Leta Lestrange

Leta Lestrange was a close friend of Newt Scamander at Hogwarts. The two of them were outsiders and shared a love for magical creatures. They became friends at age 13, when an unhappy Leta was being chased by Professor McGonagall for casting a spell on another student. Running to hide inside a Hogwarts cupboard, Leta found Newt inside caring for a baby raven, the symbol of Leta’s family, and they bonded while staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays. However, later when Leta took an experiment a bit too far and endangered the lives of other students, Newt took the blame and was expelled from Hogwarts. Newt keeps a picture of Leta on the wall of his shed, inside the case.

In 1927, a picture appeared in Spellbound Magazine of Newt posing with his servant, Bunty, his brother Theseus, and Leta Lestrange. The caption referred erroneously to Leta as Newt’s fiance, when she was actually engaged to Theseus. The picture was troublesome and confusing to Newt’s friend from New York City, Auror Tina Goldstein, who was jealous of the relationship and began dating another Auror.

Leta was always inviting Newt to dinner with herself and Theseus, but Newt always declined (CG). Theseus encouraged her to become part of the “Ministry family” and work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She often accompanied the Aurors on their missions in Paris against Grindelwald, but it was not clear whether she was training to become one herself.

Leta was haunted all her life by the death of her baby half-brother, Corvus Lestrange, Jr.  At Hogwarts, her boggart appeared in Dumbledore’s Defense Against the Dark Arts Class as a baby’s hand and a flash of green light (CG).

Her mother, Laurena Kama, was the first wife of Corvus Lestrange, Sr. who used the Imperius Curse to kidnap her away from her husband and son. Leta’s half-brother Yusef Kama watched his father go insane over losing her, and vowed to take revenge someday.

After Laurena died, Corvus took a second wife who gave birth to a son named Corvus Lestrange, Jr. When he realized that Yusef wished to harm his son, he sent both Corvus Jr. and Leta to America to hide with a servant Irma Dugard, who was half-House elf.  On the ship, Leta grew weary of Corvus Jr. crying in his crib, so she switched him with another baby who was quiet. This childish act led to tragedy because the ship soon began to sink and in the confusion, the lifeboat containing her brother and the other baby’s aunt sank, killing them both. The child left with Leta would be adopted later in New York and named Creedence Barebone.

Her guilt over the death became her boggart, a baby sinking through the light of the green ocean water. Years later, Dumbledore remembered the boggart and guessed what was on Leta’s mind, urging her to confess and avoid even more remorse. But she chose not to confess at that time.

Leta was reunited suddenly with her half-brother Yusef as well as Creedence Barebone at the Lestrange Mausoleum in Paris, 1927. While trying to hunt down the family of Corvus Lestrange, Yusef used a book called The Predictions of Tycho Dodonus, which he believed referred to both Leta and her baby brother:

“A son cruelly banished

Despair of the daughter

Return, great avenger

With wings from the water.”

Yusef believed Corvus was the”son cruelly banished,” while Leta was the daughter in despair. Yusef saw himself as the “great avenger” of his own mother and father when he sought to kill Credence Barebone, the child he believed was rescued from the sinking ship. At that point, Leta had to explain her own involvement in her brother’s death at sea due to the switch.

Soon after her confession, a large amphitheater opened under the Lestrange Mausoleum. Grindelwald was having a rally there. calling out to his followers while protected by a magical ring of black fire. He targeted Leta, saying, “Leta Lestrange . . . despised entirely amongst wizards . . . unloved, mistreated . . . yet brave. So very brave. … Time to come home.” But Leta saw Theseus trying to rescue her from the fire with Newt beside him and made a decision to sacrifice herself. Saying “I love you” to both brothers, she caused an explosion near Grindelwald as the flames surrounded her, allowing the Scamanders, Tina Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Yusef Kama, and Nagini to escape death.