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Chapter Text

Ed stuffs his hands in his pockets and watches with a sharp golden eye as Mustang paces back and forth behind his desk, finally settling into his chair with a deep sigh, fingertips pressing into his temples. 

“Fullmetal, I do hate to do this, but in light of recent events-” he stops again, and squeezes his eyes shut. “Could you- maybe- possibly- find the kindness in the depths of your shrivelled heart to do a tiny favor for your favorite commanding officer? Completely off the record?”

Ed narrows his eye, and taps his black combat boots’ toe on the floor as he waits for the Fuhrer Bastard to make his case. Ed’s been in the reserves for a whole year now, Mustang knows that, and the only reason he’d kept his State Alchemist’s watch after the Promised Day at all was because Mustang had asked him too- asked him to help build the new world with his team. 

(Even after Mustang knew what Ed had given up at Truth’s Gate to get Al back that day- after Ed had offered up his alchemy and been rejected, after a different deal had been struck in his alchemy’s place.

Worse than losing his alchemy, but better than losing his brother. He’d had something Truth wanted. Truth had Alphonse. They made a deal, the Dwarf in the Flask’s mangled soul supplementing and smoothing the Exchange. 

Ed wears his eyepatch for more reasons than the fact that the eye behind it isn’t gold anymore.)

“Plead your case, Fuhrer Bastard, but you better have something good for me,” Ed snorts, pulling out a chair and swiveling it around so that he sits backward, his arms folded over the back and his chin resting on top.

Mustang visibly steels himself, which makes Ed’s eyebrow tick up. Mustang is constantly composed. The only reason he would be grimacing like this is if this assignment is something particularly distasteful. 

“ Magic ,” Mustang spits out, burying his head in his hands. “What do you know about it?”

“Impossible,” Ed immediately tosses back with a narrow-eyed glare. “Why?”

Mustang flinches, and hunches over his desk, uncharacteristically serious-looking. No sarcastic quips about Ed’s height. No cocky smirk. Looking like he’s ready to die.

“I received an-” Mustang swallows. “An interesting communication today. Would you like to see it?”

“Not really,” Ed replies, watching Mustang warily. “But now I think I might need to. Hand it over,” he replies, holding his right hand out. He still doesn’t trust his left with delicate things, like apparently priceless communications. 

Mustang glares at a loose piece of weird-looking paper that’s tossed haphazardly on his desk. Ed hadn’t noticed it in the mess of paperwork, but now that Mustang’s called it to his attention he can tell that there’s something- wrong about it. 

He suddenly doesn’t really want to touch it.

He and Mustang share a loaded glance, and when Mustang nods Ed takes a deep breath and flips up his eyepatch, letting the pale glow of Truth bathe his field of vision in bluish-white light. 

(Because Truth wanted to see the world, watched to touch the world, hear the world, taste the world, feel the world’s dirt beneath his feet. 

Because Ed’s right eye socket is filled in with Truth’s gaze, his right arm’s automail still in place while his only human hand is replaced with Truth’s, his left foot’s automail standing next to Truth’s right leg from the hip down. Because his right ear, outer shell and inner workings, all glow with Truth’s harsh light. Because the right half of Ed’s tongue joins messily with the left and nothing he tastes with it tastes to Ed. 

Because exactly half of all his assorted organs are composed of the pure, condensed alchemic energy that powers a Gate. Because Truth wanted to feel the air in his chest and the rush of blood through his veins. 

Because Truth could only touch their world if someone foolish like Ed attempted forbidden alchemy, and Truth wanted something no one had ever been dumb enough to pay with. 

Truth had all the alchemy they could ever want. They had no use for Ed’s, the exchange wasn’t equivalent. 

So Truth had proposed a deal of the little al-che-mist, and now half of Ed’s body isn’t his anymore. 

But Al is whole , body and soul, and that makes everything worth it.

They’ve learned to coexist. Ed’s speech isn’t horribly slurred anymore, even though he’s fallen out of practice with it. Their gait is relatively smooth, and they’re getting better at writing, because he doesn’t have the option of using his flesh-hand anymore, it’s either automail or hoping Truth wants to cooperate with him. Their depth-perception is better, even though Ed usually wears the patch in public anyways, if only to stop uncomfortable questions.

Truth had made it very clear, with angry scribbles and mangled speech that they hate the patch, but then Truth’s left ear hears people’s disgusted murmurs about the freakishness, and Truth’s uncovered right eye sees the pity on Al and Winry’s faces, and they roughly concede.

Edward Elric is some strange amalgamation of human and not, a chimera if there ever was one, and even though it was completely worth it, there are moments of weakness when Truth’s half of their tongue won’t let him speak that he regrets not just giving up his entire body rather than being forced to live a half-life instead.)

Truth’s eye looks at the piece of (parchment?) and immediately all of Truth’s parts of him are shrieking, and Ed falls back with a guttural cry of pain as exactly half of his body spasms, clutching at his chest with his gloved right automail as his heart stutters.

Mustang is immediately rounding the desk, crouching over Ed’s twitching form on the floor, ready to call for a medic when Ed lifts his right hand to stall him, sitting up with a gasp, blinking away the tears of pain gathering in his left eye. 

“W’ae’er ih oh ‘ah ‘a’er,” Ed slurred frantically, “Ooth ‘id no’ li’e i’.”

“I figured!” Mustang hisses, pulling Ed to his feet and steadying him. “Which only makes all of this more unsettling!”

Ed collapsed shakily back into the chair, automail leg steady as Truth’s spasmed intermittently. 

“‘Oh wha’s oh i’?” he slurred, features pulling in frustration at his still-malfunctioning tongue. 

“It’s a request for a State Alchemist to come teach at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Mustang said, back in his seat. “It arrived carried by a flaming bird this morning. It details the fact that the headmaster of this school, one Albus Dumbledore, in his youth, knew a man called Van Hohenheim, who told him of Amestris and a way to cross between our worlds at leisure. 

“Apparently Dumbledore only remembered that the offer was made recently, in his plight searching for someone to teach an Alchemy class at his school, and that he hopes Van Hohenheim’s word that the State would assist him is still valid. It’s a pretty blatant threat, Fullmetal, and the letter says that the bird will be back in a week’s time to collect anyone who can teach for a year. It brought an Amestrian-to-English dictionary , Fullmetal, because everyone there speaks a different language. You’re the only person I can think of who’s qualified to dumb down Alchemy enough that you could teach it a bit, who I can trust to take care of themselves, and who can grasp an entire language from a book in a week. ”

Ed thought Mustang was absolutely insane, and as soon as he was relatively sure that their tongue was cooperative, told him so. “And you’ve certainly got some balls for asking this, Mustang, and frankly, I don’t see how it would work out at all. You just saw what happens if Truth gets around this ‘magic’ shit. How the hell am I supposed to function if I'm dying every time I touch the stuff?”

But as soon as he said that, Truth’s hand had pinned itself in the crook of Truth’s knee and wriggled out of the white glove covering it, reaching for the parchment on the table. 

“What the hell?” Ed snapped, but when the smooth, faintly glowing hand cautiously prodded at the envelope, it only twitched lightly, a full-body shiver running up the arm as Truth’s eye flicked down to stare at the parchment in consternation. 

Ed felt his tongue start to shift, and quickly relaxed his mouth as Truth wheezed air out of the right lung, dragging the tongue around to speak slowly and almost indecipherably.

“ Whh-he c-hhn g-hhet u-chsed t’ih, ” Truth garbled with Ed’s mouth. “ E-hh st-arhtlhd usth. Gi-th usth eh ‘inuh. ”

(Mustang shuddered. Seeing Truth looking out at the world from Fullmetal’s eyes was bad enough. Getting used to Truth talking with his subordinate’s mouth was worse .)

Ed’s golden eye slipped closed, and Truth’s hand ran up and down the parchment, lifting it up so that Truth’s eye could study it. Ed’s mouth still hung open, and the dim silver glow from the right half of his tongue as it ran over his teeth was a vicious reminder of the half-life Ed lived. 

“ Whh-he c-hhn duh ih,” Ed- Truth slurred. “ Wh-he ‘ant t-he kno’ ‘ore oh it.” And then Truth set the letter back on the desk, and Ed’s eye flickered back open, a dullness to it that hadn’t been there before.

