Dear readers,
I suppose you're wondering why I'm doing little oneshots and haven't really been updating 'Guts and Great Things'. It's simply because I don't really feel like I know my original characters well enough to write them believably and to shape their lives throughout the progression of 'Guts and Great Things'.
I figure that writing little snippets of my original characters' lives will help me to shape them as individuals and enable me to make 'Guts and Great Things' a better piece of writing. If I fill in my characters' history through short stories, I think it will make them more believable to you, my readers, and that's the most important thing.
So do expect several oneshots from me over the next while about my original characters. As for 'Guts and Great Things' as a whole, I probably won't be updating for quite a while, but I hope the oneshots I'm going to be writing will help both you and me to understand the motivations of each of my own characters a bit better.
This takes place after Chapter Eleven of 'Guts and Great Things' and contains major spoilers for it.
Love,
Lyn
As Sherry left the Ministry of Magic after Auror training that afternoon, her mind seemed to be overflowing with thought. She would never have guessed the pain which her mentor had experienced in his life. Her struggles paled in comparison to his. At least her own sibling was alive and relatively well.
She hated herself for it, but she had wished several times in her eighteen years of life that Chris would die, so that she would win the love of her parents once more. She had been selfish. She realised this now. She had wasted far too much time on bitterness and anger and regret, when she could have been making things right with her brother and her parents. If she didn't make amends now, she feared that the bitterness between her and her brother would remain forever. It was as if with each passing day, one more brick was stacked in the wall being built between Sherry and Chris, and with each passing day, it was getting more and more difficult to tear down. Soon, Sherry feared, would come the day when that wall would be impossible to destroy, and that day was not something which she was willing to risk occurring.
Instead of Apparating to her own apartment, she travelled by bus to her family's house. As she arrived, she climbed the set of stone steps up to the front door and let herself in quietly. It was odd how time had come to make her feel like a stranger in her own house.
Muttering a spell to muffle the sound of her footsteps, she headed up the stairs to Chris's room. She didn't feel as if it was right to speak to her parents just yet.
Her hand hovered over the handle for a moment as she reached her brother's door. Gathering all her courage, she pushed it open. It took a moment for Chris to notice his sister. He was engrossed in his Nintendo DS with his earphones in his ears. Looking up abruptly, his eyebrows shot up into his fringe.
"Sheridan? What are you doing back here?"
Sherry sighed, leaning against the doorframe. "Hello to you, too, little brother," she said ruefully. "Can I come in?"
Chris simply nodded silently. Sherry crossed the wooden floorboards and cleared a space on the end of her brother's bed to sit down at his feet.
"How are you, Chris?"
"I'm okay," Chris said nonchalantly, his eyes drifting back to the game on his screen.
Sherry shook her head, putting a hand on the Nintendo and gently pulling it from Chris's grasp. "No, really. How are you?"
As Chris's eyes met Sherry's, she could instantly see the weariness and pain in his expression.
"Things have been pretty bad here," Chris began. "Mum and Dad have been missing you so much since you left for Hogwarts and then went straight on to Auror training. I've been missing you, too. We all wish you'd come home. The medication and therapy aren't doing what they're supposed to, either. My lungs aren't being drained properly and my stomach just seems to totally reject food. It's really, really scary, Sherry."
Sherry placed a tentative hand on her brother's ankle, soft brown eyes full of sorrow. She had missed so much of her brother's life. She had never been there to support him, and that was what hurt her most of all. All the times Chris had needed her, she had been absent, in body and in spirit.
On impulse, Sherry leaned forward and embraced her brother, rubbing his back. "I'm so sorry, Chris. I promise that from now on, things are going to be different. I'm going to be a proper sister to you. If Mum and Dad'll take me back, I'll move back here tomorrow." She paused for a moment, before adding, "I only wish that there was a spell that could make you well. It's horrible to watch you suffer like this."
Chris pulled out of the embrace to look his sister directly in the eye. "The biggest suffering I've been through has been not having you with me, and 'cause you're back, I'm pretty sure that I can get through this, now. It's nothing compared to not having my family whole and standing by me."
In that single moment, Sherry could not help but believe that a simple embrace was the wrecking ball which decimated the wall she had built between herself and Chris. She could say that for the first time in twelve years, she was truly happy.