Aegri Somnia

Latin- A sick man's dreams (Horace)

VERY A.U-y NOLANVERSE

Author's long-ass note: Okay okay, before you all shoot me comic-book fans, I know the Batman franchise has a long rich historical tapestry and what I do know I've recovered from Google and my comic-book obsessive friend. This will probably have holes in it due to the fact I'm not monstrously into the DC universe. The following is written with the Batman live action Nolanverse in mind with elements pulled from the comics to flesh out a history that the movies did not include or did not elaborate on. Don't shoot me fellow nerds.

HarryxDr Crane. PrisonerHarry, Lemon, Yaoi & Adult situations etc. R&R...well..'tis not mandatory to review but I do rather like it. It lets me know what you think and I rather like keeping my finger on the pulse. Reviewing helps with that. Hintedy hint hint. This chapter may also paint my own views on American politics in one or two references, but many governments have corruption...and I'm born and raised here in the UK, so honestly I don't give two shits about the Dems vs Repubs in the USA. I'm just putting this out there so I don't get people pointing and complaining about it.

Democrats look weak, republicans look stupid and frankly most political parties have their faults, I just don't care so please don't bother complaining.

Now, psychology students, please don't shoot me either. Just enjoy the show.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or the Batman franchise.

The next session the following day in room seven actually involved very little therapy. It was quite simply a relatively normal conversation between a convicted man and another, who had an experience with the court system. Harry and Dr. Crane were talking about a parole hearing and what he'd need to even stand a chance.

For a horrible moment Harry found his hope disintegrate, he'd need a good lawyer and good lawyers costed money and his assets were frozen upon his incarceration.

Crane must have seen it on his face because his expression changed and Harry found himself even more indebted to the man who quickly said he had connections. He knew Falcone's old lawyer quite well, if anything he could make the guy who got OJ Simpson off look like a hack. Even luckier for Harry was that Crane knew how to get around the man and call upon a favour.

"But they cost money – ," began Harry softly, he usually hated charity but he needed whatever he could get but the guilt of accepting it still plunged into him as it would have before his incarceration.

"—That I have more then enough of, I assure you," cut in Dr. Crane smoothly.

"You're going above and beyond," mumbled Harry, cogs turning in his mind.

"There's another reason isn't there? Why you're doing all of this? I'm pretty sure it's not your conscience," stated Harry dryly at a man he could regard as semi-amoral.

Dr. Crane's fingers knotted into each other as he looked at Harry critically who was staring back at him unblinkingly. He could quite easily read the look on his face; he was hoping there was an iota of emotional attachment that could explain why he was going to such lengths to help him with his parole. Harry knew it was either that or he was being used for something, that was always how things had been.

"What makes you say it's not my conscience?" said Dr. Crane coolly, though not offended.

Harry was flustered for a moment, he didn't want to risk anything that'd insult his therapist accidentally, though the man was hard to insult, Harry did not feel like being thrown into the desk. Even if after what they'd did later such an action would not have constituted anger or apology if it happened now, Harry wasn't sure how far it would go and the last thing he wanted was to lose himself completely over Crane.

Or maybe he did want that but was too nervous about it since his stint in emotionally damaging facilities and his abysmal romantic past.

"Well err… you tend to switch those kinds of feelings on and off," reasoned Harry.

"Why would I resist to such feelings when they come to you though?" said Dr. Crane calmly.

"Why wouldn't you? You've told me some stuff about you doc, you like picking the brains of nutters, it's why you work here isn't it?" began Harry and continued as Crane gave him a careful look and seemed to be mulling over every word dripping from his mouth with deep concentration.

"You told me about the gas stuff you used, about how you practically investigate fear and God only knows why you do what you do," actually Harry could take a fair few guesses as to why Crane did it, but didn't think he knew the man long enough to make such judgements.

"-but I haven't been reacting have I? The first few sessions after you got what you needed down on my file, it was baiting me wasn't it? Testing on me? I kind of figured it out after but I never called you on it but now you're going too far," finished Harry, tugging a piece of his white sleeved Arkham garb guiltily.

