Ed stood up from brushing Nina's coat to find himself covered in the girl/dog's hair. He was especially fluffy around the eyes where the moisture from the tears he always shed over the girl attracted the odd hairs. He patted her side gently as she lay down on the mattress she used as a bed and murmured softly, "I'm sorry, I haven't found it yet."

Nina's long tail thumped heavily a few times on the bed, "Don't cry, Big brother," she replied before closing her eyes and going back to sleep.

The past few days had been hard on all of them. He and Al had attempted to report Tucker to Eastern Headquarters and had been instead rerouted to Ed's least/most (he hadn't quite decided which) favorite person. The Colonel wasn't quite as unsympathetic as Ed had expected and after hearing the story had not only arranged for Shou Tucker to be placed under house arrest pending trial, but had also managed to arrange for Nina to appear murdered, rather than spend the rest of her days in a cage. Unfortunately he didn't communicate that Nina's murder was only for appearance sake to Ed and Al, instead leaving them in the dark to think their friend was dead. A depressed Ed had been surprised when he had returned to his military dorm room with an equally depressed Al to find the Colonel with their suitcases packed and ready to go and a car outside (driven by a certain Lieutenant with a gun obsession) ready to take them to his own house where the two of them and Nina were going to be staying until they found a way to reverse her transformation. Actually, surprised was an understatement if not a complete misuse of the word. Ed's exact words were something along the line of, "FUCKING Bastard! Why didn't you tell me you were going to kidnap Nina! I thought she was dead and you let me and …!" at that point Al had wrapped one of his hands around his brother's mouth, thanked the Colonel most profusely and hustled his now blue in the face older brother into the car before Nina's cover was blown. The fucking bastard in question joined them a few minutes later to give Riza directions to his house and to explain to the boys what had gone on.

When they had eventually arrived at his house, Ed had been dumbstruck. Roy had to admit there was a great wow factor about the house. It had six bedrooms, three bathrooms, two reception rooms, a giant kitchen complete with attached dining area and sun room and was kept spotless from top to bottom thanks to a brilliant cleaning staff who popped round once a week when he was out at work. He couldn't quite hide his delighted smirk at the astonishment on Ed's face that the Colonel owned such a place. Hawkeye had given him a look out of the corner of her eye when she had noticed and correctly analysed that smirk. Roy, being Roy however, ignored the look and dismissed her with a 'Thanks' before bringing the two inside to get them set up in some new rooms and get them started into researching ways to reverse Nina's transmutation.

On the fifth day of research Ed thought he might have found something. Might being the operative word in that sentence. He might have discovered a person who might know something or else he might have just discovered a famous crackpot instead. Ed was leaning towards the latter considering his luck with researching the Philosopher's Stone, but something in him was encouraging him to take a risk and try to contact this man, I mean even if he was crazy it wouldn't really affect anything. I mean nothing ventured nothing gained right? He ignored the fact that somehow in the last few days he had taken to having to cajole himself into doing something (mainly because that idea made him think he had gone quite mad) and quickly penned a short and concise letter to the crackpot.

Dear Mr. Dumbledore,

I recently read your book entitle "The Control and Suppression of One's Animal" regarding what you refer to as "Lunar based part wolves" or more commonly "Werewolves". I was wondering if you had any experience in dealing with non-lunar based part animals (chimeras) and the suppression thereof. If you are clinically insane please disregard this letter as I don't want any solutions that involve using a hack saw to separate man and beast.

Thank you

Major Edward Elric

The Fullmetal Alchemist

"So how'd the research go today? Find anything useful?" asked Roy, as the younger alchemist collapsed beside him into the sofa in front of the fire.

"No …" Ed grumbled his usual response. "Oh wait, maybe. I'm not sure, he might be crazy."

Roy raised an eyebrow. "At least it's a start," he offered in a vaguely questioning tone.

"Not much of a one," Ed muttered darkly.

"So what was it?" asked the Colonel, nodding a hello to Al and Nina as they passed them by on their way outside.

"I found a book," he began.

"Incredible, you found a book in a library," interrupted Roy with a grin on his face.

"You wanna hear this or not, bastard?" Roy waved at the miniature alchemist to continue. "It was a book on what the nutjob referred to as werewolves. Lupine/human hybrids controlled by the full moon. His theories sounded vaguely interesting so I sent a letter asking if he had heard of a case like Nina's before."

Roy started to get a bad feeling about this. There were only one group of people on the planet who acknowledged the existence of werewolves. A group he really didn't want to meet again

FLASH BACK

All the blood. Spread across the ground as if it was paint. Glowing red even through the pictures. They couldn't have done this. Could they?

