"Yes, Harry! I know I can!" Seth promised, eyes shining.
Harry looked at him doubtfully. "I don't knowтАж It's awfully easy to fall off," he warned.
"Oh, come on, Harry. He said he can do it," Jonah supported his brother, to Seth's incredulous joy. Usually Jonah ignored him, in the time-honored way of big brothers everywhere, and it thrilled him to hear his brother's vote of confidence, and in front of The Boy Who Lived, no less.
"I swear I can do it!" Seth was more determined than ever to show both older boys he could perform the Feint.
"OkayтАж" Harry handed over his broom, since Seth's was still safety-spelled to stay close to the ground.
Seth did an excellent job of following Harry's instructions, but the speed of the racing broom coupled with Seth's light weight resulted in a centripedal force that was too much for the seven year old. Seth only realized he was in trouble a few seconds before he lost his grip, and all his frantic efforts to slow the broom were for naught. He came off with a piercing cry of fear.
Two bolts of energy shot out and caught him in mid-air, then lowered him gently to the ground. Seth sagged to his knees in relief, fighting back tears. The last thing he wanted now was to disgrace himself any further. Harry and Jonah rushed up to him, panicked, while Snape and Brunhilde, their wands still out, were only a step behind.
"Are you all right?"
"Did you get hurt?"
"What happened?"
Much to Seth's dismay, Brunhilde swept him into a close cuddle, while a furious Snape interrogated the older boys.
"Harry James Potter! What were you thinking?" Snape scolded angrily, once he had elicited the whole story. "Giving a racing broom to a seven year old?"
Harry squirmed in an agony of embarrassment and shame. It was bad enough getting ticked off in public, but it was even worse knowing that he deserved it. Seth could have been killed!
"It wasn't his fault," Jonah protested. "Seth said he could do it!" He sent an angry glance to where his brother was still being examined by Brunhilde. The seven year old cringed, even more embarrassed than Harry.
"I did!" Seth spoke up. "It wasn't Harry's fault."
"Foolish little boys make all sorts of wild claims," Snape said coldly, sweeping all three with a dark glower. "I expected you to have enough sense to understand that," he told Harry sternly.
" 'M sorry," Harry gulped. He was too. He thought his heart had stopped when Seth came off the broom.
"No harm done тАУ except to my nerves," Brunhilde said cheerfully, approaching with Seth in tow. "But I think we're done with flying for the day."
"Indeed!" Snape snapped, shrinking the three brooms and putting them in his pocket.
"Sorry," Seth mumbled, staring at the ground so that he wouldn't have to see his brother's annoyed expression.
Harry put an arm around his shoulder. "It's okay. I should've known better," he admitted.
Jonah huffed in exasperation and looked away, but Seth felt a little better. At least Harry didn't hate him.
"What can we do now, if we can't fly anymore?" Jonah asked, a bit grumpily.
Harry looked over at his da. Surely they wouldn't have to leave?
"I think we should have some ice cream to recover from the shock," Brunhilde said firmly. "Therapeutic chocolate, yes?"
The boys perked up instantly.
"Go find us a picnic table while we get the treats," she instructed, linking her arm in Snape's. "If you aren't sitting quietly when we get back, we'll eat all the ice cream ourselves!" she threatened.
Seth and Jonah laughed, and even Harry had to grin. What's more, his da had lost his grumpy look and was looking at Brunhilde with an almost soft expression. "You're much too lenient," Snape remonstrated with her, but it was clear to all that his heart wasn't really in it.
She tugged the normally dour man off and the boys, not wanting to risk losing their ice cream, ran to find an unoccupied table. There were a lot of families at the park, but they eventually found an empty table way off at the edge of the nearby woods.
"Here," Jonah called to the others. Harry and Seth hurried over, but Seth promptly tripped over a tree root and went sprawling.
"You all right?" Harry stooped to check on the younger boy.
"You need to watch where you're going," Jonah scolded, even as he helped his brother up.
Seth pulled free, coloring. "I'm fine!"
Jonah rolled his eyes and pointed to the boy's scraped knees. "Yeah, you're so fine you're bleeding," he snapped. "Give me your handkerchief and I'll go to the fountain and get it wet so we can clean you up before Brunhilde sees."
"I'll do it myself," Seth protested, but Jonah just pushed him onto the picnic table's bench and hurried off.
Seth hunched his shoulders and grimaced horribly at the table. "I'm not a baby!" he muttered. "I could've done it myself. I don't need anybody's help!"
Harry sat down next to him and patted his shoulder sympathetically. "I know you could've," he assured the other boy, "but sometimes it's good to let other people help you. Y'know, for a long time, I had to do everything myself because there was no one who wanted to help me."
Seth's eyes widened and he forgot his sulk. "But you're The Boy Who Lived! You're famous тАУ everyone must want to help you!"
Harry laughed humorlessly. "I'm not famous in the Muggle world and my тАУ the people I lived with didn't like me one bit. So I had to learn to do everything for myself and not count on anyone's help." He glanced over at the younger boy. "Now I've got my da, and sometimes he doesn't let me do a lot of stuff that I know I can. He says I'm too young or it's too dangerous or whatever." Seth nodded. He got that a lot too. "But you know, as much as sometimes it makes me mad, it's still a lot better to have other people who care about you and want to keep you safe and to help you with stuff. That's how they show how much they love you, yeah?"
"Yea-ah," Seth said slowly.
"Sometimes it can be hard to let someone else help you, especially if you've been used to not trusting anyone or letting them close," Harry continued, as much to himself as to Seth, "but it really feels good when you do, when you let other people take care of you. Because, though I would hate to admit it to my da, we're not really big enough to take care of ourselves yet, and it's nice when you don't have to any more. You need to let other people help you and not try to keep stuff to yourself all the time or try to fix things all by yourself. If you do, you're likely gonna screw it up, and you make the other people feel bad too. I mean, Jonah wouldn't go to get the water if he didn't want to make you feel better, right?"
Seth smiled crookedly. "I guess not," he confessed. "And my knees really do sting."
"The water will help, and with the blood washed off, maybe no one will notice 'til after the ice cream," Harry grinned.
"Here." Jonah returned just then and bent to sponge off Seth's knees. He was a little surprised when his brother didn't protest or try to kick him away, but the younger boy just held still.
"Thanks," Seth said softly. "That feels better."
Jonah blinked in surprise. "You're welcome," he managed to say. "I'm your big brother; I'm supposed to help you out, y'know."
Seth smiled, though he kept his head down.
"Good thing your godmother doesn't get too cranky," Harry said once they were all seated and waiting for the ice cream. "I don't think my da would've let us have a treat except for her."