Chapter Two
Unconditional Love
Lenore hated pity; more than anything she hated it. Unfortunately that was all that seemed to surrounded her now. Everyone was 'so sorry' for her. Even her friends were unsure of what to say, they comforted her as they could but she was numb over the next few days. Dumbledore was helpful, as she found, in the preparation of the funeral. It was going to be today and, after much discussing (and several fights with the funeral home) it would be here, in their home. The one place where Lenore knew her mother was happy at least to a degree.
Staring at herself in wood mirror that one of her friends, Stephan, had build for her she frowned. It was one of her mother's dresses that she had tailored to fit. The dress itself was custom made with a princess cut seam that looked very fetching on Lenore. The sleeves were long and made of a silky mesh that flowed down over her shoulders and then was cut loose to move about as free fabric. It came to a 'v' around her waist and then morphed into the skirt which, like the top, would shimmer from the jet black to a black-green. Her jet-black hair was loose on her back and a silver necklace decorated her neck.
Tears burned in her darkening eyes as she noticed many of her mother's features in her looks. Se missed her mother so much. Turning her back on the mirror she looked at the room, biting down on her lip, think back over the last four days.
After Albus had taken her home she had ignored him for two days straight until Laura came over and told her that he was only trying to help. Because of that, she allowed him to aide her in the preparation of her mother's funeral, however, the second day he had been staying another Brit came, this one much, much younger. Albus introduced her to him as 'an old student and good friend' of his by the name of Remus Lupin. But what they didn't tell her was that he was a werewolf so, after sensing it due to her Elvin blood, she confronted them on it. To be perfectly honest, she didn't care much, Saul, one of her closest friends was a werewolf and two of her other friends were Day-Walker Vampires, completely ignoring the fact that she was a magical creature herself because of her Elvin heritage.
A shutter went through her as she sat down on her bed, thinking. He turned out to be a good friend but he ended up having the brunt of a nightmare a day ago, one of her worst. It was a nightmare about her mother's death. She could remember that night as if it was moments ago.
"Lenore? Lenore are you all right?" BANG-BANG. "I'm coming in," He had burst into the room and was hovering in the doorway.
She was still screaming, thrashing in her bed but part of her consciousness was aware of what he was doing. She couldn't wake up. She was trapped in her nightmare, seeing her mother get beaten, raped, and tortured over and over again, like a broken record. She felt the curse hurtling towards her mother and threw herself in front of it again, wishing that it would absorb some of the blow.
She felt him sit on the bed. "Lenore, wake up now!" he touched her causing her to sit up with a gasp. Tears poured down her face as she looked at him, panting as if she had just run a marathon. He was sitting on her bed, worry etched in his face as he stared at her, his arm still touching her. He was wearing nothing but a pair of baggy sweatpants and a baggy black shirt. His tawny hair was a wreck and had bed-hair. "Lenore, are you all right?"
"I saw it, again and again." She whispered as she broke into sobs. "Raped, beaten, cursed. Over and over. I couldn't wake up." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Trapped."
He pulled her into a hug. "It's all right, you're safe. They aren't here for you. They're gone."
Albus appeared in the doorway moments later. He was in his long striped nightgown with a matching nightcap. He was probably just about as worried as Remus but she couldn't tell because she had buried her face into the man's shoulder crying. "Lenore, are you all right?"
"Did you tell her about her mother's murder?" he hissed rocking her, trying to get her to calm down.
"No. Remember what her mother was, Remus." Albus said gravely as he walked into the room.
"My god, she relived it all?" He nodded. Remus tightened his hold on her. "You're all right, Lenore. You're safe here."
She pulled away from him sniffing. "My mother thought that too. She was taken from her own house, raped, beaten, murdered all in front of a man who didn't even say stop to them! He just watched!" She looked at Albus. "How can someone just watch another get tortured?" She let out a tortured sob. "What kind of a human could just watch? Watch the woman you married get tortured like that?" She was shaking now and couldn't stop. "You know what her last words were? I love you." She punched her fist into the bed. "How can she love the man who deserted her! How! He sat there and watched her die! Heartless monster that he is, he laughed along with all the Death Eaters at her last words."
"Oh, Lenore." Albus said with a sigh sitting down on the bed.
Remus pulled her to him again, rubbing her back as tears still poured down her face. "How could she still love him after all that he did to us?"
"Sometimes love is just unexplainable, untouchable by actions." Remus said softly. "Sometimes you simple love them, despite their actions that hurt or harm you."
"He doesn't deserve unconditional love! Not from her or anyone!" she shouted, her magic copying her emotions and bursting into the air.
Remus recoiled back, startled at her burst of magic. Albus took her by the hands, forcing her to look at him. "Lenore, calm down." He slowly rubbed circles on her wrists. "Deep breaths in." She obeyed him, as his thumbs continued to rub slow circles. She was calm again. "Do you want Dreamless Sleep?"
