At this, Uncle Vernon seemed to have blown a fuse. He turned to Harry, who was frozen while serving eggs benedict, and slowly stood out of his chair. Then several things happened at once. First, Sirius stood up out of and grabbed his wand out of his pocket without anyone but Harry noticing. Second, Aunt Petunia grabbed Dudley from his chair and took them to the opposite side of the room, and third, Uncle Vernon exploded.
"You! You brought this man here, didn't you?! We've taken care of you unappreciative child for your entire life, and you thank us by dragging this�this�wizard into our household?!!"
Harry felt an anger inside him start to boil over, but kept himself calm and collected. "You," he replied, "asked for me to not appreciate you ever since I came here. You never treated me as a nephew or even a human, but now you expect me to kick the only adult who ever respected me out?! I don't think so Uncle Vernon."
At this Harry knew he had done it. He had never had the courage to stand up to Uncle Vernon, but it seemed that throughout all the hatred that Harry felt towards Uncle Vernon at that moment that he had finally driven him over the edge. Uncle Vernon came over to Harry and swung his fist just across Harry's temple. The force of the blow drove Harry backward into the cabinets.
Harry was gradually getting more and more dizzy, but was able to see Sirius fling himself onto Uncle Vernon. Aunt Petunia was screaming for Sirius to stop, as she was slowly walking to Harry. He thought this was odd. Aunt Petunia usually stayed as far from Harry as possible. He tilted his head back to the cabinets, trying to relieve some of the darkness gradually taking him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Sirius and Uncle Vernon were still brawling, however Sirius was yelling at Uncle Vernon. Suddenly, he felt a slight tap on his shoulder only to look around and seeing a very distraught Petunia. Harry had started calling her Petunia earlier in the summer just to annoy her, but found that it fit. He didn�t like calling her 'Aunt' because it never really worked with her image. Petunia was dabbing his shoulder, which had a bruise on it with a wet cloth. Harry could only think, "Is this a dream?", before falling into the darkness that he so wanted to escape, the yells of the two grown men fighting growing dimmer and dimmer into the distance.
*~*
