If Hermione or Ron were to call themselves strangers to oddities they would also have to brand themselves as liars. Harry even more so. Yet Edward Elric, with all the worldly experience a person really needed in their entire life and then some securely under his belt after a meagre 12 years, bested them all.

Still, even he did not know what could possibly be the acceptable response to seeing a grumpy old man's mangy cat dangling from a sconce with a cryptic, bloody message scrawled in neat, dripping letters. So he settled for something that he often did when he didn't know how to respond to a situation.

"What the fuck?"

All four pairs of concerned, confused eyes remained glued to the scene. Even as the silence of the hallway was buried beneath the endless cacophony of varying footsteps and conversations of people who did not know what exactly they were about to happen upon.

Within the next five seconds the noise had changed.

Gone were the cheery voices and rushing feet. In their place stood the monster that was fear, looming over the children as they stood stationary to either side of the corridor, like a ravine. And, in the middle of that ravine, there were four second years who couldn't have appeared guiltier.

Harry couldn't place the exact moment the fear and surprise had been replaced with raging conspiracy but, sure enough, the loud voices soon found their way amongst the whispers.

There was one voice in particular that stood out as a certain student stood at the front of the crowd. In all his smarmy glory, Draco Malfoy began to speak.

"Enemies of the heir, beware," he read the writing everyone present had already read for themselves and for a brief moment Harry held an asinine spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, he would stop there. As always, the Boy who lived was devoid of luck.

"Hear that Mudbloods?" Ed really didn't want to listen to him and his puerile prejudice but he knew what that word meant and, thusly, knew he couldn't just ignore it.

It seemed as though the drama of the scene was adamant that it had to increase exponentially as another figure, much more aged and enfeebled than any of those already there, pushed into the centre of their ravine.

"Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Norris!" the resident caretaker called, spittle flying from between his thin, white lips as tears filled his eyes.

"You've killed her!" he turned on the group and let the anger wash away the pain and sorrow. He took shuffling steps towards the group of students, the shortest considerably less concerned than his peers had the intelligence to be.

He would have killed them then and there, without the time nor capacity to second guess himself or feel remorse, if another figure hadn't appeared amongst the seemingly ever-growing group.

It was a familiar and welcome figure whose very presence helped some of the welling panic within the Gryffindor trio to subside. Ed wasn't scared like they were - surprised and worried, sure - but he was far too capable to feel scared of the wizards. There were very few he was aware of that would survive a single one of the missions the Amestrian government had assigned him. The thought made him chuckle minutely. Hermione, as she was right beside him, stared at him with incredulity. Then she appeared to remember just who she was looking at and shook her head before letting out a giggle of her own.

The room had gone silent when Dumbledore appeared so their muffled laughs filled the room like claxons. Bad idea.

Filch's gaunt face flushed a resplendent crimson as his eyes filled with a fire that couldn't hope to rival the one she had seen in Ed's eyes earlier that day. Now she understood why he had laughed in the first place.

"Did you hear that?!" he was so angry but Ed just couldn't bring himself to feign fear that may have helped appease him "Those rotten children are laughing. Think this is funny?!" he snarled, revealing rows of crooked, yellowish teeth and gaps where they had once been.

"Now now, Argus," Dumbledore began his attempts placate the man long after it became clear none of the children would to help him do so "I'm sure the laughter was just a nervous reaction,"

It wasn't. Ed was about to make sure he knew that but, as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, Hermione met him with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

He took the warning.

"They killed her!" Filch protested, tears finally falling, cutting through the dirt and dust his work had left sprinkled over what was newly revealed to be deathly pale skin. It made sense - nobody had ever seen Filch outside.

"She isn't dead, Argus," Dumbledore assured, checking the small animal over with nimble, practised hands "Just petrified,"

"And they bloody done it!" Argus accused, brandishing a crooked finger towards four children who were, regarding the situation at hand, entirely innocent.

"No second year, no matter how advanced" He sent a knowing look to Ed and Hermione, both known for being at the very top of their year by a gap many of the other students viewed as insurmountable.