END FLASH BACK

"So, who was the author of this book?" asked Roy, trying to sound nonchalant. He wasn't quite sure if he succeeded as Ed shot him a weird look. Too damn smart that kid.

"Some school principal, Albus Doodlesquat … Dumblesquat … it was something really weird," Ed searched his brain to see if he actually remembered.

"It wasn't Dumbledore, was it? Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" asked the Colonel, his face so screwed up he was only looking out of one eye.

"That's the one, that's what tipped me off that he was a crackpot, the fact that he claims to be a headmaster of a wizards school." Continued Ed.

"He's not a crackpot," Ed looked at him, finally clicking something was maybe wrong. "He's a genius and a bit … doo lally but he's definitely not a crackpot. He probably won't be able to help."

'I hope' he thought to himself.

He was interrupted by a tawny barn owl swooping in through the window and landing on the couch beside the two of them, where it sat preening its feathers.

Roy flumped backwards into the sofa and covered his face with his hands. "Dammit,"

Things went very much downhill after the owl arrived. Ed had fallen backwards off the sofa in shock, Roy had looked up from where he was slumped backwards over the sofa and burst out laughing and clapping his hands proclaiming 'the midget's legs are too short to touch the floor, oh poor little midget' which of course produced a reaction for aforementioned midget who began with 'well at least I don't have grey hair like some old Colonel Bastard's that I could mention, I have plenty of time to grow whilst you have plenty of time to grow greyer' at which point Mustang pounced over the end of the sofa (in the process knocking the owl onto the ground) and landed on Ed muttering something about 'well I'm clearly not too old to do this,' before quickly wrestling Edward's tongue out of his mouth. At that point Al and Nina came in from playing outside, Al immediately ducked back outside blushing bright red and apologising for interrupting their 'private time' and Nina, who normally would have had the same sort of reaction, instead attacked the still vaguely dazed bird that Roy had knocked to the floor moments ago.

Getting everyone calmed down from that incident was … interesting. They eventually settled Nina back into her bed with a promise of a quick brush before bed time and got the owl (who was by this stage missing more than a few feathers and sporting a bald patch) settled on the mantelpiece above the fire. They settled Al in front of the T.V. with an apology and sat facing each other on the sofa for some questions.

"Ok, let's start off with the easy questions." Roy nodded his approval. "How do you know Dumbledore? For a matter of fact who is Dumbledore? Is wizardry real or is he just a crackpot? Will he know a way to change Nina back? And WHY THE CRAP IS THERE AN OWL IN MY LIVING ROOM!!"

Ed panted heavily, trying to catch his breath as Roy looked amused.

"Those were the easy ones?" Ed glared at him. "Dumbledore used to be a State Alchemist, back before the ban on human transmutation was instigated . He was the Bone Alchemist. He had developed a transmutation circle for manipulating the calcium in bones. It wasn't really of all that much use in every day life beyond healing broken bones and making creepy sculptures but … in battle it was terrifying. He could make the bones of humans shatter. He was … discharged … from the military after a particularly gruesome battle soon after I joined and he returned to his home country to teach wizardry and eventually became headmaster of that school. And wizards always communicate via Owl. They think it's subtle." He said deadpan. Ed looked at his lover's face and burst out laughing prompting the older man to join in.

"You left three questions of my rant out." The laughter was wiped of the Colonel's face instantly. Damn kid was way too smart. "And don't pull that I'm cute, innocent and so distracting, come over here and kiss me so I don't have to answer crap. I'm not falling for that again."
"Really?" asked Roy putting on the puppy dog eyes.

"Well maybe once more, I mean I can always pester you in the morning." They stumbled up the stairs to bed together, completely ignoring the owl on the mantelpiece who popped it's head under its wing and went to sleep.

Hello All

Yes its me, Coletterby back to irritate the crap out of y'all. I have this slight obsession with RoyXEd Harry potter crossover fics. I just love them! So I thought I would write one cuz I loved it so much (and also because I've stopped feeling so guilty about my Bleach muse being beaten into a pulp by my Fullmetal muse every time I start tryng to write something)

So anyways

Review and tell me what you think. I have the feeling this is possibl one of the longest first chapters I've ever written (and trust me when I say my boss wasn't all that happy that I didn't do a whole lot today and instead sat and wrote this. I think his exact words were "Colette it's ten past five, you got out of work twenty minutes ago, you still haven't written down all the outgoing mail and who is Colonel Bastard?" stupid man not reading Fullmetal alchemist (Colette trails of muttering)

Neways thanks for reading!

REVIEW!!

Colette & Coletterby xx

oh yeah if anyone wants to Beta this story they're welcome to, just drop me an email. the address is on my profile

oh well love and lollipops