Lesson no.2
Ed groaned in pain and fisted his hair as the sudden flashbacks barraged his mind, Truth’s cackles still echoing throughout his mind. He waited a couple moments for the agony to subside before peaking around the room from between his fingers. It was elaborately decorated, obviously at one point in time well cared for, but now left to gather dust. He sneezed again. The single window casting the white light across the room was tightly shut.
Ed groaned and fell back on the mattress. He was too old for this bullshit. Fuck Truth. Fuck it all. At least Truth could’ve gave him his alchemy back-
Ed you dumb fucker. Truth had mentioned he’d be able to keep his alchemy after the mission, suggesting that he would have alchemy during the mission...
Headache forgotten, Ed wasted no time springing off the bed (ignoring the stiffness in his automail leg) before clapping his hands and placing them on the floor. Sure enough, he felt that lovely sensation he hadn’t felt in years run through him-alchemy. Ed sat back, feeling much more elated than he had moments ago. The satisfying moment didn’t last though, as a feeling of determination invaded him and he pushed himself to his feet.
Ight, game plan. Step one: figure out where the hell he was. Step two: complete step one. From there, he’ll kill the bad guys and go home. As he threw his hair up into a ponytail, something banged against his chest. The ivory sword. Although he didn’t really have a use for it now, he was oddly reluctant to leave it behind.
Slinging it across his shoulder, Ed made his way over to the door. He opened it and stepped out onto a staircase platform. There were multiple sets of stairs going both up and down. They were shabby and unsteady. As he descended the stairs, they creaked and complained under his feet.
The house so far was strange. It was gloomy and dark, save for the single window in the room. But there was something else Ed just couldn’t describe. His chest felt tighter. There was something, a force of some sorts, in the house.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Ed noticed a big painting on the wall, draped in some sort of black cloth. Against his better judgment, which Winry complained didn’t exist, he pulled off the cover. At once, he regretted his decision. The horrible, bat-like woman in the picture began screaming. Ed stumbled back. The garbled words weren’t Amestrian, but he could still tell she wasn’t exactly saying the nicest things.
The screeching hag was getting annoying, so Ed did the sensible thing- he kicked a hole through the middle. But his leg didn’t stop. It went straight through the wall and met open air on the other side. Whoops.
A voice called out.
Ed stopped, foot raised halfway through a step. The voice called out again, sharper, from behind the wall. The language was unrecognizable. Ed turned and noticed another door which he assumed led to the room behind the painting. It was slightly ajar. Ed crept as quietly as he could to it, and holding his breath, he slammed it open.
“ΞΧΠΕΓΙΑΦΩΔ!” The voice roared at the same time Ed charged into the room. A blue light shot straight at him and instinctively he bent backwards to dodge. The beam of light went over his head and exploded into the wall behind him, debris raining down on him.
What the fu-
Ed twisted back up and dove forwards as another strange jet of light headed right at him. He swiftly clapped and hit a nearby table, contorting the wood into a huge slab and sending it flying in the direction of the voice. The wall shattered with a loud thud, millions of tiny shards exploding all over, and creating a huge poof of dust.
Suddenly, a robed man walked out of the cloud. Gray eyes met gold. Ed didn’t pause to think. He rushed at the man, alchemizing a spear as he went. He lunged the weapon at the man’s neck, only for him to knock it away with another burst of light that came from his—stick?
There was no time to stare. The light from the dude’s stick had deflected off the spear and hit a few sacks of flour stacked on the far wall. If Ed had thought the dust made it hard to see, the flour took it to a whole new level.
Every part of the kitchen was coated in the white powder. Ed knew he must look the part too, because when he looked down he couldn’t even see his own skin. A rattling cough made him snap his head up and adjust his stance. A few feet away from Ed, the gray-eyed man was bent over, rasping.
Forcing out another terrible wheeze, the man straightened up while pushing his long, wavy black hair out of his face, before raising his eyes to meet Ed’s with another cough.
“Κψνσηkαπ?”
“What?”
The man waved his stick at Ed.
“You a foreigner?” He said in perfect Amestrian. Ed narrowed his eyes. How did–?
The man waved him off. “Translating charm,” he said as if Ed was supposed to know what the hell that meant. “Answer the question.”
