Literatti: Fiction By Deslea

This short story, 2600 words in total, explores the world of Rodolphus Lestrange, including his quasi-religious zeal for the Dark Lord's cause, and his complicated bond with his wife, Bellatrix, which sits side-by-side with her love for another. Content warning for euthanasia. Read it here

"I've written Rodolphus Lestrange several times (Real, Mercy, Elemental) and he's always a sympathetic character. I don't necessarily start out that way, but he always worms his way in and wins me over. I think there's something really devoted and selfless in Rodolphus - the way he looked for Voldemort when everyone else was diving for cover, and unlike Bella, not motivated by being in love with him, for instance. And that always comes out when I write him. Speaking more broadly of Rod and Bella's marriage, I much prefer to write a bonded-but-platonic Bella and Rodolphus than a hostile-blatant-adultery scenario. It isn't that I can't imagine Bella openly cheating on him - I think, if she didn't respect him, that she wouldn't hesitate to embarrass him - but it's sort of too easy and obvious. It's more difficult - in a good way - to make them actually come to some sort of accord about it all. And as I said, I think Rod is probably one of the genuinely good people in HP (notwithstanding that he was born into the Death Eater world)."

Ratings are roughly equivalent to those used by the Motion Picture Association of America.

G: General audiences.
PG: Parental Guidance. Adult concepts and dilemmas, but without graphic detail.
M (or R): Mature audience. Adult concepts and dilemmas, anti-social attitudes, people doing the wrong thing and not necessarily feeling guilty about it. Also includes low-level sexual content (a few soft-focus paragraphs with little or no direct discussion of body parts). Most of my work is M.
NC-17: No children 17 or under. May contain explicit and extended descriptions of sexual activity, brief but graphic sexual descriptions, or graphic violence. A couple of my works contain rape scenes; these are graphic but not sexualised, and are appropriately marked with content warnings.
Trigger/Content Warnings: I take a conservative approach to triggers and will generally warn for anything that might trigger reader trauma to do with violence, self-harm, or grief. If the term "dark themes" is used, this may mean too many dark themes to mention, a dark theme that I don't want to reveal because it's a plot twist, or a vague dark feel that doesn't have a more precise description. Caveat lector.