Title: Mad ministers and concussions are dangerous combinations.
Summary: Sequel to: The dark Lord's ward. The minister has gone mad & Harry runs away from 'home'.
Warnings: AU,Slash, some language and One mention of anti-Christ...
Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own this, just borrowing characters and writing a different story for them ; )

Important note: In this fanfic Neville's parents are sane, and Bellatrix is just slightly crazy... Oh, and there are no Horocruxes by the way.

There had arisen some problems when the summer after Harry's fifth year came around. Papers had been sent in for a Tom Riddle to adopt a certain Harry James Potter. The problems, as mentioned, were that they had not been approved. So, against everyone's wishes, Harry Potter had been sent back to his relatives for the summer.

It didn't seem to matter that they could prove that Harry's relatives abused him or that Tom was perfectly capable to take care of a soon-to-be sixteen-year-old. The ministry just turned them down, and didn't even look at the proof. Dumbledore couldn't convince them otherwise, not even Lucius Malfoy's influence seemed to have any effect on them.

Of course, they all figured, this was all Fudge's fault. That man was so damn power- hungry it was insane. When the Minister had finally realised the Dark Lord was back again it was already too late for him to act. 'Cause by then, there was no Dark Lord anymore and in his place this man; Tom Riddle, had showed up. Or well, come back more like it. Fudge, of course, blamed Dumbledore and everyone else at Hogwarts, and now the Minister feared that Dumbledore and his cronies tried to take over the ministry. Why they'd do that Harry had no idea, but that was what the Minister suspected. So, since Dumbledore already had that much power Fudge pulled all the strings he had to show that he still made the decisions concerning magical Britain. And, apparently, the best way to show this was to decline Harry's adoption. There were rumours going that the Minister would apply for the adoption himself. And Harry had no wish for that to happen! No matter how much he hated it at the Dursleys, he would never go anywhere with that lunatic.

Sure, Harry was fully aware that the man he wished to adopt him was the same man who had killed his parents. But Tom had explained that he had never wished for that to happen, it seemed that the Dark Lord Voldemort and Tom Riddle were two different personalities. And, while they shared body, they were completely different. And that prophecy(that Harry had heard from the headmaster himself) had scared the Dark Lord so much that Tom Riddle had almost vanished completely, but he had been able to take control eventually, but by then all the killings had already happened, and shortly after he had been reduced to nothing but a spirit. When he had returned the Voldemort personality had been there for a short while, but Tom had fought against him and then started to make amends for all the hurt his other personality had caused. And, thanks to a lot of therapy, the Voldemort persona was now gone completely, and his eyes had returned to their normal colour, not even a sparkle of red in them. It had even been proven that the prophecy had been fake.

Now though, Harry felt like it was the summer after his first year all over again. Canned soup once a day through the cat flap in the door, and bathroom breaks twice or thrice a day. This time, the only difference was that his Uncle Vernon was not afraid of him anymore and completely convinced that he couldn't use any magic against him, which resulted in daily beatings.
It was after one of these beatings Harry lay on his bed, playing with a golden chain around his neck. This golden chain held a golden ring. This was the ring that proved that Harry Potter was now the fiancé to a certain Slytherin Prince, Draco Malfoy. Harry smiled a bit when he remembered. They had exchanged rings shortly after getting together: It had been a moonlit night, not a full moon though, since Remus would have been out running then. But nevertheless it had been perfect. They had stood under the tree by the lake that Harry used to lie under. The lake had sparkled in the moonlight and the sound of the waves and chirping of the crickets had set a perfect mood to the event. It had been just the two of them. They had kissed for a while and just looked out over the lake. But then they had had to get inside again before it was discovered that they were gone.

