Chapter One: in which the old and the young meet, and the youngest is particularly eloquent

Four years later

Somewhere in Scotland

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

It was… an application letter. Extremely unusual. Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles at the open envelope in his hands. Yes, it was still the same: "To Headmaster Dumbledore, regarding the open position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor." The rest of the letter was relatively short, written in the awkward reserved fashion that one sees only on job applications and obituaries. However, the fact remained: someone had actually applied. Perhaps he wouldn't have to accept the ministry's replacement! The ever-present twinkle in the headmaster's eyes grew in wattage, if such a thing could be considered possible.

He didn't recognize the name: Edward Heiderich. Perhaps he was muggleborn, or German. Perhaps both. Perhaps it was even a false name, but Dumbledore himself had used them on occasion, so he couldn't really fault him. If it was an alias, it would become apparent after a while. Dumbledore was good at finding out about those sorts of things (being a Legitimens helped, although that took all the challenge out of it).

Yes, it was certainly worth looking into: an actual application! He'd had to go out recruiting the last few years to find someone competent, but crazy enough to take up the supposedly cursed position. Anyone, he mused, would be better than whatever spy the ministry would send.

The address, too, was unusual: Butterwort Field, South London, England. What an odd name for a manor. Perhaps it was new; he didn't remember anything in that particular area, but then again, it had been many years, and he was getting old. Dumbledore supposed he should pay a visit, to see what sort of person this Mr. Heiderich was. Short of being an overt Death Eater, or barring other extreme circumstances, Dumbledore believed he'd found this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Headmaster smiled, folded up the letter, and tucked it into his robes. He reached into his desk, withdrew a well-worn tin and, upon opening it, placed one of its contents in his mouth. 'Mmmm…. Lemon drop...' Dumbledore thought with no small amount of glee.

The Headmaster had been correct; there was no manor house in this particular field. In fact, it was a very bare patch of ground, nothing but waving grass and a few small, scraggly trees. Ah, but there was a small plume of smoke towards one of those trees. He made his way towards this landmark, his purple robes making a sharp contrast to the pale green-brown of the grass. The Headmaster's height allowed him to see over the tall not-so-green greenery, and what he saw upon his approach was an old car, brown, roofless and tinged red in some places with rust, and a small fading campfire. Around it were various cooking implements, pots, pans, plates and cups, placed in two piles. One of these piles was on the verge of tipping over, if the leaning was any indication.

There was no one there.

Until he drew closer to the car, that is, and espied someone, in a coat so brown as to match the faded and scuffed leather seats, curled up in the back. The long blond hair was the only part of the person he could see that wasn't brown.

Dumbledore, being a generally polite person (except to insincere ministry officials and Death Eaters), knocked on the side of the car door. "Excuse me, Miss, could you tell me –" With a start, the person sat up, turned towards the sound, flailed for a moment for balance, wavering, and fell to the floor of the car. "Oh, I do apologize, my dear girl." The headmaster opened the car door to help the person he had just disturbed up, only to discover his mistake.

The face belonging to the blond-haired, brown-coated person was most definitely male. Rounded with the last traces of baby fat, perhaps, scowling, indeed, and one cheek covered with a tracery of red marks no doubt from resting his weight against the leather of the car seat for hours on end, but most undeniably male. The same, too, could be said of the voice.

"The Hell was that about, old man?" Momentarily taken aback, Dumbledore paused, hand outstretched, arrested in its movement to help the boy up.

"Nii-san," came a sleepy voice from a bundle in the front seat. "You should be polite to your elders."

The boy gave the origin of the voice a soft look before he breathed a haggard sigh that turned into a yawn. He then accepted Dumbledore's proffered hand.

"Sorry about that, my dear boy." The brown coated fellow shot him a look, 'who are you calling so short people mistake him for a five year old?!', but said nothing to the headmaster.

"Al, go back to sleep!" He called over his shoulder as he walked to the fire and poked it back to life with a charred twig – not a wand, Dumbledore noted with interest. Most wizards would instinctively reach for their wands in such situations.

