~~There's rotten things left in me
Injected by society
No one here but me to judge me~~
“Mam, follow me to the interview room, please.” a deep voice breaks Rita from her train of thought. She gets up to follow the officer with a sigh.
She’s been waiting for about twenty minutes already, in order to start conducting this interview. It was hell trying to even get this opportunity in the first place, but Rita Skeeter is nothing if not perseverant.
This interview is really no different from the many other prisoner interviews she’s done, except for the fact that the person–this monster, that she’s interviewing is a woman.
It’s not something Rita is used to, women being cruel enough to kill, especially more than once. It's possible, of course, but women usually don’t get caught. This one made her crimes public knowledge herself.
This case is particularly interesting because Bellatrix Black Lestrange was a picture perfect woman. An elite socialite, a celebrity, an icon. She is everything that Rita doesn’t recognize or attribute to the other criminals that she’s interviewed.
Yet Bellatrix seems even more deranged than the scariest of men that Rita has encountered in her days as a reporter.
The men she’s spoken to in the past have been many things, falsely accused victims of a failing justice system, drug addicts, rapists, cold blooded murderers, but they don’t scare her.
After all, what’s a hardened criminal, bound by chains, to an influential reporter capable of twisting their words perfectly in order to ruin everything for them.
Insinuating even the tiniest thing about a crime they’ve committed can instantly change the entire course of their life. She’s even uncovered things that no detective or police officer has even thought about. She’s made their lives in prison hell for treating her with even the slightest bit of disrespect.
Threatening Rita Skeeter has never worked for anyone.
But Rita has never been to a women's prison.
She’s been able to avoid it so far, until Bellatrix Black Lestranges case had been sent to her through social media a few too many times, and Rita is not one to deprive her fans of a good story.
However, she is scared. She is a woman, and being a woman means knowing how much crueler they can be when they want to be. Rita knows this in her bones, because Bellatrix Black Lestrange has surpassed every other one of Rita's serial killer interviewees' kill count by a substantial amount.
Bellatrix is more of a monster than any man that Rita has ever met.
It takes Rita an unusual amount of self restraint not to burst into the interview room immediately upon seeing the door. She needs to know–she needs to understand everything that Bellatrix Black Lestrange is.
As the officer unlocks the heavy door, Rita takes a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself, she’s never been this nervous for an interview before.
There’s really only one thing that is making Rita so extremely apprehensive about sitting face to face with Bellatrix, to talk about her crimes.
And that is that Bellatrix is extremely attractive, exactly Rita’s type.
Meaning that for the first time ever, Rita Skeeter's journalistic integrity is seriously at stake. Twisting people's words is one thing, feeling the need to justify their actions just because of how attractive they are is on a completely different level.
Yet, no matter what she tries, Rita can’t stop herself from putting this criminal on a pedestal in her head.
It’s terrifying.
She’s betraying her entire moral code over someone that wouldn’t even look her way, if their life depended on it. It’s mortifying how much that thought hurts.
It should absolutely not hurt.
It shouldn’t even matter, and yet, when the door opens, Rita can’t help sucking in her next breath.
Because Bellatrix Black Lestrange is everything Rita has ever dreamed of in a partner, at least appearance wise. Their eyes meet when she steps into the room, and everything freezes.
Time just stops, and all Rita can do is try not to cry on the spot, because of how unfair this all is. The universe must hate her, because this, this is love at first sight.
And Rita can’t do anything with it, because Bellatrix is in jail for the murder of thirty seven innocent people.
As she forces herself to continue walking toward her chair, opposite from where Bellatrix is sitting, she tries to ignore the pair of eyes that’s watching her every move as if trying to memorize her every step.
Those eyes, they tell her that Bellatrix can feel the exact same thing.
Clearing her throat, Rita takes a seat at the other end of the table, and faces Bellatrix.
“Hello Mrs. Lestrange, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Do you have any questions or concerns before we get started?” She smiles, in a way that she hopes is welcoming and friendly, but Bellatrix doesn’t seem very moved by it. She just keeps looking at Rita with wide eyes, until her gaze shifts to something more predatory.
A proud smirk takes over her face, and Rita has to suck in a breath, because as beautifully cocky as this woman in front of her looks right now, she’s also very much a serial killer. And Rita needs to remember that.
“None at all, Rita.” and then Bellatrix winks. Fucking winks at her.
“Let’s get started then. I’ll be recording this interview if that’s alright with you.” Rita barely chokes out.
Bellatrix’s response is quick, “Of course, I want you to get my story right after all. You’ll do that for me, won't you, Rita?”
“Of course.” She breathes out in response.
Rita is glad that she’s already sitting, or else she would’ve fallen over by now. It feels all too intense, this conversation, and they’ve barely even started.
Her heart is beating so loudly that she’s sure Bellatrix and the guard that’s standing in the corner can hear it as loudly as she feels it in her skull. She was right in thinking that this interview would be different.
Usually Rita has the upper hand, she’s the one leading the interview, she’s the one dictating the story. But the way this is already going, Rita knows she’ll be a mess, she already is one.
They haven’t even started yet.
Rita takes a deep breath and tries desperately to string together the last little shreds of her sanity in order to not start panting after this monster immediately.