Ed paused, acutely aware of the death-stick being pointed at him. Truth’s words flitted across his mind, they’re your allies.
“Yes,” He said, eyes darting up to look at the man’s face. “Listen, I'm not here to fight you–”.
The man stepped closer. “Are you with the ministry, then?”
Ed had no idea what the ‘ministry’ was. “No,” he said slowly. The man looked disbelieving at Ed’s delayed response, so he hastily added, “I’m here to help with the war effort.”
“So you broke into my house?”
“…Yes?”
At this, the man tilted his head back and barked out a laugh.
“Ahhh, so you’re a spy, then?”
“No, I’m an alchemist.” Ed said gruffly, starting to feel annoyed with the barrage of accusations.
“Oh now you’re just begging to get hexed, mate.” The man said, smirk falling away as he raised his stick. “Alchemists don’t exist any—“
“Dumbledore sent me!” Ed snapped irritably.
The man stepped closer to Ed, teeth bared in an almost-canine way. “Dumbeldore sent you my ass!” He snarled. “Any death eater could—“
Ed was just raising his hands to alchemize a cannon in which he would use to blow the nutter’s head off, when a huge, flaming red bird flew into the room.
The winged creature circled the room once, dropped a piece of parchment on the black-haired man’s head, and swept out of the room, Ed gawking after it.
The man reached up and unfolded the paper as if this was a normal occurrence, narrowed eyes still trained on Ed. Ed lifted his hands up as if to say, hey, the fire chicken gave you the paper, not me.
The guy grunted before turning to glance it over. Once he finished reading it, he cleared his throat roughly before looking over at Ed.
“Well, Lieutenant Elric, it seems that an apology’s in order.” The man stuck out his hand. “The name’s Sirius Black.” Ed just stared. The sudden change from ‘I’m gonna zap you with my crack stick’ to ‘let’s kiss and make up’ was throwing Ed for a loop. In his confusion, Ed took a moment to catalog the man’s appearance—long, raven hair framed a regally proportioned face, paired with dusky eyes. He wore a long black robe over a black shirt and leather pants, topped off with a pair of steel toed boots. Ed decided that his fit was fire, minus all the flour. And his stick.
This is what ultimately made him decide to shake the man’s hand, saying, “Just Ed.”
The man-Sirius- gestured to the paper. “Dumbledore cut it a bit too close for my liking. A moment too late and the kitchen would’ve been in pieces.”
Dumbledore. Truth called him ‘trustworthy’. So far, the man had almost gotten Ed killed by a nutter with a stick, so he wasn't too sure how deep their trust was gonna run.
“Could’ve been worse.” Ed said honestly.
Sirius raised a brow, the corners of his lips rising slightly. “Tell that to my kitchen.”
Ed looked around, finally assessing the flour-coated damage he had inflicted on the place.
Ed did feel a tad bit sorry, especially since this guy was supposedly a friend and the first thing Ed did when he got there was wreck his kitchen. Then again, Ed had decided to not give a single fuck, so instead of an apology he settled for: “not to be rude or anything, but I'm not sorry for breaking that painting. That old hag deserved it.” At this, Sirius seemed to strangely brighten.
“Oh, don't worry about her. I’ve been wanting to get rid of her for ages. If anything, I should be thanking you,” he said as he gave his twig a flick. As if they had come to life and grown minds of their own, the overturned furniture flew through the air and returned to their initial positions while the four suddenly seemed to have disappeared from everything-including Ed and Sirius. Ed watched, wide-eyed.
“How did you do that? Alchemy?” He asked. Sirius looked confused.
“Alchemy? Why, I’ve never even met an alchemist before. No mate, I just used magic.”
Ed laughed. He stopped when he realized Sirius wasn’t laughing along with him, but rather fixing him with a rather quizzical look.
“What, you can’t be serious? Magic?” He said.
“Yes magic. Haven’t you ever seen it before?”
Ed paused. Truth had mentioned a war using a means other than alchemy. It was possible that instead of alchemy, this country had magic?.
“We don’t have magic where I’m from.” Sirius nodded slowly.
Ed could practically see the gears turning in his head. “Y’know, I bet Voldemort would get a real nasty shock if we showed up with an alchemist.”
