Leta Lestrange



"You're too good, Newt. You've never met a monster you couldn't love."

- Leta's opinion of Newt Scamander (and of herself)

Leta Lestrange (1896/1897 - early September 1927) was a pure-blood witch born into the pure-blood Lestrange family. She attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry between 1908 to 1915. While at school, she developed a close relationship with Newton Scamander. Leta was the fiancée of Newt's older brother Theseus by 1927.

Early life
Leta Lestrange was born somewhere in the United Kingdom area circa 1897, the only child of Corvus Lestrange and his first wife, Laurena Kama. The Lestranges were an old, respected British pure-blood family, deemed one of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight" by Cantankerus Nott. Sometime after Leta's birth, her father married his second wife, Clarisse Tremblay. This marriage produced one child, a son, Corvus. However, at some point, Clarisse died, and both Leta and her half-brother were taken by ship to be given up for adoption. Bothered by his incessant crying, Leta switched him for another baby in the crib. When the ship sank, one of the escape boats capsized and her half-brother drowned. The switched baby ended up being raised by an unrelated woman in New York.

Hogwarts years
Before beginning education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1908, Leta purchased her first wand, likely from Ollivanders, and was sorted into Slytherin on 1 September. While there, she developed a close friendship with Newton Scamander, bonding over their shared love magical creatures and their outsider status.

Leta was bullied in school by other students who judged her based on her surname and the fact she stayed at school every single holiday, saying her family don't want her at home. In her third year, she once shut one of the Gryffindor's girls mouth shut with a spell to stop her from saying things about her, and had many points taken from Slytherin house. She run to a hide in a cupboard only to find Newt nursing a wounded raven. He tells her he was also staying for the holidays because he needed to look after the raven. She watched Newt be caring and saw him plainly for the first time, beginning their close friendship. Newt was once cheeky to Prendergast, being given detention for a month and Leta set off a Dungbomb under the desk of the teacher to join him.Leta attended Professor Albus Dumbledore's teaching of Boggarts, but she was terrified of facing it. Her Boggart was shown to be her half-brother's hand, which made the room stop laughing. Leta began crying and then run out of the room. Newt later found her, and comforted her, and it was thought that she was in love with Newt then. Dumbledore would later say he thought she was one of the cleverest students he had taught.

In 1913, one of Leta's experiments involving a Jarvey went too far, endangering the life of another student. It also violated laws prohibiting the possession of this creature. Rather than see his good friend expelled, Newt took the blame, and was thus sentenced to be expelled from Hogwarts in Leta's place.

Later life
"I don't really know what Leta likes these days because people change."

- Newt referring his and Leta's falling out

Newt Scamander remained in love with Leta many years after their parting. He kept a framed photograph of her in the work shed inside his magically-expanded suitcase during his travels. In late 1926, while visiting New York, Queenie Goldstein saw the picture, asking Newt about it. She used Legilimency on him, noting that Leta was "a taker" in their relationship. By 1927, Leta had fallen in love for Newt's older brother, Theseus Scamander. Sometime later they become engaged and planned to be married on 6 June 1928, where Newt was supposed to be their best man. On 19 March 1927 Leta, alongside with Newt, Theseus and Bunty, participated in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them launch at Flourish and Blotts on the Diagon Alley. Spellbound after that party wrongly wrote that Leta is Newt's fiancée. Leta was always inviting Newt to dinner with herself and Theseus, but Newt always declined. Six months later, Leta went to the British Ministry of Magic in London, because Theseus found her a job working as assistant to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Torquil Travers. Same day Newt was waiting in the Ministry to appeal to have his travel ban revoked. She went to take Newt to a meeting with Travers, and they spoke about their friendship. She was happy seeing Newt playing with his Bowtruckle Pickett. Meanwhile, she talked to him about the fact that she liked spending time with him and began to remember old times. Some days later a delegation including Leta, Theseus and Travers, was sent to Hogwarts Castle to question Albus Dumbledore, because of the rumours of Newt's potential travel to Paris. She wandered away and went to the Great Hall and other rooms to think of the past and her old friendship with Newt. Dumbledore found Leta in one the classrooms and she said she thought everyone was right when they called her wicked, thinking about her half-brother. The rumours that Credence was her half-brother were painful for her, because she knew he had died. When Dumbledore said he understood her pain, she wondered why and he let her know he had a sister who died. He advised her that she should tell the truth because she shouldn't let the past be her constant companion, implying that he knew the truth, worrying Leta. While in Paris, Leta went with Theseus and Travers to the French Ministry of Magic. When Grindelwald called for a rally, she told Theseus to be careful when he went to stop it. He then told her about the rumour concerning her brother being Credence, which she knew by then, and she told him that she had said many times, that she knew her brother was dead. However, Theseus thought she was yet to know that for a fact, and told her the Lestrange family records would prove it. However, Theseus then go away when Travers called him, and Leta left through a side door.