"But, but," Argus grasped for threads that simply weren't there "I know they done it," the accusation was half-hearted at best and his fury died. Dumbledore shook his head in subdued pity.

That brought up the question of exactly how she had been petrified. What was it that was wandering around Hogwarts with the capability and desire to petrify? Was it really the same thing that had scrawled on the wall? Was petrification and an ominous, frightening message really its only aim?

Who, or what, was the heir?

There were too many questions that flooded the heads of the four kids who had first found the cat. And, even if they had never talked to either of them, there was something everyone knew with unwavering uncertainty about Edward Elric and Hermione Granger.

They absolutely hated not knowing things.

The people that knew this best? Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. So, just like that, any last fleeting hopes the friends might have held for having their first peaceful year at Hogwarts disappeared entirely.

Actually, they were kind of glad. They were growing bored.

They might not have known what was going on but Dumbledore made it clear that he had some inkling, as the old man examined the scene his face betrayed a dreading sense of recognition.

Ed watched with a mischievous glint in his sharp eyes as Dumbledore and Filch left and the crowds of students quickly dissipated. They stayed behind and congregated in a corner in which they could hold a private conversation after everyone had left.

Harry eyed the wall with pity, hoping that one of the other staff members would come by after curfew, before Filch had to see the grim reminder in the morning. He sincerely hoped that it wouldn't be left to Filch himself; the mental image of the man wiping away at the dried blood on the wall with a sponge or mop was a depressing one.

"So," Ed began with a feral smile on his face "We have to listen in on their staff meeting,"

"Staff meeting?" Ron asked, confused "When did they say anything about a staff meeting?"

"They didn't," Hermione informed "It's only natural that they'd have one though. After all, what's just happened is alarming," She smiled in an odd way that made Ron and Harry look between them.

They realised, not for the first time, how similar Ed and Hermione had the capacity to be. When they were both at their lightest, unburdened by their pasts, responsibilities, or other people's expectations, feeling like they were free to be kids. It was both great to see and completely and utterly terrifying.

With little further conversation, they went running down the hallway on almost silent feet until they heard the first signs of the voices of the teachers as the issue was addressed.

"I fear," McGonagall began in an uncharacteristically shaky voice that made the kids wonder just how serious the issue was "I fear that the chamber has been reopened," She spoke quickly as though it would cause the statement to be any less true."

"Surely you can't mean the Chamber of Secrets?" Sprout gasped, hand, still stained with mud, held before her mouth. She didn't sound disbelieving, more so like she didn't want to believe. McGonagall nodded with regret and the staff gasped collectively.

Just what was this chamber?

The staff meeting was bound to disband any minute, so the kids left. They ran to their dorms as quickly as they could and Ed was thankful he had practice because, before he reached the staircase, he could hear the steady, deliberate tapping of Snape's shoes on the floor far behind him. He was fast and silent and slipped by unnoticed. He just hope his friends had the same luck.

The next morning their first class was in all kinds of disarray, filled with nervous energy, chatter and unrest so persistent not even McGonagall had any hope in fixing it. So, in the end, she had to settle for letting them sit and ask questions. They were all curious and she knew that they could be in danger if things progressed like they had before.

Hermione raised her hand and McGonagall, knowing the girl mostly as a sycophant but also knowing that she was as mischievous as the boys that sat around her with expressions ranging from disinterest to fear to amusement, called on her.

"Professor, I was wondering if you might tell us something about the chamber of secrets?"

If McGonagall had been holding something she may have dropped it. It was a wonder how Hermione and her friends had found out about the chamber but, if their first year had been anything to go by, they had ways of finding things out. She assumed they were against the school rules but, so long as she had no confirmation of that, she didn't mind. It had been a great asset last year.