"Too far?" Dr. Crane's voice practically demanded that Harry elaborate, he didn't understand, he stopped the testing for now and the whole talk of parole was something they both wanted but the second he mentioned costs for lawyers suddenly Harry was backpedaling like crazy.

"I didn't care too much when it compromised my health and I probably should have, but now I'm compromising your finances, it's someone other then myself who's paying for my essential release which isn't guaranteed. Is it too wrong that the guilt of this is niggling at me horribly?" when Harry finished saying that, Crane wouldn't be surprised if his normally stoic face hadn't betrayed utter shock, surprise even.

"I tested on you Harry," said Crane very slowly "-I've gone beyond my jurisdiction as your psychotherapist, but when I am trying to legitimately help you, you accuse me of going 'too far'?" Crane couldn't help it… he chuckled.

Harry shrank a bit in the chair as a baritone chuckle reached his ears, though not a spiteful one. He looked at Dr. Crane to see slight mirth glittering in the depths of his deep blue irises.

"I admit, a large part of my help is to get you released into my custody specifically. There are my 'research reasons' like when I took your blood sample to find out why no medication worked on you, but I admit you've grown on me." Crane chose his next words very carefully because truthfully he tried desperately to avoid thinking about the non patient-doctor side of their relationship because it was immensely confusing.

Dr. Jonathan Crane hated being confused and confusing things in general.

Harry looked at Crane carefully and nodded, appreciating the man's honesty. So, there had been ulterior motives but when pushed the doctor revealed them quite easily. Harry Potter realized something else too; it was possibly for someone to have conflicting motives –good motives and purely business ones. It was possible for someone to use someone as means to an end and still care about them. Just like Dumbledore did for him –but at the time Harry had not understood how that was possible and assumed it was manipulation.

Now he understood.

Unlike Dumbledore though, Crane had been forthcoming with his business ends when asked directly.

"So the end of yesterday's session…," said Harry meekly, which didn't suit the eighteen-year-old-adult too much considering his normal casual lethargy and serious-calmness "—you liked it?"

"Yes, and I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why everyone outside of this room will see it as 'wrong'," stated Crane curtly.

"I know, I know, I read the stupid book," for a moment they both wondered what became of the Erotic Transference book but then discarded the thought "—the key is secrecy, I can take a hint," said Harry with a minor blush. The whole thing felt rather sordid considering the forbidden nature of their intimacy –but isn't that what made such relationships…exciting?

A huge portion of romance novelists and those addicted to a dangerous kind of love would agree.

"What do you see this as though?" asked Harry hesitantly.

"You interest me Harry," said Crane carefully "—you're quite the mystery. There's an appeal in that, as in the fact you're able to think of me as something…physically pleasing," it was weird to say it and even weirder to believe it. But Crane felt himself shift from side to side slightly as Harry gave him a measuring look.

He felt Harry staring at his arms which, personally he always saw them to be disproportionate, too long. His childhood was filled with cruelty and bullies who had called him 'Ichabod' after a character from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Growing up he was shunned for his lanky frame, long arms and spindly legs. Stick-insect, spider, 'Ichabod', 'Scarecrow' were what they called him, the latter two being the most popular until he grew a tongue that developed a taste for vengeance and fear against his bullies. Then it was against everyone who had wronged him no matter how minor, and then to the half-innocent –criminally insane 'crazies'. Innocents in general…

"Maybe I don't know where the other feelings I am associating with you are coming from, but they are real," said Crane flatly, revealing that he was just as confused as Harry was. Normally he would have no such qualms about testing or using someone and he would not have developed the feelings that he had.

"You're sure?"

"I believe so,"

After that when either of them tried to remember back to what exactly was said afterward it was nothing but a blur of body movement and teasing that bordered sensual.

Jonathan Crane could remember being enthusiastically pressed into the therapist chair by his sanest patient and feeling fingers running through his hair and left artfully disheleved.

