Questions

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA or HP

Ed stared into the mirror on the bathroom wall. He had left the others so quickly that Mrs. Weasley didn't have time to fully clean up the wound on his face. It wasn't a deep cut, and it only covered his cheek, but it was still very swollen and prone to infection. He decided that a bandage would do just fine to cover it, that way Lupin wouldn't be able to tell the damage he did when he got back to the house. It was only a matter of time before he would return, and despite what he did, Ed felt guilty about attacking him. How was he supposed to know that there was a werewolf staying at the house? Even though he had read most of the books at Hogwarts, his mind didn't jump to magical conclusions as quickly as wizards.

The frantic whispering from downstairs could be heard through the bedroom door, and seemed to get louder and louder. The family was clearly shocked from the night's events, even the ones who knew about Ed's automail. Being stared at like a freak was one thing, but being constantly talked about like some inhuman being was even worse. At least in Amestris automail was common, and nobody blinked an eye at the result of some crazy battle. In this world, it seemed like a little scuffle was the highlight of the year, and everyone freaked out over the smallest of things.

Ed continued to sit quietly in the room, trying to drown out the noise, when suddenly he heard it all go silent. The slight shuffle of feet was all he heard, and he could only assume that Lupin returned. He tensed up, not knowing how to confront the man that he just fought outside. The footstepts grew louder and louder, and stopped when he was sure that Lupin was standing outside his door. When he entered, he looked terrible, even worse than Ed did. His clothes were all matted up and he was covered with dirt and mud, with a sickly pale face. His arm had a shallow gash in it, probably from when Ed had cut him.

There was an uncomfortable silence as the two looked at each other, unsure of how to say something. Finally, Lupin stepped closer, deciding to break the silence. "I'm so sorry Edward, I should have told you before so you didn't get into danger. You aren't hurt, are you?"

Ed shook his head and looked Lupin in the eyes. "I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have gotten so violent."

"Nonsense, you were just acting off of self defense. You have nothing to apologize for," His eyes shifted view to Ed's arm and leg, which were visible from his tank top and shorts. "I guess we both had things to hide, didn't we."

"I guess so," Ed laughed. "At least that's something we have in common, we're far from normal."

"I suppose you're right," Lupin chuckled."I don't expect you to tell me anything, but just know that I'm open if you need someone to talk to. As for myself, I'd better get cleaned up," he began walking out the door, but stopped momentarily and turned back towards Ed. "I hope you can forgive me for what happened," he said, and closed the door behind him.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all sat huddled around the fireplace in the main room, while everyone else was asleep. The strange day had passed by with most of the household in confusion. The adults discussed what had happened the night before, and tried to figure out Ed's intentions and character. The trio had stayed silent, for obvious reasons, but they couldn't help feeling bad for the young alchemist. He had stayed alone in the room the whole day, and they didn't want to bother him.

"Do you think it's possible…" Harry spoke softly, "to bring someone back from the dead?"

"Harry… why would you be thinking about that now? With all that happened to Ed?" Hermione quietly questioned.

"What if Voldemort's return had some sort of connection to that? Whatever magic Ed did, it must have been really powerful and dark. I've never seen any spell dangerous enough to cause someone to lose two limbs, and apparently a whole human body. He must have learned the dark arts from somewhere, what if he's related to a death eater or something?"

"Harry that's enough!" Hermione scolded him. "We know Edward, he would never associate himself with the dark side! You of all people should understand how desperate he must have felt at such a loss, he even admitted that he made a dumb mistake. Even now he's still dealing with the consequences! We know nothing about his past, and I know you're still working on defeating Voldemort, but you'll get nowhere by making dumb accusations!"

"I know," responded Harry. "It's just strange that someone our age could pull off something so advanced sounding. I get it though, he must have loved his mom a lot to want her back so much, but what's dead should stay dead."

"I trust him," Ron butted in. "With all that Ed did at Hogwarts and told us, he must trust us too."

Hermione nodded, "That's true, but I'm still curious about what he did. He said he's from an alchemy school, but I've never even heard of one. The only alchemists we've heard of are Nicholas Flamel, and Dumbledore who helped him. There's hardly any alchemy books in the library, and none of them contain useful information either. We should definitely ask Ed about it when things get a bit more normal. He's always acted like he was hiding things, and we know next to nothing about him still."

Harry and Ron agreed with her, and they finally decided to head back to their rooms to get some sleep. There was only two days left at the burrow, so they needed to rest before returning to the chaotic environment of Hogwarts.

When Harry and Ron got to the room, they saw that Ed was already asleep. As they got closer, they noticed that he was shaking, with his face clenched in a pained expression. Beads of sweat lined his forehead, and he was whispering under his breath.

"No no no no no, I can't stay here… please take me back… I need to go back!"

Harry and Ron exchanged puzzled looks, and tried to shake him out of his nightmare. Harry noticed that Ed had them a lot, and he himself faced them all the time as well. He knew just how painful it could be to be stuck in your own terrifying thoughts.

Ed shot out of bed, breathing heavily, but calmed down once he saw Harry and Ron.

"I'm fine," he groaned, still half asleep, and sunk back into the bed to sleep again.

Ron shrugged as he looked at Harry, and they settled down to sleep, with nothing more that they could do.

The following day was a lot calmer, and Ed actually left his room for more than just meals. He had covered himself up to avoid the strange stares, and tried to be more social. Mrs. Weasley was still very concerned over him, but the rest of the family seemed to be over the attack by now. He even decided to check out what Fred and George had been talking about when he arrived, because he couldn't resist a good practical joke. Between short jokes and pranks, the military officers he knew always seemed to have it out for him. Now he had the chance to get them back, and he couldn't help but grin at the idea.

