I apologise for the very slow update. I've had a lot of RL stuff going on and I have also been addicted to a zombie game (which I have written a Harry Potter crossover with if you wanna check it out. End shameless self plugging.)

Please note there are some images later in this chapter that may be disturbing to some people, so please be careful when reading if you are sensitive to anything gory/creepy.

Disclaimer - Unfortunately, during the wait I was still not able to get ownership of anything you recognise.

AoS

"Hello Harry…I am Doctor Crane."

They were the first words that the doctor ever said to Harry, and insane or not, he knew instantly the man was not to be trusted. He seemed innocent enough; on the surface he appeared as nothing more than a caring doctor, but he could hear the malice behind his words, and he could feel the man's dominating presence surrounding him.

Harry simply stared at him, unblinking. Crane didn't offer his hand but Harry wouldn't have taken it anyway. The doctor smirked slightly and gestured for Harry to have a seat. Harry stumbled his way over to sit down, not taking his eyes off the man. 'Constant vigilance' as Mad-Eye would have said.

"So…" Crane started, flicking through some papers on his desk. "You're a delusional pyromaniac. Seems like you'll fit in just fine at Arkham."

Harry glared at him.

"Now Harry" Crane said, moving around his desk and kneeling by Harry's chair. "I know that where you were before will have done things in a certain way that you may have gotten used to, but I do things very differently." He smirked again, eyes boring into Harry. "But you are now a criminal. You are here as punishment and that is what you are going to get" he finished, hissing in Harry's ear. He leaned even closer to Harry, who shut his eyes and dug his fingers into the arm rest.

'You're too close. You're too close' he thought to himself desperately. The man was not to be trusted and he didn't want him anyway near to him. He chanted the phrase over and over in his head until he felt a large burst of magic energy leave his body, resulting in a loud banging noise, which luckily caused Crane to jump away from him in shock.

The doctor's desk had been completely knocked over and had been smashed into the wall behind. Crane glanced at Harry for a moment; he was close enough to have felt the force coming from Harry, although he must have soon realised there was no plausible explanation and turned his gaze back onto his broken desk.

"Interesting" he murmured, drumming his fingers on his chin. "I don't recall you moving."

He glanced back at Harry, obviously trying to determine if Harry could have possibly done anything. He must have failed at coming up with a way and soon sighed.

"I'll call the guard to take you back now" he said, moving to press the red button to alert the guards to come. "We'll just have an extra long session tomorrow instead."

Harry could have killed the man when he smirked again.

The door soon opened, revealing the man that had dragged Harry to this creep earlier.

"Whoa, what happened here?" he exclaimed, taking in the mess and straight away glaring at Harry.

"Honestly, I really don't know" Crane answered idly, scratching the back of his head. "Bring him back to me early tomorrow. And send someone down to tidy up in here."

The guard nodded in acknowledgement and Harry was led back to his cell where Hunter was watching with mild interest.

"You're back early" he noted.

"The doctor's desk fell over" Harry explained, moving to lie on his bed. He stared up at the white ceiling. It seemed to be a vast expanse of white paint, unblemished and perfect. He then noticed the slight crack towards the bars of their cell. It was small, hardly noticeable and nothing major, but Harry couldn't help but wonder just what if that crack became bigger, spreading across the whole expanse of ceiling, marking it imperfect? Was that crack just the start of something bigger to come; something unfixable? Was that what all these magical outbursts were? Just the start of something worse to come?

He was drawn out of his musings by a hard slap across his face. He turned and glared at Hunter, ignoring the stinging on his cheek.

"Hello? I've called you like ten times and you've ignored me" Hunter said, eyes focusing somewhere in the background.

"Sorry" Harry replied, turning away from him and staring at the wall next to him. This wall was noticeably cracked and grubby too. He reached out his hand and ran his fingers over the sides, feeling the imperfections.

He gasped as a hand covered his, and he felt a body move behind him while another arm went around his stomach.

"Can I just hold you for a bit?" he heard Hunter whisper in his ear, and Harry nodded, afraid to say no. He couldn't rely on his wandless magic given how uncontrollable it was, but he hoped it would kick in should his cellmate try anything on. The man just seemed content with holding Harry for whatever reason, although the hardness he could feel behind him suggested it wasn't entirely innocent. It was only later that Harry realised they were both crying.

AoS

Harry had been awake for a while when a guard came for him the next morning. Hunter had at some point in the night rolled off Harry and onto the floor, although whether this was intentional or not he didn't know.

Being in a criminally insane institution was a lot different to the previous hospital he was in. Back there they had their own rooms and were free to leave to go to the dining or living areas whenever they wanted, although they needed permission to leave the building. At Arkham however, it was pretty much a prison, only with more insane inmates and weird doctors. They were given uniforms at Arkham as well, which could only be described as typical prison gear. They didn't seem to use straightjackets all too often though, although Harry hadn't really been there long enough to be sure of that.

Indeed now, rather than being tied, Harry simply had a strong arm pulling him along. He didn't doubt that if he tried anything that there wouldn't be any guards coming to stop him almost instantaneously; there seemed to be cameras everywhere.

The place Harry was being led to this time seemed different than before, and as he was shoved into the room he found it was fairly empty, only with two plastic chairs and a table so small the folder resting on it covered it. Obviously Crane still wasn't sure about him.