Normally he didn't think his past needing digging up, his life devotion to conquering fear, dominating it and becoming it to instil fears in those who wronged him gave him the security that he'd gotten past it. It didn't bother him, it didn't haunt his dreams but it did affect the perception he had of himself even though he did not think it did. He still thought himself somewhat ugly. He didn't think there was anything wrong with his face, but it was his body. He felt himself to be disproportionate to a point.

Such thoughts were being slowly weeded out and sanded down when Harry began to lose control for his body and he welcomed it.

They had gotten at their closest until Crane stopped it for some reason when the risk hit him like a ton of bricks.

"The door…it's not got a lock," he had gasped out and just like that the hot moment in therapy room seven died. Harry had frowned slightly and relented, the hand that been teasing him through the fabric of his clothes between his legs came to a gentle stop. Walking out of room seven attempting to fix his disheleved brown hair and awkwardly hiding an erection as he got out of Arkham was one of the more embarrassing moments he'd had in a while.

Crane was still kicking himself over making Harry stop in case someone came in.

It was in his dreams now which made him feel bizarrely young, though only twenty he felt himself too old to be waking up in pools of sweat from fantasies that were enough to make anyone blush to the point they wouldn't look at their own reflection.

"Focus. Work," he mumbled to himself as he left Arkham early the following day after a quick consultation with Harry –who had pleaded with him to stay, but he insisted their session had to be a short one so he could work from home for the day.

Normally this would not be allowed, all work within Arkham Asylum was centred there and not to be taken out of its walls unless moved to another official building that kept hold of patient's data. However, Dr. Crane was the leading psychologists [former professor in the subject also] of the state with numerous prizes and other responsibilities acknowledged by the Arkham administrative board. They let him work the rest of the day at home on what he simply made up as private and separate studies into the field that he required time at home to look at. So they granted it him and didn't really question it.

Dr. Crane found himself staring again at Harry's documents that he shouldn't have taken with him without proper authority but did so anyway. He spent all day calling up the mysterious agencies involved with Harry's incarceration. He was sure his phone bills were now astronomical from so many calls out of the USA to Britain.

He was talking to numerous people that were using careful euphemisms he could not quite figure out, it was like there was a monumental secret that was being kept from him as the fact he had the numbers to the mysterious British grouping within government that had involvement with the imprisonment of Harry Potter.

Whatever secret it was, clearly Harry knew what it was and told him that it was guarded by the 'Statute of Secrecy' hence why nobody was revealing it to Crane.

All he knew was a mysterious sect within the British government was involved with the incarceration of Harry Potter, calling itself 'The Ministry'. One of the agencies listed was called 'The British Ministry-to-Muggle Relations Centre,' which was involved with something called 'The Cleaners [Obliviators]'.

Questions ran clear through Crane's mind when he finally hung up his phone and let out a long withering sigh.

What the hell was a 'Muggle' and 'The Cleaners [Obliviators]'?

Crane felt that whatever was going on stank of 'conspiracy' and where there was this much secrecy and government entanglement there's the increase of danger. Through careful analysis and calls he made where he bluffed and waffled and pretended to know who the hell he was talking to when he inquired about Harry Potter's movements from Britain and history there before he came to Gotham. He was able to draw that whoever 'The Cleaners [Obliviators]' were, they were a force he would probably do well not to attract their attention by being found out he had no idea who he was talking to.

"What in the name of Science is all of this?" he felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple. There had been few breakthroughs of him attempting to find out what 'The Statute of Secrecy' hid and Harry's mysterious past in Britain, Azkaban…only more questions which he was sure Harry probably would not answer or could not due to the statute.

He questioned Harry about it the next day anyway.

"A lot of people hurt me back there; I wish you'd tell me when you go digging. If you ask questions in the wrong way, people will be after you and I don't want that to happen," he didn't want his therapist to be obliviated for uncovering the secret of the magical world's existence accidentally. He didn't want it. He liked Jonathan Crane, he was the only man to show him any kind of compassion and even he was corrupt yet he had not lost sight of helping him. Harry still liked him and found a taste of happiness with him.

