The Diary of Albus Rottingleaf

Introduction:

               Hello readers. Regarding the gruesome tales that follow, I feel it’s necessary to explain the circumstances of the work and provide some helpful context. I’ll begin with a reminder of how much I love to interact with you and that I have a p.o. box and public email that I eagerly respond to. As a writer, these solitary avenues are obviously my preferred method of interaction. Being a slave to politeness, while also being an invalid, produces such a hurdle for personal acquaintance that I’m sure you can imagine how almost none materialize. And so, despite a sincere love for my readers, my address and general whereabouts remain perpetually anonymous. I mention this fact because the following series was left on my doorstep.
               The initial reception was curiosity, the work consisting of several hand written journals of varying thickness, and I read it perceptively. It did have the semblance of being produced over a long period of time and one could notice the pen losing ink before being swapped out. The penmanship was hurried in some spots, erratic in many, and large swathes were crossed out often. It’s unlikely that the work was anything but the original and sole copy. Whether it was written for my solitary consumption I have not decided but I think it’s possible that my publishing of the series was assumed by the author, who clearly knows my disposition well.
               The nature of the work did demand that I get the police involved and so, after scanning the pages to produce a copy, I allowed them to investigate. They combed it for clues concerning anything that might identify a specific location or person but were unsuccessful. They reanimated portions of the notebooks that were scratched out, finding that the author, most of the time, simply rewrote whatever he had originally redacted. The last page was found to have been signed with the name, “Johannes Lindsay,” before being crossed out thoroughly and replaced with the signature, “Albus Rottingleaf.” The last item then being, “Your friend, Albus Rottingleaf.” The police searching for a person matching the name Johannes Lindsay produced nothing but a few calls to distant precincts which further produced nothing but a few questionings. The conclusion reached was that the original alias sounded too real and so the author, afraid of incriminating an innocent man, adjusted his pseudonym accordingly.
               In the end, after declaring my intention to cherish them, the originals were returned to me. The series was presumed authentic. The author was admitted to having been careful enough to evade discovery. The volumes falling in a category called, “a gift of intellectual property.” And so, with the exception of formatting, I publish “The Diary of Albus Rottingleaf,” unchanged.