She nodded and he handed her a potion. "Albus, that's not the normal color for Dreamless Sleep," Remus said as she drank it quickly.
Albus smiled weakly. "She's a quarter elf, remember, Remus. Her mother was a half elf. They are more in-tuned with their bodies and more immune to potions." She lay back down slowly, tears still falling from her eyes. "We'll talk about it in the morning, Lenore. All right?" she nodded and let the potion lull her into sleep.
They had talked the next morning, for hours. Lenore threw the biggest temper tantrum in her life but at the end was collapsed on the floor crying, holding onto the old man as he comforted her. She wanted to hate Dumbledore but she couldn't. But just because he was fooled by Severus Snape's act at being good doesn't mean she would be.
A knock on the door caused her to jump. "Leo?" the door opened to reveal Soul Ret on the other side. "The mourners are starting to arrive, little one." He said gently as he walked in. He was dressed in a sharp suit, for once looking all of his twenty years. His rich pitch-black hair was pulled into a ponytail with a Celtic clip that Stef had given to him. His distinctly Egyptian features held the exhaustion he so obviously felt due to the full moon being in two weeks. "Mary Anne is greeting them at the door and sending them into the dining area," Saul sat next to her on the bed and played with her hair as she spoke. "Isaiah, Ralph, and Astrid are here already waiting for you in the living room, they wanted to see you before you went in to talk to people. Octavos and Lynn ordered me to tell you that they are on their way along with Stephan, Helen and the others. Wash, Laura, Renee, Albus and Remus are helping the funeral director."
Lenore snorted brushing his hand away and going for the shoes that were laid out. They were made to match the dress. They were flat and looked as if they had been quilted. "Did you loose drawing straws to come up here and tell me that?" she asked sliding her foot into each shoe. They were a bit big but that was okay. Lenore wanted to feel as close to her mother as possible right now.
"No," Saul said getting off the bed, sorrow in his dark eyes. "Everyone else was doing something that made them look busy." Lenore looked down shaking her head. He sighed lifting her head up to look at him. "Leo, I came because I wanted to see how my little one was doing. I wanted to make sure you weren't plotting ways to kill someone up here."
"Like the old man who keeps offering lemon drops?" she snorted.
He brushed her hair off her shoulder. "Exactly." Kissing her on the forehead he pulled her into a hug. "After the funeral you can hex him to heaven's end."
She giggled. "But only after the funeral?"
"Of course. We need someone to pay for it." Smiling Lenore looked down. Saul offered his arm to her. "Shall we?"
"Only if I have to,"
"Leo, please try to be civil, these people are here to see you because they care about you and your mother." He said walking her out the door.
"I don't see a single one of them fighting to keep me here." She whispered softly, tears burning in her eyes.
"Britain isn't certain death, Lenore."
She shut her eyes. "Close enough."
"Because of your father,"
Her eyes flew open. "Don't you dare call him that." She snarled. "That man is not my father. He never has been and never will be!"
Silence followed her statement as Saul stared down at her. He let out a long breath and touched her cheek with a half smile. "Sweetie, I know what it's like to hate your parents," he whispered. Lenore looked down. "It's not worth it. Hate will consume you and you'll make stupid mistakes, trust me. It's just not worth it."
"Saul," Tears began to fall down her face. "Am I wrong to wish that he was in her place?" licking her lips she looked down again, unable to keep his eyes.
He pulled her into a hug. "No, Lenore. It is merely your thoughts."
Tears poured down her face and soaked into his black suit. "I hate him so much!" she half shouted, pounding her fist into his shoulder. "Why did that snake have to kill her! Why?" she was racked with sobs. "Why couldn't Voldemort have just killed him rather than a person who had nothing to do with it! It's not fair, Saul! I want her back!" she exclaimed as they slowly sank to the floor. "I just want her back…" she whispered.
He rocked her back and forth slowly, his hand rubbing her back. "Sshh, I know, Lenore. I know."
For several minutes they sat like that, her crying into his suit and him hushing her, trying to sooth her. After a couple moments she pulled away and wiped the moisture off her face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have broken down like that."
"Yes you should have, Lenore. It's nothing to be ashamed of." He said as another tear escaped her eye. He wiped it off smiling at her.
She gave him a half smile. "I got your suit all soggy," she mumbled.
"It'll dry."
Lenore looked down again, sitting back on her ankles. "I…I want to go wash my face." She said standing up.
Saul nodded. "I'll wait right here for you." He said shifting his weight so he looked completely and totally comfortable on the floor.
Fighting back a snort Lenore hurried to the restroom, fighting back a new wave of tears. Her mother, to her dying minute, loved Severus Snape. Glaring at her reflection in the mirror, seeing the features that were not her mother's, she hated it. That man did not deserve love. He had left them to rot after marrying her mother for a year. The moment she got pregnant he left her…it was all Lenore fault though Stef had never said such a thing. Stef loved Lenore so much but there was an emptiness to her. An emptiness that was not in the pictures Lenore had found of her mother at Hogwarts. Her mother always had gotten a distant look in her eyes when she told Lenore about the man that sired her. The green eyes usually filled with tears after a few moments of talking and she would simply trail off after talking about their marriage and how happy they were.