Harry was glad that Draco had put a spell over the ring so it couldn't be seen by muggles, otherwise his relatives would have tried to sell it.
Harry, as mentioned before, lay on his bed. It ached all over his body and he was sure at least one of his ribs was broken. He was fully dressed even though he should be asleep by now. He could hear his relatives snore down the hall. But, the sudden click of the locks on his door made him sit up straight, what now?
"Harry, are you awake?"
"Dudley?" Harry startled a bit by the sudden appearance of his cousin in the doorway.
"Shh, be quiet. Listen, I've put all of your stuff by the door. Dad is a heavy sleeper and didn't notice when I nicked the key. You should leave now."
Harry sat for a moment, a bit confused, but when his brain registered what Dudley had said he got up with a quiet moan and followed his cousin down the stairs, after taking Hedwig's cage; he had let the owl go home with Draco for the time being to assure her safety. He saw his trunk by the door. When they arrived to where the trunk was Harry looked up at his cousin, the question shining in his eyes. Dudley sighed a bit, looking sad:
"I know I haven't been kind to you over the years and I'm not asking you to forgive me. But I have finally realised that no one should be treated as you have been here. So, I... I tried to tell dad, but he just laughed it off. I'm sorry, I think it was because of me he beat you tonight. Since I couldn't convince them I decided to let you out myself. You should go now."
Harry smiled a bit, grateful:
"I don't blame you. You were raised by people who were convinced I didn't deserve happiness and it, naturally, rubbed of on you. Thank you, Dudley. I wish you a good and happy life."
"You too."
They shook hands and hugged, then Harry ventured out in the night.

Draco Malfoy was angry. He was angry at the ministry and especially the minister himself. That stupid man! How dare he? Who was he to decide that his Harry was to be sent back to those disgusting muggles? Harry Potter was Draco's fiancé, his, and they should be together, or at least allowed to see each other regularly. And, on top of everything, Harry's birthday was soon and they should celebrate. He wanted to take Harry here to have a party, but then the ministry would probably accuse him and his family for kidnapping. And, what really annoyed Draco, no one stood up to that stupid minister, except for Draco, his family, Tom and the other former followers and Harry's friends. Okay, they were quite a lot who stood up to the minister, but not the people how could actually do something about it. And people were still wary of Tom and didn't really trust him, and Fudge had convinced almost everyone at the ministry and the rest of the wizarding world(well, the British part of that world) that Dumbledore was going senile from old age and was not to be trusted. It still surprised Draco how easily convinced they all were. Gullible fools, the lot of them!
He turned hastily towards the door when it cracked open:
"Draco? It's late. You should be in bed." It was Lucius standing there.
"Father! I thought you were asleep?"
"It is rather hard to sleep hearing you stomping around in here," Lucius now stood in the room, eyebrows raised in silent question.
"I was not stomping!" Draco exclaimed, blushing and ignoring the unasked question.
Lucius sighed:
"What is bothering you son?" Lucius sat on the bed, patting the space beside him.
Draco sat, staring at his feet:
"I... It's just frustrating, Harry should be where he belongs. Not at those stupid muggles' house getting beaten. Why can't we just take him from there?" Draco looked up at his father.
"You know why. We're all working on it, and we're making good progress. It seems that Fudge had to bribe and/or threaten a big part of the ministry to get them to ignore the proof we had to prove that the Dursleys were unfit guardians."
"So... What?"
"So, if we convince the ones he did this to, to come out and say it the chance is big for Fudge to lose his post as a minister."
"I see. Think you could get it done before Harry's birthday?"
Lucius laughed:
"We'll try."
"Where is mother by the way?"
"She and Bellatrix went with Sirius to search for Regulus again, they went earlier tonight."
"Oh, all right."

Sirius Black had been cleared of all charges when Peter Pettigrew had turned himself in, to everyone's surprise. Sirius had tried to get custody of Harry as well afterwards, but had been denied. They blamed his long stay in Azkaban, saying he was a bit mentally unstable and not fit to take care of a child.
And Tom had told Sirius that his brother, Regulus, hadn't been killed. He had simply, vanished, in other words fled. So, since Sirius couldn't take care of his godson, and he had to do something so he didn't get bored, he had set out to search for Regulus. Narcissa, Bellatrix and Remus often joined him on these searches.
Draco's thoughts were interrupted by his father's voice:
"Go to sleep now Dragon. You'll see, it will all be worked out."
"Okay, good night Father."
"Good night, son," Lucius said, walking out of the room.