"Well, while I'm sure you all know about the founders of Hogwarts, but there's a legend surrounding this school," and so she explained the legend of the chamber of secrets, the room supposedly built within the school at an undisclosed location by Salazar Slytherin before his departure. "It is said only the heir of Slytherin himself will be able to open the chamber," She told them, making the bloody message from the night before appear in their minds, the message at last making a modicum of sense "And, in this chamber, it is said they will find a monster,"

"And is that monster what petrified Filch's cat?" Ron asked apprehensively.

"Well, Mr. Weasley, even the very existence of the chamber is debatable," Ed looked over her analytically. She was scared of this chamber - it almost certainly existed somewhere deep in the bowels of the ancient school "but speculation might say so,"

The school day dragged by far too slowly for four students who were anxious to figure out what was going on before it was too late, like they had last year. They had done it once, they were positive they would be able to do it again.

As soon as they were dismissed from their final class - defence against the dark arts with Lockhart who had clearly learnt something from the first lesson and hadn't been idiotic enough to bring in live creatures again - they pushed their way in front of the rest of the class, Hermione turning a blind eye upon her obvious crush on Lockhart (she had circled his lessons on her timetable with hearts!) to leave with haste.

They sprinted up staircases and across hallways and landings, Ed predictably far ahead and breathing fine as the rest of them were panting like dogs, traversing the path to the library with a certain familiarity no one else in their year could rival. The staircases moved and shifted but that could not deter them.

They burst into the library, not slowing. Madam Pince was forced to watch them with gritted teeth, knowing that if she were to scold them like she would any other student they would simply ignore her. She was acquainted with those children. They knew things. They were good researchers and, two of them especially, spent a lot of their free-time in the library. Therefore, she knew this was not how they normally acted - she knew this was how they acted when they were on a mission.

Sure enough, they made a beeline to the shelves, scanning them quickly before pulling down any they deemed hopeful and then sitting with the books piled up around them. Hermione was sat at the table, bent over a book, her eyes making quick work of the pages, with a neatly stacked collection next to her. Ron and Harry sat in their chairs, limbs thrown every which way, much like their collected books that were thrown across the table with little care. Hermione was too absorbed in her own research to chide them for their haphazard organisation. Ed sat on the floor beside them, legs crossed in the middle of what was essentially an architectural structure made of stacked books. He read faster than even Hermione, chin resting in his left hand as his right turned the pages.

Hermione had never been able to decipher the way he organised things, but he always seemed to know where to look next, what books he had already read, what would be most helpful. It was quite impressive.

The children showed little sign of moving as the sun began to set in the sky outside, painting the picture through the window with pinks and yellows that were soon replaced with a sheet of black. The full moon glistened proudly above the school as the long shadows of the trees of the forest began to fade.

Pince sighed and made her way to the kids. She looked them over. Poor Potter looked half asleep and Weasley was very much asleep, drooling on the desk and snoring lightly. She shook her head, somewhere between amusement and anger. Elric and Granger were, well Elric and Granger. As she had expected, the two were still leant over books, the pile of those they still had to read having thinned out considerably. Their tired eyes were unrelenting and they gleaned their resources for information with a studious diligence that made it very clear why they were at the top of their year and Weasley, perhaps, was not.

WHen they were reading it was difficult to pull them out of their focus. In Elric's case it was very much impossible so she gently tapped Granger's shoulder. The reaction was delayed but the girl turned, her masses of frizzy hair bouncing as she looked at the librarian with dark, intelligent eyes, dulled by need for rest.

"Oh!" She exclaimed with embarrassment "Had it gotten that late?" She distantly registered the rumbling of Ron's stomach and cursed herself for letting them miss dinner.

"I'm afraid it has, Miss Granger," Madam Pince smiled "WOuld you possibly be able to gather your friends and head back to your dorms?"

Hermione looked down at Ed who was still lost in the void of his own concentration. She waited a moment for him to finish his chapter and, as he looked up for the first time in a long while, she nimbly snatched the book from his metal fingers.

"Time to go," She told him. He yawned and stretched and nodded in agreement.

There was no noise in the SLytherin common room when Ed walked in, bleary eyed and desperate enough for sleep that he was half tempted to collapse onto one of the armchairs or settees and stay there as the night turned to day. He decided against it and pulled himself sluggishly up the stairs to his dorm. He could hear chatter.

