My Immortal is a Harry Potter-based fan fiction serially published on FanFiction.net between 2006 and 2007. Though notable for its convoluted narrative and constant digressions, the story largely centers on a non-canonical female vampire character named "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" and her relationships with the characters of the Harry Potter series, particularly her romantic relationship with Draco Malfoy, culminating in her travelling back in time to defeat the main antagonist of the series, Lord Voldemort. The work takes its name from the song "My Immortal" by Evanescence.
My Immortal is popularly regarded as one of the worst works of fan fiction ever written. Since the work's publication, it has gained infamy for its constant grammar and spelling errors, plot inconsistencies and complete disregard for the original Harry Potter source material. Despite this, the series has also inspired multiple derivative works, including a YouTube web series, and is viewed with nostalgia for adolescent fan life.
The author's identity has never been confirmed and has been deemed "unsolvable". The author originally published the story under the username "XXXbloodyrists666XXX" and gave their name as "Tara Gilesbie". In September 2017, someone claiming to be the author updated a FictionPress account stating that she had created an active Tumblr account under her real name; an effort to locate this Tumblr account resulted in the account of young adult novelist Rose Christo. She has since stated that she was one of two co-authors of My Immortal and had provided evidence of her authorship to Macmillan Publishers, but controversy that same month over factual errors in her then-forthcoming memoirs has led to doubt as to her authorship.
The story has been speculated to be a hoax designed to fool and troll readers or to satirize fan fiction, but others consider the work and the alleged online presence of the author too elaborate to fake effectively. In September 2017, Christo stated that My Immortal is a work of satire, though her authorship remains disputed.
Plot
The protagonist of the story is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, a seventeen-year-old vampire who attends Hogwarts (located in England instead of the original books' Scotland) as a member of Slytherin House. Hogwarts is depicted as being divided between two cliques, the "goffs" and the preps. Ebony and all the sympathetic characters are part of the goth clique while the members of the prep clique are portrayed unsympathetically. Many of the main characters of Harry Potter are given makeovers which are so extensive that they bear little similarity to their original characterization. Harry, for example, has transfigured his lightning bolt scar into a pentagram, moved to the Slytherin House, and now goes by the name "Vampire" because he "love[s] the taste of human blood". Similarly, Hermione Granger has changed her name to "B'loody Mary Smith" and lives as a goth vampire Satanist in Slytherin as well. It appears that Ebony and her classmates are depicted as attending Hogwarts in the mid-2000s, instead of the 1990s when the Harry Potter series is canonically set. This can be judged by the repeated references to scene and emo culture, which were experiencing a sharp rise in popularity at the time, such as a reference to My Chemical Romance, who did not form until 2001.
The story begins by focusing on Ebony entering a relationship with Draco Malfoy, who is depicted as shy, sensitive, and bisexual. Draco invites Ebony to a Good Charlotte concert in Hogsmeade. She agrees, and the two fly to Hogsmeade together in Draco's black flying Mercedes-Benz. After the concert, they do not return to the castle. The two instead have intercourse in the Forbidden Forest. They are discovered by Hogwarts' headmaster Albus Dumbledore (referred to in places as "Albert Dumblydore" and a variety of other names), who yells at them and derides them as . In a subsequent author's note, it is explained this outburst occurred because Dumbledore was suffering from a headache.