Half Pain
Disclaimer – I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or Harry Potter. They belong to their respective creators…
Authors note – I really appreciate all the reviews that I am getting on this story. I thrive off of attention and reviews… so the more you review, the more that I will be inclined to update this story and make the chapters longer. Ideas and opinions are welcome to, as is constructive criticism – but no flaming. If I make a mistake that bothers you… or that you notice… please tell me.
Other than that, on with the show!
Chapter two – The curse of the Truth
It was a fact that none of Severus Snape's classes were ever considered fun. It was just not heard of for a teacher like him to give the students a break from his constant criticism and let them have fun. Hermione doubted that the word was even in his vocabulary. Yet, during their third year in Hogwarts, there had been one class that had been considered fun by some people, a pain in the neck by most.
Funny enough, no one had ever talked of the class the day after it had happened. It was as if it never happened. The class had started out as they normally did, with Snape going on dryly and finding some way to praise Draco Malfoy and take points off Gryffindor. Then he had announced the day's assignment – make a potion that would enable you to see your true love.
But with the mention that it would be a love potion, all the girls in the class were suddenly very excited about Potions. Rumors immediately started to fly that Snape had fallen in love and was taking on a new leaf in life. At the front of the classroom, Snape stood, calmly lecturing about how the potion was supposed to be brewed, what materials were needed to make it, and how it should look when it was finished. It was fairly obvious to Hermione that he could hear the girls talking, but he didn't do anything about it. He just stood there, smiling and lecturing, confusing her.
The strange thing was that no one else in the class seemed to notice the oddities of Snape's actions. Even if he was in love, wouldn't he still be finding every way he could to give points to Slytherin and take off from Gryffindor? Wouldn't he have done something to his hair? Made the classroom a bit lighter? Washed his hair? Gotten a tan? What sense was there in brewing a love potion to celebrate the fact that you had just found love?
But the reasons why he had the class brew the potion were not really that important, compared to the consequences that the potion brought. Without giving any history on the potion, who had invented it or even what the effects would be, he set the class to work. No partners allowed. At first, everyone was fairly orderly and silent, but round the time that Neville started to have some trouble, Snape went over and helped him. "No use in wasting such a lovely cauldron," was his comment to the class (both Slytherins and the Gryffindors were staring at him in equal shock by this point in time). After this, the class erupted into a merry bought of chattering.
It never occurred to me that Snape would have a sense of humor. But at seeing as to what it might be, then I conclude that he must have a very odd and disturbing sense of humor. The potion, to him, must have been part joke and part revenge for having to put up with us dunderheads for so long. Either that or to strike the fear of god into us if he can do that… then who knows what else he can do
Even though it was the hardest potion that they had brewed so far, most of the people in the class had gotten it right, and again, no house points were taken off for getting it wrong. For those who didn't succeed, Snape offered a class later on that day to show them how to brew it right. The people took this as an 'or else I will murder you in your sleep' thing, but maybe by going to this class and brewing it right would make him stay nice for the rest of the year. For those who had brewed the potion right, he inspected it carefully and told us "Drink this right before you close your eyes and go to sleep, you will see your truest and deepest love while you dream." Snape smiled all while he was saying this and then added in a much quieter voice, words which few people bothered to listen to. "If you have one."
The girls all squealed at this and ran out of the classroom, eager for night to come so they could at last see the one that they were meant to be with. The rest of the day was filled with talk of the potion. All the girls were speculating on who their true loves would be. The guys pretended to be disinterested, but it was obvious the potion was on their minds just as well.
And that night, for better or worse, everyone drank down the vial of potion that they had brewed in class.
That night was the worst night of Hermione's life. Not everyone's life, she learned, was as easy as hers. Going to school, preparing to face a dark lord, living a soft and cushy life without having to worry to much about what was going to happen today or tomorrow. Hermione and her friends had adults to look after them and guide them on paths that would lead to easy lives. They would live and die comfortably, without ever feeling too much pain, without having to worry or carry the burden of sins that they had committed.
She saw an image of a boy. Hazy, really, just fleeting impressions, a face she could not see that well. She thought he might have blondish hair and odd colored eyes, that his skin had a slight bit of a tan to it, though overall it was pale. He was laying in the arms of a huge suit of armor, his right arm and left leg were gone. His blood was dripping off the suit of armor, pooling on the floor. Through the armor a child's voice begged, "Please, help him! He's going to bleed to death!"
