Chapter 3
The act ended as Leo slowed to nearly a stop, and Harry pushed open the door, canceling the sticking charm and hopping onto the back again as the older boy raced out of the Globe of Death, amid the roars of the crowd. As he did, Harry chanced a look behind him one last time. The two wizards were gone. He would have thought about it more, but just then, Leo burst through the back of the tent, and Harry jumped off again. He had five minutes to change into something else, as he was assisting in the Rakkar family's Russian beam act, filling in for their youngest, who had twisted her ankle the day before during training. He wasted no time in sprinting back to his caravan, where his papa would be waiting with his uniform, slipping off the bird mask and shaking off some of the loose glitter that had fallen off of Leo's shirt in the process.
The act went off without a hitch, naturally, and by the time the clock struck 11pm and the last stragglers had filed out, Harry was exhausted.
He had spent the rest of his time afterwards either standing at the ticket booth, or selling popcorn, and his social battery was teetering on the edge of a falling 5% as he flipped the sign on the popcorn stand closed and locked up the goods for the night, Leo assisting him by flipping the cover down and chain-locking it to one of the poles on the big tent, adding a small locking charm to doubly prevent thieves from sneaking in during the night and stealing something.
Behind him, the rest of the crew were packing up as well, hauling out props and folding up chairs to be packed away during the night, as well as locking the alcohol away behind a safety net of magic and a protective lock. Ani, the youngest of the Rakkar's who he'd filled in for today, was doing her best to help, even with the prop cane she was leaning on for support, by levitating some of the aerial silks into the waiting hands of aerialist Kiara Herrson. Their strongman, Jerry, let out an audible grunt as he lifted all of his weights in a single go, a sound that could be heard clearly across the mostly-silent parking lot, the circus crew too tired to communicate anything beyond short answers and sounds.
It's half past midnight by the time Harry stumbles back to his family's caravan, shucking off his sequined jacket, the one given to him as a gift on his 7th birthday by his parents, and crawls into his cot, too tired to acknowledge Leonard coming in a moment later. He's deep into dreamland by the time Hanson and Jack come back, and the two men smiled fondly at their son's sleeping forms, Leo's arm dangling down as if to reach for his little brother below him, Harry's arm wrapped around the plush dog Leo had given him as a Christmas gift last year.