The ambulance was a blur of noise and confusion. Vernon couldn't seem to focus, and he felt a bit queasy. He and Dudley were both in neck braces, which seemed unnecessary. Petunia was on a gurney in the center of the ambulance, with two medical technicians bent over her, speaking urgently to one another, peeling back eyelids and shining flashlights in them, reciting statistics into the radio.

The ride to the NHS hospital was mercifully short, and soon they were once again being rushed out of the ambulance and into the emergency arena. Vernon felt a deep spike of anxiety stab down his chest as Petunia's gurney was rushed into the bowels of the hospital by a nurse and a technician, but when he tried to follow a nurse held him back and directed him to a bed. Dudley was placed in the bed next to him.

A few minutes later, a competent looking woman strode up and introduced herself as Dr. Thomas. "You are Mr. Dursley," she asked?

"Yes. What has happened to my wife?"

"Petunia Dursley, twenty-six, trauma to the head, vitals normal," Doctor Thomas recited, then looked more closely at Vernon and seemed to focus on him for the first time. "Sorry, old habits. She's had a significant trauma to the head. She's unconscious, which is not good, but her vitals are normal, which is. We have her in imaging to get a picture of the brain and see if there is any swelling."

"Injuries of this type are difficult to diagnose. Unfortunately, the best we can do is make sure that any immediate swelling is taken care of, and wait for her to regain consciousness. If she regains consciousness in the next few hours, that's a good sign, but we won't know until she does."

"In the meantime, we need to take a look at you, and at the boy. The medical technicians believe that you have a concussion, so I'm going to do a quick exam. " She asked Vernon a rapid series of questions, nodding or hmming after each answer. "We need to keep you here overnight for observation. You have a mild concussion. I'll go check on the boy now."

While Dr. Thomas had been interviewing Vernon, Dudley had been wheeled off; he got back just as the interview ended. After a few minutes of poking and prodding, and a few rather gruesome winces from Dudley, who, surprisingly, did not put up a fuss in front of the unfamiliar doctor, Dr. Thomas came back to Vernon.

"What's wrong with Dudley?" Vernon asked anxiously.

"His leg is broken. It's a greenstick fracture, which means that the bone didn't break all the way through. We should be able to align it properly without too much trouble. He's going to require a cast, and you'll have to bring him back in a few weeks for another X-ray. I would not expect for there to be any long-term consequences."

"Dudley's an active boy! Is he going to be able to play sports this year?"

"I wouldn't advise it until he's had a few months to heal. When the cast comes off, he'll be weak in that leg for a while. While it's on, it's going to get in his way a lot, so he'll need assistance. Do you have any other children at home who can help?"

"His cousin…" Vernon said thoughtfully.

"Well, no matter, the nurses will sort you out when it comes time to discharge you, but as I say you'll have to stay the night."

"What about my car?"

"What I heard didn't sound encouraging, but you'll have to talk to the police—there was an officer waiting to talk to you, but I advised him to come back tomorrow morning when you've had a bit of a rest. Not that you'll get much sleep tonight with that concussion, but with any luck you'll at least feel a bit more yourself in the morning."

Vernon felt an urge to argue with Dr. Thomas, but he really was not feeling himself, and his brief protest died quickly for the simple fact that no words came to mind.


Vernon did not have a very good night's sleep. It seemed that the nurses had to check on him every half hour or so to make sure he could wake up properly, and to check his symptoms. He'd gotten progressively crabbier with each awakening; to add insult to injury, the nurses seemed to take this as a positive sign, and weren't bothered by it.

They had very kindly put Vernon, Petunia and Dudley all in a triple room, which kept Vernon's worry about Petunia down to a dull beat of anxiety—she seemed at least to be resting and not in any sort of crisis.

When Dudley woke up (he had slept blissfully through the night, as far as Vernon could tell), he began watching a quite annoying children's show on the telly. Vernon's first impulse was to tell him to turn it off, because he had quite a headache, but years of experience told him that Dudley watching the telly was probably less trouble than Dudley not watching the telly.

Breakfast came and went. Petunia still hadn't woken up. Vernon started to get more and more worried as the morning progressed. Finally Doctor Thomas showed up and checked on her. After looking at her chart and checking her pupils, she came over to see Vernon.

"Petunia's had a significant trauma to the head. There is some bruising. The swelling isn't too bad, but you should prepare yourself for the possibility that there has been some damage to the brain. Until she wakes up, we can't tell how much she will have been affected, but you should prepare yourself for a long recovery."

Vernon's heard sank. "When will she wake up?"

"We don't know. Brain injuries are capricious. Sometimes the person wakes up quickly, sometimes it can take a week or even longer. Let's check out you now, shall we?"

After some more questions and a bit of poking, prodding, and lights in the eyes, Dr. Thomas pronounced Vernon fit for departure in the afternoon. "You'll need to take Dudley with you, but Petunia will of course have to stay here at least until she wakes up."

Vernon had managed to pretend to himself that everything was going to be okay, but suddenly everything was very much not going to be okay. Petunia wasn't coming home. Dudley was going to be on crutches. The weight of responsibility was suddenly crushing.

Who could he turn to for help? Friends? He didn't really have any good friends. Family? With his and Petunia's parents gone all these years, all he had left was Marge. Hah! Marge would probably throttle them in their sleep. Survival of the fittest, after all. Or feed them to her hounds, even more likely.

