Afterword
Melodious S Lestrange's foreword described her first Harry Potter Day at Hogwarts.
Mine was rather different. I moved my dead friends' bodies. I defied an apparently victorious Tom Riddle alias Lord Voldemort, endured his torture, and beheaded his beloved pet snake (unaware, at the time, of its true dark nature). I battled against his followers. I watched Bellatrix Lestrange die, and then Riddle himself.
The treacle tart came later.
Fighting the Death Eaters in charge of Hogwarts with guerilla warfare while school was in session took one kind of bravery. Fighting the forces of evil in an open battle took another. Reading this manuscript, and agreeing to write an afterword for it… honestly, that took a kind of bravery I didn't know I had.
I grew up terrified by the name "Bellatrix Lestrange." I was scared that she would break out of Azkaban and hurt more people, the way she hurt my parents. I was even more frightened by how painfully angry she made me. I thought—or maybe I just hoped—that her death would bring me closure.
Life isn't that tidy. Loss and trauma stick with us. I think maybe that's just part of being human.
Time has helped. Surrounding myself with thriving life—my plants, my students, my beautiful wife, my family and friends—has helped. I think, in a way, reading this has helped too.
She was by no means a reliable narrator. Still, her diary shows us that Bellatrix Black didn't live the life of an ordinary schoolgirl. Her mother stunted her emotional development. Her father imbued her with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. Both made her a vulnerable child. A worldly older relative groomed her for worse abuse. Then, a charismatic leader radicalized her to a hateful cause.
Bellatrix wasn't the first. Religious cults, political regimes, pyramid schemes, and domestic abusers use manipulative tactics like Riddle's to turn their victims into recruits. They bolster a sense of privilege, then foster their victim's dependence on themselves. Recruits become leaders, victims perpetuate abuse, and the cycle goes on.
This isn't to say that Bellatrix was not responsible for her actions. There's no excuse for the terrible things she did, but there are reasons for it. I think that if we as a society understand these reasons, we will be better equipped to prevent their recurrence. We can see the manipulative tactics before they lead to violence. We can break the cycle.
Neville Longbottom
1 May 2036
PS
If reading the adventures of a teenaged sociopath has upset your stomach, as it did mine, I recommend a peppermint and ginger tea with liberal amounts of honey.
—NL