Draco Malfoy was talking confidently about the heir of Slytherin but, the moment Ed opened the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. He sneered at the shadow of Ed's form as Ed walked over to his bed, collapsing on it and quickly drawing the curtains. The chatter did not continue and, as he drifted into a very welcome state of sleep, Ed cursed himself for having not stayed outside of the door to eavesdrop.

When Ed was jogging the next morning he had to grind his teeth against the cold. He really didn't like the UK sometimes. He ran past Hagrid's hut, able to hear the man's deep snores from outside, and relished in the split moment of warmth that it provided.

As he headed began to head back to the school he noticed something he had noticed the other day. There was a trail of spiders of varying sizes traversing the wet grass between the school and the forest. He stared at them intently before dismissing them. Breakfast was more important.

Hermione walked down to breakfast to find Ed thickly spreading jam on his toast.

"Morning," He greeted, washing down his mouthful with pumpkin juice.

"Good morning," She smiled, seating herself beside him at the otherwise empty table. It was kind of funny how a non-Gryffindor almost always claimed the Gryffindor table before any Gryffindors had the chance to.

"Did you find anything yesterday?" He asked her as she poured herself some milk. He stared at her goblet in disgust that made her giggle slightly.

"Nothing," She admitted "How about you?"

"Nothing of relevance," He shook his head "But I did overhear Draco talking about the heir before I walked into the dorm. He stopped talking as soon as I walked in though, so I couldn't tell you if he knows something or not. I can't quite decide which of those options he would want to hide from me,"

Hermione sighed "I just hope that this doesn't happen again,"She looked over at Ed who didn't look very hopeful. "What?" She asked.

"It's just, well, look," He put down his toast and rested his forehead on his hands "The teachers wouldn't be so worried if they believed this to be an isolated incident. If all that happened was that a cat got petrified McGonagall wouldn't be scared,"

"Yeah…"

At that moment Hermione wished for nothing more than she wished for a distraction. But it was a Saturday, she didn't have classes and she was bitter about it. With all the panic of the week, they didn't even have very much homework!

She sighed and stared glumly at her toast.

"Come on!" ED encouraged "That gives us more of a chance to research," She nodded along but stopped as she watched a sly grin bloom on his face. She shuffled away from him but that couldn't have hoped to help her "Maybe we can all do some flying,"

Hermione didn't like flying. She wasn't the best at it, she wasn't the worst. She was too cautious to play quidditch but you couldn't blame her. The brooms felt too flimsy to her - if she were going to fly she would rather do it on something that did not dip and buckle and display every minor bit of turbulence. She understood flying and quidditch, but she didn't like the idea of flying on a cleaning tool.

"No." She decided.

"Oh, come on!" Ed insisted "It will be fun! I never get to have fun flying anymore - the Slytherin team are dicks!"

Hermione found herself sighing an awful lot Around Ed "Fine,"

Ed's smiles were usually feral but, every now and then, there would be one that was genuinely joyful. This was one of those rare few.

Ed and Harry were already standing at the meeting place Madame Hooch had assigned them when she had permitted their activity by the time that Hermione and Ron had fetched their school brooms.

"I can't believe madame Hooch let us do this," Hermione said ruefully as she stared ruefully up into the grey vault of the sky above. It looked and smelled like rain.

"I can," Ed and harry said in unison "She loves us!"

"You sound like Fred and George," Ron jokingly complained, a smile on his face.

Hermione resigned herself to her fate and actually felt rather happy about it. Perhaps she didn't like flying but her friends did and she liked seeing them happy. She mounted her broom before any of them and sprung into the air, feeling the bitter wind whip around her as she shivered. Ed looked up at her and joined her quickly, red coat pulled tight against himself as a barrier between himself and the wind that Hermione wished she had. They hovered for a moment, higher than they had ever gone in their flying lessons but still far below the height of the quidditch hoops they could see in the distance, little, yellow figures flying between them.