(Only controlling half a body was taking a toll on Edward Elric, slowly but surely. 

He would ponder the way he missed being able to feel the ground beneath his feet, now that neither of his feet had nerve endings that belonged to him, and was surprised by how much he missed being able to feel socks. He wondered if this was how Al used to feel in the armour, with artificial limbs. He barely remembers the texture of shaking someone else’s hand.

His assignments recently have been dull. Little action, little excitement. Fighting with Truth’s limbs was still a struggle, and until last month Ed couldn’t even speak intelligibly, still trying to adapt to only moving half a tongue. 

He was broken, and being surrounded by all the memories of what he’d been able to do while he was still his own person wasn’t helping. He needed something new. A new adventure.

Maybe this could be it.)

“I guess we’ll be taking that dictionary,” Ed said, pulling his glove back on, flipping his eyepatch back down and wiping some drool off the corners of his lips with the back of his hand. 

Mustang didn’t smile, not really, but his eyes softened as he held the book out to Ed. “See you in a week, Fullmetal,” he called as Ed loped out the door, and snickered at the middle finger Ed threw back at him with his right hand.

Chapter Text

Ed let go of the accursed bird’s leg as soon as his weight settled on the ground, and he dropped to his knees to violently retch up breakfast on the dark floorboards, gold eye squinted tight, although Truth’s was uncovered and spinning in excitement. 

He moaned in distress as he flopped to the side, curling in on himself as his insides twisted. He could barely even think straight with the pain rending his body in two, and his tongue twisted to force his mouth open as Truth took in the assumed ‘magic’ permeating the air.

Ed shook on the ground panting like a dog as shouts rose down the hallway, and as the noise intensified the world went black.

Harry stared in unabashed curiosity at the blond man twitching on the ground. The Order crowded around the man’s limp figure, and before Mrs. Weasley could hurry him and the other kids away he spotted a piece of paper clutched in the man’s gloved hand. 

He pointed it out, and Moody glared narrow-eyed at the note before reaching forward to poke the man’s hand, prompting him to release the paper. 

“‘Wizard Bastards,’” Moody read out, “ Awful handwriting, this one. ‘ If you are reading this then I am incapacitated. My name is Edward Elric. Albus Dumbledore contacted my superiors about someone to teach Alchemy, and here I am. You have too much magic shit for my system and I am probably going to be out for a while. Do not touch me or my stuff. I will wake up eventually. Sincerely, Major Edward Elric, Reserve Corps of Amestris, the Fullmetal Alchemist.”’  

Hermione was at Grimmauld’s kitchen table when the new Alchemy professor stumbled in, looking like death warmed over. She looked up and he snapped his eye up to meet hers, startled. He wore an eyepatch, she noticed, and his movement was oddly stilted as he started toward the sink.

“Hello?” she said, watching in confusion as he grunted in reply and turned the faucet on, abruptly thrusting his head under the stream of water and scrubbing at his face with his right hand. 

She sat, stunned, as he dragged his hand through his long hair and shook his head like a wet dog, flipping the faucet off and wiping his hands on his long jacket. 

“Hello? Professor Elric?” she tried again, and he sighed, turning to look at her and scratching his nose. 

“ Ja, I am. Guten morgen, fräulein. ” 

His speech was oddly slurred, she noticed, and he dragged his ‘m’ s in a way that made his thick German accent even more difficult to understand. 

“Zorry for sbeech,” he says, “I only sdart Englisch last veek, und I learned from ein pook.”

Hermione gapes at him, openmouthed, because the idea of anyone learning a language in a week just doesn’t make sense. “Book, you mean?” she asks blankly, and he scrunches his nose and nods. 

“ Ja. Pook- book. Book. Book. Book is correct, ja?” 

“Yes,” Hermione says, hunching over her coffee cup. “Book.”

“Can vu help vith more vords?” he asked, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Eef I am to teach, schtutents must hundersdand, ja?”

“S-sure,” she answers, startled. “Happy to help.”

He beams at her, and even though his smile is nice she can’t help but notice that his canines look awfully sharp.

The next week is spent with the inhabitants of Grimmauld awkwardly learning to coexist with the strange feral housecat that is the new Alchemy professor. 

Harry is still trying to get used to the marvel of being somewhere other than the Dursley’s for a summer, much less in this brand-new place getting ready for his fifth year of being targeted by murderers.

He watches Elric closely for a couple days, because you don’t survive as Harry Potter for four whole years without a healthy dose of paranoia, but when it becomes apparent that the man takes no potions, murders no small animals, knows no memory charms, and has no Dark Mark, he’s inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, although he’s fairly certain the professor is a werewolf.

Not that that’s a bad thing! But his eyes are startlingly similar to Remus’, and his movements are just as stiff as the other man’s, and his temper…

Well. 

Harry’s about ninety percent certain that Hogwarts is about to get their second ever werewolf on faculty, which is great for increasing cultural awareness but not super fantastic regarding Elric’s lasting employment once Malfoy’s father got his nasty little yappy-dog teeth into that juicy piece of gossip. 

Elric has been alternating between haunting the library and prowling around the house, pouncing on unsuspecting Order members to drag them back to his cave of a guest bedroom and questioning them about magic. He seemed to genuinely want to learn more, which made him and Hermione instant best buds, seeing as she was the only one who could keep up with his rapid-fire theory rants and heavy accent. 

All and all, he seemed like a pretty nice guy. Eccentric, foreign, and maybe a slavering monster once a month, but nice.

Ed pulled together the various stacks of notes that he’d compiled over the past two weeks about wizards and their magic, binding them all up in some twine he’d alchemized from a loose sock he found under the couch. 

He’d been saving up reports to bring back to Mustang as soon as he could get ahold of that damn teleporter-bird, and a good chunk of it would probably be logistics on the kinds of limitations the wizards had.

All Ed can say is that he would not enjoy going to war with these people. 

Because while their tactics are shit and the people he’s been paraded past are apparently some big vigilante fighting force, their power, if used properly, is terrifying. He didn’t think they realized it, because they’d only ever been at war with each other, but a couple of the ‘spells’ described in the library here could take out an army if used properly. 

(Ed remembered the horrible thing he’d come across rattling around in a desk drawer. He remembered being blindly curious, like he usually is, and pulling it open only to be greeted with a vision of the failed transmutation circle that had taken his brother’s body. 

The voice of his little brother threading through his ears, crying plaintively as the thing in the circle raised its head because he’d locked Al’s soul into the thing instead of armour and he had to hold the creature with flesh slipping off its bones as it wailed in pain-)

Lucky for good-old Amestris, the notoriously un-diplomatic Fullmetal Alchemist was available to play nice .

Who is he kidding. This is already a disaster.

It’s September first, and the Weasleys plus Sirius are all crowding around the platform saying their goodbyes. 

Nobody notices that Edward’s nowhere to be seen until the train is pulling out of the station. 

They assume he got on earlier, and are waving goodbye when a blond blur goes sprinting past them, weaving through the throgs of parents and takes a running leap off the edge of the platform just in time to catch the railing of the caboose as the Hogwarts Express speeds away from King’s Cross Station, swinging up and over the bars with his suitcase clutched in his right hand.

Molly Weasley doesn’t know if she should be horrified or if she should have expected it.

Chapter Text

The Hogwarts faculty was told that there would be an alchemy class this year. They were told that the professor was from out of the country, and may be hard to understand at times because he had a heavy accent. 

They were not told that Edward Elric was a seventeen-year-old with a sailor’s mouth and a tendency toward the dramatic . 

The opening feast, Elric had been content to sit at the staff table and shovel food into his mouth like there was no tomorrow, and had even bothered to make nice with some of the other professors.

At the time, they had been horribly unimpressed with him, but in hindsight they conceded that he was remarkably well-behaved for the first couple days. Then things started to get weird. 

Ed was waiting at his desk at the front of the lecture hall, feet up and a book in his hands. Truth had been getting better about the castle’s intense magical concentration, and Ed had stopped coughing up blood every five minutes, which was always nice. 

