A/N: Hope you enjoy it. As always, review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Harry was always cautious and careful. He never trusted the adults in his life, knowing that behind their kind smiles and faces were sadistic monsters just waiting for him to show weakness. They said they wanted to help him and protect him, but he knew better. The moment he gave them something they would use it against him. He might not know how, but they would find a way.

He was sure of it.

Their presents were attempts to buy him, their candy an attempt to get him to trust them. And he was too smart for that. Harry knew what they were doing, and he would not give in.

Even the other children that had befriended him once Dudley and his followers began to leave him alone could not be trusted. They could be plotting behind his back, trying to get a chance to hurt him when he least expected it.

They were just using him, he knew. Using him as a way to protect them. They knew that he was smart, and they knew that bad things happened to people who hurt him. And they were trying to take that from him, leave him defenseless against all of the others.

But he knew what they were up to. And he wouldn't let them profit from him.

He knew that the other children had to be talking to Dudley behind his back, giving the fat boy ammunition against him. They probably gathered up every little piece of information he dropped and delivered it faithfully to their obese master.

They were all just waiting for him to make a mistake before they rounded on him and tried to break him. But Harry was too smart for that. He would never make a mistake.

When one of Dudley's little followers spread a rumor about him, trying to turn the others against him even more than he was sure they already were, he made sure that the boy would stop plotting against him.

The boy mysteriously broke his arm, and stopped telling lies about Harry.

The other children whispered as he walked amongst them, and he knew that the Dursleys had somehow turned the teachers and kids against him. They had it out for him, just like all of the other adults.

But he wouldn't let them know that he knew what they were up to, or they might come up with some new plot that he wouldn't be able to find out. They were cunning, he knew, even if they didn't look like it.

He was careful around the children that flocked around him. They were gathering information for Dudley, they were spying on him! There was no other explanation for it. They always wanted to know things.

But Harry never let them know things; he was too cunning for them. He gave them fake details about his life, spun them a lie so that they would give false information back to the teachers and the Dursleys.

Finally, he realized that he had to make sure they would never use anything against him. Harry controlled them, dominated them. He had to make sure he was safe, that they wouldn't be able to plot against him.

The teachers tried to tell him that he was wrong, that he was bullying the other students. But they were wrong, he wasn't a bully. He was protecting himself from the plots that the entire school was spinning around him, trying to break him. And the teachers were probably trying to help the plot, try to convince him, try to lie to him, that they weren't trying to hurt him.

But he knew they were, he could see it in their calculating eyes and glances. They looked at him with worried faces, but he knew they weren't worried about him, they were worried that he knew about their plot and was fighting it.

When they started talking about him, he knew he had to make sure they would stop. He couldn't let these plots continue the way they were, couldn't let them turn everyone against him. Harry was sure that they were all against him anyways, but he had to keep them from plotting.

So he hurt them, making sure they would stop looking at him with their calculating gazes, stop offering the helping hands. He could see behind the innocent gesture and into the malicious intent meant. If they could get him to think they were his friends then they could hurt him much more easily.

But he knew their plan, and he was too smart for them.