Chapter One - The Cupboard
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"You should ask Dumbledore! You don't know what he'll say until you ask!" Hermione insisted loudly.
"Its fine guys... I don't mind going home for the summer. A little monotony never killed anyone." Harry replied tiredly.
"But Harry... you shouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys. The way the treat you... Ron's family already offered." Hermione pleaded. It wasn't right she thought, that Harry should have to go back, that no one had stopped it.
'What do you mean the way they treat me?" Harry asked sounding genuinely confused.
"You know..." Ron said, gesturing wildly as if that explained anything.
"I really don't know." Harry snapped back, starting to feel a bit cornered about the whole thing.
"Like the way they made you sleep in that cupboard! Who sleeps in a cupboard Harry?! It's wrong!" Hermione whispered loudly. Harry appreciated that at the very least she wasn't shouting embarrassing details like that for the world to hear.
"I wouldn't say they made me..." Harry replied slowly, a little defensively really. He'd had these conversations before and they never went well. "I was agoraphobic as a kid. Aunt Petunia said I was really traumatized when they found me on the doorstep... it could have been from what happened to my parents, or maybe from a night alone on the front porch."
Ron stared blankly at him, clearly not understanding. Harry sighed in resignation, this was going to be a long night, so much for the end of year party downstairs.
"They tried putting me in a crib at first but I always got out and they'd spend the next morning hunting for me. Aunty said I always turned up in small dark corner. So they tried having me share with Dudley and even tried letting me sleep with them, which was probably the most traumatizing thing she's ever done to me, nothing worked I guess. In the end it was safest to set up a bed in the biggest cupboard they had, at least they knew where to find me in the morning." Harry finished up with a gasp for air, he was a little breathless trying to say everything so fast.
"But you're not agoraphobic Harry, you play quidditch..." Hermione questioned slowly and a bit condescendingly. It really bother Harry how everyone presumed to know him better than he knew himself, reading his segment in 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' and 'Great Wizarding Events of the 20th Century' really didn't add up to knowing anything at all about him personally.
"Well... not anymore... but it's still easier to sleep in the cupboard, it just feels safer." Harry said with a tone that would broker no argument, he wasn't going to have the cupboard conversation again, not with anyone.
"Harry..." Hermione began to whine in what he recognized as her pre-lecture voice.
"No. No. And most definitely NO." Harry said firmly, as he rose from the bed where he had been perched somewhat defensively. "I'm going downstairs and so is Ron and you are going to drop all of this right now.
Harry took a firm grip on Ron's maroon jumper and dragged him downstairs before any protests could be made. He was not, he told himself, going to have this conversation with Hermione of all people.
Hermione sat on Ron's bed watching the two of them storm off to commons and her eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to her... Harry must have Stockholm syndrome.
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AN: You can disagree with me all you want. It's just a random story that popped into my head.