Origins
(Backstory: a little based on 03 finale but you’re not missing much if you didn’t watch it)
The months he’d spent in Germany with Hohenheim were the most monotonous and soulless months of his life, to no fault of anyone in particular. Though, it made him feel better to blame someone. Perhaps he’d blame Hohenheim for relentlessly keeping Ed within arm’s reach to “protect him,” as if he needed that after all those years without any guardian. Perhaps he’d blame Hohenheim’s aggravating university students he had to deal with, who mocked him for his broken English despite them coming to a German university without speaking a lick of the language. Perhaps he’d blame the mounds and mounds of futile research he’d subjected himself to, hoping to find a way to get back to Al. Perhaps he’d blame, oh, he didn’t know, Truth itself?
He navigated his life beyond the gate with a perpetual scowl, dripping an air of negativity everywhere he stomped. His sacrifice was worth it, he had to keep telling himself. Reminding himself. Al was undoubtedly alive, even if Ed couldn’t see him and confirm it. He had to believe that, because if he had even the slightest doubt, he wouldn’t keep up the effort of living.
Because of the attitude he’d gotten used to, the uncontrollable excitement that overcame him when he read the newspaper shocked him. It also definitely shocked the students he stole the paper from. It probably wasn’t a good look; it was the first time he’d ever been outwardly happy around them, and it was when he read a newspaper about natural disasters and death tolls plaguing Britain. But that was what excited him: they were disguised as natural disasters. To the average person, they very well could’ve just been unavoidable accidents. How could a bridge snap clean in half otherwise? But an alchemist would know: that could never happen unintentionally.
He knew damn well that alchemy didn’t exist on this side of the gate; unending trial and error reinforced that. But… he hadn’t allowed himself to accept that he could never see his brother again. There had to be a way. If there wasn’t one, he’d make it himself. Sure, alchemy didn’t exist there, but those disasters didn’t cause themselves. There must’ve been… an equivalent to alchemy? A different form he couldn’t take advantage of because he was missing some key information? The idea invigorated him.
Just as he didn’t allow himself the privilege of despair for all those months, he didn’t allow himself to think about how ridiculous he was being when he stole money from Hohenheim and snuck out in the night to board a boat to Britain. Idiocy and gall were necessary evils in situations like this, he convinced himself. That decision led to a week of hopping from ferry to ferry, wandering his way to the locations mentioned in the newspaper that barely ever left his grip. The closest was a landmark on the Thames: the Brockdale Bridge. Or, more accurately, what was left of it.
He stood on the cobblestone road lining the bank of the Thames, right where the remains of the bridge jutted out over the water, and peered across the river. He couldn’t see jack shit. A thick mist churned above the water’s surface as rain and wind whipped through the streets of the city with a fervor. He’d been limping through the street all day, talking to the sparse passerbys and asking about the area. He believed that, if it really was an alchemist’s doing, there had to be a solid reason for picking that bridge specifically. They were scientific people; they didn’t do many things for shits and giggles. There had to be some justification, but… so far, all he found in the surrounding area were mounds of ancient looking shops and townhouses squeezed together. No government buildings, no places of mass public convergence, and nothing that could serve as a grounds for an attack.
He slipped his good hand into his jacket and pulled out his second-hand pocket watch, looking at the time. 8:30 PM. He’d been scouring the area for about 7 hours. His tiredness and frustration hit him like a train when he realized, and he slumped his shoulders with a sigh. He needed a break. He swiveled around to face the riverside storefronts and trailed along the road until he finally found a lit building that wasn’t as busy as the others.
He stomped into the bar with a heavy limp and wrung out his waterlogged braid. Rain pelted relentlessly against the window of the run-down pub as he clambered over to the bar and slumped onto a stool, water dripping off of his trenchcoat. He croaked at the old bartender for a glass of water before slinging his ancient briefcase into his lap and rifling through it, hoping that there was some ibuprofen haphazardly shoved in there.
It annoying as hell to lumber around one of the largest cities in the world while being assaulted by rain, and that’s not even mentioning the barometric pressure dropping and making his stumps so sore that even standing up was torture. The day was… frustrating to say the least. All that work and trouble and he still didn’t get a single lead yet. The second the old barkeep set down a glass next to him, he swept it up and used it to wash down three pops of ibuprofen. He stared at the cup in a daze, wondering what the alcohol laws were in Britain and if drinking some would fuck with the pills in his stomach.
The old man said something, but it took him a second to register that he’d asked what was up with him. He groaned at the thought of answering that question at all, much less in English. He hated the damn language. Why couldn’t there have been sightings of possible alchemical terrorism in Germany? At least then he could get himself involved in a wild goose chase to find people that spoke his own language.
He took a very, very tired sigh and looked up at the barkeep. He was more or less bald, though he had a very thick grey mustache, and was dressed less like he ran a pub in the 1990’s and more like he ran a saloon in the 1890’s.
He’d been staying away from asking the locals too many questions, because he really didn’t want to go through the ordeal of a long conversation in English unless forced to. But… asking only a few questions wasn’t getting him anywhere, and if he was going to ask anyone, it would be an elderly person. They talked slow enough for him to keep up, at very least. Maybe he could…
“What do you know about the bridge?” He asked, deciding to start his information gathering carefully. The old man’s eyebrows raised slightly at the question before apparently coming to an internal decision and lowering them again.
Apparently his accent was quite pronounced, because he responded, “Ah, yes, I suppose the Dark Lord is not common knowledge outside of Britain.” Dark Lord? Could that be… a code name? Like his own “Fullmetal”? He perked up immediately. He didn’t expect a random barkeep would be the one to give him a lead, but that was awfully convenient. “That nasty mess,” the barkeep continued, gesturing in the general direction of the river, “is the work of his followers. They’ve been quite bold since his return.”
