Over the last year, three things changed my life: having a baby girl, discovering Claude Code, and getting completely obsessed with Harry Potter fan fiction. I know — that last one is a little weird for this channel. But I’ve been making YouTube videos for nine years sharing things I find genuinely interesting, and right now I am evangelising fan fiction to everyone I know.

I used to think fan fiction was just teenagers turning book scenes into spicy romance. That’s like saying every novel is basically Fifty Shades of Grey — obviously not true, and characterising fan fiction that way was totally my loss for about 20 years. The stuff below is written with real sincerity, as if it were an actual book, and that’s exactly why I love it.

One important thing before we start: all fan fiction is completely free. J.K. Rowling doesn’t allow anyone to monetise it, so you can read all of this on the internet for free, and none of it puts money in her pocket if that’s something that concerns you. Please never pay for these stories — and if you love one, leave the author a comment or kudos to say thank you.

Skip to the bottom for step-by-step instructions on how to get any of these onto your Kindle or e-reader.

1. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR)

By Eliezer Yudkowsky. ~662,000 words (the whole seven-book Harry Potter series is ~1.1 million), split into six books, each like its own anime arc.

This was my gateway drug. It follows Harry in an alternate universe where Aunt Petunia married an Oxford chemistry professor instead of Uncle Vernon, so Harry grows up in a loving, nerdy household devouring books about the scientific method. When his Hogwarts letter arrives he doesn’t believe it — until McGonagall has to convince him magic is real. Then he shows up at Hogwarts as a hyper-rational, brilliant, slightly socially inept kid who wants to run experiments on the physics of magic. Why do those specific Latin words make Wingardium Leviosa work? Is there a weight limit? He’s genuinely testing this stuff, with Hermione right there alongside him.

No romance and nothing R-rated here (Harry’s 11) — it’s just really, really good. It’s got a slow start, so give it the first five chapters like you would a good TV show. Everyone I’ve recommended it to, from friends to a friend’s 65-year-old mum, has come back saying they can’t believe how good it is. Because it’s so popular, fans even produced a full audiobook with voice acting, sound effects, the whole shebang — I read the first ~200k words and listened to the rest.

Start here if you’re new to fan fiction.

Read online / download (EPUB, PDF, MOBI) and audiobook: hpmor.com

2. The Debt of Time

y Shaya Lonnie. ~727,000 words, split across roughly four books, all in one file. Honestly, I wish it were 1.5 million — I could not get enough.

Everything happens as in canon up to the end of Order of the Phoenix (yes, Sirius dies through the veil). Then, at the start of the Deathly Hallows camping trip, Harry tells Hermione there has to be a way to bring back the dead so they can save Dumbledore. Hermione digs into the restricted section and finds a blood-magic ritual that can bring someone back from beyond the veil — and realises: Sirius went through the veil. So she brings Sirius Black back from the dead. All of that is basically chapter one.

You wouldn’t think that’s worth 700k words, but Sirius’s presence changes everything about the Horcrux hunt. There’s some romance and a handful of R-rated scenes, but they’re not central to the plot and are easily skippable if that’s not your thing. I genuinely cried at the end — the same tears I shed at the end of the Deathly Hallows.

Read online / download (AO3): archiveofourown.org/works/10672917

3. The Rigel Black Chronicles

By murkybluematter. A series of four books totalling ~1.4 million words — longer than the entire Harry Potter canon. This is probably my favourite of the five.

Two things are different in this alternate universe. First, Voldemort never became a dark lord — he became a politician, “Lord Riddle,” head of the pure-blood supremacist party, who passes legislation making Hogwarts pure-blood only. It’s surprisingly political, with Dumbledore leading the opposition, but no Death Eaters torturing people in the foreground. Second, Harry Potter is actually Harriet Potter — a girl, and a potions prodigy desperate to study under Master Snape at Hogwarts. But she’s a half-blood, so she’s barred.

So Harriet and Archie Black (Sirius’s son, who’d rather train as a healer in America) swap places. Archie goes to the American Institute of Magic as “Harry,” while Harriet polyjuices into Archie, gets sorted into Slytherin, shares a dorm with Draco Malfoy, and becomes Snape’s protégé. All that happens by chapter three — then you get 1.4 million words of consequences. I was sure I’d hate the “girl pretends to be a boy” premise and I was completely wrong. Never judge a fic by its premise.

Read books one through four — that first arc rounds off beautifully. Book five has been in progress but hasn’t updated since June 2022 (the author moved to Taiwan and had a baby); the Discord community is still very much alive and waiting. Read them in this order:

1. The Pureblood Pretense — fanfiction.net/s/7613196
2. The Serpentine Subterfuge — fanfiction.net/s/8239413
3. The Ambiguous Artifice — fanfiction.net/s/10041727
4. The Futile Facade — fanfiction.net/s/11911497

4. Backward With Purpose

By dryadeh (a.k.a. “dead woodpecker”). ~392,000 words, split into two books. On the shorter side, but so good.