Some late-night note-writing had Truth working out that the sheer inequivalency of magic was driving every element of them insane, and that it would take them a while to get used to it without freaking out. So Ed had crossed his fingers and hoped he wouldn’t get his guts scrambled in Truth’s quest to acclimatize themself to magic and now here he was, speaking relatively clearly and only limping a little. 

Although this castle-school had far too many stairs. 

(Ed will deny to his dying day that one time when he’d been arguing with Truth and he’d been foolish enough to walk down a staircase- Truth had knocked their leg right out from underneath them and they’d tumbled at least a hundred steps to splay spread-eagled on the stone flooring. 

At least ten students saw.

But he will deny it!) 

Recovering from the chimerism process post-Promised Day had meant both he and Al were holed up in the hospital for weeks while doctors tried to get Al on the path to recovery from his incredibly weak body, not to mention just plain-old keeping Ed stable while Truth figured out how operating half a body was going to work. 

(The very first thing that Ed and Truth had ever agreed on was that they both hated hospitals. They’d celebrated their temporary truces by breaking out multiple times in increasingly creative and extravagant ways. Ed had a lot to teach Truth about the nuances of human culture, and the exasperated responses from the obviously evil doctors was an essential part of it all.) 

After being reluctantly released from the Central hospital, the two brothers (plus one inhuman body-roommate) had been shacking up with Mustang in the man’s luxury all-expenses-paid ‘Sorry You Got Busted Up And Even Though You Saved The Country I Don’t Trust You Not To Die If I Leave You Unsupervised’ spare room, on the ground floor so that neither of them had to deal with stairs. 

It’s times like these that Ed misses Mustang with a fierceness he hadn’t expected. When he’s in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and he’s not fighting. Fighting’s easy. 

Ed fights even better than he breathes, because Truth doesn’t want to be hurt any more than he does. 

(But Truth can choke his air off any time he likes because that only hurts Ed. He’s not really being suffocated, but it damn well feels like he is. 

Luckily, Ed’s not really afraid of pain nowadays.)

But this is Mustang’s area. This cloak-and-dagger diplomacy is the older man’s ideal Friday night, even if he doesn't know shit about any alchemy other than the arrays stitched on his gloves.

(Although maybe, in the back of his mind, what Ed really misses is Mustang’s easy acceptance of the fact that Ed’s so utterly broken. 

That he hasn’t run screaming from the fact that Ed gave up his autonomy to an existential horror in exchange for his little brother’s right to life.  

That he doesn’t pity the Truth looking out of their face and the Truth tripping off their tongue. 

That he doesn’t flinch when they lurch into a room, that he doesn’t look away when drool is trailing down Ed’s chin because Truth forgot to let him close his mouth. 

Mustang is the Hero of Ishval, after all. The Butcher of Ishval. He’s seen gorier sights than Ed waking up to a bed soaked in blood because the skin of his back has started peeling away.

Ed can’t let his innocent little brother see him like this. Can’t let his little brother hold his hair back while he hunches over the porcelain altar at three in the morning, bile dripping from his lips as Truth’s taunts to the little al-che-mist echo through a mind that isn’t even his anymore. 

Mustang holds his hair back at three in the morning, and changes bloody sheets, and got Ed a book on sign language when Truth wouldn’t let him speak for a week.

And in this stone-cold castle, surrounded by miracles that invalidate everything he’s ever worked for in his seventeen years of life, he wishes Mustang were here, just a little.)

He ignored the little baby-wizards slipping into the room, giggling and sneering at each other. This is the fifth years, if he remembers correctly, and he’s noticing that the ones wearing certain colors are sitting with each other, which he thinks is strange, but whatever. He’s not in charge of the magic children’s clothing choices. 

There’s a low buzz of conversation filling the room, and when all the seats are full, Ed snaps his book shut and slams it down on the table with a bang. The buzz stops, and every eye is riveted on Ed’s face.

(It’s a little disconcerting, he’ll admit, but he’s watched soldiers be blown to pieces and he’s offered his body to his tormentor without flinching. Little wizard-children don’t scare him.)

“Velcome to Alchemy,” he says, features stone-cold. They’re staring at his eyepatch, he can tell, and the thin, pale scar above his eyebrow. “Mein name is Brofezor Elric, und zis is zee zingle most dangerous und gruelling class you vill effer take.” 

They’re stunned. His accent’s thrown them off. He stands, and turns to the blackboard, picking up chalk and writing out his name in sharp chicken-scratch. “I do not exbect effen half of you to bass ze first test. If you do not bass, you vill not continue ze class. You may find mein sbeech hard to hundersdand at times. Zis is hexbecded. I haffe only been learning your language for tvo veeks now. You may ask me for clarificazion at any time, und if I feel you are not chust being ein smardass, I vill rebeat myzelf und hattembt to be clearer.”

Now they’re really shocked, and he’s not quite sure why, because he really is being nice to these wizard-children, offering to repeat himself and everything. 

“Alchemy eez not to be blayed wivth,” he says coldly. “Eet eez not a toy. Eet eez not a fancy magic zat you can vave your vand and fix vhen zings go vrong. Eef you attempt alchemy outside of mien class, you vill be tossed out on your leetle vizard-asses und never allowed back. I vill also bersonally beat ze shit out of you, as I haffe been given bermission to do by your old man overlord.”

Why do they look so scared? He’s laying out completely reasonable terms of agreement, just like Teacher did for him. This is to keep them safe. Why are they so pale? Are they sick or something?

“Zis class vill be like hell, but not so bad een ze long run. Eef you can akzept ze teachings, you will be a bassable alchemist by ze end of ze year, und should be able to at least do zis,” he said, flourishing his chalk and walking around to draw out a simple transmutation circle on the floor in front of his desk. They lean forward to see what he’s doing, and he claps his (not his, not his) gloved hands to lay them on the edge of the circle. 

A spark of blue lightning raced up, and an intricate stone gargoyle rose from the floor, as tall as he with snarling features. The room collectively gasped.

“Zis eez not like your transfiguration een zat zis is ze matter of ze floor completely reshaped on un atomic level, und es compleetely permanent. You do not know vat zat means yet, but you vill.”

Ed bared his teeth in a grimace that he did his best to twist into some semblance of a smile. 

“You vill.”

Chapter Text

“Soooo,” Ron asked Hermione, “how was Elric’s class? Gonna be incredibly intellectual? Make you wish you hadn’t taken twelve million others on top of it?” 

“ Well, ” she huffed, “It’s certainly going to be unique. I can’t wait for-”

“Guys, why did I let Hermione talk me into taking his class,” Harry groaned, arms full of papers. “We have to memorize the entire ‘periodic table’ or something like that by next class, and there’s like seven pages we have to fill with perfectly drawn circles, how in the hell are we supposed to fill seven pages with perfectly drawn circles- ” 

“Oh, hush, Harry,” Hermione chided. “It’s really not that bad. I’m more interested in some of the things he was saying about molecular transference of electrons and-”

“Oh, look, time for Umbridge!” the boys said frantically, and quickly cut off the Science Rant as soon as possible. 

“ Alright, leetle vizards! ” Professor Elric yells, hands on his hips, a cruel smile pulling on his features. “I am hoping you have indeed been looking over ze Periodic Table, or else zis period vill be very unpleasant for you.”

“Elric threw rocks at us!” Malfoy wailed from the Slytherin table, loud enough to be heard by the whole hall. “And he would only stop if we named a stupid Muggle chestimiy thing! It was awful! ”

“ Chemistry, Malfoy,” Hermione muttered under her breath, her lip curling into an uncharacteristically disdained sneer. “The word you’re looking for is chemistry. And I’ll bet the first thing you do is whine to your father about how unfair it is that you’ve bruised your lily-white behind dodging rocks because you didn’t do the homework.”

Harry smiled a little behind his hand, eyes brightening up as he smiled. “ I did the homework, thank you very much.”

Ron nodded. “Man, but that Umbridge sure is a piece of work, hah? Looks like another year of shit Defense.”

“A detention already, ” Harry grumbled, shoulders hunching. “And I was only telling the truth. ”

“You could have gone about it with a little more tact, though,” Hermione remarked, turning a page in her book while absently handing Ron a napkin. 

