"Slytherin!"

The word resonated around the hall for a moment, plunging it into silence. Draco was shocked stiff that the brat could be placed in his house. Both harry and Ed watched as time slowed down and what Ron had told them on the train ride replayed in their minds. Slytherin was not a place in which either wanted to be. Ron's look shifted between disappointed and disgusted, periodically altering into surprise. Hermione wasn't sure what to think, the smart boy was probably going to be her enemy, she wanted to be in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, one of which promised rivalry.

Then the spell broke and raucous cheering, hollering and clapping broke out among what was going to become Ed's house. His real hand shook as he lifted himself to his feet and removed the hat from his head. He replaced the hat on the stool and walked over to his table, feeling dizzy and nauseous as he forced his legs to move.

He heavily took a seat at the table, not noticing that it was next to the boy whom he had roughly thrown from a train compartment a few hours prior. The boy shrunk in on himself as Ed stared at his gloved hands, completely oblivious to the hard, congratulatory slaps on the back he received from the elder students.

"Granger, Hermione." Was called soon after and she was sent, after some deliberation, to Gryffindor. She sent one last fleeting look at Edward before she took her own seat, smiling at the people around her and getting herself integrated into what would serve as family during her time at the school. Ed felt it would be the smartest thing to do in the situation and followed her example.

He looked upwards and turned to the boy next to him, suddenly registering his identity.

"Sorry about earlier," He hoped desperately that it didn't sound like such a blatant lie as it was "I'm Ed, you?"

"Vincent Crabbe. I've never heard the name Elric before, are you a filthy little mudblood?"

Ed hid the fact that his blood was boiling, both at the insult to his stature and the use of the slur he had come across in his readings "I'm a halfblood, I just took my mother's last name."

"It's better than being a mudblood, I s'pose." Crabbe relented.

"Greggory Goyle." It was the boy behind Crabbe that spoke, the one that Ed had kicked "Didn't Draco call you Hohenheim?"

"Unfortunately. To quote William Shakespeare 'Deny thy father and refuse thy name.'" He was met with looks of confusion that made him feel as though he was losing some of his own intelligence.

"Malfoy, Draco." It took less than a second -the hat had only toughed the tip of a stray hair – for the hat to declare that the boy belonged in Slytherin. He smiled smugly and sat by Ed. "Now, allow me to show you the wrong sort." There was something about the boy, the way cadence he used to convey his message, the expression on his face, the words that had escaped his lips, that was deeply disturbing.

Many students passed, Ed ignored the lot of them, anticipating the moment that the names 'Potter, Harry' and 'Weasley, Ron' would be called and the boys that they belonged to would be sent to Gryffindor and, by default, become his enemies. He was used to not having friends, but not having his brother there either was becoming much more upsetting when he realised that he wouldn't have anything that even came close to a companion.

"Potter, Harry." Was met with excited whispers and disbelief by everyone who had not already talked to him. McGonagall remained composed as she dropped the hat over his head and waited. Harry feared the outcome, the way that the hat suggested he join Ed in Slytherin. He liked Ed, though he did not like the house he was sorted into or what that suggested about the arts of the boy he didn't know about. Eventually he was sorted into Gryffindor, pulled away from Ed just as the blonde had predicted.

The same was true of his predictions for Ron. The second the hat knew of the boy's family it sent him straight to Gryffindor to be among his brothers. The twins jumped on him and began joking around as Ed had quickly realised was characteristic of them. He didn't know how to feel about the fact that he could hear "Ickle Ronniekins." Above all the noise that surrounded him.

Finally, the old man whom he had seen on the card harry had received from his chocolate frog approached a podium, made in the image of a bird of prey – probably an eagle. He cleared his throat and drew the crowd to silence just as quickly as McGonagall had. He gave a speech, short as he acknowledged that the students were awaiting a meal, ending it eth two odd words that Ed was sure had been spawned directly from the man's head. He and Harry, though not knowing the thoughts of the other, decided that the man must be crazy.

Food appeared on the table in front of them, foreign to Ed who looked at the spread in overwhelmed confusion – though he was completely desensitised to the magic that caused it to appear after talking to a hat and walking through a solid barrier. Malfoy scoffed. "What's wrong?"

"This food's all foreign and I haven't a clue here to start."

Malfoy laughed, only just picking up on Ed's accent "The food's not foreign, you are."

"You're right there, but it doesn't help me."

"May I recommend the roast chicken? With Dumbledore as headmaster the school's certainly doing down the drain, in fact, he food is one of the few things that is not." Ed hated the way that he talked about the headmaster and the fact that he shared the brat's sentiments about the food. The British food certainly was not on par with his mother's stew but he enjoyed it far more than any food he had consumed since – not that he'd ever tell Winry that he had found something better than her apple pie. He ate what he could, though that was substantially less than what he usually would due to the growing unease he felt in the pit of his stomach.

Finally, both the dinner and the desert had disappeared in the same manner to which it had appeared and Dumbledore spoke again. He shared warnings with the masses, directing many quite specifically to the Weasley twins (Ed couldn't help but to like the two). It was clear that the warnings were standard procedure until he lowered his voice to speak a final one.

"And to all those who do not wish to die a painful death, avoid the third floor." Then he brightened and instructed the students to follow the prefects of their respective houses to their common rooms. Th four tables stood in a disorganized manner with a variety of different timings that Ed was sure would make many of the people he knew from his workplace cringe or yell in despair. The four group of students emphasised the divide between each other as they flooded from four entirely different exits that led in four entirely different directions, towards their four entirely different common rooms.

Ed just watched as those who had been friends just moments before but were now, most definitely, not so much as acquaintances left together, not sparing him a glance, a wave, nor a word. He returned the favour as he followed his housemates down into the depths of the castle.

He felt the temperature plummet and what little optimism he possessed do the same until it hit the ground and shattered into a million, irreparable fragments that would never again mean anything or do anything for him nor anyone else. He could already feel the cold and the damp biting at his ports. It merely cemented something that he already knew. He was going to be positively miserable.