When fans heard the name Leta Lestrange in the Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts, it immediately sparked curiosity as to how she was related to the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange. As Voldemort’s most loyal servant, Bellatrix committed heinous acts in his name, including the murder of Harry Potter’s godfather and her own cousin, Sirius Black. Leta Lestrange was less malicious than her distant future relative, but still carried the dark nature associated with the Lestrange name.
Leta and Bellatrix’s relationship to each other isn’t as easy to pinpoint as most of the Harry Potter blood relations. Leta’s actress Zoë Kravitz stated in an interview that she played Bellatrix’s great-great-aunt, though there’s little evidence for this. Bellatrix married into the Lestrange family, originally being born as Bellatrix Black, meaning she and Leta are not related by blood. This would make Leta related to Bellatrix’s husband Rodolphus Lestrange, though that connection is no easier to find.
Leta’s only known sibling was her baby brother Corvus, who she ended up drowning when she swapped him for a quieter baby on a sinking ship. With his and Leta’s death went the only known carriers of the Lestrange name known to be alive in the Fantastic Beasts films. However, the Lestrange name lived on, likely through a distant relative to Leta’s father Corvus Lestrange IV.
Rodolphus’ direct ancestor Radolphus Lestrange served as the Minister for Magic for Britain and Ireland from 1835 to 1841, meaning the Lestrange family had already established itself in Britain by the 1830s. Corvus Lestrange IV still resided in France in the 1920s and died there shortly after sending his children away. And with that being the case, the Lestrange line must have disconnected sometime prior to Radolphus’ time as Minister.
The problem with trying to find where that split occurred is the lack of information on Rodolphus Lestrange’s family line. A Lestrange attended Hogwarts with Voldemort, as shown in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, meaning Tom Riddle may have attended school with Rodolphus’ father. The only other canon ancestor is Radolphus dating back to the 1830s-40s.
There is one possibility through Cyrille Lestrange I’s bloodline. She was the sister of Corvus Lestrange I, Leta Lestrange’s great-great grandfather. She had her own descendants that ended with Nozéa Lestrange, who in 1927 was unmarried and childless. Rodolphus may have descended from this line of Lestrange’s, but it’s unlikely. Corvus Lestrange I was born in 1729, so his sister Cyrille would have been born within the 1700s as well. Radolphus Lestrange does not appear anywhere on the Cyrille family tree, which dates between the 1700s to the 1900s, even though he was Minister for Magic in the 1800s.
It’s possible the Lestranges struck Radolphus from their family tree just as the Blacks did to Sirius when he ran away from home. The Lestrange family was known for practicing the Dark Arts, and any who turned away from the practice were considered blood traitors and stricken from the family tree. Radolphus’ time as Minister for Magic may have been seen as him trying to uphold the law, though it’s more likely that Radolphus simply descends from another line of Lestranges that split off farther back up the family tree.
The connection between Leta and Bellatrix is distant at best. Perhaps like Professor McGonagall’s anachronic appearance, Leta and Bellatrix’s bloodline wasn’t fully thought through and accidentally created a plot hole. Or, perhaps, the Lestrange line simply runs that far back and has enough branches that Leta and Bellatrix could be distant cousins several times removed. Either way, one thing is for certain: Bellatrix and Leta both carried the dark history of the Lestrange name. But while Bellatrix died fighting for her Dark Lord, Leta met an untimely end trying to escape her family’s legacy and save the people she loved.
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