This 2019 fanfic by senlinyu brings the central conflict in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series to a darker and more realistic conclusion. Departing from an intertextual relationship with The Handmaid's Tale rather than the genre of magic boarding school fiction, Manacled follows Hermione Granger facing the aftermath of the desperate, long wizarding war that Voldemort eventually won.

In addition to being an excellent story delivered stunningly, this work is a shining example of the power of fanfiction to transform readers' understandings and reveal the vulnerability of the author's perspective. The work tackles Harry Potter and the central conflict and plot points of the series through a more Slytherin sensibility, and it raises uncomfortable questions that the original series skirts or handles glibly. What dirty work are we blind to because we prefer to be? How do narratives reinforce themselves? Can love and light really win against darkness? Manacled uses its narrative to firmly answer: "no, evil will win and then call itself good; find personal meaning where you can." Ouch. But it's a perfectly in-sync message for the aging audience that came to this series as teens and whose experiences have driven a wave of dystopian media up through the age brackets.

Brilliant, transformative, powerful, intertextual. This is the fanfiction genre at its best. ( )