I Read a 1K Page Dramione Fanfiction & Now I’m Emotionally Exhausted- Review for “Manacled” by SenLinYu

Not once did I ever think that I would read, much less review, a ONE THOUSAND page Hermione and Draco fanfic. I’m not even a Harry Potter fan so how did we get here? The blame goes to PeaceLoveBooks over on Youtube. Her tearful, raving review of Manacled by SenLinYu absolutely influenced me. This fanfiction is the Handmaid’s Tale meets Harry Potter. That premise was enough to make me interested but wow, I did not expect to love this story the way that I did. This review will have spoilers.

I like to give a heat level rating for all books with romance. If you’re curious about my rating system, you can check it out here.

Synopsis:

Harry Potter is dead. In the aftermath of the war, in order to strengthen the might of the magical world, Voldemort enacts a repopulation effort. Hermione Granger has an Order secret, lost but hidden in her mind, so she is sent as an enslaved surrogate to the High Reeve, to be bred and monitored until her mind can be cracked.

Fanfiction for Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling.

My Thoughts:

• Rating- ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Heat Level- 🔥🔥🔥

As I said above, I’m not really a Harry Potter fan. I don’t hate it but I grew up in a Chronicles of Narnia household; if you know, you know. I have read all the books and watched all the movies, though, so I have a good working knowledge of the story. I do think a little understanding of the Harry Potter universe is necessary to fully understand Manacled but you could still read and enjoy this without having read the Harry Potter books.

Manacled, at its core, is just a really good story. SenLinYu has crafted something so devastating and so emotional that I was left with tears in my eyes multiple times. If they had chosen to change the names of the characters and change up the world a small bit, this could have been a bestseller.

As the synopsis says, this book begins after the war. Voldemort survived and Harry Potter died. Along with Harry, pretty much everyone but Hermione was also killed. After being kept prisoner for months, Hermione is released to take part in a repopulation program and is sent to the household of the High Reeve, Draco Malfoy. It’s then discovered that her mind has purposefully blocked parts of her memory to protect something or someone…

This book is separated into three main parts. There is the beginning when Hermione is sent to Draco’s home. Then there is the middle which is comprised of a series of flashbacks that talks about the leadup to the war. After that, of course, is the ending. In the beginning, while Hermione is suffering from memory loss, it’s awful. She has frequent panic attacks and is raped based on her fertility cycle. Draco isn’t cruel to her but he’s cold and indifferent. There are times, though, when Hermione feels like he almost cares about her and she starts to care about him too… then she gets pregnant. With the pregnancy, her memory begins to return and that starts the middle of the book.

I didn’t personally love the flashback section. It needed to be edited down but since this is a fanfiction, I won’t judge it too harshly. However, this part of the book is where we discover what Hermione’s mind has been protecting. It’s Draco. More specifically, how they love each other and how he was secretly working to help destroy Voldemort😭

After this reveal, you realize that everything Draco did in the beginning of the book was to protect Hermione. He couldn’t be loving toward her because one, she didn’t remember being in love with him and two, Voldemort would have found out everything. Draco was literally in agony because he was forced by Voldemort to assault her as a part of the repopulation program. Draco was also able to read Hermione’s thoughts through a blood magic tie so he knew that she hated him and was terrified of him. Ugh, my heart💔

After all of that, the ending fell a bit short for me. This is a happily ever after, which I love, but it wasn’t quite as intense or emotional as I expected it to be. The overly long flashback section and slightly lackluster ending is what kept this from being a five star read. To be fanfiction, though, it is so incredibly well written. I’ve read traditionally published books that weren’t edited as well as this.

This book does need some pretty hefty trigger warnings. There is a lot of rape. It’s not graphically described, none of the sex scenes are, but it’s there. There is also a lot of violence and murder. The descriptions of the Weasley family’s deaths will stick with me for a long time but while the descriptions are pretty gruesome, I wouldn’t consider them to be gratuitous.

Final Thoughts:

I honestly didn’t expect to even finish this but I tore through it in three days. SenLinYu is such a talented writer and I would love to read more from them. Who knows? Maybe I’ll also read more Dramione fanfiction. If you’ve read this, PLEASE talk to me about it below! Thanks for reading and have a great day!