Happy with him? She could never imagine how her mother could love someone who deserted her the night she told him she was pregnant. Lenore and her mother knew that the man was a spy for the Order and also a member of the Death Eaters. He had been on a mission for the Dark Lord that lasted a little over two months. Her mother had discovered the news a week before and couldn't wait to tell him. He had merely stared at her when she told him. She went to sleep that night, unsure of the man's feelings about the child but when she woke up the next morning he was gone, without a trace. That was the story Lenore had been told when she had asked at five and again at seven then once more at eleven when she finally comprehended the hate she felt for the man that she had never known, the hate for the man that never came home to his wife.
How could Stef love him after that? Lenore splashed water on her face. No one who could do that to his wife and unborn child deserved unconditional love. It was something you earned. Something that he shouldn't receive, he didn't deserve to receive. Not from her, not from anyone. Lenore leaned against the wall and looked up towards the ceiling as if looking to the heavens. Why could a monster like him live and a wonderful person like her mother die? It wasn't fair.
There was a knock on the door and Lenore whirled around, the water still running behind her. "Leo?" Saul's voice came through the door, worry etched in it.
She cleared her throat. "I'm, I'm coming," she turned off the water and dried her hands and face. "I'm ready," she lied as she swung open the door to face him.
For days she had hoped that this had been one terrifying nightmare. That one morning she would wake up to her mother cooking pancakes or creating a snowball just to throw it at Lenore to get her awake at eight on a Saturday morning so that they could study her animagus forms.
It was a numb day, greeting people ranging from adults she barely remembered from her past to people that she had known all her life (like Laura and Renee.) All were comforting her in their own way but she found that sticking close to Saul or another one of her friends was the best because they tended to stay the farthest away from her mother's casket. Lenore had seen her mother once before today. When the casket had first been brought in the teenage girl had caught a glimpse of her mother.
She had seemed only sleeping and that face still haunted Lenore mind, immediately followed by the terrifying flashes of her nightmare. Stef's long, silky brown hair hung over her shoulders and lay atop her large breasts. Her green eyes were shut and her slim pointed ears poking through ever so slightly. Her lips were full and a rosy pink. The dress Lenore had chosen for her to wear was Stef's favorite, her wedding dress. It was a rather plain white dress with no real gaudiness, just the highlights of emerald green and silver on the dress. Around her neck hung two necklaces, a locket containing Lenore's picture and a necklace with two snakes making a heart around a potions bottle. Lenore didn't know either's origin but her mother had loved them.
After a long debate with herself, Lenore had decided that the snake-heart and potions bottle would be put on for show with her mother but removed before the cremation. The locket, however, would remain with her mother. Dumbledore assured her that the metal will disappear along with the body.
"Are you okay Leo?" a voice asked beside her causing her to jump.
Renee, a woman nearing her mid-thirties and Saul's adopted mother, was next to her, sitting in her wheelchair observing people from the back of the room. Her blonde hair was pulled back with two butterfly clips that Stef had bought for her and she was in a pretty dark brown dress. Though paralyzed from the waist down, she still remained slim due to being a diabetic and her refusal to take any magical remedy for it.
"You went very pale for a moment," she said sliding her hand into Lenore's.
Lenore glanced at the hand as the blonde gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm not a child anymore, Renee. I don't need to be comforted like one."
A wiry but sad smile twisted across the woman's lips. "True, but I want to be comforted and seeing as you've grown to big to sit in my lap as my little lion cub," an unwanted smile tiptoed it's way onto Lenore's face. "Then I want your hand. Besides, Leo," she said softly looking away. "You're never too old to want some comfort."
Sinking down to the floor, Lenore tucked her legs under her and leaned her head against Renee's legs. "I want to stay, Renee, even if I have to move to Canada with you and Saul. Why won't you and Laura fight for me?" she asked desperately the question that she had been dying to ask for days now. What she didn't know was that Laura was setting up a table not too far away and heard the question? The redhead glanced back and Renee shook her head at her. "I don't want to leave. All I know is here, all I love is here. Why are you sending me to someone whom I hate and who hates me?"
Renee squeezed her hand again. "Because, sweetheart, this is a lesson you must learn on your own." Lenore looked up at her, hurt in her eyes. "We want you to stay as badly as you want to but we know that there is something you have to learn by going to live with the man that sired you." The girl tensed, her eyes hardened with hatred. "Things can be more than they appear. Everyone deserves to be loved, Lenore, unconditional love is just that, unconditional. And everyone deserves to be loved like that by someone."
"Not him," she whispered closing her eyes. "Not him."