Crane was sat stiffly in one of the chairs, a leather bag resting against his legs. He soon noticed the evil glint in his eyes was gleaming even more strongly than usual.

"Good morning Harry. Please have a seat" the doctor offered, briefly flashing a small fake smile.

Harry shook his head.

"Now Harry, this is no way to be acting for your doctor. I am here to help you" Crane said, staring at Harry intently. "Let me ask you something Harry. When you set things on fire, is it because you're trying to get anything off your mind? Any fears?"

The way Crane put so much emphasis on the word fears made Harry gulp. That and the way he was staring at Harry made him back slowly towards the door, an action that did not go unnoticed by Crane.

"Oh, don't worry, it's locked" Crane smirked, reaching down and picking his bag up. "Hey, Harry. You're what, seventeen?"

Harry nodded.

"That's pretty young. Like a child. When I was a child, I had a thing for scarecrows" the doctor said, once again his emphasis making Harry shiver. "What do you think to scarecrows Harry? My patients here, well they can't get enough of them."

The doctor started to rummage through his bag, oblivious to Harry trying to break the door down. He soon found what he was looking for, and started to advance on Harry, his hands behind his back, hiding whatever he had been looking for.

"You know Harry. I don't think I've ever heard you say one word. But don't worry; your screams will be all I need."

Harry felt his eyes widen as Crane put on a scarecrow mask and sprayed a gas into Harry's face. Almost instantly the whole room changed and Crane had vanished. The walls were dripping blood, pooling on the floor. He could feel the air cold as if there were thousands of Dementors, and he could see the black swirls of their robes all around him. He looked to his side and saw the corpse of Sirius staring blankly at him, but the expression on his face said enough: 'this was your fault'. Bars seemed to come up around him from nowhere, Ron and Hermione on the other side of him, blood dripping from their eyes. And then Ginny; Ginny holding up the small bloodied form of her dead baby. He spun round again, horror filling his mind, when he came face to face with the scarecrow again; the scarecrow with blood dripping from his eyes, rotting skin, maggots crawling out of the holes and sharp teeth, sharp teeth coming to get him.

He fell back screaming, landing on the floor, only to be covered with the blood, and the corpses coming alive, crawling over him…

After what felt like an eternity the images stopped, and he could faintly feel the prick of a needle through his arm. His head felt dizzy and his throat felt raw. He could feel a familiar wetness on his cheeks. Everything seemed to be fading away, back into the plain views of the room he had been in. Crane was standing above him, a wicked grin on his face.

"Interesting" the doctor mused as if the whole situation was nothing big, his eyes flashing over as he carried on staring at Harry intently. "We'll do this again soon" he said pressing the button for the guard.

Harry had never been so happy to see a guard before in his life.

"He's a scarecrow. He's a scarecrow" Harry muttered as he was pulled through the corridors. "Doctor is a scarecrow."

The guard simply shook his head and ignored the teenager. So long as he was in a mental hospital nobody would believe a word he said.

Hunter looked him up and down when he was shoved back into his cell. He imagined he must look pretty dishevelled but he couldn't find it in him to care.

He went straight to his bed, pulling the covers up over his face. It was all Ron and Hermione's fault. They had said all those horrible things and got him sent here. Granted they had sent him somewhere nicer first but they knew having magical problems in a muggle institute was never going to work out. They must have planned it to get rid of him. Oh but he was going to get out and they were going to pay.

AoS

He didn't know how many days it had been, but the ones that followed his second appointment with Doctor Crane were like days from Hell.

Crane wasn't his only doctor; there was another one, a Doctor Taylor, who was incredibly quick to anger and had lashed out at him a few times, although never hard enough to leave behind marks. He'd have gladly taken the marks and bruises then spend anymore time with Crane.

Every time the scarecrow mask had come out and he had been forced to relive his worst fears. Crane would change his tactics each time; sometimes it wouldn't go on for as long, others times it went on for ages. The images seemed to vary in realism, which he guessed might have been to do with the dosage of the gas he was spraying at him.

He was quick to realise that Crane was clearly insane himself, and was performing some wacked out experiments on him.

If that wasn't bad enough, he couldn't even escape in his cell. Hunter had started to constantly be on him; not trying anything personal, but he kept a tight grip on him, and he had taken to touching his skin what felt like all the time.

He had only had one magical outburst since the table incident, this time knocking the man in the cell opposite him crashing into the wall and smashing his head open, although they didn't even consider blaming Harry for it.

He wished he could control his magic better but he couldn't seem to get ahold of himself. He was pretty exhausted, mainly because of what Crane was putting him through. Seeing his fears come alive at the time was draining enough but he had started to have the same images as nightmares now, causing him to wake up screaming every night. He imagined he couldn't perform a basic spell in his state even if he had a wand.

He had found that counting to seven in his head calmed him down at times. The number seven reminded him of Voldemort and the Horcruxes, but it also reminded him of the Wizarding World. Although he found it a great comfort, he also found it made him feel bitter. He had almost been exiled from their world, and sent to another where everyone was out to get him.

The entire world was against him, and he had to accept that. He would break out of Arkham no matter what, and then it would be time to watch the world burn.

AoS

I hope that was worth the wait. I got really into this chapter. Insane!Harry is fun to write. I promise next chapter will be out sooner. I've had a proper sort through of my fics so now I only have two on the go so I won't be mixed up with them all.

P.S I would be super grateful if anyone could do some fanart for this story for me please ^.^