A/N: Thanks go out to everyone that reviewed: Adin Terim, Tiger Box, Guest, Guest, Burning Tortoise, fullmetal, Falcon Punch, Sentio Infermum, Elspeth. Replies to guest reviews are at the bottom.

Warning: General confusion. Mentions of science.

FMA: Influenced by several sources. Can be considered AU.

HP: Pre-Book One, the Sorcerer's Stone.

Chapter 2: Tergiversate

Tergiversate – verb (used without object); 1, to repeatedly change one's attitude, opinions, or respect to a given subject; equivocate; 2, to turn renegade; 3, to depart

"Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance."

–Boy George

It wasn't that difficult to recall: a scratched, busted old whiteboard on one wall, flanked on the right by an equally battered desk with a fabric-covered spinning chair (how he loved that thing) with four rows of eight desks, all facing the front of the room. In the back were tables, specially treated to handle dangerous chemicals. And how could one forget the blast shield, for the particularly dangerous experiments where people just couldn't be trusted, even when said people were older than he looked.

Despite the others' insistence to not return to Munich, Ed found that he couldn't not go. He still had to hand in his resignation, for one thing, and he wanted to see the place one more time. To know that he hadn't lost his mind, that all of this was real. It would be late enough in Germany that no one but the staff would still be there, only janitors and teachers catching up on their work. The janitorial staff avoided his room like it was filled with the plague, having learned early on that he didn't like to be disturbed. Due to their avoidance, his classroom was only cleaned on Sunday afternoons, the only guaranteed time he was never there.

The fear that the janitors held for him stemmed from one member, who had been cleaning the room while he was out for a conference, threw away a very important paper he had been using. The man, deciding that the Amestrian scrawl was the gobbledygook of chemistry, threw it away without another thought. At least, not until Ed had found him, one hour, forty-five minutes and thirty-six seconds later and threatened to throw him into the next decade if he pulled another stunt like that, and made him go through all the garbage to find the paper he had thrown away.

With a derisive chuckle, Ed let the darkness wash over him. He disappeared without a trace, one moment there, the next gone.

Perhaps the most scientific piece of magic in the history of science-related magic, Apparition and Disapparition were the closest things to clear cut science, or perhaps science-fiction. The theory was sound in magical and scientific terms. On one hand, witches and wizards were in one place, and with some concentration, they were somewhere else. That's all most knew and cared about, although some did dabble into the magic theory behind it. On the other hand, the scientific end, Apparition and Disapparition –which were essentially the same process, it only depended if they were going away or to you– followed the three steps of alchemy: understanding, deconstruction and reconstruction. Better yet, the energy involved didn't need to know what the human body was composed of; it just acted as it naturally did.

Rather, the understanding involved stemmed from concentration. Knowing where one wanted to go would direct the energy to break down the body at such a fast rate they were unable to feel themselves being deconstructed. But the question arises, 'Where does the energy come from?' The area from which a person was Apparating from would be temporarily vacated of its magical energy, being the supply for the deconstruction. If no energy was present, then some would be borrowed from the user and anyone or anything around them, and would use the natural sugars most organisms ran on. Supporting this theory were the reports of fatigue following numerous Apparitions, if one judged by the book Ed had found some weeks prior.

Finally, following the deconstruction of the body, it would be reconstructed in another area. The only question Ed had left was whether the molecules were transported there, or if similar molecules were reconstructed in an essential carbon copy of the user in the target area, which would be them but not them, if that made sense. There was also the matter of a person's soul, but he wasn't going to delve into that. He had enough of the Gate to last him eternity. The same could be said of the Wizarding World as well.

With such understanding of how magical teleporting worked, despite the oddity of that sentence, one would expect for Ed to find himself in his old classroom. Instead, he found nothing. There were walls, of course, and ceiling lights, and a tiled floor below, and looking over his shoulder, there were the tables found in every science room in the building, but there were no desks. There was a blank emptiness in the middle of the room; even the whiteboard was gone, the paint a sickly shade of white where the fixture had once resided. It was just a touch paler than the rest of the wall, as the lights were off and the blinds shut tighter than plastic wrap. Ed turned to where he knew the door was, and as he thought, light was spilling out of the window, lighting up the room enough that he could see. Weaving between the desks, he stopped in front of the door; he looked back and shuddered, unnerved by the sheer emptiness of the familiar room.