Okay. So there was a renowned alchemist titled the “Dark Lord'' who had a devoted, violent following full of more alchemists. While that wasn’t the ideal organization to learn this world’s alchemy from… it would have to do for now. If he was getting information that could help him get back to Al, he didn’t care where he was getting it from.
Though, one thing stuck out to him.
“Return?” He asked the old barkeep.
“Oh… yes, he die—“ the old man cut himself off. “disappeared about 16 years ago, but he re-emerged recently and made his appearance at the ministry. So many people came out of the woodwork at that: Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, even Sirius Black! That whole mess shook the community so hard that Fudge got replaced as Minister.” He regaled. Despite the language difficulty, Ed hung onto every word. This was good: solid names and solid locations to investigate. He had no clue what the fuck he was talking about, but that was fine for now. He had a course of action. But before that…
Ed didn’t ignore that stutter. It sounded almost as if… the “Dark Lord” may have attempted to cheat death. Just like him. Who he was or what he did didn’t matter: meeting someone from this world who’d made it to the gate and back with their life intact would be game changing. The gears in his head churned even more excitedly than they did when he first read the paper as he fished through his briefcase for a pen and paper and furiously scribbled down the names he heard. He haphazardly shoved the paper and pen into his trenchcoat before swiveling around and striding out of the building with a sharp fervor. He spared one more passing glance at the strange pub. The Leaky Cauldron. What a strange place to hit gold.
——————
He stared up at the moonlit building with a reminiscent sigh. It had been so long since he’d done some illegal research; he’d missed it.
He peered between the bars of the embellished spiked fence lining the perimeter of the enormous government building. He could only see one person through the window in the front door, but without alchemy, even taking one on would be too risky. No, he had to get in and out without a trace. His eyes flickered over the bleak building, looking for other possible entrances. There were, of course, the windows, and since most of them were dark, they would’ve been his first choice under his old conditions. But his primitive prosthetics wouldn’t allow for scaling a wall.
He snuck away from the front of the building and around the side, until at the back, spruces blocked his view into the small yard surrounding it. His eyes flicked up to the top of the fence and he contemplated hopping it. He looked at the base of the fence and stuck his foot in between two bars. They were tight enough that he could get a solid foothold. It was risky, but it was less risky than scaling a building.
He tossed his briefcase between two bars before sticking his boot between them and hoisting himself up from the ground. He gripped the bar tightly as he kicked his leg out from the bars and stuck it back between them higher than before. It only took him doing this a few more times before he was precariously perched atop the fence and was able to see over the trees. There was a door: unlit and windowless, nearly blending into the vast cement wall. Probably for maintenance. Perfect.
He swung himself off the fence and grabbed his briefcase before slinking over to the door. He grabbed two of the picks he used for his prosthetic maintenance out of the briefcase’s outside pocket and knelt down by the doorknob. Picking locks wasn’t necessary when he had alchemy, but nowadays he needed some skills for when he occasionally stole from Hohenheim or broke into the library after hours. This wasn’t much different.
The keyhole turned with a click and the door swung open into a dark storage room with electrical fixtures jutting out of the walls. He stepped in silently and gently closed the door behind him. His hand traced the wall as he made his way to the door on the other end of the room. It opened into a darkened hallway, littered with closed doors and carrying faint echoes of voices to his right. Probably just the sparse night staff. He slipped out of the room and trailed along the side of the hallway, making his way to the left.
He turned the corner and was met with another hallway lined with doors, but this time they looked less like maintenance and storage rooms. He tried the knob of the nearest one, but it was locked. He groaned in annoyance and gazed down the hall at the doorways littering its walls. How many doors was he going to have to unlock before finding what he needed? He begrudgingly began his answer to that question by unlocking the door in front of him. He swung the door open with a fervor and disappeared into the vaults of administrative records.
——————
For fucks sake, he was tired of walking.
He trudged through the muddy fields with a galumph, stomping not only because he was annoyed, but also because that was the only way to keep his footing.
He’d spent an entire night in the administrative records department, rifling through various properties to find where these people lived.
The Lestranges? They were based in France, not Britain, and didn’t own any tangible property in the country. Had to discard that rabbit hole. The Blacks? Similarly, they didn't officially own any property in the country, though they did have extensively documented marriage records, all of which happened in Britain. All that research gained him was acute confusion and multiple migraines. He decided to ignore that whole mess to keep his sanity.
That left the Malfoys. Thankfully, they did own property. One property. In the ten centuries they lived in the country, they had acquired one property. Though it did make sense that they didn’t really need another: it was a mansion given to them by fucking King William I. ‘Guess you wouldn’t really need anything else after that.
He paused for a moment, lifting his focus from the waterlogged ground to the enormous manor perched on the hill a few hundred yards away. Not a single road led up to the manor, but he was able to find his way there from the nearest town, as the manor’s silhouette was easily visible from about 4 miles away. Just from that fact, he knew the manor would be enormous, but apparently he didn’t fully prepare himself for the true vastness of the estate.
The manor towered over the countryside with an almost ominous presence, decorated with pitch black spires and ornate metal fixtures lining the windows. It was bordered by a pale brick wall that only stopped where a gated stone road spawned randomly from the grass, leading into the estate. What was the point of that? There weren’t any roads leading up to it; were carriages going to randomly appear right at the manor’s front doors? He decided to ignore the logistics of that in favor of returning his attention to the slip of paper in his hand.
His plan… it was a risky one. But he wouldn’t be touching someone labeled the “Dark Lord” with a ten foot pole unless it was worth it. He stomped up to the embellished gate and stuck the letter in the space between them, seeing an absence of a mailbox. Without sparing another look at the intimidating manor, he swiveled around and marched back to town faster than he approached it.