Harry had been walking for quite awhile. He didn't dare take the Knight bus, there was a risk that someone from the ministry would be there. Yeah, he was paranoid, go figure, that usually happened when you spent lot of time with Slytherins.
He had been walking for about three hours, according to his wrist-watch. And, in all honesty, he had no idea where he was going. He had a vague idea as to where Tom lived, which wasn't that far from the Malfoy Manor. But, he had no idea whether he went the right way. He had just started walking and went where his feet took him. It was not until after he was completely lost he realised he should have some sort of goal to go to.
When he looked around he was in the middle of nowhere. It was some sort of road, a very desolate road and trees grew at the side of the road. He wondered how fast he had walked if it only had been three hours since he started from Privet Drive. And as far as he knew, an area like this was nowhere close to Privet Drive. Was it possible he had apparated? But then, how could he have apparated to a place he didn't even know where it was? He shook his head to clear it from these confusing thoughts. He felt very confused at this point, and a bit dizzy. He blamed it on all those sleepless nights he had had at the Dursleys. He noticed he had bit of a difficult to breathe as well. Ah, right, the broken rib. Huh, funny how you could forget about your own hurting body like that. But then again, adrenalin always did that. And he had certainly needed that adrenalin rush if he was going to get as far away from the Dursleys as possible. And look, here he was... What was he doing on the ground? Hadn't he been standing just recently? And... why was the world spinning? Or maybe it was he, himself that was spinning. That made sense, sort of... Merlin, why did he feel so light-headed all of a sudden? And what was that infernal noise?
"BEEP!" There it was again!
"BEEP!" Turn down the volume, please.
He looked to his left. Ah, it was that muggle vehicle that made the disturbing noise. What was it called again? Oh, right, a car. But, why was it speeding right towards him?
Then he lost consciousness.

Draco was frantic. Harry had been missing for a week. Apparently he had left the muggles' house in the middle of the night, and now no one knew where he was! They were all looking, at the same time as they tried to get Fudge out of his office. The truth about the minister had leaked out(accidently on purpose) to the papers three days ago, and now everyone knew about the minister's sneaky side. He was actually more clever than he appeared. And now everyone were pissed and demanded the minister resigned immediately. Fudge had answered by barricade himself at his office, claiming that as long as he stayed in the office he was still minister. So now it was official, the minister had finally lost it. Not that Draco, or any of the others, was surprised. It had been rather expected, and he had always been crazy in a way. But it had never been more obvious than now.

But at the moment, Draco couldn't care less. His Harry was missing for crying out loud! Anything could have happened. What if he was hurt? What if he'd been abducted by some creepy old man who had some sort of fascination with raven haired sixteen-year-olds? Well, Harry wasn't sixteen yet. But still! Or maybe some sort of cult had gotten him, and tried to make Harry join them and then use Draco's precious Harry to do weird experiments with to give birth to anti-Christ, whoever the hell that was(he was a pure-blooded wizard, he didn't know much about religions). Okay, that last one wasn't very likely. But Draco couldn't think very logically right now, his loved one had gone missing. For a week! That was just... well there weren't any words for the sort of frantic anxiousness Draco was feeling right now. They had looked everywhere where it was likely Harry could have gone, and everywhere it wasn't likely he would go, which made it a good place to be at if he was hiding since no one would look there.

No Harry anywhere! And now, the only places left to look were the hospitals. And by Merlin, Draco hoped he wouldn't be there, 'cause that would mean he was hurt. 'Please Harry,' he thought. 'Don't be hurt, please please...'
And the search went on.