The Headmaster must have sent someone to get his things, Ed decided. It didn't explain why the board was gone, but it wasn't as though it mattered. What did matter was that his personal effects were missing from the desk. He clearly remembered leaving the contact case on top of the desk and next to it had been his bag. He refused to get a briefcase- if he ever went into politics he would. But he was a teacher, so that meant no briefcase. Yes, it wouldn't have been so unusual for Dumbledore to have sent someone here. It was more likely than someone having stolen them, for who sneaks into any school, in the middle of the night to steal a teacher's belongings? That reeked of a B-list action movie, and Ed didn't have any secret documents in the school anymore, so the answer was no one. The only thing that remotely resembled secret documents was his journals, and that one paper the janitor had thrown out. He had been in a hurry and hadn't had time to find the current journal, so... The point was that he learned his lesson.

Shaking his head at the sudden turn in thoughts, but nonetheless reassured by the line of thinking, the blond opened the door and stepped out into the hall, testing the other half of the knob as he checked the halls. No one else was there, and it was locked on the outside end. Letting the door catch on his hand, he eased the door shut with a soft click. Most of the lights were off, maybe every one in three shining dimly in a vain attempt to light the encroaching darkness. In minutes, not having met any other life forms on his way there, Ed was in the office, standing in front of the unfortunate secretary's desk.

Unfortunate because the person sitting at the chair looked to be about twenty years old and looked like a poster-boy for alcoholism. He had dark circles under his eyes and a slight yellow pallor to his skin that suggested either drug use or serious malnutrition, lack of sleep and illness. If Ed had known this kid was here before, he would have passed by without a word; instead, he silently stood in front of the desk, wondering how he had gotten this job and if he had enough brain cells left in his skull to realize there was a person waiting for him.

The poster-boy, finally, lifted his head and stared at Ed with half-lidded eyes, face vacuous as the void. Slightly disturbed by such lacuna, He felt himself leaning away from the bizarre secretary. The kid must have been appointed while he was gone; there was no secretary when he had been... taken from the school previously, as the former worker had recently learned of a parent's terminal illness and requested leave so she could spend time with them during their final days. The cutout made an odd grunting noise and tapped at a sign taped to the left side of the desk; it screamed that identification was required upon entry.

Perhaps the staff did notice his disappearance, then. Ed fished out a wallet and flashed his driver's license at the kid. It wasn't a duplicate, although some of the documents used to obtain it were. After so many years, he had contacts in the underground that he called upon occasionally, usually when moving or going into hiding. Most of those contacts had passed on, but there were enough still alive and kicking that he could settle for some time. The poster-boy sluggishly inspected the card, blearily looking over the dates and names written on it.

After some agonizingly slow minutes, he waved a hand at Ed, who shoved the license back into his wallet and into his pocket. He casually stepped down the short adjoining hall to his former boss' office, the chancellor. Said man was sitting behind his own desk, with stacks upon stacks of paperwork dominating its surface. For an uncomfortable moment, Ed remembered another desk with a far less dutiful-to-his-paperwork man sitting behind it, always procrastinating and ready to light it all on fire.

Tearing himself out of nostalgia, Ed plopped himself down into a seat left out in front of the desk, intended for visitors. Unsurprisingly, he went unnoticed by the other man; the stacks were high enough that not many people could be seen over the sheaves of wood pulp. After nearly ten minutes of paper shuffling, muttering, the click and odd noise when one runs a pen over wood, Ed stood and pushed aside two stacks of paper, so the chancellor could clearly see the blond.

The other man looked up in slight surprise, though when he laid eyes on his former staff member, his face fell into a vague frown. Letting out a growl of frustration, Ed spun back to the door, storming out and all the way back to his former classroom, still as dark as he had left it. He stopped with one hand on the door, having noticed a detail that had escaped him before.

There was once a bronze-coloured plaque that bore his name set into the middle of the door. It was more for the students' sakes than it was for his or anyone else's pride, but the plaque was missing now. Ed lightly brushed his fingers against the lighter grain, ignoring the chipped pit-like holes that indicated there were once screws set into the wood. Dumbledore, it would seem, had been very thorough and kept to his word when he said Ed would have 'as good as disappeared'. With a sigh, Ed stood erect again and vanished, the air whistling slightly in his wake.

Next chapter: Inception (NOT THE MOVIE!)

Guest (1): Thank you, I appreciate it. And I will.

Guest (2): Terse as in the chapter length? Don't worry, this will get longer in later chapters. Just not this one.

fullmetal: I'm glad you do, and I 3 your review.

Falcon Punch: Can you make a list of those you like? And I'll upload every two weeks or when I get enough reviews. Captain Falcon reference?

Elspeth: Thanks, I just wanted to do something original. Plus it puts Ed in quite the position, because it makes him owe Dumbledore for getting him out of St. Mungo's. Arc One is before and during Sorcerer's Stone.