The flames once more becoming visible, the boy erected a rough tripod, made of slightly larger twigs and branches (likely taken from the tree underneath which he had taken residence) and placed a scratched tin teapot upon the structure, over the flames. Only then did he withdraw his wand – short, like the rest of him, Dumbledore observed – muttering quickly under his breath to fill it with water before tossing in some brown powder from a separate tin. This ritual completed, he sat cross-legged in front of the fire, and motioned the elder wizard to sit down across from him.

"You're Headmaster Dumbledore, right?" The boy said, voice still rough from sleep. "I've seen you in the papers."

"Indeed. I hope you read some of the more flattering articles." Eye twinkle.

The boy made a non-committal sound, ignoring the Headmaster's glinting gaze.

"I happen to be looking for a Mr. Heiderich. Does he live in the area?"

The boy looked up at him. "Heiderich? That's me." Heiderich had golden eyes: most unusual, except in werewolves. But the full moon had been just days ago, and Heiderich didn't seem too tired or worn about the edges as most werewolves would be.

"You're Heiderich?" The boy couldn't be more than sixteen years old, seventeen at most. What did he think he was doing, applying for a cursed teaching position, of all things, when he should rightly still be in school?

"Isn't that what I just said?" Heiderich stabbed at the fire with the twig he had been using earlier, sending sparks flying into the air.

"I am Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Even if Heiderich already knew his name, Dumbledore was, as previously stated, nothing if not polite, especially to the rare creature that was a Defense Against the Dark Arts applicant.

The younger man stopped torturing the fire. "I only sent in that application yesterday. That was… quick." Just then, the teapot began emitting a high-pitched whistling sound.

'No, not particularly,' thought Albus, 'Unless one is unused to the speed at which owls deliver mail.' The twinkling blue eyes narrowed a fraction.

Heiderich swiftly removed the pot from its perch above the fire, sloshing a little water on his right arm in his haste. "Coffee?" He asked, distracted, pouring out one cup for himself, presumably. Dumbledore accepted a mug of the hot liquid.

"You were fairly vague in your letter." It was job interview time. "What makes you think that you are qualified to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Sip. 'Ah, bitter.'

Heiderich looked the headmaster in the eyes over his mug of coffee for a moment. "I've been trained in martial arts since I was nine. I know a decent amount of magic as well." He sipped his coffee, not making a face at the bitterness of the drink as Dumbledore had. "I believe that I could teach your students how to defend themselves if the war you said is going on in the papers were to actually occur."

"So you believe that the Dark Lord has returned."

"I don't know anything about any dark lords." He took another sip of coffee. "All I know is that you think that he – this guy nobody says the name of – is a threat to your school and your students. I believe that you believe this guy's returned or whatever. It's what the employer thinks that counts." The slurping of more coffee interrupted his speech for a moment. "You want your students to know how to defend themselves, right? Well, I can help with that." Heiderich drained the last of his drink and set the cup aside. Dumbledore was less than half finished. There was another lull in the conversation, until the contemplative headmaster finally smiled.

"Aha! You're Amestrian!" Dumbledore smiled, triumphant. The object of his gaze leant backwards, avoiding the twinkling. That was…obviously not the response Heiderich had expected. The headmaster had been trying ever since the conversation began to place the slight accent the boy had; there was something Japanese in the way he pronounced 'r's, but his 'v's and 'w's were almost what you would expect from German. But still, the accent had been strangely familiar… And it had clicked. Amestris, the largest unplottable area in the world…. no-one had gone in or out of the land (legally, anyway) since it had split from the rest of the magical world over four centuries previously.

Dumbledore knew the politics of it; one radical magical group disagreed with the mainstream opinion – they thought magic could be quantified, and sacrifices were to be made for any spell used. Of course, most disagreed with such a thing; magic was magic, after all, their was no equivalent exchange – that was the definition of "magic", was it not? So the alchemically inclined wizards made their own territory unplottable and refused to let anyone from the rest of the wizarding community in, not even for trade.

