"Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being In Love" has become a staple "Harry Potter" fan fiction recommendation after consistently going viral on TikTok in the last few years.
And its author, Brigitte Knightley, had no idea — at first.
Knightley started posting the eventual 199,000-word story in October 2021 under the username "isthisselfcare." The final chapter was published in April 2022. After, she wrote a goodbye message to readers and signed out.
A few months later, Knightley logged into her email linked to her account on Archive of Our Own, a fan fiction website.
"I had like thousands of emails," Knightley tells TODAY.com. "I start looking through them, and there are literary agents writing me emails, and there are publishing houses writing me emails."
She ended up signing with book agent Thao Le, who also represents Ali Hazelwood, another fan fiction to traditional publication success story. Knightley has been writing fan fiction for about 25 years, she says.
"I would be watching shows or media or something, and I'd be like, 'You know what? I don't think those two characters should have ended up together. And I think I could write something better, pairing them with someone else,'" she says. "It was this urge to sort of, maybe, 'fix' things, or explore things that the canon hadn't quite done for me."
One example? The first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film. Knightley says it "annoyed (her) to no end" that heroine Elizabeth Swann ended up with Will Turner.
"She should have ended up with a pirate," Knightley says.
For Knightley, the best romances have a bit of "antagonism." So when she re-read the "Harry Potter" series over the winter of 2020, she saw the potential for the characters of Draco Malfoy, one of the main villains in the series, and Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's brave, know-it-all best friend, to have a "quintessential enemies-to-lovers dynamic."
"Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love" was the first "Harry Potter" fan fiction she wrote. (Across fandoms, "I think I've written about 2 million words of fan fic over the past 20 years," she notes.) The story strikes the tone of a romantic comedy and imagines Hermione as a valuable healer and Draco, her former nemesis from their time at Hogwarts, as an Auror (essentially a magical law enforcement official) assigned to protect her.
When she finished the story, Knightley recalls feeling happy with it. But she was left with an "itch," she says.
"That was an enemies-to-lovers story of two people who had a really rough history," she says. "I wanted enemies to lovers that were like systemically enemies to lovers. I wanted them to hate each other just by virtue of what they were."
The result is "The Irresistible Urge to Fall in Love," which she describes not as an adaptation of her fan fiction but an original work that is "Dramione-coded" or has "Dramione vibes."
“I wrote it because I came off a fan fic, and I was like, 'OK, I did that dynamic, but I'm looking for this other one.' And I didn’t have, for once in my life, some sort of IP in mind,” she says. "So it really was written as an original work."
"The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy" is a slow burn romantic fantasy that follows an ailing assassin, Osric, who has to seek help from a healer named Aurienne, even though their respective orders — the Fyren and Haelan, respectively — are opposites in every way.
The book, which comes out July 8, will kick off the "Dearly Beloathed" duology.
The romance is a true slow burn — "They think about killing each other like for the first 10 chapters," Knightley says — and is set in a version of 19th century England with a form of magic called seith.
Fans of "Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love," never fear: Knightley's original fan fiction will stay up on Archive of Our Own.
While having a markedly different plot, "The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy" will hit all her signature "beats," Knightley says.
"I always have these steps of like denial and yearning and will they/ won't they ... It's similar to all of my slow burns, not specifically 'Mortifying,'" Knightley says.
"When I get to write a stupid idiot who's in denial about his feelings, I am so happy," she adds.
Read an excerpt of ‘The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy’
In the following excerpt, Osric (a member of the Fyren Order of assassins) goes to meet Aurienne (a member of the Haelan Order of scholar-healers). She has — tersely — ordered him to join her at a clinic so she can assess his illness. He is furious to have been abruptly summoned, especially in daylight. She is aggravated to have to work with a morally bankrupt assassin. The ensuing conversation goes as well as you’d imagine... - Brigitte Knightley
Osric, provoked, took the nearest waystone to the designated pub. First, he was at nobody’s beck and call, least of all this priggish Haelan’s. Second, it was broad daylight, and he hated operating in broad day- light. Third, between the name of the pub and the signs for a clinic for spotty bums that he was now following through this gods-forsaken little hamlet, he rather felt that she was taking the piss.
The villagers puttering about gave Osric startled looks as he stalked through the hamlet’s streets, his hood up, his greatcoat flaring behind him.
What part of my condition mustn’t be discovered hadn’t this idiot understood?
He found the final spotty-bum sign and knocked upon the clinic door.
The idiot opened the door.
Fairhrim’s greeting consisted of a look. There was a lot in it; she looked at Osric as though he were a wart that had acquired sufficient sentience to knock on doors.
“Are you bloody serious?” asked Osric.
Fairhrim, taken aback by the wart’s rudeness, straightened. “Excuse me?”
“Summoning me? In broad daylight? In a public place? I told you that my condition mustn’t be discovered.”
