You're here. Not there, where you're supposed to be, but just here.
You weren't even planning on coming, but you couldn't stay away.
It's because you watch her from across the playground, trialing after her cousins, screaming for them to "give it back!" Because you watch her dance in her room, by herself, to some imaginary beat only she can hear. Because you watch her fight with her parents. Because you watch her and her face of concentration as she studies. Because you watch her cry after every breakup, and smile after every makeup. Because you watch as she collapses under pressure and shines like a star. Because you watch as she grows into the most beautiful girl you've ever seen.
She hurts. She laughs. She cries. She loves. It's your fault, you know, that she was never with you. That you never had the guts, the initiative to become the one she would've been up there with.
You watch some more as she repeats the vows, one of her signature radiant smiles gracing her lips. You watch as your brother returns one to match. The brother that now has your entire world wrapped up in his arms and on his lips. Sealed with a kiss.
You quietly leave, no longer watching.
The years pass, and you're hearing about her children from friends, just the ones you trust. Hearing about her job, how skilled she is with words and her quill, and worst, how in love she is, she still is, with him. Your hear it all, and isn't it just so great that you don't have to watch? But deep inside, you miss that beautiful smile, the laugh, the sparkle in her eye.
Then finally, you've learned that he's gone. and somehow, you actually feel hurt (he was your twin brother, after all) although you told yourself that what he did was the ultimate betrayal.
So you're here again. At the funeral, in a bit of a daze. You see her. She's getting old. Then you realize, so are you. Nothing is said, and you don't even allow yourself to make eye contact, even when you see out of the corner of your eye that she's pointedly staring at you (you do, however, indulge yourself with the tiniest peek before you apparate away.)
364 days later, you find her owl (Apollo, was it?) perched on your windowsill with a letter, a note, really, asking you to come to the house. You leave without hesitation, instantly. You've never been there in person, choosing instead to seclude yourself in your cottage well-hidden from the rest of the world (including them). You've only seen it in photographs, watching him and her and their family play and laugh and love and be happy. It's still as clean and fresh as it was so many years ago, in those pictures. Walking around, you finally find her.
On her bed. Her deathbed. She can't speak. She can't really move. She's weak and dying, and there's nothing you can do. You should have realized it from the unfamiliar handwriting, but you were too busy leaving to pay attention. You don't know what to do besides stand there and stare into her clear blue-gray eyes as she looks straight into your own. She makes an effort and whispers, finally, "It's always been you. Always."
And you watch her take her last breath.
Afterwards, you move in a stupor, losing track of time. Where have the hours, days and months gone? You remember your entire childhood, your years at Hogwarts, your job. It doesn't matter anymore, though. The only thing (or one, anyway) that ever mattered to you, is gone.
Forever.
And as you kick aside the chair under your feet and feel the rope tighten around your neck, your last thought before everything goes black is that all you ever did was watch.