“She has a point, mate,” Ron nodded, taking the napkin and looking at it for a moment, raising a confused eyebrow at the girl who motioned toward his crumb-smeared mouth with a grimace. 

“But it’s true! ” Harry insisted, and Ron patted his hand in consolation. 

“ We know that,” Hermione said, nudging him back toward his food, (because Harry never ate quite enough and Hermione takes good care of her boys) and Harry shot her a grateful smile as he picked his fork back up. 

Ed was stuck at this table with this toad and he was very empathetically not pleased. The pink thing was simpering at him, making pointed comments about his intelligence and breeding. Ed would have strangled the bitch if he hadn’t already given his bodily control over to Truth as soon as he’d sat down. 

(Truth had a thing about getting to pick what food they wanted at lunch, something about getting the full experience, and Ed was, for once, glad he’d obliged because Truth’s neutral continence was the only thing keeping his limbs steady.)

“Of course,” she said sweetly, “If I was the teenage professor of such a useless brand of washed-out magic, I suppose my qualifications wouldn’t have to be very high either, would they, dear?”

And their fork snapped in half .

The staff had been watching Ed’s remarkable display of self-control with wide eyes, and the ting of the two metallic halves hitting his plate made them flinch.

“ What, ” Truth breathed with Ed’s mouth, no accent at all, “did you just call my subject?”

The bitch had no sense of danger because she was still cutting her meat into delicate little slices, pudgy fingers not even twitching as she absently repeated, “a useless brand of washed-out magic, I do believe.”

“You loathsome little maggot ,” Truth whispered. Umbitch squeaked, and she turned to look at Ed-Truth, pupils constricting as she saw his too-wide smile.

“I will strip the flesh from your bones and gouge out your beady little eyes if you ever address me in such a manner again. And I can promise you that I will enjoy it,” Truth grinned, dipping a gloved finger into the blood pooling on his plate from the rare steak and sticking the finger in his mouth, sucking on the scarlet-stained fabric with barely-closed lips. “Consider yourself threatened.”

The toad ran for it, nearly falling face-first on the ground in her haste to scramble backward.

“My superiors will hear about this!” she shrieked,  drawing the curious attention of the entire hall to her pale features and shaking figure. 

Truth sneered. “Your Ministry of Magic is petty and useless. I’m not afraid of stuck-up old men with their thumbs up each other’s asses. Hop hop, little toad. Better hope no one else you piss off knows how to use a useless branch of washed-up magic.”

Harry stared wide-eyed at Professor Elric’s casual posture as he leaned back in his seat, a steak knife flashing over in the fingers of his left hand in a complicated dance as Umbridge hurried out of the room.

“Did you see that,” Harry whispered, awestruck. “Guys, guys tell me I’m not dreaming.”

“Bloody hell, mate,” Ron breathed. “If you’re dreaming then so am I, because I’m pretty sure I just saw our hot mess of a professor smack down the Toad so hard that she ran. ‘Mione, you’re the logical one. Tell us we’re not dreaming, please. ”

“His accent was gone,” Hermione murmured, a thoughtful hand on her chin. “Odd.”

“That was entirely unnecessary! ” Ed shrieked at Truth in Amestrian, clutching the side of his head with his gloved automail. “We’re not invincible! Provoking the government here, no matter how incompetent they may seem, is a bad idea! We are not on home turf! The Fullmetal Alchemist doesn’t hold a lick of clout here that isn’t dangled over our head by the old man!” he screams in frustration, and rips his eyepatch back and digs the automail’s fingers into Truth’s eye. “We don’t even have a reliable method of getting home besides that damn bird, and if the old man-”

He stops.

His eye widens, and his breath catches.

“Truth?” he whispers, hand falling to their side. “Truth, if the old man hangs us out to dry, how will we get home?”

The first thing Professor Elric asks when the classroom is full is, “right, cahn any of you habarate?”

The fifteen year olds look at each other for a moment, like, ‘is he for real?’ and don’t even bother answering.

“Damn,” Elric sighs, sinking down in his seat with a thoughtful frown pulling at his lips. “Zat's hinconffenient.”

And then he puts his thinking face on, and the class collectively leans back in their seats, because the thinking face means that Professor Elric is about to make their lives even more miserable than they already are, what with the miles of homework this class gives them.

“How old are zhe Veasley tvins again?” Elric murmurs, and they shudder. 

A month or so goes by, and everything is relatively sedate. Umbridge lurks around and sneers at Ed, who in turn staunchly ignores her and goes on with tormenting his students. 

Several have dropped the class already, unable to handle either him periodically throwing rocks at them, the laps around the grounds as punishments instead of detention, or the theory simply going over their heads. 

It whittled the classes down to a much more manageable number, which meant fun field trips for extra credit, such as spending the weekend in the Forbidden Forest wandless while being hunted by their dearest Alchemy professor!

(Ed told them to be grateful that it wasn’t mandatory for a month, but they complained anyway, his little brats.)

His class had seen him do some weird stuff, he’ll admit. They’ve seen him come hobbling in with a cane, dragging his totally limp right leg behind him and swearing up a storm all the way. 

They’ve seen him stop class halfway through to strap his left arm to a stone block so that it’ll stop flailing around and messing with his notes. 

They’ve spent entire periods learning off what Ed writes on the board because his tongue won’t cooperate enough for him to get a word in edgewise, and they’ve also endured his periodic rants about how illogical their entire society is. 

They’re good kids, he’ll admit. Most of the school is a bunch of little shits with no brains whatsoever, but his kids are pretty good. 

So when one of his favorites nervously asks him to be their advisor for a self-defense club, Ed cheerfully agrees. 

He, admittedly, did not anticipate… this.

Chapter Text

Ed stared out over a sea of hopeful wizard-eyes and wonders how he gets himself into these kinds of situations. Then he remembers he’s here as a favor to Mustang, and cheers up a little because that means any and all things that go wrong can be blamed on the Fuhrer Bastard. 

(He was up late working on the array for teleportation. One of the few pros about body-sharing with Truth is that you mostly get to skip out on paying any outrageous tolls to use the Gate, which is good because Ed is running low on nonessential body parts.)

Granger had proudly introduced him to this little headache-inducing bunch, inside a headache-inducing magic room, and asked him point-blank to teach them to be badasses like him. 

Ed considered this for a moment, and thought about what it meant to be badass. He considered his childhood trauma, his daddy issues, his child-soldier status, his body count, and the current state of his sanity before telling Granger that he decidedly could not teach them to be badasses like him, but he could show them a thing or two about throwing a punch.

Granger looked pleased, and Ed glanced at her warily before going back to worrying about how he was going to do this without letting on to the fact that he technically doesn’t have any limbs.

Which feels more natural , he wonders, Truth’s arm or the automail? 

So as he goes around the room and demonstrates how to make a fist, he tests this a little. Letting kids hold his fists, feel how his fingers are arranged, and watching their faces carefully to see which hand provokes a stronger reaction- the left or the right.

Truth’s hand doesn’t have actual knuckles or fingernails. It’s kind of just a glowing blob that he has to actively assert consciousness over to force it into anything more than a simple facsimile of humanity.

(Wow, he’s feeling poetic today.)

Alternatively, the automail clicks and hisses when he moves it. Quietly, but there if you’re listening for it. And it’s utterly unmistakably not flesh, even through his gloves, if you touch it. There’s a reason he only punches real assholes with his right fist. 

“Right, hokay!” he claps twice (no alchemy, thank you) and the victims- aha, he means- the students look up, startled. “Ve vill begin to practise zis by dividing eento pairs! Zen throving our best punches at von anozzer in ze face! Eef you do not haffe a black eye by ze end of ze night, your partner eez failing und zey vill run laps vile ze rest of us throw rocks at zem! Zis should be adequate motivation, ja?”

The unnamed club immediately regrets ever signing up for this.

The SA (Survival Association, they decided, was a perfectly acceptable name, because really, that was what they were being trained at by Professor Elric. Survival.) got exponentially better at healing spells, and everyone simultaneously dreaded and anticipated the silver rings they all wore heating up and vibrating in a specific pattern that conveyed the Morse code equivalent of ‘ elric tonight’ , which meant meeting at the Room of Requirement at the indicated time for about three hours or so of educational hell.

