Thank you all for your reviews. They definitely made it easier for me to stay motivated as I tried something new to try to get this chapter edited and up. I appreciate the positive and negative feedback on how I'm doing as a writer. I'm glad to say that the 7th chapter is now up.

Chapter 7

I stayed at the Leaky Cauldron for part of the summer, and that time dragged by in an awful blur flavored with the awful anticipation of the upcoming laws that would be out to get me. But I had an otherwise uneventful stay, the most exciting thing happening being me breaking my resolve to not write Ed in the aftermath of Professor Dumbledore's death. I wrote a letter to him shortly before it was time for me to move in with Fred and George.

Ed, I wrote, I still care about you and always will. I want to hear if you're doing well. I want to hear if you have any major life events, like one that's happening for my friends' brother this summer (I'm told he's getting married).

Even if you write for no other reason, please let me know you're still alive. As I've told you before, there are dangerous things going on here in England, and I'm scared for everyone around me. I want to hear that you're safe in Amestris at least.

But I couldn't send the letter. It was too dangerous for him and for me. I was supposed to go into hiding soon, after all.

I put my letter in the back of my research folder instead, tucked just behind my picture.

I packed up that evening, slipping out through the rooms to the pub's back entrance. I passed some small children, who looked like siblings, hugging each other. I smiled grimly as I met up with Fred at the pub's back door.

Fred handed me a cloak, some fliers about Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze's latest products, and a Headless Hat. "Nothing too unusual about you, mate. You're just a part-time employee getting off late. George and I have been getting people to advertise all day."

I glanced at the fliers. They were selling Fred and George's prank products, as well as some more practical products charmed with concealment spells. Fred grinned. "We're using the Headless Hat as part of our advertising, but it certainly won't hurt you. Come on."

I pulled on the cloak and the hat and followed Fred to a shop with large windows in the front. "You'll be staying mostly in our apartment and our back rooms. We want to stay in business as long as possible, but if we have to leave for any reason, you're coming with us."

Fred took me inside the shop and closed the door behind us, flipping the sign over to show that the shop was now closed. He gave me a brief tour of the shop, including all the back rooms.

Fred stopped in one of the back rooms in particular, filled with blueprints and half-finished products of various types. He went and stood next to George, who was waiting in there with a slim stack of papers. "Hey, Al," George said. "Welcome to development. This room's as secure as we can make it to ensure the safety of our prototypes and to hide anything related to the war efforts back here."

"War efforts?"

Fred grinned. "Although a good laugh does wonders to boost morale, you don't think we're only going to focus on pranks with worse threats than You-No-Poo running around, do you?."

George set the papers down on a desk. "Take these papers, for example. Since we heard about those new laws coming out, we've been looking into how they could be enforced. More than one of us work for the Ministry, and we hear a few things."

"Wait a minute, who's us?" I asked.

"The Order of the Phoenix. The organized resistance to what's going on. Fred and I are both members."

"You're not the only one we helped into hiding," Fred said. "But we did get special permission for you to hide with us and have access to this room. You see, we heard what you did in Hogwarts. You sounded a warning about the upcoming laws, and you told people the truth about Muggleborns. You upset quite a few Death Eaters by doing that."

I shrugged. "Hermione said it would help keep people safe."

George nodded. "We were wondering if you could keep using your research to help out. You're underage, so you can't be a member of the Order or anything, but we think one of the first steps in enforcing the upcoming laws would be a smear campaign against Muggleborns, so if you could make some opposing literature, since you've already spoken up..."

I nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

Late that night, I sat at a candle-lit table in the development room. I was finishing up looking over the notes George left for me on the anti-Muggleborn campaign. I jotted down notes that I'd use to create a countering pamphlet for Fred and George to distribute.

Then my head started drooping toward the table for the first time in years. I sat up a little straighter, but I found my head drifting toward the table again.

I was immersed into a world of empty white. I saw no sign of where I'd just been. I looked around. "Is anybody here?"

I caught motion out of the corner of my eyes. I turned and found a skeletal boy with an untamed golden mane standing up. "Over here," he called, using my own voice.

I approached slowly, stopping several feet from the boy. The boy reached for me but stayed put.

I backed away from the boy's outstretched hand. I looked up from his hand to get a better look at his facial features. I was met with golden eyes set a face I could recognize, even while its body was severely malnourished. "You're my body!" I blurted out. "My real body."

"And you're my soul," he said. "Let's reunite."

I shook my head. "We'll be trapped here completely then. Ed isn't coming to rescue us."

My body gazed at me with a frown. Then it started fading out, and Fred and George's back room started to take shape. I sat up. "What just happened?"

