A/N: This is my first "Plotted" fanfiction, I have no idea if there will be pairings yet, there may be slash in the future, so it that squicks you, you might want to bail now. Please let me know if you have directional ideas or feedback, as this is my first attempt at fanfiction in a very long time. Cheers.

Summary: It isn't fair to bring Harry up a warrior, but it also isn't fair to bring him up a sacrificial lamb. Severus asserts that Harry ought to be trained to properly defeat Voldemort, when Dumbledore disagrees, he decides to take things into his own hands. Sort of Severtus-ish, slightly OOC Snape, Manipulative!Dumbledore, Powerfull!Smart!Harry

"Headmaster, do you not think it's best to train the boy, if he is to defeat Voldemort?" Severus asserted, for what felt like the hundredth time. He paced the old man's office, quite certain that at this rate he would wear a hole in the plushy carpet the headmaster was so fond of.

"He must have a normal upbringing; it isn't fair to bring him up a warrior." Dumbledore replied. The twinkle in his eyes, which peered at Severus over steepled fingers, seemed to be at half power today, as if he couldn't decide whether he ought to look venerable for the occasion of once more explaining to his inferior why he ought to let Harry Potter grow up a normal child.

"It also isn't fair to bring him up a sacrificial lamb." Severus spat. "We are leading him to the slaughter if we allow him a 'normal childhood', Headmaster, surely you can see that! Lily," And here he paused and took a breath, "And Potter did not die so that Harry could be violently murdered a few years later."

"Severus, you can't understand how damaging it would be to him, to raise him up his whole life just to kill someone, it isn't fair to him." The Headmaster said, seriously.

"It isn't fair to leave him clueless!"

"He's just a child, is it not the responsibility of adults to handle their knowledge of the world in a reasonable manner? You have been a teacher long enough to understand that, surely, Severus."

"You are not the adult who has the power to make that decision, Albus."

"Severus, you know very well the boy has no one else…"

"Just because the God parent is father appointed isn't available doesn't mean he has no one, Albus." Severus stalked to the door, flinging it open with a rage even Albus had not seen from him in a long time. "He is Lily's flesh and blood, and she would have wanted, could Black not fulfill his duties, me to do so." Severus growled, and he slammed the door behind him with a slightly foreboding THUMP.

Small patches of yellow light dotted the ground, and the little boy delighted in moving his hand about to catch different patches of light filtering in through the leaves above his head. The mulch of the garden pressed into his back, but he hardly noticed, enjoying being outside as he was.

It was a cool spring day, and Harry Potter was currently hiding under the bushes in the front garden of number 4 Private Drive. It was easiest, to finish his chores in the early morning and then hide out pretending to be occupied. Even at five years old Harry had figured out as much. Especially on mornings like these, it was quite pleasant to lie dozily under the bushes and make up for the sleep he had missed because of his 5 AM wakeup call to make breakfast for Uncle Vernon before work. Not that Harry minded making breakfast; he only wished that once in a while someone would make breakfast for him, the way aunt Petunia lovingly prepared Dudley's breakfast.

He had asked once, why he didn't get breakfast, when he had been three and hadn't understood rule number one "Don't ask questions". His aunt had replied by telling him that he was bad, and locking him in his cupboard for three days, only letting him out for chores and the bathroom.

Since then Harry had only allowed himself his quiet musings whilst laying alone, usually in the garden or his cupboard, the two places that seemed to be his own in the Dursley house, despite the fact that the garden wasn't really his. Today, however, his quiet contemplations were broken up when a large shadow cut off the light he had been gleefully playing with. Harry froze, unsure if it was a cloud or Aunt Petunia out to check his work. When the shadow moved in a very un-cloud like, and decidedly human, way, Harry tried to sink further under the hydrangeas, only to find himself face to face with a black-dress-shoe-clad foot.

He looked up slowly, faced with the owner of the foot through the leaves. He could see the face rather clearly and suddenly became aware of just how useless his hiding place was. The man was clearly scary; he had pale skin, dark lank hair, and a deep from. He was so tall that Harry felt sure he was a giant (though in fact he was only tall in comparison to the other adults the young boy new at the time), and his black eyes seemed to stare into Harry's soul when he met them, though he didn't quite know what that meant yet.

"Come out from there, boy, and let me have a better look at you." The man said, his voice deeper than any Harry had ever heard, and that included the announcer men he could sometimes hear through his cupboard door on the telly.

Harry reluctantly crawled out of his hiding place, standing in the grass to brush himself off, before walking, equally reluctantly, onto the front path. The man regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and disdain, neither of which were anything new to Harry, before reaching towards his face. Harry flinched slightly, but new better than to pull away. In his life, you allowed adults to do what they pleased and remained silent about it. The man brushed his bangs away from his face, his touch was so light that Harry barely felt it, not like his uncle, who was always rough, or his aunt, how did everything so sharply that it pained the boy.

"You are Harry Potter, then." It was not a question, but Harry nodded anyway.

"Yes sir." He said meekly. "Can I help you?" He asked, reverting to the response he had been taught to give when addressed.

"In time, perhaps, but right now I am here to help you."