Consequences || July 1995 {Timelines} || Rita & Bellatrix
Bellatrix Lestrange -- or Bellatrix Black, as some may remember her -- was imprisoned several years ago for the torture and permanent psychological damage of Frank and Alice Longbottom. That crime was clearly enough to warrant her lifelong sentence in the most secure portion of Azkaban, but what many don’t know is, that was not even remotely her most heinous offense.
This reporter was allowed into the depths of the world’s most terrifying prison for an interview. Though merely setting foot on the island put my own life in grave danger, I persevered for the sake of the truth. You, my readers, deserve to know the full extent of the crimes committed by this woman -- though after all is said and done, you may wonder whether she still deserves to be counted among the fairer sex.
Not long before the tragedy that befell the Longbottoms, we all remember the fateful night the Potters fell at the hands of Sirius Black, whom I also interviewed several years ago. The secret that was never revealed until my own conversation with Bellatrix: she was there as well. It was her own wand, not You-Know-Who’s, nor Sirius Black’s, who murdered Lily Potter while her sweet baby Harry screamed for his mother. Bellatrix bragged about this. What kind of woman takes pleasure in taking a mother from her child? I suppose, one who doesn’t believe the child will live much longer to care. The interview was, at that point, far too nauseating for me to ask for more details of that night.
Further, Mrs. Lestrange, wife to the eldest son of the Lestrange family, admitted to having had a very close -- even ‘intimate’ -- relationship with her Dark Lord himself. Apparently, the bonds of her marriage bed were simply not enough to contain her deviant behavior. This portion of the interview held what I would describe as the only true emotion Bellatrix showed for the duration of our time together -- regret. She admitted that she’d hoped to fall pregnant with You-Know-Who’s heir and was unable to do so.
Now, under normal circumstances, I would feel immense sympathy for any woman with fertility problems. However, I can not find myself able to commiserate with someone who wanted to continue the line of such a madman. More of that evil in the world? And raised by this woman, a woman willing to murder indiscriminately and torture with no remorse? I shudder at the thought.
These, among many, many other crimes, create the full picture of Bellatrix Lestrange. These are heinous enough, but the ones I dare not print. . . dear readers, I wish I did not possess them within my own mind, and will not subject you to the same terrors I know. Simply put, we should all be very grateful that Bellatrix Lestrange is imprisoned in the one place that can never be escaped.
Rita never thought this article would be the one to come back to haunt her. Sure, it was nothing but lies, but so many of her other articles were as well! Azkaban was supposed to be inescapable! And now. . . now. . . Now Rita feared for her life. She stayed in her house, where she belonged, and kept her doors locked. She’d been working for the Prophet long enough that she was allowed to send her work in by owl, and had a wide enough network that she had a steady stream of gossip coming in at all times, but still. . . she dreaded the day Bellatrix Lestrange came for her.
