Leah Clearwater

"Being unwanted isn't exactly a new thing for me."

- Leah

Leah Clearwater is the Beta of the Black pack and the only known female shape-shifter in the Quileute history; she is the daughter of Harry Clearwater and Sue Clearwater. She is Seth Clearwater's older sister, and Sam Uley's ex-girlfriend. She phased into a wolf during the events of New Moon, around the same time as her brother, Seth. She also has deeply unsettled issues, including a broken heart, and is overprotective of her little brother.

Early life
As a child, Leah was very close to her cousin, Emily Young.

As a freshman in high school, Leah began dating, and then fell in love with Sam Uley. They were involved in a serious relationship for three years.

During her junior year of high school, Sam disappeared and Leah's life was thrown into upheaval. Two weeks later, Sam reappeared, but gave no explanation for his absence, and from that time forward he was a changed person. Leah tried to give him space to resolve his problem.

When Emily came to La Push for a visit, Sam saw her for the first time since his disappearance and he imprinted on her immediately. That same night, he went to Leah and broke up with her, and later Emily told her that Sam was pursuing her. She became furious with him and relied on Emily's rejection. But when Emily and Sam engaged in a relationship, she turned completely bitter and blamed them both for her pain.

New Moon
Early in New Moon, Bella meets her at a pasta party at Jacob's house. However, Leah spends the evening on the phone.

As more time passes, Leah finds herself growing angrier and begins to fly into a rage over the smallest irritations. Her body begins to change without her awareness, and when she argues with her mother about her mood swings, her anger causes her to phase for the first time and she destroys a couch in the process. Seeing their daughter phase rather than their son, Seth, her father suffers a fatal heart attack. Seth witnesses the incident and the shock causes him to phase as well.

Leah's transformation causes her further pain because she holds herself responsible for her father's death. Furthermore, she is forced to join Sam's pack, and their mental link reminds her that he abandoned her for her cousin, Emily Young. She deliberately uses this connection to punish Sam and the pack both with her memories, and by bringing up uncomfortable subjects (such as Embry Call's parentage), all things the pack would rather forget. She has also tried to go solo, but it did not work. Jacob once describes her as a "harpy", to which she takes offense. However, she comes to forgive Emily and Sam after learning the truth and agrees to be her cousin's bridesmaid.

In the movie adaptation of New Moon, Harry's cardiac arrest is caused by Victoria during the manhunt of her.

Eclipse
Leah and her brother Seth's phasing is not revealed until Eclipse when Edward points her out as the smallish gray wolf.

During their fight with Victoria's newborn army, she tries to prove herself as worthy as the rest of her pack by fighting a newborn vampire alone. Jacob manages to knock her out of the way before the vampire crushed the bones on his right side.

After the army was destroyed, Bella rejects Jacob's feelings and remains with Edward. A few days later, Leah starts pestering Jacob to make him get over Bella because he makes her think about her, even though she doesn't like Bella, until he disappears into the woods to live as a wolf and escape the emotional pain.

Unlike the book, she is first introduced to Bella in the movie when she goes down to La Push to hang out with Jacob and his pack. Leah is highly disliking Bella the first time they meet. Her and her brother's transformations are noted to have occurred around the time their father died.

Breaking Dawn
Leah and her family are present during Bella and Edward's wedding (she is absent in the movie). After finding out that Bella was pregnant, Sam decides to lead an unprovoked attack on the Cullens to kill Bella and the unknown baby. Jacob, however, refuses to follow Sam and breaks away from the pack to protect her, and was soon followed by Seth. Despite her dislike of vampires, Leah joins them the day after and helps to protect the Cullens with the excuse of protecting her brother, but her real motive is to get away from Sam telepathically. Her choice apparently hurts Sam so he sends a messenger in hopes of persuading both her, Seth and Jacob to come back to the pack. But Leah has already made up her mind to stay in Jacob's pack until she can stop being a wolf.

Despite the initial antagonism between the two of them, Leah and Jacob soon form a closer bond due to their broken hearts. She and Jacob have a deep conversation one day whilst hunting, mentioning how being frozen in time has stopped her menstruation cycle and may have disabled her ability to get pregnant. Jacob also remembers her breakdown when she first became a wolf, thinking herself as a freak, a "girly wolf". Leah also wonders if she maybe isn't as feminine as she thought she was, and wonders how imprinting would be for her. It is in this discussion that Leah mentions how she can relate to Rosalie's protection of Bella and the idea of never having a child from her own body was upsetting. She also admits that if Bella had asked for her help, she probably would've done the same as Rosalie.

She is so loyal to Jacob that she goes as far as to confront Bella about her unintentionally tormenting him. Bella is very hurt by this incident and Jacob commands Leah to stop, though he does not enforce it in his unbreakable "Alpha-voice", as Edward would have liked him to. She does not enjoy spending time around the vampires, but does so out of loyalty to her new pack. After she joins Jacob's pack, he names her as his Beta or second-in-command in place of Seth. Leah becomes a much happier person after leaving Sam's pack because she won't have to be connected to him anymore.

In the movie, a fight erupts between the Cullens and the Uley pack and Leah jumps into the Cullens' defense.

When the Cullens are threatened by the Volturi and begin to gather friends to help them testify against the Volturi's accusation, Leah and the rest of the pack are assigned to temporarily run with Sam in order to avoid conflict. Near the end of the story, she and the packs stand with the Cullens when the Volturi arrive to end them. Their numbers and Bella's talent succeed in repelling the Volturi without a fight.

