectations were not upheld and enforced here, people flocked to platforms like AO3. The website reads: “more than 51,350 fandoms | 4,874,000 users | 9,647,000 works.” With more than 400 million visits per month, the website is ranked the 89th most visited website on the internet at the time of writing. 

Fanfic offers people an imaginative approach to rethinking the world, backed by a tremendous community of people who live and let live. Writers, casual readers and fans, alpha and beta readers (who edit and proofread stories), those who create fan art, and content creators like Lauren. Perhaps more than in traditional literary, cinematic, and artistic scenes, the adage that “taste is subjective” is not just passively stated, but actively practised. Like the stories themselves, fan fiction induces creativity and critique in those who want more than the status quo.