Of course, there had been exceptions – the headmaster specifically remembered an old research partner of Nicholas Flamel's who had had the same odd accent. He, as a young man, had inquired to Flamel about it, and had been told in a hushed whisper: "Amestrian, but no-one's to know." He couldn't even recall the man's name – it must have been nigh ninety years ago.

In response to Dumbledore's "accusation" of illegal immigration status, Heiderich had stood so swiftly that he knocked over the teapot and sent it into the fire, throwing up a huge cloud of steam as the liquid extinguished the flames. "I – " The rest of his response was garbled, starting one thought and never finishing. "I – we – that is to say…"

The car door opened. "We're refugees, sir." The speaker, Al, if Dumbledore remembered Heiderich calling him earlier, was a young boy of perhaps four. He was clutching a ragged blanket around his shoulders, and with his ruffled hair and wide eyes, he certainly had the look of a young boy away from home.

Heiderich collected himself upon hearing the boy's words. "That's right." He sat down abruptly as the younger boy approached the (ex)fire, and continued. "There … was the threat of another war." 'Not exactly a lie,' Edward thought. 'There's been a lot of tension over by the Drachman borders and Liore isn't exactly a peaceful paradise anymore.' His hair fell over his eyes. 'And whose fault is that? No. Focus.' "The military rules our government, and recruits anybody of age and able-bodied." 'Also true, although it wouldn't normally affect me, as an officer.' "Al has no-one to take care of him but me. If I was enlisted, he'd be alone." The young boy, sitting next to Heiderich, leant closer, as if on cue.

Dumbledore sat, still and silent, across the fire from the two Amestrians. There had been a truthful ring to the younger man's words; without eye contact, he wouldn't know for sure. But the more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed that the two were, indeed, homeless – the car looked very lived-in. 'Alone at such a young age, too….' The wizard thought, something twisting inside him. 'A boy that young shouldn't have a son. Although, if he was responsible enough to take care of his offspring… '

"How old are you?" Dumbledore asked finally. Heiderich's eyebrow twitched, 'who are you calling so short he's mistaken for an embryo?!', but sighed instead of responding verbally.

"I look… too young, don't I?" Asked the blond after a moment. He sighed again. "I'm twenty. Alphonse is four." He stared, determined, into Dumbledore's eyes, and the headmaster read both truth and lies there. It was obvious that Alphonse was probably the age that Heiderich said, but Heiderich himself can't have been more than seventeen at most, even if he was unusually short. But if he was skilled enough to control a class and teach them what they needed to know, surely age shouldn't matter? He really, really needed someone who wasn't under the Ministry's thumb to teach this class…

After a full minute of silent staring, Alphonse yawned at Heiderich's side. Concentration broken, the soon-to-be Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor looked to the young boy curled at his right side.

"Oh, shit." Heiderich seemed to have just noticed he'd split coffee on his pristine white glove and not-so-pristine right sleeve. He lifted it from his son's shoulders and shook the damp material as if he could remove the offending stain with sheer force of his will.

"Nii-san, don't swear."

The corners of Dumbledore's eyes crinkled. If one ignored the obvious age difference and went simply with the way that the two acted, one would assume that Alphonse was the father.

"What were your magical studies like in Amestris?" The Headmaster asked. He had to know how his new professor was qualified.

Heiderich looked up from fussing with his sleeve. "Er, I had none." He looked a little awkward. "But I know magic!" The blond hurriedly continued, needing to convince his possible employer of his competency. "I've been reading, teaching myself since I got to England." The child at his side nodded in agreement.

Dumbledore was just a little disappointed; at his age, he didn't often run into new forms of magic. He would have liked to see how it had developed differently in a country isolated for so long. He had seen Heiderich use his wand to produce water, so he obviously wasn't a muggle or a squib … so why hadn't he had a magical education? Perhaps they didn't have a universal education system in Amestris, he mused. Or maybe they hadn't independently developed the means to detect muggleborns…

In any case… "Will you permit me to test you, then?"

"I—of course."

Dumbledore's smile reached his eyes. "Would you consent to a little friendly duel?" Heiderich looked surprised for a moment, but nodded. "Now I don't expect you to beat me," the Headmaster said, standing up, his old joints creaking. "I would like to see, however, where your talents lie."