Looking back over the past seven years, since the tragedy at the wedding, Vernon realized just how much of a hash he'd made of things. That one horrible event had send him and Petunia together down a dark and friendless path, and now here they were reaping the consequences.

Lost in thought, he didn't hear the constable talking to him until he tapped Vernon on his shoulder. "Mr. Dursley, I need to talk to you about the accident." Consequences indeed.


"There was an accident yesterday," said Vernon. "You can see that Dudley's leg is broken. Your aunt is in the hospital. She's in a coma. They don't know when she'll wake up."

"Is she going to be okay?" Harry asked.

If Harry didn't know better, he would have thought Vernon was about to cry. "No, she's not okay, Harry. She was seriously injured. They don't know when she's going to wake up. Even when she does, she won't be able to come back and take care of you and Dudley."

Without thinking, Harry got up and rushed over to Vernon, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, and hugged him. "What do you need me to do, Uncle Vernon? I can help! Can I see Aunt Tuni?"

To Harry's complete shock, Vernon suddenly did start crying. Sobbing, actually. Not knowing what to do, Harry just held on and waited. Dudley looked at the two of them as if they'd both sprouted antlers. He'd been in the process of taking a bit of steak, but he froze, the fork midway between plate and mouth, his eyes round, and then calmly set the fork down on the plate, reached over, and took his father's hand. "We'll help," he said.

After a bit, Vernon dabbed his cheeks and blew his nose, and the trio sat back down, each of them a bit uncomfortable with what had just happened. But Vernon pulled himself together and said "thank you both. But we need more help, I think. Harry, do you think that Mrs. Figg would be willing to help out?"

Harry thought about it. "I think so. She's never very busy. I can go ask her?"

"Thanks, Harry. That would be great. Let's finish dinner first."

Arabella Figg was, at that moment, sitting down to her own dinner. The cats were all fed, the owl had flown off to Dumbledore with news that something was up with the Dursleys, and she was looking forward to a quiet evening, when the doorbell rang. It was Harry.

"Mrs. Figg, something really bad has happened. Aunt Tuni is hurt! Can you come see Uncle Vernon?"

Looking a bit woefully at her dinner, she nodded, got up, and put it in the refrigerator. She ushered Harry back outside, closed up the house, and together they walked over to Number Four. No car outside. Hmm.

Harry led her in to the living room, where Vernon and Dudley were seated. Vernon rose and welcomed her, offering her a seat. "Mrs. Figg, Petunia is in the hospital in a coma. We don't know when she will wake up. They think she will need some significant recovery time. I'm terribly sorry to even ask, but I have no-one to turn to. Is there any way I could impose upon you to watch the children while I'm at work until Petunia recovers? I would be happy to pay for your time. Or if you know someone…"

"Don't be silly," Mrs. Figg interrupted. "Of course I'll help, and you don't have to pay me. All I'm doing over on Wisteria Lane is taking care of my cats. How much more trouble can two such well-behaved boys be?"

Vernon's eyes bulged, but he managed not to say what popped into his head. Instead, he managed to say "thank you so much, Mrs. Figg. I don't know what I'd do…"

"And you'll have to stop calling me Mrs. Figg. You'll make me feel like an old bat. Call me Bella."

"Thank you, Bella, and of course please call me Vernon."

When Bella had left, and Harry and Dudley had gone to bed, Vernon was finally able to go to bed himself. He was feeling much better than he had the previous night, physically. Emotionally, he still felt a bit like a very large elephant was sitting on his chest. But sleep came quickly.


He woke in the morning to the sound of the telephone ringing. It was the insurance company, asking when to bring by a hired car for him to drive while the claim was being processed. That settled, he went downstairs to find Harry feeding Dudley a small breakfast. As promised, Dudley was "helping out," at least in the sense that he was eating it and not giving Harry a hard time.

Harry dished him out a small omelet, then started in on his own breakfast. While he was cooking, he asked Vernon, "when can we see Aunt Tuni?"

"We'll all go over to the hospital after I get home from work," Vernon answered. "My car is coming in a few minutes, and then I'm going to have to go in and see if the place has caught fire while I've been away." Vernon wasn't too worried that it had caught fire, but you never knew. Looking back on the past few years, he realized that he'd driven away some of his best people, and what he had left to work with weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Yet another thing to think about, if and when things settled down at home.

Bella showed up a few minutes later. "Hi, Mrs. Figg, do you want an omelet?" Harry shouted cheerfully. Vernon winced, still a bit headachy, but, not wanting to discourage Harry's enthusiasm, he kept quiet.

Bella politely demurred. "Vernon, what do you think the schedule is going to be like today?"

"I'm heading to work in a few minutes, and I should be back not too late. I'll take Harry and Dudley to see Petunia. The hospital says she still hasn't woken up, but they'll call right away if she does, and they have my work number, so if she wakes up I'll call you before I head over there."

"Okay, do what you need to do. My cats are fed, and I can stay later than that if you need me to." Bella privately hoped that it wouldn't come to that—Dumbledore wasn't paying her that well. But she knew the importance of protecting Harry, and she would do her duty. Vernon was a bit of a lump, but he was really on his best behavior, so she couldn't complain.

"Thanks so much—you are truly a godsend," Vernon said as he walked out the door to take delivery of the hired car.