Destiny Denied

"So how many times have you read book five, now, Cathy?" Lenore asked. Her strawberry blonde pigtailed little sister looked up over the top of her large blue and silver book. She looked back down to her pages and read a few more lines before replying.

"Eight." She said simply, "I had to take a break from fan fiction," and her green eyes went back to roaming the pages. Her eyes had been Cathy's favorite feature. Especially after becoming a Harry Potter fan. Granted, that had been many years ago, but the initial charm and excitement that inevitably leads to obsession had not worn off in those long seven years. It had been one year since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had been released.

It had been five books, seven years and many pairs of reading glasses since the Lector sisters had discovered the magical world of Harry Potter, and it had been since then that they had been trying to live in it.

Leo was the oldest. She was really named Lenore, of course, but her boyish behavior as a child, combined with the old fashioned sound of the name, had earned her a shorter nickname. Leo however, now nineteen and the oldest, was not boyish at all. In appearance anyway. What was different about the Lector sisters was their long hair. Each girl had long blonde hair, of some varying hue, to the waist bands of their pants, and that is where they kept it. Leo's hair was the color of gold. It glowed orange as the sunset in proper light, but indoors was so yellow gold hardly anyone could keep their eyes off of it. She had blue gray eyes the color of a lake on a stormy day, and a face that belonged in renaissance paintings. She was quite good with her eyes, and could penetrate people whenever she so desired. It was hard to escape Leo's eyes, and her personality was so, that you could not avoid it.

Cathy was the second child of the Lector family. Green eyes that glowed the rich deep color of emeralds, and hair like the sunset, she had many suitors, but was far too shy to take advantage of them. She was only sixteen, but had already finished high school in the spring and would begin her sophomore year of college in the fall, as she had already completed many courses. She was the shyest of the sisters, but perhaps the sharpest. She enjoyed reading so much, that she had double majors in the fall at her father's college, Creative Writing and Creative Literature.

The youngest of the Lector sisters was Annabelle. Annabelle Lee to be exact. For each one of the Lector sisters was named after a literary character. Annabelle, like Leo, had also shortened her name, as it was far too long for such a small girl. She was twelve, but not the size of most twelve year olds. Leo and Cathy, short for Catherine, had both been tall for their ages, and were both nearly six feet tall. Anna, however, had not yet crossed five feet on her twelfth birthday, and was thin and delicate looking. She had corn blonde hair and periwinkle blue eyes. She was so pale that she had the look of a porcelain doll. It was thought that Anna was so small because she had been born too early, and perhaps it was true. She theorized that God had decided she need to be born on Christmas Day, as that was her birthday, and that he liked her better small.

The Lectors, the girls' parents, had been quite the bookworms as well. Mr. Lector was a Literary Professor at the local University. Mrs. Lector had been a Librarian before she got married, and was now raising the Lector children. You see, there were only three girls, but there were four boys, all younger than them.

Lenore was named Lenore because Edgar Allan Poe was Mrs. Lector's favorite poet. In fact, Leo's full name was Lenore Raven Lector. Catherine had been named after the heroine of Wuthering Heights, and Annabelle after another poem. The boys too were all named after fictional characters. The oldest son was named Calvin, which turned out to be quite precise, as he looked a great deal like Cathy, and shared her freckles and red hair, and fit his counter part from A Wrinkle In Time. He was tall, like the older two, and though he was only ten, was quite the athlete. He enjoyed reading in his spare time, but loved to run and play any sports he was able to learn. The twins, who were seven years old and quite a handful, had not been named Fred and George, but rather John and Michael for JM Barrie. It had been the girls' favorite story until Harry Potter was introduced to them. David, named for Dickens, who was the youngest and not even speaking yet, was born with a small tuft of jet black hair, like his grandfather, and the only Lector child with dark hair. The girls had insisted on naming him Harry, but Mrs. Lector said it might be too cruel later in life. Instead, the girls had received a black cat for Christmas, and subsequently, Anna's birthday, and had named it Harry instead, as the cat had glowing green eyes.

