The Harry Potter movies didn’t just spread magic around the world, they also spawned an obsessively devoted fanbase. And where there is a fandom, there will also be fanfic. Potterheads have been imagining their favorite characters in steamy romances and kinky hookups for decades, with one of the most popular being the ever-classic enemies-to-lovers trope. The Harry/Draco ship is so popular, in fact, that even Daniel Radcliffe has read some Drarry fanfics himself.
Radcliffe admitted he’s fallen down the Drarry well before while taking the Vanity Fair lie detector test. When asked if he’s ever read read fanfic of himself, he referenced one of the most shipped pairs in the Harry Potter fandom.
“I’m obviously aware there’s a lot of shipping of Harry and Draco as characters together, so I’ve read some of that,” Radcliffe said.
Fan-written Harry and Draco romances have been probably the most popular slash fanfics in the Harry Potter fandom for years, with over 3,000 pages of works featured on the fanfic site Archive of Our Own. Hardcore shippers are convinced the antagonistic tension between the two rival wizards often had homoerotic undertones as their relationship evolved throughout the movie saga.
Tom Felton has also brought up the fan obsession over shipping Harry and Draco in the past. During a 2019 interview with AOL, Felton admitted he could see where fans of the pairing are coming from.
“I think it was clearly a fact,” he said, when asked if Harry was in love with Draco. “Harry was constantly crushing on Draco. He just couldn't hide it.”
After Radcliffe made his Harry/Draco revelation, he also mentioned that he’d read fanfiction written about himself aloud on TV before. He’s most likely referring to his 2012 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, when host Graham Norton pulled up the website Simply Daniel Radcliffe Fan Fiction and read a few of the short stories to Radcliffe, then encouraged the actor to submit his own piece of fanfic.
So, now you know that if you ever wrote some Harry Potter fanfic, there’s actually a chance Radcliffe might have read it.