(The rings were an ingeniously designed collaboration between Ed and Hermione, formed with alchemy and hidden by magic, so you could only see one if you had one too. 

If they were twisted in a specific way, a small spike would pop out, tipped with a poison that would knock out anyone who was stabbed with it for at least four hours.

Because you never knew when you might need a poisoned spike for an unexpected sneak attack. You just never knew.) 

Tonight’s lesson, since Ed was in unusually good spirits after tripping the Toad in the hallway, was on the art of making boot-leather stew.The SA were all sitting cross-legged in a circle, staring dubiously at the steaming bowl in front of them.

“Zho you see,” Elric said, stirring the bowl a little, “eet ez a very zhimple brocess. Vhonse ze leather has been zhoftened und disinfected by ze boiling, you cahn chew ohn eet vith leetle difficulty. Very nutritional, boot leather stew. Try some, try some!” he insisted, eye bright with laughter. “Boot leather stew saved mein life, you know. I vas stuck een un alternate dimension und zhere vas nozing but darkness, blood, mien friend, mienself, und ze clothes on our backs. Vhe made boot leather stew, mien friend und I, und ve lived to escape und kill ze creature zat put us zhere. Eet vas un very educational experience. Be grateful I do not make you eat boot leather stew made vith blood rather zhan vater! Tastes very rusty, und goes down most unpleasantly.”

The SA stared at Elric in horror until Harry, brave man that he is, slowly fished a floating chunk of leather out of the bubbling brown water and stuffed it in his mouth, jaw working at it as the rest of the SA watched in horrified fascination. His expression cycled between disgust, thoughtfulness, consideration, surprise, and finally a slight satisfaction. 

“Not… bad ,” he mumbled through a mouthful of boot leather, and the room exploded into chaos.

Hogwarts life goes on, and Umbridge is still a massive bitch. She puts out her ‘educational decrees’ like there’s no damn tomorrow, and Ed sneers at them. She whispers about how Ed’s a filthy halfbreed, and Ed ignores her. She makes disparaging remarks about his height, and Ed lets Truth control the body so that he doesn’t bash her skull in. She taunts him about alchemy, and Ed makes a hasty escape before Truth can rip the eyeballs out of her face. 

It’s like a little dance, except Ed’s developing a nervous tic. His left eye twitches like mad every time he catches sight of the color pink. Every. Time. 

Potter, one of his other favorites, comes in smelling like blood every now and then, and that made Ed a little jumpy. He knew something was up with Potter. Nobody volunteered themself for the Boot Leather Stew without some serious underlying psychological issues going on.

(Luckily for Ed and Ling in Gluttony’s stomach, where the original Boot Leather Stew had been brewed, they were both a little mad by then already. Mad and desperate. Nobody tries Boot Leather Stew unless they’re mad and desperate. Sitting in a classroom in a low-risk situation makes for one, possibly, but not usually both. Something is Up about Potter, and Ed intends to find out what.)

And when he makes Potter stay after class and confronts him, the teen is real shady about it, hiding his hand behind his back, looking away as he insists nothing’s wrong. It takes the threat of two extra essays for homework to get him talking, and it turns out that Umbridge is, somehow, worse than Ed thought. 

This is a problem. 

Chapter Text

Elric is distracted today, the twins notice, as he leads them to the outer limits of Hogwarts’ wards. They’ve had this arrangement for weeks now- Elric watches them apparate, and then he gives them passes to the Restricted Section.

They reach the boundary line, and Elric settles down on a stump and flips up his eyepatch. 

(Now that’s a juicy bit of gossip. There’s a fair bit of talk about what’s under that eyepatch, and Fred and George are pretty sure they’re the only ones who know.

But they keep the secret. A bit of potential blackmail never hurt anyone, did it? Besides, having a glowing void for an eye isn’t too unusual.)

“Begin vhen you are ready,” Elric says, glow-eye trained on them. 

As they crack across the clearing, one after another in a rippling percussion, Elric’s hands move as if he’s writing on the air, mumbling to himself and watching as they exhaust themselves. 

“Zhat ees enough for today, I zink,” Elric stops them, and they stop, panting with exertion. “You haffe done vell, sank you. Let us head back to ze castle before ve are eaten by un spider, yes?”

The twins shook their heads, too tired for some sort of snarky retort. They’d been at this for weeks now, and multiple times Elric had used alchemy to defend them from the nasty critters that stalk the Forest at night. 

“I’m getting close, I zhink,” Elric murmured, rubbing his uncovered light-void eye as they walked. “Getting close.”

“Say, Professor, what’re we doing this for anyway?” George asked, hopping over a root. “If you’re such a genius, shouldn’t apparition be easy?”

“Totally different henergies, Veasley. ‘And vhen you gaze into zhe abyss, zhe abyss also gazes eento you.’ Nietzsche. I have never tried zhis before, because zhe abyss was not fond of me. But now zhe abyss is just as stuck vith me as I am vith zhem, so survival eez significantly more likely. You follow?”

The twins shared a look, and peered at Elric’s void-eye. 

The void-eye winked, and they shuddered and looked away. Weasleys are generally fearless, but eldritch possession is a bit beyond their current paygrade.

Ed is prowling around the hallways and contemplating arson.

Oops, wait, arson’s illegal. New plan. Ed is contemplating retaliation. 

Yes, that’s better. Nothing illegal about retaliation. Equivalent exchange, yes? Umbridge is a massive bitch and since Ed lives with the Flame Alchemist, he’s allowed to think about fire being the first solution to this problem. 

That’s all.

Unfortunately, fire isn’t really the best option here, because they’re in such an enclosed space. But for someone who would dare to use a blood quill on one of Ed’s favorites, no expense is unnecessary. 

Perhaps he could ask the Fuhrer Bastard to mail him some poison. Al wouldn’t, he knew. Al would want him to resolve it in such a matter that it looked as if the Toad had died of natural causes- a heart attack, or such. Results with no added murder charges.

Ed’s not very good at thinking that far ahead.

(Maybe he could just push her off a really high tower- that would probably get her.

...there’s an idea.)

Professor Elric sequesters Harry away after class, pulling him aside after hurrying the rest of the fifth years out of the classroom. 

“I haffe found un solution to your leetle, shall ve say, toad problem. Here, here, give, give,” he gestured for Harry to place his bloodied hand on the table, and whipped a pen out of his pocket. “Eet is an array to heal zhe skin. Zis ees not alchemy, zho- zhis is alkahestry. Tell me, young favorite, vhat powers zhe art of alchemy?”

“Tectonic movement of the Earth’s crust,” Harry dutifully recites, watching in fascination as Elric traces out flowing circles and curved lines in a detailed spiral around the words inscribed on the back of his hand, so different from the uniform lines and symmetry of their usual arrays.

“Correct, correct. Alkahestry is un art vhich ees practiced primarily in Xing rather zhan Amestris. Alkahestry uses zhomezing zhe Xingans call zhe Dragon’s Pulse, described as zhe life-energy of zhe world around you. Zhis is closer to your magic zhan alchemy, perhaps, but ees still no less a science. Dragon’s Pulse cahn be scientifically quantified as solar radiation, un ees primarily used to affect living zhings. Eet is used een practices such as agriculture and healing. Cahn you tell me, favorite, vhy zis ees different from human transmutation, vhich ees taboo?”

“Uh-” Harry drew a blank, and took a moment to be lost in staring at the mesmerizing array that encircled the back of his hand. “Because… it stimulates cell growth at an unnatural pace?”

“Correct!” Elric enthused, with a quirked grin. “Zhe pace ees only moving forward, never back. Humans- zhe body cannot regrow limbs, eet ees unnatural. Neither can the progression of old age be impeded, or zhe dead brought back to life. But broken bones, zhese heal, yes, as time progresses forward, and plants, zhese grow as well. Alkahestry harnesses zhe Dragon’s Pulse to accelerate the progress of time, to move zhe cycle faster een un incredibly isolated space. Zhis array vill not turn your hand back to before eet vas cut, nor vill eet erase zhe cut altogether- such movement would not flow vith zhe cycle, you zhee. Zis array vill accelerate your body’s natural healing processes een zhis specific area, and een doing zho eet vill make eet zho you do not haffe to vait ze usual time.”

