Cassius Lestrange

**Cassius Lestrange** (9 November, 1910 - 19 March, 1943) was a pure-blood wizard who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1 September, 1922 to June of 1929. He was the son of Faustus Lestrange I and Melesina Lestrange (née Rosier), and he was the younger brother of Faustus II and Romilius.

He married Ulyssa Burke in 1937 and became the father to Adolph and Philomena Lestrange. Along with his wife, Cassius was a casualty of the Global Wizarding War and they both died fighting for Grindelwald, leaving their two young children orphaned.

## Biography

### Early life

Cassius Lestrange was born on 9 November, 1910, in Skipsea Castle, located in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was the secondborn son of Faustus and Melesina Lestrange (née Rosier). His father was an extremely influential member of the Wizenagmot. Cassius was a member of the traditionalist pure-blood House of Lestrange, who looked down on any except other "respectable" pure-blood wizards and believed in pure-blood supremacy.
At the time of his birth, he had an older brother, Faustus II, who was three years older than him, and an older brother, Romilius, who was a year older than him.
His maternal grandparents were Octavius Rosier and Alvina Rosier (née Volant). His grandmother was of a very influential French family, and his grandfather of the French line of Rosiers. He had a maternal uncle, Marcelin, and an aunt Eglantine, who also decided, like Cassius's parents, to settle in England. Their grandparents and uncle Maurice's family, however, remained in France.

On the night of 9 November, 1918, his father informed Cassius that his three of his cousins had been killed, along with Cassius's aunt and uncle, in a cursed fire in Paris. The dead included Cassius's maternal uncle Maurice, his maternal aunt Coretta, and his cousins Ermintruda Gamp, Floretta Gamp, and Corvus Rosier. Eglantine Gamp (née Rosier) had been visiting them when Corvus, who was suspected to have been showing off fiendfyre to his younger cousins, set a blaze so uncontrollable that it killed them all. His aunt, Eglantine Gamp (née Rosier), initially survived with her daughter, but Floretta succumbed to her injuries twenty-four hours later. His aunt passed away a week after the fire.

Cassius was eight years old at the time of this family tragedy. He travelled with his family to Paris for the funerals of his cousin Corvus, who he did not know well, and his uncle Maurice and aunt Coretta. The funerals of Eglantine Gamp and her two younger daughters were held in King's Lynn in Norfolk. Cassius, his two brothers, Faustus and Romilius, as well as his cousin, Araminta Gamp, were present.

#### Hogwarts years

Cassius Lestrange received his Hogwarts letter in the summer of 1922. He bought a wand made of blackthorn and dragon heartstring at Ollivander's Wand Shop in Diagon Alley, some time before starting his first year at school. He boarded the Hogwarts Express on 1 September, 1922. That night, he was sorted into Slytherin.

He was selected to become a member of Horace Slughorn's esteemed Slug Club in his fourth year of school. Along the course of the school year, Professor Slughorn would hold various club get-togethers (most often dinners with fine food and around 10 student-attendees). Slughorn would lead the conversation in order to get to know the members better and encourage them to associate with one another. Professor Slughorn's aim was to cultivate talent and give his favourites a nudge toward fame and fortune, hoping to reap the benefits of his connection to them once they became the "high fliers" he expected them to be.

### Later life

Cassius left Hogwarts with a high number of N.E.W.T. qualifications, and was expected to join the Ministry like his two brothers had done. Instead, he surprised the family by announcing that he wanted to travel.

He married Ulyssa Burke on 12 March, 1937, in Skipsea, Yorkshire, when he was twenty-six. The two of them then left the country in search of Grindelwald and his supporters. Their son, who they named Adolph, was born in Paris on 27 January, 1939, and their daughter, Philomena, on 5 February, 1940, in Nurmengard, Austria.

#### Global Wizarding War

Cassius became an official acolyte of Grindelwald in the year 1937, after managing to track down his second cousin, Vinda Rosier. He and his wife Ulyssa were henceforth induced into the Alliance.

Fanatics dedicated to Grindelwald's ideology of Wizarding supremacy, the Alliance referred to themselves as his "acolytes". Their main goal was to expose the world wizarding community and provoke a war with Non-magic people, with the intent overturning the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and eventually forcing the non-magical population into slavery under their motto: *"For the Greater Good"*. While many of the acolytes, including Cassius and his wife, were fervent believers in Grindelwald’s mantra of magical supremacy at any cost, most were simply idealistic young witches and wizards who were taken in by the dark wizard's charisma and manipulation.

Cassius was present when all of Grindelwald's followers attended a meeting in the Lestrange Mausoleum. There, Gellert Grindelwald himself gave a rousing speech, in which he shared his idealist perspective of non-magic people and told of the Second World War, implying it would come to pass if the army lost to the wizarding governments. Grindelwald, openly recognising the battalion of Aurors that had infiltrated the rally, told his followers to remain calm as he revealed their presence and invited them into the circle. They killed a young witch, making Grindelwald's followers furious. After making a martyr of the girl, Grindelwald commanded his followers to disapparate from the scene while he faced off against the Aurors.

#### Death

Cassius and his wife were killed on 19 March, 1943, in a skirmish between Aurors and Acolytes after they began to resist arrest. After their deaths, their two young children, Adolph and Philomena, were briefly sent to live in a muggle orphanage in Berlin, Germany.

After the war was over, they were sent to live with Cassius's father and mother, Faustus I and Melesina, in Skipsea, East Yorkshire, England. Adolph was seven, and Philomena five, when they were sent to live with their grandparents. During their three years at the orphanage, they barely spoke any English, and arrived in England in 1946 only speaking German.

## Etymology

Cassius is a Roman name of uncertain meaning. It is possibly derived from the Latin *cassus* (hollow, empty).