Chapter Seventeen
Nightmares and the Truth
I have to get out! Lenore's thoughts screamed as she pounded on the door to her room. She looked behind her at two laughing faces. Red eyes glowed causing her to pound on the door all the harder. "Get me out! Please!" she screamed pounding on the door as the second man moved towards her. She muffled a scream, shaking in fear. "HELP ME! SNAPE! ALBUS! LAURA! SOMEBODY!" she screamed pounding on the door.
"It's no use…" the man said in a sing-song voice. "No one will help you. No one can help you. You are alone."
She turned around staring at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. She pressed against the door, her hands bloody from pounding on the door repeatedly. "No."
"No one is here…you are alone." He said moving towards her.
"No…" she croaked.
His crooked teeth caught the light as he smiled. "Yes. You are ours. Mine." He smirked. "Perhaps I made a mistake of throwing you over last time. You are a woman, little one but still a woman." A tear trickled down her cheek again. "There is no escape."
"NO!" she screamed sitting up fast, pain shooting through her back. She gasped for air when she looked towards the door and let out a blood curdling scream. Wormtail was standing by her door.
Severus had just crawled into bed. The Dark Lord had been working him overtime on potions not to mention he had to restock the potions for the school soon. He closed his eyes letting out a sigh of relief when he jerked awake once again, hearing a blood-curdling scream from down the hall. He frowned, who—"Lenore," he gasped, throwing his covers off.
He jumped to his feet, yanking a robe on as he flew down the hall to Lenore's bedroom door. Another scream came followed by another and another. He pounded on the door. "LENORE!" He exclaimed before flinging the door open. He merely thought about the lights when they came blazing on. Lenore was sitting up in bed, her hair in braids, and her eyes staring unblinkingly at a chair that was next to the door. "Lenore!" he rushed over to her bed. She didn't move, only started screaming again. "LENORE!" he grabbed her arm.
She froze instantly; her body started shaking in fear. "Lenore, Lenore, look at me!" he shouted at her. She jerked slightly, shaking her head and her eyes became focused on him. "What's wrong?"
She drew short staggering breaths, tears falling down her cheeks. "He was here," she whispered. Her eyes darted frantically about the room. "Here in my room. He wanted…he was here!" she exclaimed looking at him, horrified.
"Sshh, sshh," Severus said both confused and annoyed at the same time. He really needed to have another talk to Wormtail and by talk it was more a fervent cursing. "Slow down, what happened?"
She looked at him, clutching his arm, her nails digging into his wrist unintentionally. "I was dreaming first, V-V-Voldemort," He winced and was about to shout at her for using his name but decided against it. She was still too frightened. She started shaking again. "And him…he…they were laughing as I tried to get out. The door was locked, it wouldn't open. I kept screaming for help but nobody came. I kept pounding and they laughed. He told me there was no escape," Her breath caught as she focused on a spot passed his shoulder. "I woke up and," her eyes darted towards the door. "He was here…for real…" she whispered.
"He's not here." Severus said as his daughter still shook, clutching his arm. "It was just a dream."
"But…he was…they…he was here." Tears fell down her face as she looked at him.
"Lenore, listen to me. He can never get into this room, do you understand?" She shook her head slowly, tears falling down her cheeks. "Your room is warded as to only let people whom you want in or if you're in danger an adult who cares about you in. No one can harm you in this room or your room upstairs. Do you understand?"
"Yes." She gasped slowly. "But it was so real."
He summoned a calming potion. "Dreams sometimes can be, here. This is a calming draught." He handed it to her. She stared at it. "It'll help you calm down."
She drank it wordlessly and instantly her face calmed, her eyes became more coherent. "Thank you." She whispered softly, her eyes now focusing on him more.
"Are you well now?" he asked as she seemed to be thinking about something.
She looked into his eyes with nearly matching coal black eyes. "Why did you come?"
"Pardon?" that was not the question he expected.
"Nightmare…" she gasped out and swallowed hard as she closed her eyes, trying to put her thoughts in order. "When I was having my nightmare, why did you come?"
"Did you think I would sit and hear you scream and do nothing?"
"I don't know." She slowly moved her arm away from his, staring at the claw marks she had made. "Sorry."
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
Tears shined in her eyes as she looked at him. "Why? I don't understand."
"You're my daughter, Lenore. I would not let anything hurt you if I could stop it."
Lenore froze. "…I don't understand, Snape." She looked at him, confusion in her eyes. "If you wouldn't…aren't going to let anything hurt me why did you leave my mom? Why were you laughing when…when she was dying! Begging for help?" Tears streamed down her face as she stared at him. "She was dying…why…how could you just watch it?"
