Note: This is an AU, and a pretty strong one. Bellatrix did not die (obviously) in the second war, but she was captured and imprisoned for the rest of her life. There year is 2018 and The Daily Prophet is doing a 20 year anniversary piece on the Second Wizarding War. Bellatrix Lestrange is one of the few remaining Death Eaters. She has agreed to tell her side.
She was a Quidditch correspondent, not a reporter, an interviewer. She shouldn't have ever even been there. This wasn't her job.
"Block 921, Miss. The guards will show you the way to the interrogation rooms."
"Thanks," she muttered, frowning at the dingy brick walls, the small, dark corridors. The entire place smells of dampness and you can almost feel the cold air freezing your bones. She shivered subconsciously and one of the guards chuckles.
"You get used to it, Miss. The dementors make it cold, you know."
"Yeah, so I've heard."
"She's just through there. You've been told all about her I assume?"
"Oh, we're old friends," thin lips scowled, looking anxiously towards the open doorway. Big green eyes notice, for the first time, that there are guards inside the room as well. "I'd rather be alone with her if that's possible."
"Fine, fine, but we'll be just outside the doors here, just in case," he nodded. "She's been pretty calm the past few years, but we don't like to take chances with cases like her. They can snap at any time."
"Thank you, but I'm sure that won't be necessary," she said, sliding past the guard and closing the door behind herself. She's looking down, curls in a wild mass falling every which way. "Mrs. Lestrange," she nodded before sitting down on the opposite side of the table. She's been told why the reporter was visiting come; she knows what they need to hear. Ginny watched her closely, allowing her to begin whenever she was ready.
"It is no small feat," she begins, "to live as I have for the past thirty years." Her voice is nothing like the woman across the table seems to remember. It's no longer the small and shrill yet determined cries of a warrior, but the meek and broken sound of a captive. A rather pitiful smile flicks quickly across her face as she lifts her head finally.
The audible gasp from Ginny's lips was laced in shock. Even after nearly fifteen years, she'd hardly changed at all. Her eyes were still the same piercing green, her cheekbones still high and sharp. She might be attractive were it not for the years of struggle she carried on her shoulders.
"Please, relax, my dear," she laughed, her smirk returning and Ginny couldn't help but wonder what she had up her sleeve. "I've nothing left, Miss Weasley; you're quite safe in my company."
Her pulse quickened, the breath leaving her lungs. 'She remembers me,' she thought. "It's Potter now, actually. But I couldn't expect you to know that."
"Oh! Well, congratulations Ginny, dear. I apologize; my invitation must have been misplaced in the post." She hadn't changed at all; her sarcasm and satire still flowed freely even after all these years.
"And if you don't mind my asking, how is your husband, Mrs. Lestrange?" Ginny asked bitterly, scribbling the date down on her notepad. She looked up when Bellatrix didn't respond, dropping the pen with spite. Something in the depths of Bella's eyes makes her wish she hadn't asked.
"He's dead, Ginevra." Her voice was dead as well, completely empty, as if she couldn't have cared less, but her eyes told a different story entirely.
"Sorry for your loss," she murmured, the empty words falling heavily upon hurt ears.
"Don't patronize me, stupid girl. Who are you to judge me? You know nothing about my life."
"I know enough, Mrs. Lestrange, I know enough."
She scoffed, looking over Ginny's shoulder at a spot on the wall. She laughed darkly for a split second before their eyes meet again. "You don't know anything."
"Then tell me, Bellatrix. Tell me what I need to know."
"Why? So you can write about this in your silly little paper? So that the world can see how the crazies in Azkaban truly live?" she snapped.
"I only want to know you. I want to know all about you, that's why I'm here."
She fell silent, staring at Ginny for a long time before she finally speaks. "I met him when I was six years old."
"Voldemort?" Ginny asked, shocked and disgusted. The man was sick but she'd never imagined that he'd prey on such young and impressionable children.
"No," she shook her head, her heavy lidded eyes closing, "My husband."