The premise: at the final Battle of Hogwarts, the good guys win, but Voldemort is far more vicious than in canon — he unleashes Fiendfyre through the whole school, killing nearly everyone. Three years later, the only survivors we care about — Harry, Ron, and Ginny — are utterly broken and depressed. They go to Dumbledore’s portrait asking whether they can go back in time to save more people. Dumbledore points them to the Tears of Merlin, a ritual that takes four years to complete but can send them back to 1991 — Harry’s first year — with perfect knowledge of everything that happened.

So they go back to age 11 (and 10) with all their power, skills and memories intact, trying to change the timeline without destroying the world. Imagine Snape giving “11-year-old” Harry grief in first-year potions when Harry is really 25 and already knows Snape loved his mum. It’s got murder-mystery and hidden-puppet-master elements, and it handles time travel really well — the characters are intelligent and actually think things through rather than wearing the “idiot hat.”

Tip: don’t look up the title of book two — it slightly gives the game away. Read them in this order:

1. Part I — archiveofourown.org/works/15498366
2. Part II — fanfiction.net/s/4337434

5. Manacled

By SenLinYu. ~371,000 words. A dark, devastating Dramione story set in a post-apocalyptic world where Voldemort has won and nearly everyone we love is dead. Voldemort institutes a forced breeding programme, and Hermione ends up assigned to Draco Malfoy. It’s extremely dark — torture, and every trigger warning you’d expect from that premise — but it’s phenomenally good and almost impossible to put down.

Please read this note before searching for it. Manacled was officially removed from Archive of Our Own by the author on 1 January 2025. That wasn’t an accident — SenLinYu reworked the story into a traditionally published novel and deliberately pulled the free version from circulation. It is no longer available through any legitimate channel.

Out of respect for the author’s wishes, I’m not linking to any unofficial copy. If you want to read essentially the same story — same emotional core, same slow-burn heartbreak — the author-sanctioned way to do that now is Alchemised, the published version. SenLinYu rewrote Manacled into an original, non–Harry Potter novel (a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy) published by Del Rey / Penguin Random House in September 2025. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies in its first week.

• Official book site (all retailers): alchemisedbook.com
• Amazon (Kindle & hardcover): Alchemised on Amazon
• Bookshop.org: Alchemised on Bookshop.org

Content warning: Very dark and intended for adult readers — depictions of rape/non-consent, violence, and psychological trauma. The same warnings apply to Alchemised.

How to Read These on Your Kindle or E-Reader

My own approach is simple: I download the EPUB and send it to my Kindle. Here’s exactly how.

Option A: Download from AO3 and send to Kindle (easiest)

AO3 lets you download any fic as an e-book file directly.

1. Open the fic’s AO3 page.
2. Near the top, find the Download button (next to the story stats).
3. Choose EPUB (best for most e-readers) or MOBI (older Kindles).
4. Save the file to your computer or phone.
5. Send it to your Kindle:
   • Email method: Email the file as an attachment to your personal Send to Kindle address (find yours at Amazon → Manage Your Content and Devices → Preferences → Personal Document Settings). Make sure your own email is on the approved sender list.
   • App method: Use the free Send to Kindle app or the Send to Kindle web page and drag the file in.
6. The fic appears in your Kindle library within a few minutes, formatted like a real book.

Option B: FanFiction.net stories (Rigel Black, Backward With Purpose Part II)

FanFiction.net doesn’t have a built-in download button, so use a free converter:

1. Copy the story’s URL.
2. Paste it into a free tool like FicHub (fichub.net) — it generates an EPUB.
3. Download the EPUB, then send it to your Kindle using either method in Option A.

Option C: HPMOR (direct download)

• Go to hpmor.com, open the downloads page, and grab the EPUB or MOBI directly — then send to Kindle as above. (This is also the one available as a full fan-made audiobook.)

For Alchemised, just buy it through any retailer above — the Kindle, Kobo, and Apple Books editions download straight to your reader, no conversion needed.

A few tips

• EPUB works on almost everything (Kindle now supports it, plus Kobo, Apple Books, and most apps). Choose EPUB if you’re unsure.
• If a download link won’t open, try a normal web browser rather than opening it inside an app like Instagram or TikTok.
• Reading on your phone? The free Kindle app or Apple Books both open EPUB files directly.
• Want an audiobook for the others? You can convert any of them using something like Speechify, though it won’t have the voice acting and sound effects that HPMOR’s fan-made audiobook has.

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If you follow these in order, the next couple of years of your reading are sorted. I’d genuinely love to hear which ones grab you — and I’m always in the market for more recommendations. Happy reading.