As Harry Potter fans speculate what still lies in store for the world's favourite boy wizard, few envisage him leaving Hogwarts and settling into a committed gay relationship with arch foe Draco Malfoy.

But some do.

"Draco's breath is warm against his neck, his body gradually relaxing as Harry holds him, refusing to let go, and Harry discovers this is the most comfortable he's ever been in his entire life."

"I don't feel its my job or anybody else's to say what their kick should be. As long as it's well written, I'll post it," said Vikki Dolenga who set up the adult-themed Potter fanfic site, Restrictedsection.org, in 2002.

Dolenga, 34, a client support specialist for a health care data company in Chicago, insists the stories on her site, which gets close to 200,000 hits a day, are examples of "erotica" rather than pornography. A large number of submissions to the site fall into the category of "slash" fanfic -- so called because it explores homosexual pairings of traditionally straight characters, such as Harry/Draco.

Slash has it origins in fanfics written in the mid-1970s that imagined breathless couplings between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from the iconic "Star Trek" series. With content ranging from unfulfilled homoerotic yearnings to the sexually explicit, slash writing is, perhaps surprisingly, dominated by straight women writers.

"I find it extremely liberating," said Lauren, 28, an advertising copywriter in New York. "I'm not sure why I prefer slash to het (heterosexual) ... maybe I just find it easier to write smut from a distance."

The growing, Internet-generated popularity of fanfic has attracted mixed reactions from the original authors of the works being co-opted.

"I do not allow fan fiction," Vampire Chronicles novelist Anne Rice wrote in a statement on her official website in 2000. "The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters," Rice said.

Potter creator JK Rowling and her publishers have adopted a more conciliatory approach, objecting only to fanfic that is sexually explicit, violent or profane.

Websites like Restrictdsection.org have received cease-and-desist orders, but can usually remain up and running by simply adding registration and password procedures that deter people under 18 years of age. "It's 2005 and we're still here," Dolenga said. "Though I don't think we'll be winning one of (Rowling's) best website awards."