Not gonna lie. Every time I see this photoshoot, I think of that episode of South Park. “What are you guys doing?” “We’re playing Harry Potter!” “HA!….fags!”
In 2011, with the last Harry Potter movie releasing, we decided it was now or never on the Harry Potter cosplay. Jonathan and I decided we wanted to play bad guys because we don’t really look like any of the good guys and, well, being evil would be fun for a change! We had a flurry of other costumes that June – between Anime Expo and Mikunopolis and so on – so getting the costumes together in time for the release was a pain, but we did it!
Everything is cobbled together and repurposed from thrift store finds! My favorite aspect (and this was completely Jonathan’s idea) was the leather stitchwork bodice. It was actually a leather jacket we found at a thrift store. We took it apart, my mum helped me tailor the curves (she is the bodice queen) and then we just laced it up the back! And voila! Bellatrix bodice!
Other favorite elements of the costumes? The Bellatrix’s skull ring, necklace and Lucius Malfoy’s snake brooches Jonathan made out of fimo clay. (Around this point in our cosplay hobby Jonathan started getting really into that crafting element!)
The photoshoot was taken at the Bastille in Hanford, California. We got permission to shoot in the courtyard (since the building is abandoned) and we ended up getting quite the audience from passerby’s.
Our friend Will portrayed Sirius Black, and our friend Sean was Harry Potter. In case it’s not obvious, I was Bellatrix Lestrange and Jonathan was Lucius Malfoy. ^_^