Elric’s eye was unusually serious as he sat down across from Hayy and gently took his hand. 

“Favorite, zhis vill not prevent a scar. Zhis healing vill only be fast, not miraculous. You vill haffe ze story of zhis voman’s torture vritten on your skin for zhe rest of your life. I am sure zat your magic healer could prevent a scar, but you are allowing me to heal this. Is zat truly worth zhe price to keep zhis brutality a secret?”

(Harry swallows, and thinks about all the scars he already has. 

What’s one more?)

“Yes,” he whispered, nodding a little. “It’s worth it.”

Elric smiles again, a knife-slash of a grin across his features. “Zhis vill hurt,” he warns, but Harry smiles back.

And then Elric activates the array, and it hurts, it truly does, but it’s nothing compared to Voldemort’s Cruciatus and nothing compared to basilisk venom coursing through his veins. 

He watches as the ‘I must not tell lies’ is scabbed over, whitened, smoothed, and scarred. In five seconds, the wound looks years old.

(Harry’s breath catches in his chest because-)

“Zhere is something of your people’s magic lingering in it,” Elric murmurs, prodding at the array. “Zhomezing is tugging at zhe proper reaction. I suspect it vould not haffe responded to your healing at all. I vish to show you zhomezing, Potter, because I recognize zhe look een your eyes.”

Harry blinks, because he’s still trapped in the awe of what he’s just watched happen, a wound that Hermione told him would never be healed having closed up before his eyes.

“You zhink zhis is miraculous. Zhat eef alkahestry could do zhis, perhaps eet could do anyzhing. Perhaps you, eef you vere exceptional enough, could even do zhe zings zhat others dare not vith zhis art, could heal zhings zat others could not.”

Harry’s not really listening, because he’s thinking about all the possibilities of an unhealable wound being closed, about how Dumbledore said magic made bringing back the dead impossible but this wound is healed maybe if I could find just the right balance between the two Cedric Lily James-

“ Potter. ”

He… stops.

Elric’s eyes are cold.

“You cannot bring back zhe dead.”

And then Elric takes off his gloves.

And- what the fuck?

“What the fuck? ” Harry blurts, startled out of his trance because what?

The- the things- Elric moves and bends them like hands but they’re not, the left is just a glowing blob and the right is made of metal, is this some kind of joke?

Elric laughs dryly, and tungs open his button-down to show that the glow and the metal are both grafted over his collarbones, connected to the flesh of his toro by a ropey web of scars. 

“Mien forays into zhe taboo forced me to give zhings up, Potter,”  Elric says. “Zhe metal ees a prosthetic from mein country- ve call it automail. Mien left leg,” he leans down and knocks on his knee and the reporting sound is metallic, what the fuck- “is automail as vell. Mein right leg is- vell,” he gestures a little with the glow-thing, “zhe same as zhis vone. Not a zhingle vone of mein limbs is mein own, Potter, because I haffe given up all four of zhem in attempts at human transmutation. Zhe same goes for mein eye,” he lifts the eyepatch, and a silver void stares back, “mien ear,” hair brushed back, and his ear is a glowly blob too, what the- “half of mien tongue,” the fuck- “and a good portion of mien internal organs.”

Harry can only gape in silence.

“Not a single vone of zhese transmutations vere good, do you understand me? None. I am un seventeen-year-old cripple who has ruined themself een zhe pursuit of zhe arrogant idea zhat I vas better zhan zhe many alchemists who haffe come before me. And I vill not vatch another hopeful teenager ruin themself vhen I could stop zhem. Do you understand?”

Harry didn’t- he didn’t- this wasn’t- 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks, voice blank. “Why-”

“Because I don’t vant you to make zhe same mistakes I did,” Elric sighed, and the corners of his eyes twisted up in a parody of a smile. “But please don’t tell anyone. I don’t really vant much attention drawn to it.”

Harry nods empathetically, and he takes one last long look at the supposed-werewolf’s golden eye beside the white void of the teen’s right eye socket.

“Okay,” he whispers. And then he backs out the door, healed hand cradled against his chest.

Ed stands in front of the gargoyle that guards the old man’s office (he respects that. Ed also enjoys gargoyles, although he’s grown a bit out of putting them on everything he transmutes, they are still a source of amusement for him. He’s glad to see that he and the old man have at least one conversation starter in their decoration tastes, although clothing talk will be out. The guy’s robe-things are eye-watering.) and taps his automail foot impatiently. 

The old man had summoned him (like some kind of dog, and that rubs Ed the wrong way-) in the middle of the night, but he didn’t tell Ed the password to his damn office, so Ed just stuck lingering around like a student sent to the headmaster’s.

(He thinks he’s offended by that statement. He hasn’t been in school since he was- what, six? Resembool wasn’t really that big on school. Especially castle schools. 

More proof that wizards are ridiculous.)

The gargoyle grinds open, and Ed stalks forward with a snarl, temper snapping around his heels as McGonagall’s stern visage greets him. 

(She’s interestingly Hawkeye-like. He’s not afraid of her, because he body-shares with an eldritch horror, but he respects her authority in the school.)

“Vhat does he vant zhat’s so important eet can’t vait until breakfast?” Ed says, lip curled, but McGonagall doesn’t answer him- she simply turns and makes her way back up the spiral staircase, obviously expecting him to follow. 

Ed grumbles and huffs, because his leg port aches and Truth’s still half-asleep so their leg drags a little and the stairs are murder, but he follows her anyway. When they get up to the old man’s office Dumbledore is unusually serious-looking, blue eyes all droopy and mouth downturned. 

“I’m afraid there’s been a rather upsetting development, and you’re needed at Headquarters immediately, Ed, my boy,” the old man intones, ever-present eye twinkle absent. It’s mildly unsettling, and Ed has a moment’s premonition with this has something to do with his newest favorite student. Harry’s up to something at this moment, he just knows it. 

But before he can voice his suspicions the old man hurries him over to the fireplace and murmurs Grimmauld Place’s Floo address, pushing Ed right into the green flames.

The Floo spits Ed out in Grimmauld’s front room, and the moment he stumbles out he nearly staggers with the weight of mourning pressing down over him like a blanket of misery. The muffled sobs echoing from the kitchen forced Ed to stand quicker than his system would have liked, vision spinning dizzily as he lurches as quickly as he can with Truth’s uncooperative leg toward the hiccuping wails, automail formed into a blade in a flash of blue light. 

“My Arthur!” the voice he recognizes as Mrs. Weasley wails. “Dead!”

(And she continues, he knows she does, but Ed has a moment of shock as the atmosphere shifts again, a heady scent of ozone gathering in the dusty air, a horrifyingly familiar charge tingling over his skin as the half of him that belongs to the Truth twists with something-

And he remembers all the theory books he’s lent Hermione and the premonition he’d felt around Harry, the seed of resurrection he’d unknowingly planted in the boy’s mind. The idea that a human being could be built on a child’s allowance.

Arthur Weasley, their best friends’ father, was dead.

And something in this house feels horrifyingly familiar, bringing back memories of a certain basement- )

He’s racing for the stairs before he can even think about it, and oh, now Truth’s dragging him away, digging in their heel and snatching at the railing with their hand, constricting Ed’s airflow and forcing his heart into spasms, but even as his vision darkens with black spots and his lips turn blue he crashes through the door to where the feeling is most intense and there they are, his foolish, idiotic, beautiful, naive kids, the light of an ominous transmutation circle just beginning to turn violet as they look up at him, green and brown eyes wide.

His wildly shaking limbs barely let him tackle them off of the circle before oxygen deprivation takes him under, Truth yanking on the connections between them, hissing in wordless glee as the Eye opens in the center of the circle, violet light engulfing the room and lighting the horrified contours of Harry and Hermione’s screaming features as an attempted human transmutation sucks Ed into the Gate.

Chapter Text

The white expanse that haunts Ed’s nightmares is just that, a nightmare. 

The real nightmare is the glowing not-arm grafted to his torso and the not-leg that meets his hip, the not-tongue that presses against the back of his teeth. 

(Ed doesn’t think he could handle thinking about both at the same time. He thinks he might really go insane if he does. 

More than he already has.)