"Al, is that you?" A girl with long blond hair spoke. An old withered woman was standing beside her, and for a moment both were frozen into place, knowing what to do but too shocked to do it. What struck her as the most strange was the suit of armor seemed to be the thing that she could see the best. It just a just a hunk of metal, with large protruding spikes, but somehow despite its scary appearance… it didn't seem all that scary. How was the suit of armor walking and talking… I've never seen anything like that before and those red eyes, who ever heard of having eyes that were that color? Isn't it impossible? Hermione didn't see what happened next. It was at that point that she woke up in a cold sweat, shivering, a moment away from screaming her lungs out at what she had just seen.
She crept out of bed and snuck down into the common room, set on doing some of the homework she had set aside for the next day. Sleep was a precious thing for her, something she had to get enough of in order to pass her classes, but after seeing that she just couldn't sleep.
The next day in class, everything had gone back to the way that it had been before. We were to be silent at all times, take careful notes, and, of course, Snape took every opportunity to take points from Gryffindor and give them to Slytherin. It was as if the class the day before had never happened. The girls didn't talk about the potion, and neither did the boys. At the end of the year, when the exams came up, the love potion was not on them, even though it had been the hardest potion that Snape had the class brew that year.
Hermione had thought at the time that the dream was a one night deal. But every night since then, she had seen the life of her true love. The dreams didn't seem to be in chronological order. Nor were they always what was going on in his life. Sometimes they told me what was going on in the life of his enemies, something he seemed to have a lot of, or his friends and coworkers. Memories of what had happened to him in his childhood were common, as were nightmares of what had occurred when he had been training with an odd woman with dreadlocks. Regret for what he had done – though Hermione was never quite sure what he had done – was on his mind the most. The want to somehow fix it, and return things to the way that they had been once was the dream that he had.
The most shocking thing of all was that whatever it was he had done, he had entered the military in order to fix it.
At first, she had really hated the fact that every time she closed her eyes and entered the realm of sleep, she would see him, but after a while one learns to accept. This was not to say that the dreams and his life got any better; if anything they got worse. The boy seemed to go everywhere with that suit of armor. It was hard to look at armor the same; even armor that was charmed to walk around and do stuff didn't behave like the armor in her dreams. She could never look at armor the same way again.
But the real problem turned out to be hiding her emotions and feelings from others – mainly Ron and Harry. After seeing what happened in his life on a day to day basis, she couldn't help but felt that sometimes Harry was little more than a spoiled brat who refused to accept what had been given to him.
Though, on further contemplation, Hermione realized, not everyone can deal with things the way that he can. Not everyone was willing to enter the military at the age of twelve. Some people want to do the right thing, but they take an easier, more round about way of doing it. But… what was easy about defeating a powerful dark lord? Wouldn't it be logical to spend your time dutifully studying the dark arts, learning countercurses, and thinking of ways that you could possibly defeat him? You couldn't just accomplish something of that magnitude without a bit of work.
It seemed to her that Harry didn't do enough work. Luck was a feeble ally, and in the past six years of knowing him, every time he had succeeded at fending someone off or freeing someone of something it had depended heavily on pure luck and coincidence. Not to say that Harry didn't work hard. It was just…
"Never mind," she said aloud.
Ginny and Ron Looked over at her, bringing her back to reality. How long had she been spacing out and thinking about this?
"Hermione dear, I think that it is about time that you started to get home," Mrs Weasley said in a hurried tone. Darkness had passed about an hour ago. Because her parent had gone to a concert, Hermione had told the Weasleys that she would be staying a bit later than normal. No use in taking unneeded risks. Looking at the time, though, it would seem logical that even they should be home.
"Nobody leaves!" Moody's booming voice announced as he slammed open the door. "Death Eaters are out on the loose." Beside Moody was Tonks, and a boy in a red, slightly tattered jacket.
"Oh, Moody, Tonks, dear, nice to see you. What happened?" Mrs. Weasley said in an overly concerned tone.
"Well, we got there after the attack and we found this boy, alive amazingly, and a few other muggles dead. Seen any sign of Dumbledore? I know that he had something to do tonight, but…"
"No, I think that he will be here soon, he did say that he would stop here and drop off Harry after they visited someone."
"New defense teacher?" Inquired Tonks.