“It hasn’t been discovered,” said Fairhrim. “You’re hooded up like death personified. And anyone who did see you will think you’re suffer- ing from folliculitis.”
Osric pointed at one of the overly detailed posters that had haunted his walk. “You had to choose arse acne?”
“To guarantee us privacy,” said Fairhrim. She held the door open. “Get in.”
Osric stepped into the tired little consultation room. The place was lit with new electric lights far too bright for his liking. There was an examination table against the wall. Miscellaneous medical parapherna- lia was scattered about, looking both curative and foreboding, rather like Fairhrim herself.
Her travelling cloak was clasped shut with a silver wing. She re- moved it to reveal her stiff Haelan dress, high about the neck and impec- cably white, save for the sharp silver epaulettes.
“Also,” said Osric, removing his own cloak, “I’m not at your beck and call. Don’t summon me like this again.”
Fairhrim grew rigid. She turned to him and spoke with a false sort of brightness. “Oh? And I’m at yours, am I? You can impose meetings on me, in abandoned barns, at midnight, without offering me any kind of alternative, but meeting during perfectly normal hours under a per- fectly well-thought-out pretext in a perfectly suitable location presents difficulties, does it? I showed your schedule the same respect you showed mine; didn’t you like it?”
She fixed him with a Look. Osric developed a new understanding of what gimlet-eyed meant.
Osric decided not to die on this particular hill. “Perhaps we can each make improvements to our scheduling habits when it comes to the other’s calendar.”
“A compromise?” asked Fairhrim.
“Yes,” said Osric, assuming that this was a positive thing.
It was not. Fairhrim sniffed in Osric’s direction, as though manure from the barn still wafted from him. “I’ve compromised enough just being here today. But, nevertheless, we can compromise. Now, disrobe.”
“I—what?”
“Disrobe,” repeated Fairhrim. Then, slower: “Remove your clothes.
There are gowns in the cupboard. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She left the room before Osric could make an argument. Nudity in the face of her ongoing animosity felt unwise. But refusal felt—well, pathetic. She was only a Haelan and she was by herself.
Was she by herself? What if she came back with a Warden when he was stark bollock naked? She reeked of hostility.
He would keep his weapons close at hand.
Osric began to undress. This was no small task. After much unclip- ping, unbelting, and unstrapping, he removed the following inventory from his person: twelve throwing knives, his blaecblade, two back- swords, one amputator, and, finally, a dozen syringes and vials contain- ing substances as nasty as they were illegal.
These items he placed upon the examination table with care.
He was less precious about his clothes: waistcoat, shirt, collar, cra- vat, trousers, underthings, and boots were all tossed towards a chair.
Osric opened the cupboard to discover that the gowns were, judging by their colour and size, intended for little girls, rather than men who liked to cultivate an air of sinister elegance.
He pulled a faded pink thing on, which, when placed over his head, left his dangly bits exposed.
He decided to wrap the gown around his hips like some sort of kilt.
Thus attired, he leaned against a cabinet, looking as suave as one could in a strip of puce-coloured linen, to await Fairhrim’s return.
He felt, once again, that Fairhrim was taking the piss. No one took the piss out of Osric Mordaunt with this level of frequency and noncha- lance. She was lucky that she was necessary to him at this moment; he would’ve murdered her for the cheek otherwise.
The Means to an End knocked, and her crisp voice asked, “Ready?” “Yes,” said Osric. Should the Haelan have brought company to at- tack him while he was naked, he had throwing knives threaded between his fingers.
Fairhrim swept into the room. Her hard eyes passed over Osric and rested on his knife-bristling fists.
“Really?” was her unimpressed comment. “I can assure you that if I’d planned any harm to you, it would’ve happened already.”
Well. That was cocky.
“You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,” said Osric.
“Deserved, I assure you,” said Fairhrim. She jutted her chin towards his gown. “That is quite the ensemble.”
“Fetching, isn’t it?”
“Did you try the adult cupboard?” asked Fairhrim. “What adult cupboard?” asked Osric.
“The one you’re sitting on.” “Oh,” said Osric.
(He had not tried the adult cupboard.)
Fairhrim advanced into the room with a critical air that made Osric feel like he was back in the barracks as a young Fyren, awaiting his warchief’s inspection.
“We’re going to need the examination table, if you wouldn’t mind moving this” — Fairhrim made an impatient gesture towards Osric’s weapons — “mess of an arsenal.”
Osric moved his things under Fairhrim’s watchful eye.
“Is there a single inch of you that isn’t covered in scar tissue?” she asked.
Osric looked down at himself — at his chest, decorated by reminders of various blades; at his forearms, ridged by burns; at his shins, scat- tered with memories of a long-ago explosion.
“There is,” said Osric. “A few inches, actually. Under the kilt.”