Clearing her throat, Rita turns on the little voice recorder that she carries everywhere, and places it on the table. “Let’s get started then, What is your name?”
“Bellatrix Black Lestrange.”
“You are imprisoned due to your hands in the deaths of many people, you’ve killed about fifteen individuals, correct?”
Go straight for the jugular, that’s always been Rita’s policy. It’s never clear how people will react to her questions before she asks them, and yet, Bellatrix smiles exactly the way Rita assumed she would. It’s like she’s known her for their whole lives.
Maybe in a previous life.
“It’s funny,” the woman says, “Usually I’d lie and agree with you about the number of people that I’ve rid this world of, but for some reason I want to tell you the truth.”
Rita’s eyes widen significantly, and the guard that’s been standing in the corner has started to really pay attention. “Are you saying that the number of victims that I gave you is incorrect?”
“Of course it is,” she smiles again, but this time it’s cruel, “I’ve killed sixty people. I’m quite efficient.” She laughs loudly.
The sound snaps Rita out of her state of shock. This, this, is exactly what she was looking for. A good story, and by the looks of it, Bellatrix is going to give it to her. “Those fifteen victims that they found were from my last outing. I was having a bad day.”
She sighs.
“Who were the other people you killed? Are you willing to disclose that information?” Please, she thinks, give me a story, give me the story of a lifetime.
“I’m not going to tell any of them,” Bellatrix says with contempt, as she waves her hand, which is cuffed to the table, over towards the officer. “But I’ll tell you.”
At this point Bellatrix looks a mixture of smug and hopeful and Rita is probably looking a little crazy from the excitement of this story. She’s going to get the names of these victims and she’s going to have one hell of a story.
“Alright, in that case, I’d like to know who your first victim was.” she asks tentatively, she has to go slow so as to not give Bellatrix a reason to change her mind.
“The first person I killed was my late husband. He didn’t exactly fall off of our bedroom balcony on his own. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t that stupid.” She giggles at that, as if it’s some sort of happy memory.
“Why did you push him?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly as nice to have around, if only my parents had allowed a marriage to a woman.” Bellatrix says wistfully, and Rita’s mouth drops open.
Bellatrix Black Lestrange is into women, if she wasn’t a murderer, Rita could’ve had her. And it hits her for the first time, that if the world had been a little different, she could’ve been truly happy.
Rita has always craved the company of another person, but no one had ever felt right. Until now, until Bellatrix. It feels so right, sitting here with her, despite the table keeping them apart.
The one thing she was missing, she’s found it now, and now that she’s found it, she can never have it. The tell-tale signs of upcoming tears make themselves known and she quickly pushes them down. She shouldn’t be thinking of these things, it’s wrong.
Bellatrix has killed people, so many people that it should make Rita feel sick. And yet, she feels like she just feels hypnotized by Bellatrix’ beautiful face and cocky demeanor.
Swallowing thickly, Rita shifts her thoughts back to the interview, she can’t be getting distracted by silly little details so easily, she doesn’t have all day after all.
“I’m sorry to hear that your parents weren’t open to that. Were they also victims of yours?” Most of the House of Black is dead. Bellatrix and her sister Andromeda are the only ones still alive.
No one really knows what happened to most of them, only that they died. Rumors have been flying around for a while that they all killed each other and that Bellatrix and Andromeda were only waiting each other out.
Bellatrix laughs loudly, “I’m not going to tell you that just yet, Rita. You’re going to have to visit me again to get another name out of me.”
Bellatrix wants her to come back. It seems Rita isn’t the only one affected by this meeting. The other woman just seemed so calm and uncaring that Rita assumed she wasn’t feeling the same things she is. But evidently Rita was wrong.
And if that doesn’t just make this whole thing more heartbreaking than it already was.
With one last breath, Rita resolves to focus on the interview, she will come back. If not for herself, then for the families of the victims.
The rest of their discussion goes off without a hitch, though Bellatrix flirts with Rita on several occasions. She seems to take pleasure in flustering Rita, especially since Rita is clearly trying very hard not to be affected.
Bellartrix reveals a lot about her family, her life as a child, and her life as a socialite. Towards the end of the conversation, Rita can almost understand where the inclination to kill is coming from.
She leaves the interrogation room with another officer, who had been watching through the two-way mirror. The officer asks her to come back again, should she feel comfortable, in order for them to confirm whether or not Bellatrix was telling the truth about the number of her victims.
Rita agrees under the condition that she will not be hindered in writing her article. They readily agree to her terms, though there will likely be some legal jargon to sort out.
With a heavy heart, Rita leaves the facility.
When she finally gets back into her car, Rita takes a single breath before letting a sob wrench through her. Everything comes back to her at that moment.
It’s unfair, it's so unfair.
Why did she have to feel this connection with a criminal, someone who fully deserves the death row sentence that she’s serving, someone who is so deranged that it’s scary to even be in the same room as them.
Why couldn’t she just have someone normal, with a normal job, and a normal backstory, and no literal skeletons in their closet.
All Rita can do is cry. About Bellatrix, about their connection, about how wrong it all is.
Maybe in another life they got the opportunity to love each other freely.
She can almost picture it. It would be magical. Rita is sure of that much.