Warnings: This story is going to be slash, although there won't be any sex for quite sometime. Slash of the "I have to marry someone for political reasons" variety. Basically its a contract marriage fic. I know it has been done but I wanted to write something I would have liked to read. If you aren't happy with either of the above mentioned plot points then I doubt you'll like this story so you might just want to find something else. Thanks anyway. This will be a slowly developing story. There will be no jumping right into bed together, or falling in love at first sight. Characters will be or become slightly OCC at some point (I'm not JK, of all the rotten luck) but I still want them to be recognizable. Snape will still be Snapey, The Molfoys will still be arrogant, Tom Riddle will still be not such a nice guy, and Harry won't just lay down and suddenly become tearful and girly, however, people are people and changes occur. Hopefully I'll do a decent job with this. (Its my first fic after all.)

Extended Summary: During the possession at the Ministry, Voldemort unintentionally discovers that Harry is one of his horcruxes. He decides its not worth the risk to let Harry knowingly continue on with the his soul piece inside him so Voldie reabsorbs the small piece back into the larger soul peice currently residing in his body. What happens when the effect of this event causes Voldie to gain back some of his sanity? Will he realize the harm he has caused not only to himself but the Wizarding World as well? How will this effect our Hero? Rated M for Language, some Violence, and sexual situations later in the story. Slash, but over 17.

This is the Obligatory "I do not own Harry Potter' statement. I don't own HP or anything related to it, JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, etc. You know the deal. If I owned it, it definatly wouldn't be a childrens story! Don't sue me. Thanks

One last thing. Credit for the idea of this story obviously does not go to me. While I am striving to make this as different as possible the basic idea came from a wonderful writer named Dinkel and her story Unintentionally Yours. You should go check it out! www . fanfiction . net/s/3151866/1/

Return to Sanity

Harry Potter was in unbelievable pain. Writhing in agony on what Harry only subconsciously remembered was the marbled floor of the Ministry of Magic, Harry truly wished that Dumbledore would heed Voldemort's words and end his suffering. His whole body felt like it was on fire. Pain as he had never known crashed through him, wave after wave, and in that moment he thought he could understand Dumbledore's previous insistence that there were things worse than death. He truly felt that death would be kinder at this point, especially after Sirius.

"Sirius…" Harry thought, and a different sort of agony swept through him. That of loss and love. Quite suddenly Harry could feel Voldemort's possessive presence within his mind starting to withdraw, but before it could completely abandon him he felt a momentary jolt of surprise. Before Harry could ponder this he was suddenly immersed within his mind, the pain fully gone.

Harry looked around confused for a moment. Recognizing everything in the room from the huge fireplace to the worn red and golden chairs he thought wildly, 'How did I get into the Gryffindor common room?'

"You don't even know your own mind ssscape?" A quite voice all to familiar hissed at him. Harry spun around and encountered the person he desired most to never see again. Lord Voldemort. Those malevolent red eyes peered at him almost unemotionally but for a small spark of fear that Harry was taken aback to see. "You really are asss ussseless at Occlumency asss Ssseveruss claimed you to be. I thought it only and exaggeration considering how effortlessly you seem to throw off even my Imperious, but it sseemss he was correct in hisss perceptionsss of you. For once." He seemed to add distractedly. Harry was about to comment scathingly back (or at least as scathingly as it was possible for him to be when encountering The Dark Lord) until he realized Voldemort was no longer looking at him but was staring blankly at a shadowed corner of the common room.

The corner was more of an alcove of sorts. An archway led into a shallow sitting area which held only a small round mahogany side table with a golden dish on top covered in thick candles of varying lengths, and a plush crimson chair. The ceiling was domed and shadowed the chair within the corner heavily. Harry remembered thinking, in first year when he had first encountered said alcove, it was probably made for his head of house to unobtrusively watch over her house when she came into the commons. He was right to a point, only, McGonagall had hardly ever entered the common room, unless necessary for disciplinary matters, so the alcove was more typically used for hiding the more amorous activities of his house mates. Harry couldn't think of one good reason why Voldemort would find anything remotely interesting about it, at least those were his thoughts until he got a look at exactly what was in the alcove.

At first it looked like a baby, then Harry realized it looked similar to what Voldemort looked like before his re-birthing ceremony the night of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He turned away. He couldn't bare to look at it longer, besides the fact that it called up memories best forgotten, it really was extremely disturbing in and of itself. He could still hear rustling as it squirmed on the carpet underneath the chair where it lay and the quiet mewing it made occasionally. Harry just wanted to forget all about it until he realized this… creature or whatever it was, was laying inside his mindscape. 'My mind! What was it doing in here?' Harry's thoughts whirled in his mind as he tried to figure out what this meant.

"What is that" Harry whispered, mostly to himself. Harry wasn't sure why Voldemort hadn't attacked him yet but he assumed it had something to do with the little thing in this small corner of his mind. Maybe he knew what it was or maybe he was trying to figure out what it was, either way Harry was sure Voldemort wouldn't answer his question even if he knew, and why should he know? This was Harry's mind. 'Maybe,' Harry thought, 'there is something wrong with me.' Before he could angst anymore a surprising thing happened. Voldemort answered him.

