All That You Leave Behind

Hi there! Angst here. Thank you very much to all who reviewed! It was nice to hear from some of you again! Well, Q is off enjoying a well deserved holiday , but we did manage to get this chapter done before she took herself off to the wilds of Shropshire. It's a little bit shorter than usual, but it's what you might call pivotal. Enjoy! And please, don't be shy about telling us what you think!


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Harry slumped bonelessly on Severus' slender shoulder. His green eyes
spilled tears unashamedly. "Oh," he groaned as Severus held him and shushed him.

"I know, Harry, I know," he murmured, knowing the words were a lie.


Harry caught his breath on a sob. "I - I can't believe it!" he shuddered and clung more tightly to Severus' black robes. "I-I just can't believe it! How could this happen? How?" His voice was agonised.


"One of the potions was tampered with," Severus' voice was grim, "I'm sure an investigation will reveal the culprit."

"But why?" Harry queried, voice as bewildered and hurt as a small child's, "Why?"

Severus tightened his grip on Harry. "Because you are you," he expalined quietly, "and some would like to see you suffer."


"And my child?" Harry gasped, "They'd attack my unborn child? And my wife?!"


The older man nodded and rubbed his hands over the other man's tense back. He shouldn't have been enjoying this, he knew, but having Harry in his arms, clinging to him, was a dream. "Anyone they thought would hurt you the most. To leave you vulnerable."

Harry looked up at Severus, the emerald eyes wide. "Then it could have been you too, Sev" he whispered, his voice shaky.

Severus' heart leapt within him.


"When you came bursting through that door, as if you just knew Ginny was in trouble, I ..."

Severus cut him off. "I didn't just know," he said, sounding puzzled, "You sent your patronus."


Harry clutched at Severus' robes again. "I - I tried to send my patronus, but... but I couldn't think of anything happy. God, Sev, I was so scared, and I wanted to run to find you,....then there you were! I..I thought..." He pressed his flaming face into the front of Severus' robes."I.... don't know what I thought," he mumbled.


Severus wished he could force a response from Harry. Wished he could find out just what the younger man had been thinking in those moments when Severus had burst through the door, a terrifying presence who shattered medi-withces and wizards in his wake. One look at the convulsing figure of Ginny in the bed had been enough for him. He had known - as a potions expert how could he not know? - what had happened, and he had turned on his heel. He had spun so sharply he knocked the student healer who had so vexed him earlier and sent him flying across the room.


"Nobody touch her!" Severus had snarled, and had then hurried out of the room.

Harry whimpered against his friend. "I thought at first... you'd deserted me," he admitted in a small voice, "when...when you left. But...you wouldn't leave me....would you?." His voice trembled slightly at the last word and Severus pulled the young man tighter into his embrace. "I'm sorry I thought that."


Never! Severus thought, "I'd never just leave on you alone, Harry I knew what had happened to...Ginny," he said, "I recognised it. And I knew that I had the antidote in my stores at home. I made a set of all the potions a woman in labour would need weeks ago, to keep at home in case of emergency, along with the antidotes in case she reacted badly to any of them." He paused, and swallowed audibly. "I'm s-sorry, Harry," he swallowed again, "sorry I took so long."

Harry cried, "Why did you? I could hardly bear it, to watching her get weaker and weaker, knowing there was nothing I could do! I kept glancing at the door hoping you'd be standing there. God, Sev, I've never felt so alone in my life! And the healers just stood there!" he screamed, "They stood there and watched her dying right in front of their eyes!"

Severus thought back to those frantic moments after he had left Harry to cope alone with what was happening to Ginny. Never had a fireplace seemed so difficult to find, and never had a floo journey seemed to take so long. He had arrived back at the house and literally ran to his suite and to the potions cupboard he kept locked and warded agianst intruders. He had ignored the slam of the doors as they had hit the walls and bounced back, rattling. He had shouted the spells that would lift the wards, had wrenched the door open, and quickly scanned the shelves for the bottle he knew would be there.


It wasn't.


He had looked again.

And again.


In desperation he had begun shoving bottles aside, searching for that elusive vial that could save a woman's life. Even now, Severus could feel his heart racing as he lived again those
terrible moments before his brain had kicked in.

