Leonora Jacobson shuffled out to her mailbox, blinking at the bright morning sun.
Never did like mailboxes, she noted. They are so innefficient.
She didn't look like much, didn't deserve a second glance. Hardly twenty-three, she was around five foot four, if even that. Her shiny brown curls that almost reached her shoulders were perpetually a mess and her soft brown eyes echoed back any pain or loss she'd endured during her life. She was not delicate-looking, but sturdy and kind of clumsy.
Not much mail. A fee from the library. Whoops, I must remember to take that book back. A letter from Elizabeth Jacobson, her foster mother. A few catalogs, which she immediately dumped in the trashcan. No emerald-green ink on that strange parchment.
A six year old Leonora escapes her bedroom and tip-toes into the foyer, where she can hear her brother, who is eight, talking to her Gran.
"...always known that she... it's obvious."
"I thought we were pureblood!"
"These things happen... your parents..."
"...but we can't just..."
"It's the only humane thing to do!..."
"Do you hear that?"
Leonora's heart pounds, she has sneezed with awful timing and gotten herself in trouble.
"Leo!" her brother says, coming around the corner. "What are you doing up?"
"Nebel!" she cried, trying to look cute. Her speech impediment only improved on this frontier.
THE NEXT DAY Leonora went with Gran and her brother to a new house, without flying brooms or moving pictures. The people who lived there were Elizabeth and Louis Jacobson.
When it was time to go, little Leonora ran to her brother, who picked her up, sniffled a little, and said, "Be good Leo."
She looked confusedly at her Gran, but with the blink of an eye, she was put back down and Gran and her brother were gone.
Leonora sat on her bed and sifted through the mail. The letter from her mother was brief: Louis had the flu, the geraniums were coming up nicely, etc. Sighing, for she had expected something more, Leo pulled on a sweater and some jeans.
CRASH! Something was in the kitchen.
Leo ran to the kitchen, to find a man clumsily trying to pick up shards of broken china.
"Who are you?" she asked, wide-eyed.
He quickly stood up, bonking his head on a cabinet in the cramped kitchen. "Neville," he answered her.
She blinked.
"Longbottom," he added. "Your brother."
"Brother?" she asked incredulously. "Oh my gosh. Neville! You're--you're here! You came for me!"
"I did." He nodded, but looked grim. "We need you, Leo. You have to come with me."
"Who needs me? For what?"
"You'll see," replied Neville. He took her hand and closed his eyes.
Suddenly Leonora was off, on the kind of adventure she only wished she could ever have.