Harry Potter's Draco Hermione fanfiction lands $3M Hollywood deal: Inside the twisted romance that broke fans

I grew up in the world of Dramione fan-fiction. You just had to be there, poring over endless fan-fictions of Draco and Hermione, thwarting the enemies-to-lovers tropes and leaning fully into the ‘forbidden love’ angles. It was soap operas, before we knew what they were. It was just the kind of messy that us teenagers wanted.

People let their imagination run freely, and despite being a Ron-Hermione person, I, who didn’t quite have the awareness about toxic relationships and power plays, also wouldn’t have minded the golden-haired snarky fellow ending up with the school’s nerd. (With shows like Gossip Girl, The OC around us, what did you expect?)

Come on, you all did too. There were straight-up tragedies too, about how Draco had always loved Hermione and finally watched her to get married to Ron.

It’s what we did in those times, *sips tea wisely*.

But then, we grew up, folks. We didn’t need another Harry Potter-ish film based on fanfiction… yet, here we are.

You can’t escape the notifications about spin-offs from a single throwaway line (looking at you, Fantastic Beasts), and now there’s fanfiction about Draco and Hermione being made into a movie.

It's called Alchemised.

The Alchemised deal

Yes, well, Legendary just dropped a seven-figure bomb on the movie rights to Alchemised, the dark fantasy by SenLinYu. According to Hollywood Reporter, sources say the preemptive offer was designed to smash the competition, and the deal reportedly topped $3 million, making it one of the priciest book-to-film buys in recent memory. Legendary stayed mum on specifics, but the timing makes sense: the studio is riding high off a three-year Paramount deal and the near-billion-dollar hit Minecraft Movie.

What is the Alchemised story?

SenLinYu is no stranger to magical fandom fame, having risen from the Harry Potter fanfic world, particularly the Dramione corner. Their 2023 dark fantasy, Manacled, racked up 10 million views on AO3 and earned 100,000 five-star ratings on Goodreads. Redditors still talk about how “wrecked” they were, some even crying for days after reading it. Alchemised is inspired by Manacled, which featured Hermione trapped by Draco, leading to confrontations with lost memories and shocking revelations. Following Manacled’s success, SenLinYu rewrote the story, changing the setting and genre while keeping the memory-loss trope at its core.

Alchemised began as Dramione before evolving into a fully-fledged dark romantasy. Set in a world of necromancers, corrupt guilds, and hidden magic, it follows alchemist and healer Helena Marino, who may hold forgotten secrets in her mind. Sent to a crumbling necromancer estate, Helena must dig deep to reclaim her lost past — all while unraveling deadly secrets her captor is hiding. As the jacket teases, “Helena’s fight — to protect her lost history and preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self — is just beginning.”

Well. Who knew forbidden love could cost seven figures?