From the height, even under the unpleasant slate sky, Hogwarts was more beautiful than it had ever been from the ground; it was breathtaking to be able to see all the little details in the towers of the castle she couldn't have hoped to have seen from so far below. Wordlessly, she directed herself towards Gryffindor tower and slowly began to glide towards it.

Ed flew in her direction much faster than she had, hair flying in the wind behind him. Harry and Ron followed. They slowed when they reached her, letting her pace be the one they followed. She was glad.

The broom bucked beneath her as she admired the intricacy of the tower but she didn't panic like she normally would. No. She settled herself into a more comfortable position and breathed in the cold air. Her heart rate settled, much like the broom, and she kept flying.

She ran her fingers over one of the gargoyles at the top of the school, the details very much intact despite the stone having been worn down to a very rough texture by the years of weathering. She giggled as she clumsily tried to manoeuvre herself away from the school and out into the open. The boys followed with much more precision, allowing her, as the least experienced flyer, to lead them.

She was getting more comfortable as the time went on but she still had a few things to worry about.

"How do you guys play quidditch on these things? It's getting a little bit easier to control this thing but I couldn't imagine having to fly around the goal," She looked at Ron, knowing he played in goal when he played with friends and family "or dive for the snitch," She looked at Harry, remembering every time she had seen him follow the snitch "Or fly with one hand," She had seen Ed flying around with his hand grabbing his beater's bat, swinging his arm with a vigour that surely upset his balance.

The boys looked at each other before turning back to her with smiling faces. Those were the type of smiles that came with a promise. She wasn't sure how eagre she was to find out what exactly that promise was.

"Why don't you find out?"

Hermione instantly regretted asking.

Ed pulled his wand out from his pocket and Hermione looked at the dark wood with dread. He twirled it between his metal fingers for a moment, giving Hermione time to admire just how fine the motor skills in his prosthetics were. She wondered why they hadn't yet reached anywhere else in the world besides his home of Amestris.

"I don't know if we can get any actual quidditch balls, but I have a bat and I'm sure someone has a football. I'll go and get the bat - you guys go see if you can find a ball,"

"Sure," Hermione said.

She watched as he dived to the floor in an essentially vertical decline.

"How do you guys do that?" She asked, shaking her head.

"Be confident, don't be too scared about falling," Harry answered.

She shook her head again as she leant down in a gradual line.

They returned five minutes later with an old, scuffed football belonging to one of Ron and Harry's roommates. They waited a moment more before Ed came running out of the school with his broom in one hand and bat in the other. He joined them in the air, bat in his right hand as his left loosely held onto the dark wood of his broom.

"You got it?" It wasn't really a question, he could very clearly see the old football "Good," He nodded and flew away quickly. He waved his bat in the air and Ron, getting the message, threw the ball his way. He hit it expertly towards Harry who dived after it, catching it in both hands as he stilled himself in the air . Hermione could hear the sound of impact and had to wonder, with his metal arm and more effort than he had put into the easy hit, just how hard Ed could bat the ball. Harry tucked it under one arm and span to face Hermione. He threw it so it would be easy to catch, just like he was playing a muggle game of netball - why couldn't this be netball?

Hermione gathered up the courage to remove her hands from the broom and yelped as she caught the ball, tucking it under her arm as quickly as she could so that she could put a hand back on the broom to stabilise herself. She turned shakily to face Ron and leant back a little so she could throw the ball. Ron caught it and threw it at Ed who, with an impish expression on his face, hit it with more force than Hermione had ever seen a bludger hit before. Ron and Harry laughed as they dived after it. Hermione sent Ed a look before leaning forwards as fast as she could and trying to forget her concerns about flying . She caught up to Ron as Harry caught the ball and found her friends looking at her with bright smiles.

The rain began to pour as they landed and headed back inside for lunch. Hermione's hair was wet and she was tired and out of breath and there was sweat in her eyes and a splinter in her thumb but she didn't think, in the entirety of her time on Earth, she had ever felt happier.