She went to the Records Room to find the Lestrange family box, and instead found Newt and Tina Goldstein searching for the box too. They found out that the box was taken to the Lestrange Mausoleum, but Melusine, the Ministry of Magic employee, knew Newt and Tina had lied about being Theseus and Leta and sent Matagots after them. Newt advised them not to fight the Matagots and they wouldn't hurt them, but Leta had sent a curse at them. When beasts attacked them, Newt put Leta and Tina in the suitcase and with the help of the Zouwu, he had earlier saved, the trio fled to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. They head to the Lestrange tomb and Leta found the Lestrange box which was taken, but they were not alone. They crossed paths with Jacob Kowalski, Yusuf Kama, Credence Barebone and Nagini. Leta stopped Yusuf, her half-brother, from killing Credence, who thought he was her half-brother. She finally confessed to inadvertently killing Corvus, proving he and Credence were not the same person and that she had no idea who Credence actually was.

Death
When the door to Grindelwald's rally opened, Leta and others joined Queenie Goldstein and pure-bloods in the rally. When Theseus and the other Aurors showed up, a fight began. Grindelwald created a circle of blue flame to divide followers from enemies, and Credence and Queenie crossed unharmed and disapparated. When the dark wizard attacked Theseus and Newt, two most important men in Leta's life, Leta convinced to stop him. He noticed Leta and spoke of her past, painting a story of how she would be going home if she joined him. Leta thought about joining him but then began duelling him instead in an effort to give Theseus, Newt, Tina, Jacob, Yusuf and Nagini time to get away. When Grindelwald knock her spell, she stunned Vinda Rosier holding skull hookah in cause that blasted the skull to pieces. She looked at Theseus and Newt and said that she loved one of them, and then Grindelwald in fury killed her. Leta sacrificing herself was consumed by the flames of the circle, leaving Scamander brothers devastated.

Physical appearance
Leta was described as beautiful in her youth. She has intense brown eyes and dark-colored hair.

Personality and traits
"She was a taker."

- Leta's self-serving nature According to Queenie, Leta was a taker and not a giver. Leta has been described as a quite complicated, damaged and confused lady. She is a kind of tragic figure and Newt is still absolutely in love with her; she has a kind of power over him.

Leta's personality, in several ways, contradicted the "evil Slytherin" stereotype held by many students of the other Houses, Gryffindors in particular, and was in stark contrast to the personality of her father Corvus, as well as the personalities of later Lestranges, such as Rodolphus and Rabastan. For instance, Leta seemed to put no stock in Pure-blood supremacy beliefs, despite her family being one the the Sacred Twenty-Eight. She quickly befriended and grew very close to the usually anti-social Hufflepuff Newt Scamander, the two bonding over their shared status as outsiders, and while she would sometimes hex other students, she did so out of anger in the face of bullying rather than unprovoked malice. She was quite liked by her Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Albus Dumbledore, but struggled to get along with either him or anyone else at Hogwarts, save Newt.

The unintentional role Leta had played in her infant brother Corvus' death haunted her for the rest of her life, imbuing her with both incredible guilt (to the point that her Boggart was her infant brother's drowning), and self-loathing; Leta regarded herself as not only guilty of killing her brother (rather than the unforeseen accident it was), but as evil and as a monster. Despite this, Leta maintained a polite and considerate personality, and in particular remained friendly towards Newt, for whom she continued to have feelings, and also later fell in love with Newt's brother Theseus Scamander, whom she had intended to marry.

Much like Horace Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks, Leta could be said to represent the more "positive" aspects of Slytherin, in her case ambition and resourcefulness without any of the usual ruthlessness, elitism, or arrogance, and in fact ultimately showed courage and selflessness when she sacrificed her life to save the Scamander brothers who she both loved from death, much like how fellow Slytherin Severus Snape would likewise sacrifice his life for a good cause many years later. After hearing her former teacher Albus Dumbledore confess his own guilt over not loving his late sister Ariana enough, Leta was able to finally take his advice and confessed to what she had done to Corvus, thereby saving Credence Barebone from Yusuf Kama's revenge.