Heiderich grinned wolfishly at the older man, twenty feet across from him. The wind rustled the long grass that rested between the two combatants. Alphonse watched calmly from the sidelines, still seated by the fire. His calm wasn't to be mistaken for disinterest, however, as he watched them both with an intense eye.

"Shall we begin?" Asked Dumbledore mildly as he drew his wand. "There will be no restrictions besides those of attacks that would be considered unsportsmanlike; therefore, no killing, maiming, etc." His eyes twinkled once again. "Although I think that goes without saying considering this is a job interview. Agreed?" The elderly man asked of the one across from him.

"Agreed." They both bobbed short bows. Heiderich then shifted his weight, widening his stance, extending one hand forward. He didn't draw his wand as the headmaster had. Dumbledore raised his wand-hand above his head and adopted a more traditional dueling posture.

"Begin!" At Dumbledore's shouted word, Edward immediately lunged to his right. A good thing he did, as the older man had lost no time in firing off several spells. The flashes of light seared neatly through the grass where Ed had stood moments before.

Edward hit the ground in a quickly maneuvered somersault, rolling upright just in time to dodge another flash of light from Dumbledore's wand.

It was only then (after diving forward to avoid another rattled-off spell) that the younger man drew his own wand.

Dumbledore was surprised (something that didn't happen often, at his age). Heiderich had yet to send any spells off in his opponents' direction. However, he hadn't used any defensive spells, either – but his evasive maneuvers were quite impressive. Although spells took the form of streams of light, they in fact traveled much slower than light itself; definitely slower than sound, for example, as one had time to hear the spell being cast before one was hit by it. But still, spells traveled very quickly through the air, faster than a ball thrown with all of one's strength, and some were quite wide. Those ones should be particularly difficult to avoid, but it would appear that Mr. Heiderich was very adept at avoiding things that had been thrown at him. 'Interesting', Dumbledore thought - not for the first time – as he prepared himself for Heiderich's spells; such evasive tricks would be incredibly useful for several of his students he had in mind, not the least of which was Mr. Potter.

Spell casting wasn't Edward's favorite form of attack, but considering the whole point of this exercise was to test his ability to do so, he didn't have a whole lot of leeway. He wracked his mind of his (admittedly, limited) library of spells suitable for dueling, and came up with one. Simple enough, but the trick was pulling it off. If there was one thing that Edward had learnt during his time with the military, image counted for everything in demonstrations of force. It wasn't enough to just do it; one had to present it in a way that was to your best advantage. The bastard Colonel had been a master of this. Why else be an expert in a, relatively speaking, useless form of alchemy? Fiery explosions were flashy, impressive and scared the heck of one's opponents, that's why.

In any case, Dumbledore didn't look like the type to confuse "flash" with "substance". But Edward still needed something relatively impressive, and original. The latter would be difficult to pull off, considering his opponents apparent age. He'd have to try to pull off something new for a man over a century old.

Best to go for the element of surprise.

In most wizarding duels, the duelists stood at least ten feet from each other, often more. This was "safer" for both parties, as it gave time to counteract one's opponent's spells. Most wizards with significant experience in duels (such as the esteemed headmaster before him, veteran of at least two magical wars and probably countless other, more minor conflicts) would expect the same such distance. As such, he was unlikely to be skilled in close-quarter combat. Unlikely, that is. Dumbledore was still very old, and by reputation very wily.

But the Headmaster was still a wizard by profession, and as such fairly useless without a wand. If he could highlight how dependant wizards were on their wands (silly, fragile things that they were, especially compared to the beauty of a well-drawn transmutation circle), show that there were alternatives that he could teach…

Edward had nearly five years of intense military experience out in the field under his belt, mostly just doing the Colonel's dirty work. In addition, under Izumi, he'd been required to learn both long-range attacks, such as alchemical spikes and blasts, and close-quarter combat, both empty-palmed and with alchemized hand-weapons. One excelled in all forms of combat or perished under Izumi's tutelage.