But-

The nightmare that he’d frantically tucked away behind a not-eye and not-ear is real, and it’s staring him right in the half-face.

He’s hyperventilating, he realizes distantly. The not-air is catching in his not-chest and he’s hunching over, tucking his automail over the back of his vulnerable neck and Truth’s not-arm is just gone, bleeding into the landscape, indistinguishable from the world around him because every piece of Truth tucked away in his body is just a cast of the Gate, a cast of this place, the place where only trespassers belong-

Hot tears drip from his single gold eye, streaming down his cheek and clogging his throat with sobs.

He doesn’t want to be here.

Ed knows Truth is watching him break down. Watching with a wide smirk, because Ed is in Truth’s territory now. 

Anything is a free game, and Ed is helpless to stop it.

“What do you want,” he croaks, rubbing his face on his sleeve. “You shoved me in here for a reason. What more could you want, ” and his voice is rising to a fever pitch. He’s screaming furiously at an eldritch abomination and suddenly he’s furious, in a way his crushed and trampled-on heart hasn’t allowed him to be for a year. “I gave you everything!” he screams, fist clenched. “My limbs, my autonomy , my innocence, my independence, my dignity, hell, even my fucking sanity! What more could you possibly take from me?! ”  

And, after a moment of silence, Truth forms out of the void, made from the parts he’s taken from Ed. Ed’s golden eye floats, cradled in half a skull, a glistening half a throat leading down to chunks of organs and the veins connecting them. Ed’s arms and legs walking toward him, half of Ed’s tongue concealed behind teeth splitting into a massive grin.

“Ooh, I was hoping you’d say that,” Truth crooned. “Mm, little al-che-mist, what is left of your pitiful meat sack for me to take as penance for stepping into this circle and denying me of two lovely sacrifices?”

“Those two are mine,” Ed snarled.

“Half mine too,” Truth cajoles gleefully, and Ed lets out a wordless hiss of frustration.

“Get it over with,” Ed huffs, squeezing his eye shut and hunching his shoulders. “Just- get it over with, whatever it is, let me be done, ” his voice cracks.

“Oh, but I had so hoped to savor this,” Truth cooed, only laughing again when Ed looked at them with a blank glare. “Fine, fine. Edward Elric,” Truth drawled, “for your crime of attempted human transmutation, I remove the last remaining vestiges of independence from your pitiful meat sack. You will only see what I allow you to.”

And with those final proclamations, Ed’s heart nearly dropped out of his chest, and the great stone Gate behind him swung open, little black arms emerging to drag him back to the land of the living.

He went limp in the shadows’ grip as the scrabbling little arms trail over his face, his single remaining golden eye bursting in a spattering blossom of fluid and blood.

The last thing Edward Elric ever saw was Truth’s gleeful grin, before the Gate swung shut and his vision went black.

For good. 

Harry was screaming and he didn’t care who heard- Ron’s dad was dead and it was all his fault so he’d just been trying to do one thing right with his shitty, useless life because he didn’t care about all the warnings Ed had given him and he didn’t care that he might die. All he knew was that one of his best friends was hurting almost beyond his own comprehension and it was all Harry’s fault. He’d dismissed the vision as a bad nightmare. He’d rolled over and gone back to sleep. 

He’d been the snake, and this was his chance to fix it but Ed had come crashing in and ruined it all because Harry was supposed to be the one to pay the price-

Violet light raged in a swirling vortex surrounding the transmutation circle that he’d bribed out of Hermione. The Eye open in the middle of it was swirling as Harry and Hermione screamed, Ed nowhere to be found.  

(Harry was supposed to pay the price-!)

The twins, Remus, and Sirius burst in through the cracked door, stumbling back with a cry when they saw the carnage and alchemic charge spilling out of the gateway in the center of the circle. 

“What in the bloody hell is going on?!” Sirius roared over the crackling of energy and the brunettes’ screaming. 

As the purple vortex coalesces into the still form of Edward Elric slumped on the ground, the light disappears and the room falls into darkness. The twins rush forward, but skitter back from the edges of the still-smouldering chalk circle. 

“Professor Elric?” they call quietly, unusually formal. “Are you alright?”

(Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.)

Ed was curled up on wooden floorboards, he knew that much. Condensed cellulose, lignin and hemicelluloses, if he wanted to be precise about it.

(Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.)

His cheek twitched as he felt the sticky blood still leaking from his (no no no no no no-) eye socket smearing over the side of his face. He uncurled with a low whine, and his face throbbed.

“ Favorit ,” he murmured, reaching his automail out tentatively. “ Favorit, favoritin , herkommen . Favorites, please,” and he hears fabric rustling and feels tearstained child-faces nudge against his neck. He lets out a relieved sigh, bringing his ( not his ) arms around Potter and Granger’s shaking forms, patting them down and roughly stroking their hair from his position sitting on the floorboards. “Shh, shh,” he hushes them, awkwardly running fingers through their hair, automail catching on the shorter hair he assumes is Potter’s. “You’re alright? Alright?”

Granger’s voice catches in her chest, “Y-y-yes, I-I’m so sorry- ”

“D-Don’t apologize, Hermione!” Potter breaks in, shaking hands balling into fists. “I-If Elric hadn’t jumped in it would- it would have worked, i-it would have been fine, why- why’d you have to go and-” Potter’s crying now, kitten-weak fists pounding against Ed’s not-arm that’s still stroking the boy’s hair. 

Ed hushes the teen who’s breaking down in his arms. He’s so... young. 

“It was supposed to be me! ” Potter wails, “I would have made the sacrifice! Any sacrifice! Mr. Weasley’s dead and it’s all my fault! ” 

“It vouldn’t have vorked, Potter,” Ed murmurs, pulling the two closer. “It never vorks, no matter vhat you give up.”

But he knows he’s said the wrong thing when Potter goes stiff in his arms.

“...what did you give up?” Potter whispers, and it’s Ed turn to stiffen. But he knows the boy will find out anyways.

“Nothing important,” he says, trying to sound as dismissive as he can even though he’s still reeling in shock and pain. “Just un eye.” And he winces as Granger gasps sharply, and Potter screams.

Chapter Text

Ed hears the telltale creak of the door opening, and sits up on the bed. He’s wearing a blindfold tied over his empty eye sockets, because double eyepatches would have looked incredibly dumb. His entire body aches, throbbing in time with the pounding of his headache, but he licks his dry lips and clears his throat anyways.

“How are zhey?” he asks, because he’s been laid up in the guest bedroom at Grimmauld Place for a week now and he’s learned to recognize the cadence of Remus Lupin’s footsteps. 

“Resting,” the man replies, and Ed’s ear perks up as he moves toward the bed. He’s holding something. “Shaken. You hungry?”

“Not particularly,” Ed snorts, turning his face toward whereabout he thinks Remus’ might be. “Haven’t done anything but be laid up in bed, haffe I?”

Remus sighs, and the bed creaks as he sis down at the foot of it. Ed quickly readjusts the direction his face is pointing, then decides he doesn’t care and leaves his head where it is. “Vord come vrom Winry yet?”

“A letter,” Remus replies, paper crinkling. “She says ocular prosthesis are cutting-edge technology and she’s insulted that you ever questioned her genius, because of course she can do them.”

“Zhat’s mien Winry,” the alchemist huffs, leaning back. “Anyzhing on recovery times?”

Remus clears his throat, but doesn’t respond. Ed sighs. “Zhat bad?”

“Four to five years,” the man replies, wetting his lips, and Edward bows his head with a dry laugh. 

“Alright zhen,” he says, reaching out and heaving himself up off the bed. Remus jumps forward to steady him with a cry, but Ed shakes him off. “I haffe been vallowing in self-pity long enough. Time to get moving. Tell Dumbledore zhat he vill need to arrange mein transportation to Hogvorts so zhat I might say farewells to mein students, und get zhose two troublemakers in here zho zat I can speak vith zhem.”

Remus nodded (Ed could faintly hear his too-long hair brushing his too-high collar) and tilted his head. “And your journey home?”

“I,” Ed said, a dark grin unfurling across his cheeks, “vill take care of zhat.”

Harry ignored the first knock on his bedroom door, and the second. When a round of insistent pounding started up, sounding rather like someone was kicking the door, he uncurled from his creaky desk chair and shouted “Come in, then, if you really want!”