Ed looked at him blankly. Volde-what? Sirius crossed his arms. “You don’t know who Voldemort is?” Ed shrugged. “And you said you were here to help with the war?” Sirius said, chuckling. “Sheesh, whatever your country is paying you better be bloody excellent.” He said, pulling out a chair. “Sit.”
At the end of Sirius’s explanation, Ed felt like he had just woken up again with another migraine. Witchcraft, Hogwarts, Muggles, wands, London, and some kid called Harry Potter. Magic. Where is the equivalent exchange? You can’t just get something from nothing, which seemed exactly like what these wizards were doing-drawing this magic from a seemingly never-ending well. Sirius seemed okay, though. He was cool enough. Apparently last year they held a country-wide man hunt for him last year because he was accused of mass murder. It sounded pretty wicked.
Then there was the war. Ed figured that this must’ve been what Truth was talking about. This Moldymort guy seemed like a real nasty piece of work. Ed figured the sooner he took the creeper out, the better for him and ‘London’.
“You know, come to think of it, I think I’ve heard of this Voldetort dude before.” Ed said. Sirius nodded gravely.
“He’s famous all over the world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.” Sirius paused, that troubled look crossing his face again. “Anyways, what else did you say you were doing in London, Ed?”
The fib came easy. “Research. I wanted to know more about the culture, and I guess magic as well. It could prove useful to my country.” Sirius sat back in his chair, fiddling with a strand of his hair while looking thoughtful.
“You know, Hogwarts would be a great place for you to do some research. I’m sure Dumbledore wouldn’t mind if you used the library.” Ed nodded. “I’ll be sure to inform Dumbledore-“
The clock on the wall struck five and Sirius quickly sprung up from his chair.
“Ah, shit, I forgot. The headmaster’s actually due to visit at any moment. Perfect timing for you, Ed. You can ask him about Hogwarts.” Sirius started bustling around the kitchen, waving his wand all around. Pans flew over to the stove and knives began cutting vegetables by themselves while the chairs began straightening themselves. Ed tried not to look too unsettled at this.
CRACK. Ed jumped in his chair when a man appeared out of thin air in front of him. He was taller than both Sirius and Ed, dressed in a long purple robe and pointy hat with silver moons and stars printed all over. He had a long snow white beard and half moon spectacles which were perched on a crooked, pointy nose. Ed didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t an old man in a women's night dress.
“Hello Sirius. Oh, I see you’ve already met Lieutenant Elric.” The man smiled merrily down at Ed as Sirius brought over drinks.
“Ah, yes, Professor, he arrived not half an hour ago.”
Ed stood up and firmly shook the man’s gnarled hand. Although Ed still wasn’t the most polite person to ever walk the earth, he’d learnt it’s best to remain courteous until he’d been given a reason not to be.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir.” Oh yeah, and Hawkeye would kill him if he didn’t properly address his elders. The military did things to a man.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Lt. Elric.” Dumbledore turned to Sirius.
“Sirius, a word.” And with that he left for the hallway, Sirius trailing after him. A couple minutes later, the pair returned. Dumbledore approached Ed first.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Elric. We live in a challenging time, as I’m sure you are aware of. Much is to be done and said,” The aged wizard said, “Now, Sirius here has just informed me of your research needs and seeing as you’re likely going to be here a while anyways, I’d like to offer you a position at Hogwarts as an alchemy professor. Usually we don’t allow outsiders access to our library, but if you were to be a teacher it could most certainly be arranged. One could even call it… equivalent exchange.” Dumbledore said, eyes sparkling.
Ed shifted on his feet while a hand crept up to fuss with his ponytail. Truth had stressed this man’s trustworthiness, but Ed just couldn’t help feeling distrustful of him.
He needed this, though. It had become pretty obvious to Ed that the place to be right now was Hogwarts. There he would be able to access all the materials he needed to better understand this world. The sooner he did that, the sooner he could finish this stupid mission and get home Winry.
“Okay, I accept.”
“Excellent,” Dumbleore sang. “Lt. Elric, it was a pleasure. I expect to see you very soon.” Dumbledore walked out to the middle of the floor. “Sirius,” He nodded in the other man’s direction, and then promptly vanished. A silence settled over the kitchen. Sirius clapped.
“Well, come on then, Ed. Lots to do!”