Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, or the Harry Potter series.

Notes: Thank you, everyone for being so patient! I was really stuck for a while, but now I've come through that. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long. I'm warning you first, before you proceed – the characters belonging to each of the other 'worlds' are going to be terribly OOC. This is done on purpose because I'm having a jolly old time parodying cross-overs here. I am aware of just how uncharacteristic Dumbledore is, and it was planned, not just my brain's horrible twisting of him because I do/don't like him.

Chapter Four: Kitchen sinks, snaggleteeth, and "everything"

Flame idly fiddled with the quill in his hands, staring out of the window longingly. Seven days of teaching – it had sounded like a holiday to him, telling little brats about the very basics of his science. What a breeze, right? Well, that dream had been shot to pieces, and for once it wasn't by his gun-happy girlfriend.

He'd been here for four days already, and since Riza had insisted on his setting homework for the students – "How else will they learn?" – he now had a pile of scrolls on his desk that mounted higher than any of the paperwork he had been made to sign back in Central. True, they took up more room rolled than flat paper did, but the pile itself was foreboding.

It was with a hesitant hand that he started playing with the first scroll. Not marking it, of course, just fidgeting with a loose corner . . . bending it this way and that . . . foldi– oops, tearing a little – just a little! – now folding and unfolding the corner he had ripped off.

He jumped as the office door flew open, and hurriedly hid the scrap in his lap, looking to the door with as much attention as he could muster. There was no chance that he had just been ruining someone else's hard done work. No, he hadn't been destroying anything . . .

Riza sniffed as she strode in, and gave him a glare that plainly told him to get to work.

Flame ducked his head down. She didn't even need to use words to make him feel guilty. How did she manage that? Pouting slightly, he reached for a scroll sitting on the top. Maybe he could just do something while she was watching. When she got distracted, he'd go off and get some coff– Oh. Not coffee, they didn't really have that here, did they? Just that awful tasting pumpkin juice.

It was hopeless. Another three days of this and there'd be nothing left of his brain to use.

Meal times were – how should he put it? – an event at Hogwarts. A hall the size of the military cafeteria would be lit up with candles floating beneath what appeared to be an open roof, but was in fact just a bewitched ceiling. 'Just' a bewitched ceiling. It wasn't the most ominous of things, but looking at the sky from inside a roofed building did make him feel out of place. It just wasn't the most comforting of things to know that everything, including the ceiling, was magicked. He would have thought 'everything plus the kitchen sink,' but Flame hadn't been able to find the kitchens, let alone a kitchen sink. Whether it was hidden behind one of those portraits again – the things swung back and forth with such alacrity that he was surprised no-one had been hit in the face by one yet – or it was just that the sheer size of the castle had him confused, he did not know.

Beyond the mere ceiling of the Great Hall, mealtimes also included the sudden appearance of mass quantities of food and drink. Flame would eat the stuff – and despite an odd theme of pumpkin, which he couldn't stomach if they brought out another 'Pumpkin Pie' or whatever they thought of next (Pumpkin pasta? Spaghetti Pumpkinino? Pumpkin-chip cookies?) – but he wouldn't trust it past his wisdom teeth. Anything that occupied a previously empty space without travelling the distance between it and its previous location was not getting his seal of approval.

So during dinnertime that night, Flame sat at the teacher's table, eyeing his Fettuccini Pumpkinara distrustfully and trying not to gag on his Pumpkin Juice while Riza pointed out that if he looked more than a foot past his nose, he'd see that there were foods that didn't include pumpkin. All of the pumpkin-based foods were always put near him because they seemed to be the first thing he reached for, so people assumed that he liked them.

"Roy," Professor Dumbledore said, shocking Flame out of his pumpkin-shaped reverie.

The teachers at this school were a lot freer with given names than the military was. It was odd coming from a place of rank and last names to a place where the only people required to call you by your title were those younger than you. And one or two of the students didn't even do that since they noticed that Riza didn't. They had decided that since she wasn't officially counted as a teacher – only a teacher's aide – then that meant they were allowed to call him 'Roy' as well.

Flame looked at the Headmaster. "Yes?"

"We'd like for you to give a seminar," Dumbledore said. "A few of the other teachers and I were admiring your tactics, and wondered if you'd be able to help us with our own skills."

Flabbergasted, Flame frowned uncertainly. He was certain that he wasn't a particularly good teacher – Riza had had to tell him many times how to actually approach the students. He wasn't sure of anything, really.

"You want me to show you how to teach?" he asked bemusedly.

Dumbledore blinked. "To teach? Why would we want that? You're a terrible teacher! Filch could teach students how to do magic better than you could teach students how to . . . well, do anything, really. Almost anything," he amended with a thought.

Filch!? That creepy caretaker guy with the filthy unwashed hair and snaggletooth? "Well if you don't want that, then what are you talking about?"

"You," Dumbledore said, an air of austerity returning to his manner, "are an enigma amongst the Hogwarts staff, here. It's a mystery how you've managed to accomplish such an awe-inspiring feat, and we truly do wish to learn your secrets!"

