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Harry Potter is a pioneer of internet fanfiction. With over 600,000 stories written by contributors on Archive of Our Own (AO3), nearly 200,000 on Wattpad, and close to 75,000 posts under the #HarryPotterFanfic hashtag on TikTok, fans have created a unique storytelling subculture that extends the Wizarding World narrative far beyond J.K. Rowling’s original novels.
Recently, publishers have recognized the commercial potential of this enterprise and have churned out repackaged Harry Potter fanfiction novels such as Alchemised, Rose in Chains, and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy – all Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy romance stories featuring rebranded characters (similar to how Twilight beget the fanfiction that became 50 Shades of Grey). Now, one fanfiction that reshaped the modern Harry Potter fandom is in the works to become its own published series and the saga of its publishing is almost as striking as the story of the Boy Who Lived himself.
Wolfboy, a reimagining of Harry Potter fanfiction All The Young Dudes, was recently auctioned at the London Book Fair and acquired by PMJ (Penguin Michael Joseph) for a rumored seven-figure price tag. The novel trilogy will be set at “Hatherlea Experimental School” and will follow a young werewolf and a telepath-in-training as they struggle “with the trials and tribulations of adolescence, and the fact they might just be falling in love.”
All The Young Dudes was first posted to AO3 in March 2017 by anonymous author MsKingBean89. The story is based on The Marauders, Harry Potter’s father James’ friend group at Hogwarts that includes the rebellious Sirius Black, studious secret werewolf Remus Lupin, and future traitor Peter Pettigrew. MsKingBean89 continued to upload chapters until November 2018, resulting in a story of 188 chapters and 526,969 words. The series is not only one of the most popular Harry Potter fanfictions ever posted to AO3 with over 19 million hits, but it also became a staple in the Harry Potter fandom, with many viewing it as a true prequel to the official novels.
The popularity of All The Young Dudes, which features a romantic relationship blossoming between Sirius and Remus, is partially the result of younger Harry Potter fans’ rebellion towards author J.K. Rowling controversial views regarding the LGBTQ spectrum, specifically transgender community. Segments of the fandom worked to separate the franchise from her entirely and fanfiction provided a way for them to spend time with beloved characters without the author’s involvement. Some online fans go so far as to describe All The Young Dudes as a “rewrite” of the HP fandom, and that “this [All The Young Dudes] is their canon.”
Naturally, bringing the Harry Potter canon outside the gaze of its original creator has led to a number of quirks that only the creative, insular world of fanfiction can provide. For instance, the interpretation of All The Young Dudes as an “official” prequel arose among newer fans that joined the fandom during the popularity of #DracoTok, a trend that flooded the TikTok algorithm with skits and edits mainly centered around romanticizing Harry Potter’s infamous nemesis Draco Malfoy.
That particular trend also sparked some fans to coin the word “shifting,” a method they believed would send them to a reality of their own creation, in this case, Hogwarts. These trends of #DracoTok and “shifting” introduced the Harry Potter world to a new audience of younger readers, prompting some to further indulge themselves in fanfiction like All The Young Dudes. Fans of the franchise before All The Young Dudes and before Rowling’s move into politics are not as inclined to view All The Young Dudes as anything other than a “Marauders era” Fanfic.
The fans have even begun casting for an imagined film adaptation of the book and have created clever edits of the cast’s previous movies to create a visual edit for All The Young Dudes. Majority of fan-casts include Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) as Sirius Black, Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) as Remus Lupin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (28 Years Later) as James Potter, and Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) as Peter Pettigrew.
Another bizarre trend that arose from the All The Young Dudes fandom is its readers’ dogged pursuit of the author’s true identity. While MsKingBean89 has given no hint to their identity even in self-published physical copies, a common theory (that now is a running inside joke) is that the author is famous singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The number 89 in the author’s username is theorized to be a reference to Swift’s album and birth year, 1989. Fans, like @italianwitchbooks, also point out that many of the stories’ plot points and prose parallel Swift’s songwriting like in her song “Cardigan.” Swift’s lyric “You drew stars around my scars” can be tied to Remus Lupin’s scars that he gains during full moons as a werewolf that Sirius Black helped heal, leaving behind “a constellation of his touch.” Indeed All The Young Dudes references music many times throughout the story and in the title itself, which is a reference to Davide Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes.” Remus Lupin is a huge fan of David Bowie in All The Young Dudes and he and Sirius Black bond over the Thin White Duke and his music.
Copyright law makes it challenging for fanfiction to ever be published in its truest original form, especially with a franchise as strict as Harry Potter. In 2008, Rowling sued a fan, Steve Vander Ark, barring him from publishing his Harry Potter encyclopedia, Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling, like any author, has the right to protect her copyrighted material from monetization that may affect her original story’s value. But modern fans (unaccustomed to the intricacies of copyright law) struggle with her claiming the rights because they no longer view these characters as hers and don’t want her associated with the franchise.
Still, the rebellious nature of All The Young Dudes is a part of what made the fanfiction transformative for the fandom in the first place. The association with the fanfiction will also likely set Wolfboy, which is being written by BN King (likely MsKingBean89 writing under a new publishing pseudonym, though that has not been confirmed), up for success. Fans will be eager to get their hands on a copy of the officially published All the Young Dudes, even if comes along with a new name, setting, and characters.
The post All The Young Dudes: The 500K-Word, Million Dollar Story That Reshaped Fanfiction appeared first on Den of Geek.
