AN: This is my first fan fiction, and am still working out the format. I am writing the majority of this when I am too tired to have the right to be writing, so sorry for any and all mistakes that will undoubtedly appear. I also apologize for the writing itself: I know I'm not the best writer out there, but I hope that at least a few people like this. If you do, please leave a comment. If you don't, leave a comment telling me why. I'm sorry if this story is too much like any other ones that are posted on here (I know that HP/FMA crossovers are extremely popular, though, like everyone else, I'm attempting to make my different). I'm not basing it off of anyone's specifically; though I do want to know if I'm stepping on anyone's toes. Thank you for even taking the time to look at this story! Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. At all. All I have left is my laptop and my idea; please don't sue me for either. I am neither JK Rowling nor Hiromu Arakawa, though to be honest, if I did create a really popular story, I'd probably write crappy fanfiction on it. This is not the case however- so. No suing.

Edward blinked. His eyes felt too dry, and the blinding white that surrounded him didn't help. His eyes were running over everything in the sterile whiteness, trying to find something, anything, to focus on. But there was only his Gate, looming behind him. Its presence felt heavy with the weight of what he was about to do- yet, it was a comfortable weight: he had grown used to it sitting on his shoulders. (In the back of his head, he wondered how much taller he would stand without it weighing down his movements (even farther back, he knew that it wasn't just about height…))

"Truth! I'm back, you fucking bastard!"

Directly in front of him, a shimmering being appeared. It was almost the same color as the background, but a grey outline showed a vaguely humanoid figure. It had no features. It was a blank slate, filled only by the lazy grin that pulled itself across where a face was supposed to be. It was terrifying. It was puzzling. It was absolute.

It was Truth.

"My, my, my. What a tem-per, my young Alchemist. And what naughty language for one so small."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL THAT-" Edward cut himself off. A slight smirk was twisting its way onto Truth's face. Normally, he would play his part and finish his rant. But he didn't want to be played with any longer. Not today. Not when there was so much at stake. Not when Al was at stake.

Taking a deep breath, he started again. "I have something you want."

Truth never stopped grinning. "And what is it that I oh so desperately want?"

Ed swallowed. His eyes were no longer quite so dry. His Gate. His alchemy. The second biggest part of his life. But the thought of voice of the first ("Brother!") made him square his shoulders. I can do this.

"I will trade my Gate for my brother's body."

Truth paused and tilted its head. "Do you know what that means?"

"Yes."

"Giving up your alchemy."

"Yes."

"Giving up everything that makes you powerful, admired, useful. Your only valuable asset in an extremely dangerous time, one with many who would seek to kill you and all you hold dear. The only thing that might keep you alive, to enjoy the fruits of your labors."

"...Yes."

"Hmm." Truth stoked it's chin in thought. "No."

For a second, Ed couldn't comprehend it. "What?" Then it dawned. "WHY THE HELL NOT YOU FUCKHEAD!?"

Truth shrugged. "Every person has a Gate. Some are weak and some are strong. Yours may be rarer than that of a normal person, but it's not worth your brother's body."

"Not worth it?"

"Well technically, your alchemy is worth about a hundred of dear Alphonse's bodies. But that's not what equivalence of this scale is based on, or did you truly think that an arm is worth an entire soul? No, my dear Alchemist, your potential is what makes you special-the potential that your alchemy allows you. All the energy of those you best flows through me. There is no way that I would give that up, not for anything less than death."

Ed felt dizzy. "I feed you?"

"Indirectly. Much like that first Greed who got a bit too greedy, still fed his Father."

"Why are you telling me this?"

This time, the deity even let forth a bark of amused laughter. "Well, I am Truth, aren't I?"

Most people would have shut down from information overload. But Ed had the remarkable ability to process at a higher level than most people could normally, even (or maybe, especially) during high stress situations. And this ability went overdrive when it came to his younger brother, allowing him to prioritize: Alphonse always came first.

"I'll give anything. Anything at all. Please. Just give my brother back his body."

Desperation cracked and wove through the words.

Truth thought for a moment. Anything was a pretty large range after all. But almost nothing was worth the energy that Ed had supplied him, and had the potential to supply him wi-

A low horn filled the white space. It was a sound that did not belong; it was alive and lucid, much too clear to be in the surrealness of the moment. It was sharp like a bullet, cutting through the many muffled layers of dreams and Truth.

Ed heard the sound. It rang through his skull, and slowly he turned to see something completely unexpected.

A silvery train plowed through the blankness. Steam bellowed out from it's top like the mouth of a dragon. Huge wheels pumped at its sides. The sides were smooth and magnificent. Clunks came from where the wheels turned on the tracks. But as soon as the last set of wheels ran over the track it disappeared. It seemed more than a train; It seemed sentient, and proud. In gleaming letters on the side were the words HOGWART'S EXPRESS.

Another low boom filled the air, before it wove out of the whiteness, and out of sight.