In that case, Edward had a clear advantage in close quarters. Now his challenge was to get close enough to attack.

This was achieved by a combination of ducking and weaving his way forward, and casting his first spells – defensive shields. They were strategically small, just enough to block the incoming attacks; there was no point in wasting valuable energy protecting a huge wall of defensive magic, considering his… size.

Steadily, he moved forward. At one point, Dumbledore threw a nasty-sounding jelly-legs curse at his legs, and so Edward had to hastily draw up the earth before him in a rudimentary transfigured wall. There was no way he was about to be tricked into using his alchemy this early in the game – even if that meant he was forced to use the horrendous parody of transmutation, transfiguration.

Dumbledore was surprised at the sudden appearance of a low wall; it was as if the young man had just…. pulled it out of the ground with his wand. He noted "skilled at transfiguration in battle" alongside "skilled at spell evasion" in his mind. However, his brief moment of hesitation at the appearance of the wall gave Heiderich ample time to swing himself over the wall and suddenly be entirely too close for comfort.

Heiderich swished and flicked, muttering something Dumbledore couldn't quite catch as he himself was speaking the incantation for a generic counter-spell. 'That was one of the problems in duels – anticipation, casting shields and just hoping they held. That transfigured dirt wall had been a stroke of genius,' Dumbledore thought with interest. 'Most spells were indeed stopped when they struck something solid, if not ricocheting to hit one's opponent. Useful.'

As soon as he finished his incantation, the headmaster knew something was wrong. It was the feeling one got when walking up a staircase in the dark, thinking there was one more step than there actually was – a sickening feeling that something was missing. Something was intrinsically wrong. It took Dumbledore a mere moment to figure it out.

His spell hadn't gone off. His wand had never failed him before (well, except that one time in 1923 when he had had too much fire-whiskey and – but that wasn't important right now!). And there was Heiderich, standing in front of him, wand at his throat, just a slight hint of a smirk at his lips… And Dumbledore looked at his wand.

There were flowers growing out of his wand-tip. Flowers. Rather nice ones, too, he noted: orchid-like. His wand had spontaneously sprouted… flowers.

No, not spontaneously. Heiderich had done it – that spell.

"Well, do I win, Headmaster?" Heiderich's unusual eyes twinkled. Ah, now he understood why Severus hated it when he himself did that. It was indeed 'creepily annoying'.

Albus Dumbledore bowed his head. "I concede defeat." Heiderich removed his wand from the elder wizard's throat. "I don't suppose I could trouble you to fix my wand?"

"Oh? Yes, yes," the blond nodded, looking a little flustered. Another muttered incantation, a short series of swishes and flicks, and Heiderich plucked the plants from the wand tip, leaving the wood undamaged, and, as far as Dumbledore could see, unchanged. But just to be sure (one didn't survive two separate wars against dark wizards on assumptions), Dumbledore tested it by turned the tip of his long beard a bright Weasley red. It all seemed in good working order.

"Well then, Mr. Heiderich," Dumbledore smiled, putting his wand away after restoring his beard to its' normal white luster, "I believe that there is a place for you – and Alphonse – at Hogwarts. Will you accept?" He held out his wrinkled but wizened left hand.

Heiderich, too smiled, and took it. "Why not?"

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Heiderich."

Author's Note: Why hello again! XD I actually didn't think I'd get this out as "quickly" as I did, however... here it is! I only really have one more chapter written, so I'm not entirely sure how swift the updates will be - but I really want to post the next chapter! But then I have no more, so I'm torn! ;;

In any case, for timeline purposes, this fic takes place during Harry's fifth year (if it's not apparent by what's been written so far) because we all like to torture Umbridge, even if it means we have to put up with CAPSLOCK!Harry.

If Alphonse seemed unusually mature in chapter one, I wanted to say that I've done that deliberately. Alphonse if four, but he's nearly twenty as well, you understand.

Once again, I'd like to thank you all for reading, and I'd really appreciate it if you could drop by a review! I love constructive criticism, but the occasional "lol this was great" or something really helps my self-esteem. :)