Physical appearance
Leah as a human is described as beautiful in an exotic way. She has perfect copper skin and eyelashes "like feather dusters", and being around 5'10" tall. She wears her sleek black hair in a short pixie cut after phasing, for the same reasons that the males shave their heads: long hair means longer fur.

Wolf form
Edward describes her in her wolf form as a "smallish gray wolf". She is physically the smallest in her pack, possibly due to her gender.

Personality and traits
Leah is portrayed as angry and bitter as a result of her broken heart. She has a short temper, and often uses the pack's mental connection to remind the others of things they would rather forget; ostensibly to vent her pain at being connected to Sam. However, she also demonstrates considerable loyalty to them and protectiveness of her brother, and by the end of Breaking Dawn, Leah has matured remarkably after she joined Jacob's pack to get away from Sam. She mentions to Jacob that she is considering community college and possibly meditation and yoga to help with her temper issues. She also implies that she intends to quit phasing as soon as she is able to control it. She is quite competitive in racing and would willingly accept any challenge, though she dislikes being a wolf and being around vampires.

Leah greatly dislikes Bella, mainly because of her "torturing" Jacob. This continues to Breaking Dawn where she confronts Bella while she's pregnant and says things that deeply hurt Bella, causing the latter to cry.

Wolf abilities
Phasing has stopped her menstrual cycle, and she gets bitter over it because she fears it may prevent her from having children or imprinting on someone.

Leah is known as the fastest wolf in both packs which Jacob says is "her only claim". She is so fast that she can outrun anyone in her pack. This is the only part that she enjoys being a wolf. While running on an errand, she would enjoy taking patrols and beating her companions at the same time.

Relationships
Leah is the daughter of Harry and Sue Clearwater, and the older sister of Seth Clearwater. Her second-cousin, Emily Young, is part Quileute and part Makah. She is also the ex-girlfriend of Sam Uley.

Sam Uley
"At least Sam is happy. At least he’s alive and well. I love him enough that I want that. I want him to have what’s best for him. I just don’t want to stick around to watch."

- Leah on her feelings for Sam

Leah and Sam dated in high school and they cared about each other very much, even though Sam could not tell her that he was a wolf. Their relationship ended when Leah brought her cousin Emily for a visit, and Sam imprinted on her after one look. After Leah turned into a werewolf, she is forced to endure hearing Sam's never-ending thoughts about Emily. This, coupled with the fact that she was then informed about imprinting (something Sam was forbidden to tell her about when he broke up with her), made her very bitter and caused her to take her pain and anger out on the pack since. Another reason why she likes to lash out is that the rest of the wolves can read her thoughts and know that she is still pining after Sam. Although she acts as if she hates Sam, she wants the very best for him. Despite the fact that he cannot be with her and feels bad whenever he sees her, the series says Sam is still in love with Leah. He is deeply upset and hurt when Leah leaves to join Jacob's pack, and so sends Jared to ask her to come back by telling him to get on his knees and beg, to do anything to convince her to rejoin his pack; even calling her "Lee-Lee", Sam's nickname for her from when they were dating.

Seth Clearwater
"You think I’m just going to sit home while my little brother volunteers as a vampire chew toy?"

- One of the reasons that lead Leah to abandon Sam's pack

Seth Clearwater is Leah's younger brother. She is very protective of him as seen in Breaking Dawn when she joins Jacob's pack in order to keep an eye on Seth and protect him. She idolizes him for being more understanding and friendly than she is. They seem to have a loving, normal brother-sister relationship where they tease each other, such as when Seth said he would mind if Jacob killed Leah after pretending to think about it. Seth is much younger than Leah.

Emily Young
Emily Young is Leah's cousin of the Makah tribe. They were close as sisters throughout childhood and adulthood - until Sam imprinted on Emily and dumped her for her cousin. Leah had counted that Emily would reject him, which she did constantly until she wasn't able to anymore.

When Leah first heard that Emily had been mauled by a bear, she was highly concerned for her well-being, but it all turned into rage and bitterness when she found out that she and Sam were together.

Finding out the truth allows Leah to resolve part of her issues with her cousin, though she still doesn't want to be near either of them. She has agreed to be Emily's bridesmaid.

Jacob Black
"Am I less annoying than Paul now?"

- Leah asks Jacob

Jacob Black is the Alpha in Leah's pack. Initially, Jacob and Leah didn't like each other. When Jacob and Seth broke off from Sam's pack and joined the Cullens, Leah decided to join them to look after her brother and get away from Sam. Though they were originally hostile towards each other, Jacob and Leah gained a new understanding to each other's feelings, bonding over their broken hearts, and became good friends, though she still dislikes hovering around vampires. Leah is later named Jacob's Beta, or second-in-command.

Occasionally, they would race in wolf forms. Since Leah is the fastest wolf, she always beats him, though often by a narrow margin.

While some fans believe that Leah fell in love with or imprinted on Jacob during Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer has stated this isn't true. This would simply have made their interactions too complicated, since she started out disliking Jacob, then they gain a "friendly" understanding. If Leah had imprinted on Jacob at any time, it would have been the first time she saw him after her first transformation, and she would have had a compulsive need to be with/near him from that moment on. This is not the case. They are simply good friends.

Trivia
Stephanie Meyer has affirmed that if she was to make another chapter of the Twilight Saga, Leah's perspective might be used.

Film portrayal
Leah is portrayed by Julia Jones in the film Eclipse and the two-part Breaking Dawn.

Appearances

 * New Moon (Mentioned)
 * Eclipse
 * Eclipse film
 * The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (Mentioned)
 * Breaking Dawn
 * Breaking Dawn - Part 1
 * Breaking Dawn - Part 2