Severus for the first time in a long time felt a small douse of fear hit him. He knew about her seeing what had happened. After they had had their screaming match their first night of her being there he had stomped off to Albus once she got back safely. He had started to accept the fact that his daughter loathed him but this…this might be the chance to explain to her, to get Lenore to understand why he had to do what he had to do. "I had to."
"Had to?" she cleared her throat, wiping the tears away. "You watched her get raped, beaten, and tortured…how did you have to do that? Why? I don't understand! She loved you!" He stared at her, both hope and trepidation. He knew Stef had loved due to her last words…but…why…how? "How could you just watch that? She was begging you."
"I know." He fought his own tears as that night flashed back in his eyes. "I…I had to."
"Why?"
"Because…" he closed his eyes look away from her. "If I didn't go along with it they would have gone after you and everyone I've ever cared about." She stared at him. "When he said he was going to punish me I didn't think he'd delve that deep into my past, I tried to burry it to keep you two safe!"
"WHY! WHY! Mom was miserable without you, she loved you more than anything! I grew up hating you because of what you did to her!" A flash of pain hit her face but she was blocking it.
"Because I loved both of you!"
"How can you leave us and love us at the same time!"
He looked at her sharply. "If I had stayed you would have been the Dark Lord's, my first born, the first born of all of the Death Eaters belong to the Dark Lord, it is one of the promises made when a servant first joins. I did not want that life for you or your mother."
She stared at him, tears shining in her eyes. "But he fell, he was dead. Why didn't you come back?"
"He wasn't dead…I knew it, I could feel it." She glanced at his left arm. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze at where his Dark Mark lay. "Partially through the mark yes, and the other half…because…"
She looked at him, her eyes widening. "You were his First, weren't you? Higher than anyone else,"
"Yes. Most thought it was Lucius,"
"Malfoy?" she remembered the name from her reading.
"Yes. But he preferred the silent type, the ones who could slip under the radar." He fought the shiver of fear creeping up his back.
Lenore glanced away from him. "Are you true to the side of the Light?"
He stared at her. What a question to ask him? There were allures on both sides, power and strength on one whereas doing what right on the other. "I'm not the picture of goodness, Lenore, I never will be. But yes, I am fighting for what's right in the only way I can."
"A spy,"
"Yes."
She looked back at him. "Is that why you laughed?" He stared at her. "When she was begging you, saying that she loved you; you laughed at her along with your…with the Death Eaters."
He shuttered her as she stared at him with questioning eyes, vulnerable he could say. "If I didn't you…"
"I would have been taken and killed to?" He nodded. "Why wouldn't they kill you?"
He fought a laugh, it almost sounded as if she wanted him to die in her mother's place. Perhaps she did but he was used to that. He was more than used to people hating him, only this hurt a whole hell of a lot more than when others hated him. He looked down. "Because I'm still of value to the Dark Lord and always will be…he wouldn't kill me unless I betrayed him."
"You could have saved her,"
"No, Lenore. I couldn't have."
"You could have come to the States with her!" she insisted. "We…I…it would have been different!" She exclaimed staring at him. "I would have had a father!"
Severus looked away. Her voice tore through the walls that he had built around his heart long ago. "I'm sorry, Lenore, there is nothing I can do about it…not now."
"I know…" she glanced at her hands. "Part of me just wishes it was different…that I could have had a normal life…" Her voice then grew hard as did her face. "But there's the other part of me…that hates you, with every ounce of my being because you left her and because you let her die! Because you watched her and…" she shivered.
"There is nothing I can do or say to fix it, Lenore. You know that. I can only work towards making it better now." He whispered.
She shivered. "I don't know how to let go of my hate."
"I'm not sure how to either."
They looked at each other for a moment, tears falling down Lenore's face and tears very nearly filling up Severus's eyes as he watched her pain. She slowly started to lay back down and immediately he reached out to help her. She froze when he touched her but then allowed him to help her. She curled under the covers, still staring at him.
"I still don't understand." She whispered as he stood up.
"I know…but I'm not sure how to explain." He said moving towards the door. "I'm just down the hall if you need me." He said feeling more awkward than every before. She closed her eyes and he watched a tear escape her eye and trickle across her nose before splashing into the pillow. He sighed turning off the light. "I'm sorry…" he whispered before shutting the door to her room. He leaned against the door and looked up. "Stef, I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry." He said softly, as a single tear fell from his eye.