Ed was dazed and slightly in shock. "What the fuck was that?"

When no witty or perplexing answer came, he looked once again at Truth. And was even more shocked. The permanent grin had become an angry slash that almost seemed to rip the head in two. Whatever the train meant, the deity had not liked it at all. It almost seemed repulsed by the sight of the train, but Ed couldn't imagine why.

Suddenly, Truth's attention snapped to Ed. He had the feeling that for the first time, someone was truly analyzing him. He felt transparent in that moment. Almost as if while that much focus was singled on him, he didn't exist. When Truth spoke, he almost didn't hear.

"I'll take you up on your deal."

"What?"

Annoyance found it's way onto the slant of Truth's scowl. "I will give you brother back his body."

"HELL YES!" For a second, everything was forgotten in the euphoria and knowledge that his Alphonse might finally be able to touch, to taste, to smell, to live again.

But then he thought about what he could never again forget. "Equivalent Exchange." he whispered. Then he straightened. "What do you want from me?"

Truth was silent for a moment. "I have a Task for you to do."

"What is it?"

Truth suddenly walked over to Ed. "Hey! What are you doing?" The deity's hand touched his forehead though, and everything went blank.

When Ed opened his eyes, he was staring at what appeared to be the inside of a train. It was a fancy luxury apartment that he would never be able to afford- with soft leather seats, doors that closed and thin carpet. Well, it would normally be expensive, but it was made entirely of silvery white. It took a moment longer than he would ever admit to realize: this was the train that had aggravated Truth to the point of accepting Ed's deal.

The Hogwarts's Express.

He sat up, and realized that his injuries were gone. All the scrapes, stab wounds, bruises and miscellaneous hurts from the Promised Day had disappeared. His leg was still absent, and the scars from missions were still present, but at least there was no chance of him bleeding to death in the present.

When Ed stuck his head into the hallway, he wasn't that surprised to see that no one was there. Curious to what was going on though, he opened the door to the compartment across from the one he had woke up in.

So there are other people here, was his first thought. His second thought was, these are not normal people.

There were three of them; one woman and two men. They were all wearing dresses and were waving strange...sticks animatedly.

"You're superstitious! That's nothing more than a bunch of lies to help calm the masses! I thought better of you, Amanda!" One of the men was saying to the woman.

"Uh… hello?" Edward started awkwardly.

It seemed that the people in the compartment didn't hear him. The woman was protesting to what the man said. "No, it's not! I worked in the Department of Mysteries. I saw the prophecy being transferred in there! I heard that it spoke of a way to defeat Voldemort!"

"Don't say his name!" the first one hissed fearfully. "And did you ever personally hear the prophecy? No? Then you can't know that it wasn't just a rumor started by the Order of the Phoenix, trying to get more followers!"

"You may not like them, but they aren't that bad," yelled Amanda. "Dumbledore would never manipulate people that way!"

The man snorted. "That senile fool? He's getting older. He won't be able to protect everyone forever."

The man who hadn't said anything yet quietly but firmly spoke. "Amanda's' not talking about forever, Jim. She is talking about holding off until the prophecy comes to pass."

With the slight break in the conversation, Edward tried again. "Who are you guys? Where are we?"

No one responded.

"Damn the so-called prophecy! Even if it was true, the Order couldn't even keep it a secret. What does that say for their competence?"

Ed finally had enough. "Hey, why are you ignoring me?" he yelled as he rudely walked all the way into the compartment. When they still talked over him as if he didn't exist, he got in the loud man's face. "I'm talking to you!" When even that didn't cause any response, he grabbed the hand that had held the stick for emphasis.

His hand passed right through.

Dumb with shock, he stared at his left hand. It was its normal fleshy self. Hesitantly, he tried to touch the man with his newly restored hand. It too passed straight through as though he didn't exist. Mind racing with equations, possibilities and explanations, he stumbled out of the compartment, and back into the one he had woken up in.

He then collapsed on the chair. But if he went through people, why wasn't he going through the floorboards and being crushed under the train? Why wasn't he going down even farther than that and sinking into the earth? He opened and closed doors earlier. How the hell did he do that? What sort of place did Truth send him to?

"Calm down, Mr. Alchemist."

Truth, in its humanoid form, was spread out on the opposite side of the room. "I have to explain your Task to you. I'd rather you be able to retain it, so if you can, please LISTEN."

Ed wasn't quite sure why he wasn't surprised to see Truth. Maybe it was because something was wrong; something was messing with Truth's laws. So all he did in response was nod, still in a form of shock.

"There are many worlds, and all of them have their own Absolute Truths. These laws cannot be broken, but these laws only apply to their specific world. In yours, the only law is Equivalence. There are places out there where there are no laws, and there are places where the only law is imbalance. But there is one thing, and one thing alone that every world must follow: do not cross the boundaries."

"Wait, wait, wait a second." Ed spoke incredulously. "You are telling me that there are places where there is no Equivalent Exchange."