"It isss a piece of my sssoul"

Harry abruptly looked up at this. He looked at Voldemort's profile for a moment, as said Dark Lord seemed to be transfixed with looking at what he had said was a piece of his soul. Voldemort looked odd to Harry in that moment, confused and a little fearful. Then It hit Harry like a bludger to the gut. 'A piece of his SOUL?' Harry screamed inwardly. 'How in the Hell did I get a piece of his soul inside me?' Harry didn't even want to think of the implications of such a thing, knowing instinctively that Voldemort was telling the truth. This would mean as long as Harry lived with this piece of soul in him that Voldemort could not truly die. Right? The thought of this alone made Harry faintly sick and fearful. 'How did this happen?' Silence settled in the room for a few moments until Harry thought he had figured it out. That night. That god forsaken night that ruined his life. It just kept getting worse and worse didn't it? It had to be connected in some way.

"What did you do?" Harry asked quietly, furiously, and with no little sense of panic. He tried to pretend he didn't hear the quaver in his voice or feel his sinuses prickling.

"I think you have figured that out all ready, boy." Voldemort's voice was low and menacing as if warning Harry off of further questions. Voldemort was slowly walking toward his soul piece with and unsure look on his face, well as unsure as one could look with such a disfigured visage. Harry, however, was not to be dissuaded. Being spurred on by his raging emotions Harry stepped in front of the other man, fully faced the most feared Dark Lord to ever live, face red, livid green eyes glowing and yelled in all his anguish

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU DO TOM?"

The Dark Lord looked the young man in the face then, red eyes glowing just as fiercely as green and hissed dangerously back, "Do not call me that!"

"I'll call you anything I damn well please!" Harry raged back. "This is my mind, and I want to know how a piece of your soul came to be here!" Harry was breathing heavily in rage and fear. He was afraid. Did this mean he had to die for Voldemort to be killed? Did Dumbledore know what the true nature of the connection between them was? The thought alone made Harry weak at the needs. 'No.' He thought firmly. 'Dumbledore wouldn't have kept this from me if he had known.' Harry thought furiously. 'Right?' The raven haired youth could feel his heart sinking even as he tried to reassure himself of the Headmaster ignorance. 'Maybe this is why he is keeping such a distance between us this year? I just can't think about that right now. I have other things to worry about.' And indeed he did.

The Dark Lord, it seemed, had come to what senses he still possessed and was looking furious at Harry for his defiance. He just couldn't understand how it had happened. How had he, Lord Voldemort, not known that the boy who he had been trying to kill since he was 15 months old was a horcrux. A soul container. It was extremely worrisome, but what bothered him more was the fact that it seemed the piece of his soul had not been absorbed into the boy after all this time. It seemed to have little to no effect other than the mind connection. The Weasley girl, he had be told, had succumbed to the effects of his horcrux diary rather quickly. She had been possessed a few times before the diary was ultimately destroyed by the boy who's mind he was currently occupying. 'His magic must have been fighting the effects of it all this time.' Voldemort thought to himself with no little wonder. The fact that Potter had been able to subconsciously fight his horcrux and yet had still been able to have functioning magic at the level he had been practicing at meant he was extremely powerful. 'Perhaps he is closer to me in power then I originally thought.'

Leaving his soul piece here couldn't be tolerated. He was powerful but he would not be able to keep this piece of his soul safe if it remained in this slip of a boy. He had to act. He needed to re-absorb this piece into the larger piece he still retained inside himself. He had all ready lost the diary because of the foolish actions of Lucius Malfoy, he could not afford to lose another, even if he had not known of its existence until just a few minutes prior. He was unsure of the repercussion of how the whole would absorb this soul piece since it had resided in someone else's for such a long period of time. It would also mean Potter's power would no longer be concentrating on protecting him for being possessed and would therefore be available to him for use. He would turn into a more formidable opponent as a result. It didn't matter. He usually didn't do things hastily but he knew any moment he would have to stop possessing the boy, what had seemed like minutes inside this dream-scape, he knew, had only be a moment outside it. This boy couldn't keep this piece in him, even as poetic as it seemed to be, the boy simply couldn't be dealt with until it was back within his own soul and out of the youths. He would have to chance it.

"I am going to remove it." The Dark Lord said, "You will not interfere" he said in a softer, yet no less menacing tone. Before Harry could even blink twice Voldemort was standing with the soul piece cradled protectively in his arms. It was glowing softly, a reddish sort of light and the Man carrying it seemed to be in extreme pain for a moment before there was a blinding flash and the two had become one. Harry had only a moment to register the fact that Voldemort, although still snake like and pale, now looked somewhat human (he even had a nose!) when as quickly as the possession had started, it was done. Voldemort had left Harry's mind. The last things Harry's brain registered before he slipped gratefully into darkness was blinding pain is his scar, Dumbledore's aged face looking more worried than he had ever seen it, dozens of yelling voices, and lastly, Voldemort (looking troubled and exactly as human as he had last appeared in Harry's dream-scape) grabbing a faintly shocked Bellatrix and apparating away.