I said nothing to Fred and George about what had happened the other night. After, all, what could I say: that I'd aided my brother in a ritual that would surely be considered the alchemical equivalent of the Dark Arts and lost my true body in the process? Besides, I didn't want to spoil the festivities for their brother's wedding.

I stayed behind in the shop as the twins went to attend the wedding. I occupied myself by watching the twin's special love potions that they'd left to simmer. When the latest batch of love potion was the color the twins told me to watch for, I took its cauldron off the flames and started pouring it into waiting bottles.

I mentally scoffed. As if some potion could make you care about someone! I didn't know of a single potion that could make my brother care about me again, so why would a potion generate lasting feelings for a lover?

Love was based on empathy, compassion, goodwill, and sacrifice. Good relationships were built on mutual love, trust, and commitment. Personally, I'd never trust a girl again if I found out she'd slipped me a love potion. And where would our relationship be then?

I sighed, lowering the cork I was about to put into the next bottle. I used to have such a good relationship with my brother. Where did it go wrong? It wasn't like I'd intentionally hurt him by studying magic or anything.

A couple hours later, Fred and George Apparated directly into the back rooms. George grabbed my arm. "Alphonse, what do you need to bring with you if Death Eaters followed us?"

"Just my research folder. It has a picture of Ed. They could go after him."

George summoned my research folder. He kept his grip on me and turned.

Then I got one of those rare moments of sensation, but this one was not at all pleasant. I felt as though I was being rapidly forced through a narrow tube that squeezed me tight – especially around the chest.

I landed with George before it could occur to me that I can't actually suffocate. George let go of my arm and I fell forward onto a thick patch of grass.

"It's happened," said George. "The Ministry's fallen, and those laws you warned us about should be going into effect immediately."

I slowly pushed myself to my feet. "Where are we?" I asked. "And where's Fred?"

"Fred should be joining us soon," George said, as I started to study my surroundings. "He knows where we were going. This, Al, is my Great-Aunt Muriel's."

I looked around. There was an isolated pink-painted home with a row of shimmering bushes neatly aligning the front, a row of mixed flowers in front of them. There was a path leading around a hill, where I suspected other homes lay. But the home was otherwise surrounded in all directions by a forest.

Muriel's yard was marked by a picket fence, containing a small green lawn that was interrupted only by a red brick path leading to the front door. We walked up the path to the cream-colored door with a fanlight and a sidelight. George rapped on the door. "The wedding was interrupted by some unpleasant characters, but I think Great-Aunt Muriel Apparated here before we did. Fred and I did have to go back to our shop and get you and some important stuff out first."

When we were let in, we were greeted by an ill-mannered old lady who made us put shoe covers on before we came in any further. The furniture all had the same large-print floral pattern, and the whole place smelled strongly of lavender.

Muriel criticized George and I for things like getting dirt in her entryway, not giving an old lady a proper greeting, and having too mischievous of looks in our eyes. We were spared when Fred arrived with the Order's stuff that the twins had kept in their development room, and we slipped upstairs and into one of the guest rooms while Muriel turned her criticism on Fred instead.

"There's not a lot of room here: Great-Aunt Muriel usually lives alone." George said. "The three of us will have to share this bedroom, but we can't be too picky right now."

I looked down at the cream-colored rug on the rosewood floorboards. "It must make things harder to have me along. I'm sorry. I wish I could have gone back to Amestris, but thank you."

I returned to the Gate again that night, but I still kept quiet about it. I told my body again that Ed's not coming to the rescue and that I need to stay and fight with my friends, but it seemed to want to reunite anyways.

I kept quiet as I helped Fred and George set up a radio program called Potterwatch over the next couple weeks. They said that I was too young to go on the air – I was underage, and it was dangerous.

But it wasn't as though I couldn't help out at all – after all, the research I'd done for the past four years was something that could help counter the notion of Muggleborns like me stealing magic – at least among anyone who was open enough to listen to Potterwatch in the first place.

However, helping with Potterwatch did not keep me from returning to the Gate at random times. One time, I went while I was trying to talk with Fred about some rumors that Muriel had told us about Voldemort eating brains.

I couldn't fight my own fake body as it slouched over in Muriel's overstuffed armchair and my vision faded to white. I arrived at the Gate, and my real, malnourished body stood up to greet me.

My body stretch out a hand toward me. "Let's reunite."

I shook my head. "I don't want to. No one's coming to get us out. We'll be completely trapped in here."

"We'll be safe in here," my body said. "Didn't you tell me how dangerous things are outside right now? Isn't it better just to stay here?"

I backed away. "It may be dangerous out there, but being trapped in here until I die is a fate worse than death. Besides, I'm needed out there. I don't want to abandon my friends like Ed abandoned me."

My body sat down, still peeking out at me through long, greasy hair. "Then go. But we'll see each other again soon."