The banging stopped, and someone fumbled for the knob. When the door slammed open Harry jumped to his feet, expecting Ron trying to get him to come down for dinner of Hermione wanting to rant about something. But Professor Elric was standing with a hand on his hip, furious posture framed by the door. He looked sick, with gaunt cheeks and a blindfold tied over (no eyes no eyes no eyes) his face, and his other hand had a loose grip on a cane that was obviously alchemized from the silver-wrought staircase railings.  

“You’re a rude kid, favorite. You ought to be nicer to your poor teacher,” Elric scolded, but Harry was already backing away. 

“Get out,” he whispered, but Elric was still rambling on bout something ridiculous and stupid like everything was normal- “I said get out!” Harry roared, snatching up the nearest useless knick-knack and lobbing it straight at Elric’s blond head. 

The wizard realized his mistake a second too late, but Elric snapped a hand up and caught the heavy paperweight an inch from his face. The blond raised an eyebrow, and Harry bit his lip and looked away. 

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, turning so he didn’t have to look at the- at the blindfold. “I want to be alone.” 

Harry heard the cane tap-tap-tapping on the floorboards, and the heavy thump of Elric setting the paperweight down on the desk. “Potter, point me in the direction of zhe bed, vhy don’t you?”

He closed his eyes to stop the tears from welling, but turned and walked over to Elric to take him by the elbow and lead him to the dusty, unmade bed. “Here,” he mumbled, a flush rising as Elric felt the tangled covers and raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t thought much about cleaning.”

“I’ll bet,” Elric said dryly, and Harry sniffled. 

(It all felt so normal. Too normal. 

Harry is remembering countless free periods spent holed up in the alchemy classroom practicing circles on the chalkboard, stances corrected with a gentle hand and sharp smiles from a professor only two years older than him. He’d been desperate to learn alchemy, hungry for any advantage he could have over Voldemort. He’s remembering the SA, and the anticipation of knowing he and plenty of other teenagers were about to spend the night learning tips to incapacitate bigger opponents and how to make explosives using household items. 

This moment feels too much like that, like nothing’s changed. But that’s a lie. It’s his fault that Ron’s dad is dead. It’s his fault that Hermione got to thinking about human transmutation. It’s his fault that Elric is blind.

It’s all his fault, and everything has changed.)

“It’s all my fault,” Harry hears, and doesn’t realize that he’s the one who’s speaking until it’s already too late to keep quiet. “It’s- it’s all my fault-” he breaks off, and Elric is pulling him into a hug when he chokes out a sob. “My fault-”

Elric is hushing him as he wails, and Harry feels all the damned teenage angst he’s had built up in his head burst out into a fresh wave of tears. No doubt Harry would be incredibly embarrassed if anyone had ever started sobbing on his shoulder, but Elric doesn’t even flinch as the teen soaks his jacket’s shoulder in tears and snot, simply carding a hand through Harry’s wild mop and making noises as if soothing a wild animal.

The blond waits until Harry’s exhausted himself and the sobs peter off to sniffles before speaking. “It ees a bit your fault,” he says, and Harry snorts wetly. “But eet’s also mine. I should haffe warned you better. I should haffe kept a closer eye on what you and Granger vere planning. And for zhat I am sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harry grumbled, pulling back from the embrace now that he’d regained a bit of himself and suddenly remembered his dignity. “We shouldn’t have done it. Plain and simp-”

“Don’t argue with your teacher, you ridiculous child!” Elric mock-roared, grinning and playfully snapping his cane up to whack Harry’s shins. The wizard hopped away with an indignant cry of pain, and Elric laughed.

“And zho,” Ed finished, blindfolded and standing in front of the gathered SA with his suitcase in one hand and cane twirling over his wrist in the other, “Eet is vith great honor zhat I declare you all officially graduated vrom zhe Elric Crash Course een Survival. Now, you shall all recite for me zhe Five Cardinal Laws for Succeeding een Life.”

The students perked up, and scrambled to stand at attention. “The Five Cardinal Laws for Succeeding in Life,” they began, a bit out of tune but quickly falling into chorus. “One; panic is the deadliest enemy. Two; if it bleeds, it can die. Three; lose your stance, lose your life. Four; don’t be a whiny brat. Five; if all else fails, spite is an excellent motivation.”

“Excellent!” Ed beamed. “Ah, eef I could cry I vould, zhat was such a beautiful display. Go on, now. Curfew approaches.”

The wizard children began to stream out of the room, tossing well-wishings over their shoulders to him and he smiled good-naturedly, careful to keep his face pointed towards them. What good kids. They hadn’t questioned the blindfold, and he hadn’t offered any information. They knew he was leaving, but nothing more. Nothing about why. 

He wasn’t going to say goodbye to his alchemy class. For one, all the really stringent academics in there might have actually tried to lynch him if he’d suggested leaving, but he’d already arranged them all getting credit for the full class with Dumbledore and Remus had helped him put together study packets that would be available upon request if any of the buggers really wanted to look further into the field. 

Ed sighed as the flow of children leaving began to die down. 

“That’s the last of them,” Harry said, Hermione by his side as the door slid shut. Ed smiled a bit, and set his suitcase down to feel around in his pocket. Hermione rushed to help him, eager girl she was, but Ed drew out the chalk stick with triumph and she fell back a bit sheepishly. 

He’d spoken with her about the transmutation after he’d gotten sobbed on by Harry, and after he spent a rather large amount of time explaining the mess of tears and snot staining his shoulder, she’d been put to rights. 

“Professor…?” she ventured, no doubt wondering how he meant to draw the complicated circle he’d designed for dimension-hopping, but Edward Elric was a certified genius. He grinned as he set the chalk on the stone floor and clapped, pressing his hands to it as it spread over the floor to form the design, a single character left blank to keep the reaction from triggering until he was ready. 

“Vell, you two,” he huffed, turning to the teenagers standing behind him and picking up his suitcase, “I’ll be back once I get zhese eyes of mine fixed up, don’t you worry.”

“Promise?” Harry whispered, and Ed nodded.

“Cross my heart, kid.”

The two backed out, and Ed was left alone. 

“You ready?” he murmured, switching back to Amestrian just to savor the familiar language, and something like a hissy chuckle twined in their mind. “Let’s go, then,” the blond sighed, reaching up to pull the blindfold up enough that Truth’s glowing blue eye was exposed to the air. “Fill the circle.”

Truth’s arm reached out with the chalk, and Ed stepped into the circle. The last sigil was drawn. Algaz, the lightning bolt. 

Electric blue light crackled.

The room was empty.

Harry panted as he clasped his wand with trembling fingers. It had been two years since Elric left, and here he was, standing in front of Voldemort in the rubble of the Great Hall. 

“What now, Potter?” Voldemort hissed, his sibilant rasp twisting through the dusty air. “What card will you play now?”

“Your horcruxes are gone, Tom,” Harry gasped out, raising his wand. “Including the one in me. You killed it yourself. You’re as mortal as I am.”

Voldemort let out an enraged shriek, and Harry closed his eyes as a green curse blasted from the Dark Lord’s wand. He’s been on the run for a year now, and he’s so tired. He’s so tired. 

(Why should he raise his wand? Why should he bother to dodge? He’s exhausted. He’s starving. He’s got a really annoying rock in his shoe and blisters on his ankles from ill-fitting trainers. Harry has been fighting Voldemort for his whole life now. What if he took a moment and just- didn’t?)

“If all else fails,” someone cries, rising from the rubble, “spite is an excellent motivation!” 

Harry’s eyes snap open.

It’s been a year since Harry Potter killed Voldemort, and the reconstruction of British Wizardry is being plotted in the eighth-year common rooms by various members of the old SA who’ve stayed at the castle for the winter holidays. They’re reminiscing about Professor Elric by the fireplace when a sudden blast of light knocks them back.

“What the hell,” Harry groans, sitting up and rubbing his head, squinting up at the figure that’s just appeared out of thin air. 

“So, kid,” says a voice, horribly familiar. A face comes into focus, blond bangs framing a cybernetic eye with a glowing golden iris next to a white void. “What’d I miss?