"Yes, boy, that's what I'm saying." it hissed. "And if you interrupt again, our deal is off, and you don't get your brother back."

Ed shut up.

"In one of the worlds, there is Magic. Magic is like Alchemy, but it has no Exchange and can do things that would be impossible with science. There are few who are born with the ability to call forth Magic, and they squander it: using it for mundane tasks and never paying the price for using it!"

Truth spat out the word Magic. Here, on the train, it's repulsion was even clearer than it had been before.

"Normally I wouldn't care. But there is a man in the Magic world. His name is Tom Riddle, but he goes by Lord Voldemort. And he is breaking the most fundamental law that the universe holds: he mesing with other worlds."

"He is on a path seeking absolute power in his world, and to do so, he is delving into the depths of the Darkest forms of Magic. He is disturbing the flow of his world to such a degree that the energy displacements are rippling outward and into others. That's what this train is," here, its voice almost broke with disgust. "A way that the disturbed energy is leaving his world. Too many with magic are dying, and it's throwing the world off its axis. The souls of the magically dead need somewhere to go, and they are being shoved into other dimensions where they don't belong. The reason why none of the souls in this train recognize you is because they can't comprehend your soul; it's so different from theirs'. "

Ed wasn't exactly comprehending it fully either. The sheer vastness of the information being told to him was huge. The implications were shattering. But there was a few things that Truth hadn't elaborated on, and it was this where he focused his thoughts. "What is my task then? And why are we on this train?"

"We are on this train because it has a direct link to the world that you need to go too, as distasteful as it is. I can't take you there, because I still have to follow the fundamental laws. This also means that I cannot make deals with you while you are in this world-"

Ed interrupted, panicked. "Wait, so I'm going to lose my Alchemy?"

"Don't interrupt!" Truth snapped, "You proved that your Gate is yours not mine, correct? No, you won't lose your alchemy, but you'll lose the ability to make deals for things where you lack the proper materials. "

"Your task is to defeat Tom Riddle. I don't care if you kill him, or if you merely subdue him. The important thing is that he loses the capability to gain this sort of power again."

"Ok… Ok." Ed muttered. "I can do this." he looked up at Truth with his golden eyes full of steelhard determination. "And while I'm there, my brother is back in his own body?"

"Yes- though I should warn you- time works… differently in between dimensions. You could live a thousand lives in the world of magic before an hour passed in our world."

Ed had to pause for another moment, taking that in. From the way that Truth spoke, it seemed that it might take a long time to complete the Task; a long time away from Al: the person who he had never spent more than days away from since he was born. But it was for Al.

"I'm ready." And the Fullmetal Alchemist was gone from his world, the train, the Between; and fell into the world of Magic.

Truth looked at all the future possibilities that might play out for the elder Elric in the other dimension. Only now that the Alchemist was there, the futures all took a turn for the worse, worse than what Truth had anticipated. Ed would fail, the world of Magic would collapse under the weight of imbalanced energy, and the displace that would come from such a powerful world would ripple through the universe; potentially destroying Truth's own realm.

It thought. It thought on a level of thinking that was not coherent and definitely not comprehensible on a level of anything less than gods. Millions of voices floated through the Truth, each clamoring to be heard. Somewhere among the crowd, one of them yelled out an idea. Other voices considered the idea. Most thought about it and accepted it and passed it on. Before long, Truth (or at least the majority) was agreed.

Its sentient form tore a hole in the fabric of the white space, and slipped through. And then it was there.

The Between.

Each dimension held its own place in the universe. Each had its own deities. And the gaps in those dimensions, the places where there was nothing, was the Between. It was the Between that was the ultimate ruler of the universe, in a sense. It held the power to enforce the Fundamental Law. To most deities, this was the same thing. But even all-powerful beings can be harmed, and it was the Between that was being ripped at the seams as ripple effects swept through the universe.

"Why are you here?"

Truth didn't try to find where the voice was coming from. Unlike the individual dimensions, Between could not create a sentient form. The "voice" wasn't even really a voice; it was a stream of consciousness through which concepts were relayed.

Truth respectfully said, "I am here with a possible solution to the Magic problem."

"What is it?"

"I have sent one of my representatives to the Magic world. He will defeat the source of the imbalance."

"How?"

"He is strong, and he is determined. Once the source is gone, the ripples will eventually smooth over. However, I have peered at the future for the Magic realm through my representative. The source of our problems apparently can only be killed by a young boy who is protected by his mother's love. But this child does not seem to be strong enough. I doubt that he will be able to stop our problem; he seems to be influenced and manipulated rather easily."

"What do you suggest?"

"Switch their destinies. Allow the original child to live as he would have had it not been for the imbalance. Place my representative in a position where he can learn the art of magic, and use it to defeat our problem."

Truth could feel the heavy weight of the Between pressing down onto it as the greater deity considered the proposition. In a space of time that may have been forever, the Between relayed, "It is done."