In his head Flame was counting down. If this old coot didn't tell him what the heck he wanted by the time he got to fifty, he would explode. He was trying to be respectful to his superior officer- no, not officer. But still a superior. He was attempting to remain calm, but it was getting on his nerves. Flame didn't particularly like guessing games, and this one wasn't amusing him at all.

"We want to observe your each and every nuance, your intact conversations, even the way you walk – is it the way you walk? Maybe that's where I've been going wrong all of this time after all."

. . . Ten . . . eleven . . .

"It could be your attitude. Arrogance does seem to work sometimes – I've seen a few cases like that. And your excessive attempts to avoid work, too. I haven't tried that approach before, but if that's what works, then maybe that's what I'll have to do!"

. . . Twenty-four . . . twenty-five . . .

"Or your hair colour. Does hair colour change anything? I mean, mine's white, and yours is black, so maybe that's why I'm an utter failure when it all comes down to it. You'd never think that something as small as hair colour could be the determining factor, but it's hard to tell."

. . . Thirty-eight . . . thirty-nine . . .

"Maybe I'm looking at completely the wrong reasons, and that's why it just isn't working. What are the right reasons?" Dumbledore waited expectantly for an answer.

"Forty-three? Uh, I mean, erm," Flame babbled his way out of his confusion. Finally the old man had stopped. He seemed like he was in his right mind the previous times that Flame had spoken with him, but he supposed that senility had to set in for everyone at some time. Either that or he was attempting in an excruciatingly painful way to avoid naming the subject.

"The right reasons for what?" Flame asked. "Why am I an enigma?"

Dumbledore looked at him in surprise. "Haven't I been saying it all along, now?"

Trying to be respectful, Flame made sure the tone of his voice was as light as possible. It was an effort keeping the aggravation out of his tone. "No, you've been talking around the subject, but never said exactly what you want me to teach you all."

"Oh," Dumbledore said, apparently taken aback. "I thought I did say it at first, but maybe you were enjoying your pumpkin juice too much."

Flame shuddered.

"What we" – Dumbledore took the time to pause and gesture to the other male teachers along the table – "found so amazing in you, Roy, is that you're the only person on this staff who's gotten any in the last three months."

If he had been drinking his pumpkin juice, he would have spat the ghastly stuff out in surprise at Dumbledore's words. Actually, no, he would have spat the ghastly stuff out in disgust at the taste, then said "Whaaaat!?" at Dumbledore's words. But considering that Flame wasn't drinking his pumpkin juice, he had to settle for allowing his eyes to bulge in a shocked manner.

"Well," Dumbledore continued, "if you don't count Severus' drunken encounter – meaning that the woman, rather than Severus, was completely off her face – those three months ago, then you're the only staff member to have gotten any in the last eight years."

Flame took a deep breath. What this old man, with his long, silver beard was asking of him was to teach them how to get a date? No, not even that. How to score? He looked at the faces of the other desperate men along the staff table. Truth be told, he wasn't surprised that they couldn't get a woman. Not like they had the looks for it.

Nervously he looked back at his temporary employer. "Well, I suppose that I could give you a few tips," Flame muttered. These guys would need more than a few tips if they wanted to get anywhere.

Eagerly, Mustang chalked in the final squiggle and looked up to his companions hopefully. Though neither of them was the alchemic proficient he had studied to become, both had keen eyes, and were able to point out the triangle that he had missed by comparing the image in book and the array on the floor. Mustang drew it quickly before standing back to admire his work.

"That's everything?"

"That's everything."

He tucked the book underneath his arm – they'd need to keep that with them if they wanted any idea of what the other arrays were supposed to look like. Of course, they wouldn't need to know what all of the other arrays looked like if this one was the right one. And Roy hoped that it was. He beckoned his two subordinates closer with his unoccupied hand.

"I assume that we all just need to stand around it," Mustang told them, his eyes on the drawing before him. "There was some mention in the notebook about two yards, but I don't remember whether that was the supposed diameter or the distance we stand from it. Just to be careful, I drew the circle that size anyway."

They still examined the array out of thoroughness – if it was wrong, there was no telling what might happen to them. To anyone who didn't understand alchemy, they might have looked like a group of adults trying to figure out how to get the graffiti off the floor, but this was a time when a meticulous nature was necessary.

If they had so much as one step wrong . . . Well, at least Fullmetal knew an automail mechanic and he could put in a good word for– Scratch that. At least Alphonse knew an automail mechanic and he could put in a good word for them . . . provided that they came out alive – that was the big one that Mustang was aiming for. But maybe these creatures behind the Doors liked to have a person live in pain rather than just die. If that was the case, then amputation seemed to be the most likely side-effect.

But those weren't exactly the pleasant thoughts that he wanted to be thinking. He had already determined that every line was correct, and every marking was there in its rightful place. Everything was fine.

"So are we ready?" Mustang asked to break the silence.

The other two shifted on their feet. "Yes, I believe that that's all," Hawkeye said uneasily. She had probably been thinking similar thoughts to him. "We may as well get going, and make the best use of our time."

Mustang crouched down beside the array again, and told his subordinates to imitate him. They crouched beside him, their arms reaching out as his hands stretched to sit on the circle.

"Boss! What about equiv–"

A blue light shone up from the transmutation circle, enveloping all three officers.