A/N: First, profound thanks to everyone who has reviewed the few stories I have up here. I am enormously grateful (and gratified, but that's an ego thing J)

Now this story. Its explanation is that bad things happen to mediocre fanfiction writers at one in the morning. Their brains become overactive with melodramatic angst and they have to write. So I did; in longhand, thinking that would be enough. Uh-uh. So here I am now, clacking it out on the PC. I have a full day at work tomorrow, and a really comfy bed. Why aren't I in it?

Karen. Sharon. (The two people at work in whom I have confided both my new hobby and my screen name.) If you're reading this, I know that I am foolish. I know I have no claim on your sympathy when I'm staring, red eyed and obviously out of it, at the catalogue screen. But please, for the sake of mercy, keep the caffeine injections coming!

Oh, and the poem is my own – and very bad. I've never written poetry before. It happened when I was rereading Chapter 23 in OOTP, and Sirius was singing "God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs". The combination of Sirius and the song stuck in my head and led to this. Oh – an excuse. Blame Sirius!

He Would.

I used to dream how it would feel

To have you close to me

My arms the right to wrap you round

And hold you endlessly

But that was just a childish dream

And that dream's day is done.

Lord, give me strength to bear it right

Now this love's end has come.

He looked one hundred years older. Parents and teachers noticed and made comment in low tones; students, wiser, noticed and said nothing. It didn't matter.

Noises broke around him – sobs stifled against hastily-magicked handkerchiefs. The depth of their grief surprised some people. He did not cry – there were no tears in him. He was empty.

People were moving away, breaking up into smaller groups or solitary, scattering over the grounds. He stood there, still. Waiting for her.

Of course she would come. He would hear her, calling him by his professional title, as she always did in the presence of the students; she was such a stickler for formality. Only when they were alone would she allow herself to lapse, calling him "Albus" in that rich voice, smiling at him that surprisingly, wonderfully gentle smile (so at odds with her sharp comments) as they sat by the fire in his study. Drinking the tea she always insisted on brewing herself, claiming his brewing was far too sweet.

Ah, that smile, he would see it too, and her excited laugh that only came out at Quidditch games, where she would be as eager as a first year student, clapping her hands together and forgetting all decorum as she willed her team to victory.

This time, he promised himself, this time, when he saw her coming to him, her step strong and swift, her eyes bright, this time he would do it. He would draw her to him, and finally hold her close. And holding her, he would tell her all that he had held back in the long years of their friendship. He would look into the face which to him had never grown old, had never been anything less than beauty, and he would say to her that she was his reason for continuing to hope; that when everything else seemed black, and when for the greater good he made himself do those things which made his nights a torment, she was the lifeline which pulled him back, who helped him go on. Yes. This time he would.

A student was buzzing near him, as persistent and annoying as a gnat. Finally he glared at her and snapped "What?"

She took his arm and tried to pull him away, saying something that he would not hear. "She's gone, Professor."

Nonsense. She would come back, if he would wait. And, of course, he would.