You moved them, his mind had reminded him, put them in a logical place.

But Severus couldn't remember where. He had considered at least three different locations for the potions. But which one had been his final choice? He had paced in front of the cupboard, feelng panic swelling within him. Ginny and her child needed him. Their lives hung in the balance. Not even with that thought in his head did he pause in his search. Idly he might have wished her dead, in some vague way, but now, with the very real possibility staring him in the face, he found that he was desperate to save her. He remembered thinking of Harry, thinking of his pain if Ginny and her child died. Remembered thinking he -Severus - would do anythign to spare his Harry that grief.


If only he could find that damned vial!

Harry pressed closer to Severus, momentarily de-railing his train of thought. The warmth of the body clinging to his was distracting to say the least. The feel of the hard muscles under his hands was rather ... diverting. He willed down his reaction to Harry, knowing now was defintiely not the time to act upon his attraction, having the grace to feel at least a bit guilty. But the distraught young man seemed oblvious Severus' quiet struggle and unknowingly added more problems by sliding his arms around Severus' back and burying his face more firmly into the damp material covering his chest.


Don't react. Don't react. His mind chanted the mantra over and over again even as he felt himself stiffening. Angrily he forced his attention back to remembering the previous day. As unpleasant as the memories were, they needed to be faced.


He had raced to his bedside table - to the small shelf there, remembering that he had contemplated placing the potions there so that if Ginny went into labour in the night they would be at hand. Even as he narrowly avoided crashing into his bed, he knew the bottles
weren't there. His black eyes scoured the shelf vainly anyway. He even dropped to his
knees and plunged one hand into the shadows to ascertain that the potions were definitely
not there. Frustrated at his own ineptitude, Severus struggled to his feet. His
robes twisted about his feet and it took a tortuous eternity (or so it seemed) to free
himself. Fighting to keep his balance as his robes threatened to floor him again, Severus pelted to the small shelf near the entrance to his suite. It was the logical place for the bottles to be - right by the door in case of need. But they weren't there either.


Which left one place.

Severus, even thinking back on it, couldn't quite establish just how long he had spent searching for the bottles. Poor Harry had had to wait, hoping against hope that Severus would reappear and save the day.


Sadly, Severus thought, he has to learn I have feet of clay.


With only one place left to search, Severus hadd felt confident. And then flummoxed that the vials weren't sitting on the mantelpiece. Rage had driven him around his suite sweeping items from shelves, throwing open cupboards, scouring under any object or in any dark corner. Long minutes had passed in this manner. Minutes in which Ginny's life had slowly trickled away.


Harry, in Severus' arms, seemed to be rememerbing the same moments as he began to sob softly. "I kept waiting," Harry muttered, "waiting. Waiting. Hoping you'd come back. But you didn't." A cry seemed to well out from his very soul. "I've never felt so helpless, so hopeless, so alone as I did without you there."

Harry's words struck Severus to his core. His heart squeezed as he considered all that Harry must have gone through waiting for the older man to save Ginny. Severus focused on his own guilt, rather than on how wonderful Harry felt in his arms, and remembered back to the triumph he had felt when he had finally scooped up the bottles, which had been sitting in his bathroom staring at him every day for the past three weeks.


He had rammed them roughly into his robes and raced for the main fireplace, hoping he'd be in time. His own wasn't connected to the floo network, at his own request. How he had cursed that decision in those fraught moments!


"I kept waiting," Harry repeated, almost to himself. "And, just when I couldn't bear it any longer, there you were! You...you came Severus! You came back to me!"


Severus unconsciously clenched his fingers at those words of Harry's. How he wished they were true! How he wished that he had come back to his Harry, and that Harry had been waiting for his return through love for Severus, not love and concern for Ginny.

"The - the healers didn't dare do anything, even though she was dying! I - I watched you, and you were like an angel as you bent over her and tried to help." Harry broke down and wept.

"Oh Severus," he whispered, and his voice trailed off into helpless sobs that tore at Severus' heart and soul.

"It'll be alright, Harry," Severus whispered into the messy black locks, trying to give what comfort he could to ease his Harry's pain and fear. "I'm always here for you."

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