When Ed went inside Fred and George's room, it was not what he expected. There were boxes stacked everywhere, and papers sprawled all over the floor.

"Hey Ed! It's good to see you! Do you want to see what we've been working on?" Fred smiled.

"We've been testing these out for days, so they should be safe by now," George added. The twins pulled him into a seat and rummaged around in the boxes.

"If you didn't know by now, we run a joke shop in Diagon Alley, and it's been one of the most successful stores to date! It's one of the only ones still open, but even in dark times it can't hurt to laugh," Fred grinned.

The twins showed off all of their creations one by one, but there was one in particular that grabbed Ed's attention.

"This new product is one of our favorites," George said, holding up a small jar. "It has the power to create artificial rain anywhere at anytime! You just flip off the cap and turn the switch, and you can make rain appear out of thin air! Although you can do the same thing with a spell, this creates an element of surprise."

"The fake lighting is also a nice touch," Fred added.

Ed tried to hold back a laugh as he thought of how much he could use that on Colonel Mustang. He would hate him for it, but soaking the Flame Alchemist in water at any time was impossible to resist.

"Do you have any spares? There's someone I know that'd be driven crazy by this, and I'd like to get him back for every stunt he tried to pull on me," Ed said as an almost evil grin spread across his face.

"It's yours!" George said while tossing it to him. "Just be careful, don't go creating rainstorms in the middle of class, although that was definitely be funny."

Ed thanked the twins and let them resume their work, taking the rain prank with him. As strange as his trip to the burrow had been, he still hadn't succeeded in getting anything but a prank and and a werewolf injury. His main goal of getting information had been stalled, but with a day and a half left, Ed knew that he had to take action. He put the jar with his things in Ron's room and started to go to the main portion of the house, where Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley, and Lupin were talking. He didn't know exactly how to get information out of them subtly, but surely they knew something about the Philosopher's stone, or another branch of powerful magic. On his way to the room, however, Ed was stopped in his tracks by none other than Hermione Granger.

"Ed, I've noticed that in all of your spare time here you've been reading, and if there's something that you want to know, I could always help." she said with a determined look. After thinking about what she said the previous night, she had remembered Ed's letter that she read, and what he said about the Philosopher's stone. She wanted him to feel less secluded, so helping him might have been a way to get him to open up more.

Ed paused, and wondered if Hermione knew what he was looking for. She did know a lot, and he trusted her pretty well. He was at the point where finding answers on his own wasn't an option any more, and talking to Hermione would definitely be easier than confronting the adults.

"Fine, just try to tell me everything you can." he sighed. "What do you know about the Philosopher's Stone?"

Hermione knew he was going to ask that, and she came prepared. "Based on what I've read, the Philosopher's Stone was created by Nicholas Flamel, with Dumbledore's help. In our first year at Hogwarts, the Philosopher's stone was on grounds, guarded by enchantments set by the teachers. We thought it was going to be stolen, but Harry managed to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. After that incident, it was destroyed by Dumbledore, so that nobody with the wrong intentions got a hold of it again."

"Damn it!" Ed yelled as he restrained himself from punching a wall. "So there's no other ones left? Do you know how it was made?"

"That's all I know, but Dumbledore might have more of what you need. If you're really set on finding out more, I'd ask him. Why is it so important anyways? You don't strike me as the type to seek out eternal life."

"That's not why it's important, I just need to know more for… other reasons. It has many more uses than just eternal life." Ed stated. "Thanks for the help Hermione."

'If Dumbledore knew I needed a stone, why didn't he tell me about it? Is it because he destroyed it? What's shocking too is the fact that Nicholas Flamel is known here, wasn't he from Xerxes? Maybe there's more connections between the two worlds than I thought.'

Ed lingered in the hall, thinking over his thoughts, when he couldn't help but overhear the conversation the adults were saying.

"Another public murder? The death eaters just keep getting worse and worse." he heard Lupin say.

"This doesn't seem to be an ordinary death eater kill though, it wasn't even of a muggle or muggle born," Mr. Weasley noted. "It also seems that this kill wasn't from magic, but one of those muggle gun machines. What's even stranger is that an eyewitness said they saw a figure completely change shape multiple times, like a metamorphmagus, but with a strange blue light."

"That certainly is strange," Mrs. Weasley said. "Crimes like these keep making me more and more nervous for the children, but Hogwarts should do a good job at keeping them safe."

Ed froze from what he just overheard. 'A gun wound, changing appearance, and blue light… it can't be… there's only one being I know that does that… If Envy is here, we're all doomed.'

A/N: Hooray for plot twists! This chapter was definitely difficult to write, which is why this update is a bit late. All of the characters are really confused about Ed still, but by now that's common fact, so I didn't include all of the conversations that were probably said about him. As for the Nicholas Flamel story, Ed has his symbol on his coat, so it only makes sense that he somehow travelled between the two worlds in this story. I don't know how much I'll spend time on that, but it'll probably have a role later on. This section of the story is a bit hard to get through, but since the beginning I've been forming the end, which I'm really excited for. I've decided that there will probably be a sequel to this fanfic if I go through with the ending I have planned, so be prepared for that! (Although we still have a really long way to go with this story.) Feel free to leave any reviews on your thoughts on this chapter and story, and thanks for reading! :)