Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
Written for Stickers; Gryffindor - Nearly Headless Nick - Ghost!AU
Word Count Without An - 400
From A Distance
He watched from the shadows, invisible. He watched and he held breath he didn't need. He saw everything, and nobody saw him, because he shouldn't be there and so they weren't looking for him.
Dennis was struggling. He was having nightmares and struggling with his classes. He was snapping at people and hiding himself away.
He wasn't coping.
Colin wanted to help. He wanted to reach out to his little brother and tell him that he was okay, that Dennis would be okay, that Colin had died for a cause he believed in and for that, he couldn't be sorry.
The other ghosts, if they could be called that, warned him not to.
They were lingering spirits, not completely ghosts, and yet still stuck on a plane of existence they no longer belonged.
Colin would never willingly be a ghost. He was too curious about what came next. The other ghosts, they told him that he would move on eventually, but he was being held to the earth by Dennis at the moment, held by his grief and fear in letting his brother rest.
They told Colin that if he showed himself in his flimsy ghostly form, that Dennis would never be able to let him go. They told Colin to watch from a distance.
It was...difficult.
And yet, as time passed by, he began to understand that the other… spirits, were correct. Dennis started sleeping more. He laughed a few times, and smiled even more. He caught up on his school work and he began to… live.
Colin could feel himself shifting. He could feel himself being beckoned on, to whatever came next.
He wanted to fight it.
He wanted to watch his little brother grow up. He wanted to see a wedding and kids and a career. He wanted to see what came next.
He hovered on the edges until the time came for Dennis to leave Hogwarts, and he saw his little brother to the train for the last time.
He'd been pulled away enough that now he couldn't be seen if he wanted to be.
Dennis took a moment to look back at Hogwarts, and Colin heard him whisper, "Goodbye, Col."
Colin left with a smile on his face and the promise that in many, many, years to come, he'd be waiting for his little brother, and in the meantime, he'd watch from a distance.