Bellatrix, the eldest, bought into her parents’ pure-blood mania with a breathtaking completeness. Of all the sisters, it was Bellatrix who was the most faithful to her family, and it was she who was utterly irredeemable as a result. Bellatrix joined the Death Eaters as soon as she was able. She married – not for love but to further blood purity – Rodolphus Lestrange, a man we never learnt much about, but who joined Bellatrix with cruel delight in torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom.

The only person that Bellatrix truly loved, in the end, was Lord Voldemort – indeed, Harry was struck by her fierce mania for him even when seeing her in a Pensieve. Bellatrix spoke to Voldemort tenderly, and she was the last Death Eater standing with him at the Battle of Hogwarts. It was a one-sided, consuming love towards a man who was incapable of feeling the emotion in return, and it inexorably pulled her to ruin. Bellatrix took her family’s values to heart – and as such, led the darkest path.