Leta's selfless and heroic death would have a profound impact on Newt, giving him the resolve he needed to at last choose a side in the Global Wizarding War, as well as inducing Dumbledore to respect Leta's memory by more actively working to support the resistance against Grindelwald.

Magical abilities and skills

 * Magical Mastery: Leta Lestrange was a very powerful and talented witch, being recognised by Albus Dumbledore himself as one of his best students at Hogwarts, proving her a very accomplished witch.
 * Charms: Leta was exceptionally skilled in the subject, being able to find the Lestrange family section in the French Ministry of Magic Archives even quicker than Tina Goldstein, an experienced Auror, did. Leta later even succeeded in temporarily diverting Grindelwald's deadly blue fire away from the Scamander brothers, Nagini, and Jacob Kowalski.
 * Defence Against the Dark Arts: Leta was highly skilled in this subject, given her ability to fight Grindelwald alongside Newt and Theseus for a time and saving the Scamander brothers from death at the hands of the fearsome Dark Wizard's blue fire even if at the cost of her own life, with Albus Dumbledore considering Leta one of his best students in the subject. Indeed, Leta only had trouble repelling a Boggart due to her incredible guilt and self-loathing over the role she played in the death of her brother Corvus.
 * Duelling: Leta was an exceptionally skilled duelist, with her managing to shatter Grindelwald's skull-hookah with a well-aimed spell, and to even hold her own against the incredibly powerful Gellert Grindelwald himself while aided by Newt and Theseus for a few moments, before getting overwhelmed and killed.
 * Elemental Magic Mastery: Leta had a limited degree of control over the element fire, with her able to divert the flow of Grindelwald's immensely destructive blue fire away from Newt and Theseus, even if it was only for a few moments.
 * Apparition: Leta was able to Apparate at will as shown when she was able to Apparate to Hogwarts, along with Torquil Travers, Theseus Scamander, and some other Aurors.
 * Indomitable Willpower: Leta's Slytherin ambition granted her an immense willpower, with her thus managing to rise up high through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement despite once failing to fit in at Hogwarts as a student, and with her determination to not be the freak that she was perceived by other students, and her own father to be. At the end of her life, Leta demonstrated her incorruptible spirit and morals by resisting Grindelwald's persuasive speech, and willingly sacrificing her own life to save her beloved friend Newt and fiance Theseus from the lethal blue fire. Indeed, it was this incorruptible willpower demonstrated in Leta's final moments that induced Newt, as well as her half-brother Yusuf Kama, to finally join the Global Wizarding War against Grindelwald.

Etymology

 * Leta most likely originates from the name Leda, daughter of Aetolian king Thestius, an Aetolian princess who became a Spartan queen in Greek mythology, of which the story of Leda and the Swan is the focus.
 * In the story, Zeus takes the form of a swan and rapes her. Their consummation, on the same night as Leda lay with her husband Tyndareus, resulted in two eggs from which hatched Helen (aka "Helen of Troy", said to be the most beautiful woman in the world and an instigator of the Trojan War), Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux (who became the constellation Gemini).


 * The name Lita is of Latin origin and means "gladly."

Behind the scenes
"The relationship between Leta and Newt Scamander is a complex relationship, so I think there will be a lot of time for that to grow and develop, which will be fun."

- Zoë Kravitz about her character Leta
 * Leta Lestrange is portrayed by Zoë Kravitz in and 🇨🇬.
 * A younger Leta is portrayed by Thea Lamb in 🇨🇬.
 * According to director David Yates, viewers will learn more about Leta Lestrange and Newt's relationship with her in future movies of the franchise.
 * Leta may or may not be related to Bellatrix Lestrange. But despite Bellatrix being a Lestrange by marriage (her husband Rodolphus and her brother-in-law Rabastan may or may not be Leta's descendants for that matter), Sirius Black has previously mentioned that "the pure-blood families are all interrelated", meaning there is a possibility of at least a Black-Lestrange (and/or vice versa) union/s at any time including the distant past. As the Black family tree provided by Rowling for the production team of only shows the most recent 8 generations of descent, it is in contrast with Harry's description of the Black Family Tapestry as "sprawling" and "dating back [...] to the Middle Ages".
 * Zoë Kravitz has described Leta as "Helena Bonham Carter's great-great aunt" in an interview (Helena being the actress of Bellatrix Lestrange). Though that might have been an informal approximation, similarly to when Sirius Black described his great-great-great aunt Elladora Black simply as "dear Aunt Elladora".

Notes and references
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