So fuck the magical world, they would not take Crane from him.

"I don't want them to take you away, so please stop digging," pleaded Harry, with desperation glowing within the depths of his green iris's when he looked at Crane who was trying to remain unperturbed by the fact he was digging up something that could very well put him in danger.

" 'Them' ?" queried Crane lightly.

"You know who! The people who you rang! Just stop! I'll tell you I swear! It's just I can't right now!" said Harry awkwardly but with a fiery passion that made his lethargy again, disappear as it often did around Crane.

"Fine, but why can't you tell me now?" asked Crane, dying to know.

"Because...you wouldn't believe it yet," said Harry mysteriously. He resolved he would tell Crane as soon as the mental blockade that was just stopping his innate magic was healed, as soon as the nightmares that were slowly retreating and hurting less from his sessions with Dr. Crane disappeared completely and he regained control over his magic. He would show Jonathan Crane what it was, he would tell him everything and hope the muggle still liked him. The Ministry wouldn't find out either because he no longer had wand to track and hopefully, he would still have a person to hold at the end of it all.

Crane just sighed, he longed for more transparency between them despite what they already had.

At least he knew he'd find out, Harry promised him he would.

He just had to wait, until then, he had a lot of other aspects to Harry other then his mysterious past to investigate...or enjoy.

The mayor of Gotham was knee-deep in shit, crime had always been an issue there but their Dark Knight -the Batman had always protected them even though they were always at war with the vigilante. The press was riled up by the death of the recently promoted Rachel Dawes who was well on her way to being the head of the Justice Department and it had happened in police quarters, amidst those appointed to protect Gotham. A killer had gotten in, killed a prized face of justice right after the deceased-insane Harvey Dent. Not even the Batman could have seen it coming and considering The Joker the assassination had been quiet and small-scale, but as promised invoked fear within the entirety of Gotham city through minimal action. He truly was an agent of chaos and he was quite artful about it when he wanted to be. It was causing chaos, the public was in fear and was losing faith in the justice system and police force, everyone in the business knew it was corrupt but the public had been largely unaware until now.

Then, he heard word from Falcone's old lawyer who worked closely with the mayor politically.

There was a sane man in Arkham Asylum, bingo, he found his moniker to show the justice system worked and that their rehabilitation system did. Their criminals could be cured, they could have faith in it, and whats more the trusted and leading psychologist in the states was supporting and pushing for his parole.

He had something for the press to jump their attention to and draw away from The Joker's assassination of Rachel Dawes.

The mayor could use Harry Potter in the way that the Republican party of America had used 'Joe the Plumber' as an image the public could look to, to represent the middle class and gained the Republican party better ratings in the polls (he gained popularity and it worked for a short while...until it failed). Harry Potter could be used to show the face of reformed prisoners and Arkham residents to show the public people like The Joker could be cured. Potter could prove to the public they had a system they could have faith in. The mayor would then also face less criticism and the press would finally show him in a better light.

"Jessica! Get Falcone's lawyer and High Court Judge Faden on the phone! Then get my PR stunt manager to come in," barked the mayor to his secretary. He needed to get the corrupt judge on his side and fix the parole case to make sure Potter gets released either way.

He was going to alert the press, start spread of Potter representing a good reform system and get the parole hearing confirmed and set to be made public. The very renowned Dr. Crane was also on Potter's side due to the fact it was him that was pushing for the man's release.

Things might actually start going well after all.

Too bad the Batman didn't feel like it was.

Both sides of Bruce Wayne mourned the loss of his love, Rachel Dawes and stalked the roofs of Gotham at night with a bloodthirsty urge to bring The Joker to justice.

Bloody justice.

What exactly had that bastard clown have planned that was making him lay reasonably low? The assassination was small-scale and since then nothing Joker-related had been reported.

He must have something planned.