When I woke up, I heard people whispering somewhere above me. I couldn't make out any words at first, but I did hear them whispering.

"I don't know," one of the twins was saying. "He just suddenly passed out."

Someone swore. There was a dull thud, as though someone had kicked something. I opened my eyes and found Fred pulling out his wand, mumbling something about when he and George had invented Fainting Fancies.

I sat up and found myself on one of Muriel's beds with a flowery comforter. I tried to smile reassuringly, but I think the smile probably came across rather weak. "I guess I can't pretend that didn't happen anymore, can I?"

"I hate to say it," George said, "but, Al, that was serious. What's been going on, and how long has it been happening?"

"I've told you about my research, right? But I've never told you much about Amestrian alchemy." I pulled my knees up to my chest and remained silent for a few moments, searching for the right words.

"Alchemy," I said, "is a learned skill available to Muggles. It's not magic, but I think it's just as powerful. There are some things magic can do that alchemy can't, but there are also some things alchemy can do that magic can't."

I looked at the twins. "Have I told you that my brother is an alchemy prodigy?"

"Well, you did say he's an alchemist."

"He's brilliant. Always has been. He could do things with alchemy that most fully-trained adults couldn't even attempt. He was even able to attempt something that most fully-trained adults couldn't survive too, but it just wasn't possible."

I lowered my eyes and told Fred and George the basic outcomes of what happened when my brother tried human transmutation – although not what he actually did, and I told them that my soul was being rejected by the transfigured suit of armor that was currently serving as my body – that I'd been visiting my real body at the Gate. "This has been happening since earlier this summer, but the only one who might know how to help me is my brother, Ed."

Fred scowled, and George looked angry too. "This can't keep happening. The two of us are going to get a hold of your git of a brother."

"Good luck," I mumbled. "Ed started ignoring my letters this last school year. He wouldn't even let me come home when I told him that England's no longer a safe place to be."

Fred, George, and I pestered Ed and everyone else back home with as frequent owls as we could risk for several months – giving the owls instructions not to return until they had a proper response for us. But all we learned was that Ed was still constantly traveling and hard to get a hold of.

Then, one day, an owl we'd sent to the Rockbells swooped into Muriel's living room while she was out gossiping with her friends. The owl carried a single letter that looked as though it had gone through the postal system back in Amestris.

To Mr. Alphonse Elric:

I frowned and checked the letter's signature – it was from Colonel Mustang. I looked over at Fred and George. "It's from my brother's commanding officer."

The two crowded around me. "What's it say?"

I started to read the letter, but I gasped and dropped it before I could finish. "It's a formal notice," I said, "that my brother is missing in action."

Fred snatched the letter off the ground. "What? That git can't go missing now with what you have at stake."

I sat on Muriel's overstuffed armchair. "I thought Ed stopped talking to me because he'd rejected me, but I don't know how long it takes for someone to be declared MIA. What if the reason Ed stopped talking to me was because something bad happened to him? I've got to look for him."

"You can't," said Fred. "The rest of this letter said that your brother went missing on a mission here in England just a few weeks ago. You can't afford to be spotted. Let us look for him – we can get the rest of the Order to help too."

I jumped to my feet. "That's not fair! Sure he hates me, but he's my brother!"

Fred and George pointed their wands at me. "You're underage and still have the Trace. You use magic at all and both you and your brother are as good as dead. Is that really what you want?"

I picked up a sunflower-shaped knickknack from the coffee table and aimed it at the twins, but then I threw it against the wall instead. It shattered. "You're right," I admitted. "But I still want to help." I drilled my gaze into Fred's eyes, holding perfectly still.

Fred nodded. "We'll need to know what your brother looks like."

I relaxed my stance. "If he's alive and free, he may be hiding and in disguise or something, but I've got a picture in my research folder. It's not exactly recent though."

I led the twins to where I kept my folder in Muriel's study. I opened the sliding door under the writing desk and pulled out my research folder. I opened to the back and pulled out the photo.

Brother had his human arm around me. His automail arm was making a fist by his side, his dead-serious face being framed by a few stray strands of blond hair that couldn't be pulled back into his braid. Even more than I'd remembered since I'd last looked at the picture, his golden eyes gave off the impression of burning flames. And I was there, standing close to Brother – more relaxed, but my face not smiling either as my right hand disappeared to somewhere between his shoulders.

"Cheery lot you two are."

I handed the photo to Fred. "Ed changed when Mom died, and he took a turn for the worse after we got into a big alchemy accident. He started treating me differently once I went off to Hogwarts too. He's strong, but he's been through a lot. I don't know what state of mind you'll find him in if he's alive. But you know he hates wizards."

"Brilliant," George said flatly. "We can't promise anything, but we'll do our best."