"No, new potions teacher, he didn't say who it was, really…"
The small talk was fading quickly. It was apparent that the adults wanted to question the boy, but they wanted Dumbledore to be there for the questioning. They also did not want the Ministry to get their hands on the boy before they had found out what he knew. The boy took their gazes in with an almost emotionless expression on his face. You could tell that he was tired and all he really wanted to do was sleep, but he would keep on moving on as long as he had to.
Mrs. Weasley was the first to talk, "Hello dear, my name is Molly Weasley, and yours?"
"Edward Elric, but you may call me Ed," he said in a short crisp tone, obviously annoyed at the fact that he had to be here.
"Ed, so how old are you?"
"I am 16 right now, but soon enough I will be seventeen."
It was at this point that Ron decided to open his tactless mouth and say, "How can you be sixteen when you are so short?"
The boy's demeanor changed completely – from 'I am tired I want you to sleep but I will stay up anyways' to, "WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT THAT HE WOULD BE LOST AMONGST HYDROGEN ATOMS YOU JERK!!!!" To everyone's surprise, in less than a second he was pinning Ron to the ground, about ready to punch him the face.
"Whoa, hey there buddy, I didn't mean it."
"Like hell you didn't!!! You're just like everyone else, recanting their statements when the going gets tough! Be a man! I'll show you who's smaller than a piece of lint you half pint idiot!!"
It was at this point that Tonks decided to speak up and prevent dear tactless Ronald from getting pummeled into the ground. "Ed, he didn't say any of those things, now calm down and get off of Ron."
Ed turned his head slightly and looked at Tonks, "What do you mean 'He didn't say any of those things'? He called me short! Midget! Dwarf! Small!"
Obviously, Tonks had succeeded in making things worst, rather than better.
While Ed was ranting, Ron had managed to crawl out from underneath him. He sighed in relief and started to head towards me. Ed grabbed his leg and pulled him to the floor. He pinned him there, smirking. I could tell that he was holding back from taking out all the pent up rage on dear Ronald. Moody, Mr. Weasley, and Professor Lupin (who appeared from nowhere) stepped in at this point and literally pulled Ed off of Ron. Then did their best to restrain him.
"Or what are you going to do," he snapped, "point that stick at me and say crucio? Like at the graveyard… how long was it again, oh yeh… an hour of that 'torture.' Hah, like that is going to work, I've put up with much more pain than that before. For a greater amount of time as well. If crucio is the best that you guys have, then that is truly a pathetic thing."
Ron's face paled at Ed's words. I could hear his thoughts perfectly (they were in unison with every one else's in the room at the point) – What the bloody hell? No one, no one could have done that! Everyone else though, shocked at Ed's words all the same, kept their reactions at minimum.
Tonks face grew serious at note of this, "You must have lived a hard life, Edward."
"My name is Ed, not Edward. Only my mother and…" fatal pause, "can call me that and there is no way in hell that you are her. Why did you bring me here anyways, to question me? Think that I am one of them?"
"Times are tough, Ed." Hermione turned around and left the room. She didn't even know if he had said anything back, more or less heard what she had said to him. A headache was slowly taking over her senses, she didn't know why. She wasn't prone to headaches that often. A nice, dark, quiet room and some sleep would get rid of the headache. Problem was that neither of those were going to be available for her at this moment.
Ed and Tonks, possibly Moody by now, were going at it in the other room. Tonks and Moody trying to explain why Ed was here, and Ed saying that he didn't have anything to do with it and he didn't even know what the whole death eater meeting had been about. Of course they didn't believe him, and they would keep him here until Dumbledore arrived. It would come into question as to how they would keep Ed here. It probably had occurred to them that if Ed got to fed up with the situation here, he might fight his way out the door. then it would come into question as to what to do? He had survived crucio for an hour.. and had come out SANE.
Mrs. Weasley, throughout all of this was skittering through the crowd trying to calm them all down (mostly Ed, who seemed very good at exaggerating the arguments of other people). Offering them food, in the case of Professor Lupin who was looking thinner and verging on the point of anorexic. And fussing over minor facts (such as oh dear, there is a hole in your jacket Ed, let me fix it). If she can't feed him then she must find another way to mother him.
Just need to hope that no one else will be idiotic enough to call him short… might tear down the house if that happened again.
Short… Kind of like in my dreams… that boy… Wonder where he is right now?