Leo scooped Harry into her arms on her way to bed, as he was perched on one of the stairs up to her attic bedroom. Leo had received the coveted attic for a bedroom on her sixteenth birthday. Cathy and Anna were left to share a room, to Cathy's disappointment, when Mr. and Mrs. Lector turned Leo's old bedroom into an office. However, it had been given to Cathy on her sixteenth birthday as her own room, leaving Anna in their original room, to have on her own.

The Lector house was a marvelous place. Three stories high with a basement and attic, it was an old Victorian house, whose floorboards squeaked and lights flickered. In strong winds it sounded as though the house was speaking to them, and whenever it rained it failed to produce senseless noise, but a symphony of percussion, to which the children would put on their pajamas, make newspaper hats, and drink hot cocoa to as they danced around the house to the music.

After the release of the girls' favorite book, they had hung a sign on the front porch that read 'The Burrow', though it was not just the Burrow. The basement served as the Potions dungeon, the living room as Neverland, and the back yard as Narnia. Middle Earth was an adventure that took place over the entire house and yard, and the thick trees bordering the back yard were of course off limits. A sign in front of them read 'The Forbidden Forest: Do not enter if you do not wish to die a most painful death'. Of course, it was not spelled as precisely, as the twins had made the sign.

Leo pushed open her bedroom door with her free hand, and stepped inside. The lights were off, and she dared not turn them on. The moon was full tonight, and her room always looked best in the moonlight. She had a four poster bed with sheer white drapings, and her walls had been painted a pale shade of lilac, so in the moonlight they looked a bright silver. Her pointed ceiling, which was left exposed wood like the floor, had glow-in-the-dark star stickers on it, in the exact pattern of the northern hemisphere.

Harry leapt from her arms and quickly bounded to her bed, where he curled up beside her pillow. Leo closed the door behind her, and crossed to her small window. She pulled it open to look at the stars, and thought of leaving it open as she slept, as it was a humid summer night, but decided not to, because the air smelled of rain. Which ironically, was precisely the reason she wanted it open. She took one last look at the moon before she closed the window, then quickly undressed and changed into her pajamas, which were quite meager as it was summer time. Quite tired, after a long day at the coffee and book shop where she worked, she climbed into bed.

Harry was purring so loudly that he was vibrating, but he had moved and curled up in Leo's side, so she did not mind. She had just begun to drift off into the hazy world of dreams, when a sharp popping noise had awoken her suddenly.

She sat up quickly, looking around in her bedroom. Her eyes were trying hard to pull her room into focus, which was difficult with her lilac walls and her white drapings. It appeared as though she had been asleep longer than she thought she had, because the shadows were longer and darker than they had been when she had laid down.

"Harry?" she asked, pushing her sheets off of her and standing. Harry was standing by the door, mewing and circling as though he wanted out. Leo opened the door, and as Harry bounded down the stairs, she peered down to see that all of the other lights were off in the house. She quickly lost site of Harry in the shadows, but decided not to wait up for him, and closed the door. He could sleep with Anna or the twins.

Leo shuffled sleepily towards her bed, and realized that the window was open. She suddenly felt more awake than she had been. She looked around her room, then crossed quickly and closed her window. She turned and looked back at her room, and the shadows suddenly seemed longer. She shivered, and climbed back into her bed. She had just pulled the sheet to her shoulder, when she realized she had seen something among the shadows; something that didn't belong there.

There, standing among the shadows, was a tall man wearing lengthy black robes. He had silvery blonde hair, and a pointy face. Leo recognized him of course, and was sure she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming, it was not possible for literary characters to jump from their pages.

"Lenore," he said, and she sat up. His stare was very penetrating.

"Draco?" she asked. He nodded slightly.

"We need your help."