Chapter 5: Broken

Dudley slowly climbed the stairs of number 4 Privet Drive heading towards his cousins bedroom. Held tightly between his hands was a silver tray carrying a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup and a couple pieces of toast he had just finished preparing himself, for his cousin Harry.

Harry whom was really sick. 'What am I going to do?' ran through Dudley's mind as he slowly and awkwardly tried to balance the tray while making his way through his cousin's bedroom door.

Dudley stilled in the doorway for a moment as he glanced over at his cousin. Harry laid completely motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest to show that he was breathing. His body barely fit onto the frame of the bed as it was much too small for him. His face was pale and looked clammy. His brow was slightly furrowed as if he were having a bad dream but his eyes showed no movement behind his eye lids. He was asleep.

'He looks wretched!' thought Dudley unsure what the emotion he was suddenly feeling was. Deciding to reflect on it later he continued across the floor and put the tray he was carrying upon the bedside table.

Glancing down at Harry, Dudley couldn't help but to contemplate that the kinder thing to do would be to just allow Harry to continue sleeping and hopefully sleep through the night. However he knew that wasn't really an option as they were running out of time before his father would be home. 'A few more minutes shouldn't hurt though' thought Dudley 'the soup needs to cool enough to eat anyway'. So grabbing the chair from the desk Dudley moved it over closer to the bed before sitting in it across from Harry and allowed himself those few extra minutes to muse. Minutes which stretched into longer minutes as he lost himself in thought.

'What are we going to do? What can we do?' thinking Dudley sat back in the chair and just looked up at the ceiling without really seeing it. 'The letter from Harry's Headmaster had said something about wards' which Dudley admitted to himself, he didn't understand what wards were or did or anything but he had gathered that these ward thingies stopped Harry from being able to send or receive mail by owl. 'So we can't get any help that way'. Rubbing his face tiredly with his hands he looked down at Harry, 'he's really sick but if his chores aren't finished when dad gets home…' Dudley winced, 'it won't be good for him. What'll we do? What if mom lied? What if dad hurts Harry? Will I have to take Harry and leave? Will they try and stop me?' Realizing that he was starting to panic as the anxiety of the day started catching up to him, Dudley shook his head and took a few deep breaths, scolding himself mentally for freaking out.

He got up from the chair and closed the distance between him and Harry. 'Don't be stupid, nothing will get figured out if you pass out from panicking right now!' So taking another couple of deep breaths and mentally convincing himself that, 'Harry will know what to do!' he reached over and lightly shook Harry's shoulder.

"Harry." Dudley looked for a response, "You need to wake up now." Still no stirring movement. Dudley looked at Harry's eyes to see if perhaps Harry was dreaming and might need him to be louder. But there was no movement behind them either. Dudley's anxiety was creeping quickly back to claim its place. "I bought you something light to eat Harry, come on wake up," Yet he didn't wake. Dudley stopped shaking him for a moment and happened to look down. He froze, Harry's chest didn't look like it was moving anymore. He took a deep breath and watched carefully in case his anxiety had cause him to miss the small rising movement, but after another few seconds, there still was none.

Full blown panic set in on Dudley, and he hysterically began shaking Harry once again, no longer trying to be gentle. Horror, and desperation raced up Dudley's spine as he screamed.

"Wake up!" Dudley screamed. "Harry!" voice breaking Dudley kept screaming, "Harry!" his voice was becoming raspy as he continued to repeat those same words over and over. For Dudley seconds seemed like hours, and still Harry did not wake. Dudley couldn't think, couldn't even see in front of him anymore. Tears quickly spilled from his eyes and cascaded down his face as he realized, in that moment, he really cared for and even loved his cousin, and yet his cousin just wouldn't wake up! "Please! God Please! Wake Up Harry! Wake Up! HARRY!"

Dudley, somewhere in the turmoil that was currently he, remember that he had learnt CPR during his boxing training, scrambled up on to the bed and began to frantically try to bring Harry back. He continued crying as he tried, and kept repeating, "please don't die on me, please harry, don't die!" He did chest compressions and breathes until he himself started getting too light headed and his arms could no longer support the necessary force for compressing.

Dudley slumped shattered against the side of the bed and slid to the floor. He pulled his knees up to his stomach and tightly wrapped his arms around them, curling himself into a ball and rocked. Dudley felt the fear and desperation to save his cousin surge, swirl and turn within himself, like a storm on the sea his emotions swirled, flared and broke. And he brokenly whispered out to the deadly silence of the room one last desperate plea. "Please someone, anyone, please save him!" and then he too lost consciousness, his mind unable to take such an influx of emotion, coupled with his own anxiety and desperate attempts to resuscitate his cousin, his body shut down.