It was all white around him. Yep, definitely a hospital. The smell of sickness and medicine confirmed that suspicion. Why was he at a hospital by the way? Something about a car... Had he been hit by the car? He remembered now, it had been speeding towards him. But, all the damages on his body were the ones Vernon had given him, no new ones. So he couldn't had been hit by the car.
"Ah good, you're awake," a cheery voice sounded beside him.
He looked into the eyes of someone who obviously was a nurse, judging by her clothes:
"So it would seem yes. Could you tell me what happened?" He asked.
"A man found you sitting on the road. He hit the breaks just in time so he didn't run you over. Then he took you here."
"And where is here? I mean, I know it is a hospital, but exactly where in England am I?"
"Manchester. Now dear, could you tell me your parents' phone number so I can contact them? You had nothing on you that gave us any clues to who you are, not even an I.D card. And it wouldn't be nice of us to break into that trunk of yours."
What? Manchester? But, that was really far from Privet Drive. He had walked to Manchester? He shook his head to clear the thoughts whirling around in his head in order to answer the nurse, thankful that they hadn't gone through his trunk, all his valuable stuff were in there(he had shrunk Hedwig's cage and put that in there as well, the shrinking spell was so small it wasn't detected as easily as other spells):
"I have no parents, they are dead."
The nurse looked horrified:
"I'm so sorry... I... Who should we contact then for you? Aunt or Uncle perhaps?"
"No! I... Well, let me think, most of them don't have phones." He explained.
The nurse looked at him as if he was insane. He understood why, most people these days had phones, at least according to her. Then she nodded:
"Very well, be careful about the head, you had a bad concussion when you arrived, which was about a week ago by the way. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, I have other patients to see to."
He nodded and she left. Well let's see: The Longbottoms? No, they were nice but still pureblood and didn't know much about muggle devices. Tom might be half-blood, but he wasn't any good at handling most of the things muggles invented. Hm... He didn't want to call the Grangers', they were muggles and lived far away from where he was so it would be a lot of hassle for them to get there. Wizards of age could apparate, so it wouldn't be as hard for them to get there. But, did he know any fully grown witch or wizard with a phone? Snape! Of course, Snape had grown up in a muggle neighbourhood where he still lived by the way. Actually not far from where his mother had lived. Now let's see, where was that again? Right, Spinner's end, which was actually rather close to Manchester, if Harry was correct. He told this to the nurse who looked it up in a phone book. When she had dialled the number and received the familiar beeping that told it was ringing she gave the phone to Harry:
"Snape residence," he heard his professor's voice in the other end, he sounded tired.
"Hi Severus, it's me..."
"Harry! Where the hell are you? Where have you been? Have you any idea how worried we have been? I..."
"Severus! Calm down, please. I'm fine. Well, except for a small concussion and other small wounds and whatnots. Listen..."
He told Severus where he was and how he had got there and everything that had happened. Severus told him that he would be there as soon as he had told everybody else about it.

So, it had worked out fine in the end. Harry was finally where he belonged, a new minister had been elected and the adoption of Harry Potter by Tom Riddle had been approved. The new minister by the way was Kingsley Shacklebolt. And Fudge had been sent to St Mungos.

Right now they were all celebrating Harry's birthday at Malfoy Manor. They were all there; the Weasley family, the Longbottom family(Alice Longbottom had made the birthday cake), Dumbledore, the Malfoys, Tom, Snape, other Slytherins Harry was friends with, Hermione, Remus. The only one missing was Sirius.

Suddenly the party was interrupted by the doors banging open:
"I FOUND HIM!" Sirius shouted happily.
Next to Sirius a man, who obviously was Regulus, was standing looking a bit nervous. The two of them looked very alike. The only things that weren't alike were; Regulus was shorter than his brother, his hair was almost as long as Sirius's but it was dark brown instead of black, his facial features were a bit sharper and his lips were fuller. Otherwise they looked very much alike.
Narcissa and Bellatrix were the first one to go over there and hugged the man. Everyone else who didn't know Regulus either shook his hand or nodded as greeting. But Regulus seemed to look beyond all of them, his eyes fixed on the further left corner of the room. When Harry turned to see what it was that distracted Regulus he saw Snape. Snape stared directly into Regulus' eyes, he looked paler than he used to, but his eyes held a sparkle Harry had never seen before.
Regulus separated then from the people who tried to shake hands with him and went straight up to Severus and... kissed him! Okay, that was unexpected. Sirius's mouth was hanging open and he looked like he was ready to curse Severus when a high-pitched laugh that only could be described as gleeful went through the room:
"Hah, I knew it! I knew you were gay Sev, I just knew it." There stood Lucius Malfoy, looking rather pleased with himself.

'Well,' Harry thought, 'as long as everyone are happy.'
Then he went straight up to his own beloved and kissed him, hard on the mouth.

The End

Authors Note: Okay, just so you know. I'm not British. So if any of the locations are wrong I apologize for that. According to Google, Spinner's End doesn't even exist, but if it did it probably would be close to Manchester, so... Anyway, I have no idea where this idea came from, I just wanted to write something, I apologize if there are any grammatical errors. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And if you didn't like it, well, why then have you read this far?