Harry looked at his friends once again as he stepped out of the train, the slightly dirty floor of the platform numerous school children had trampled meeting his feet with clarity. He didn't want to go back, not to the Dursleys.
As he adjusted his glasses, he spoke.
"See you next year," It was the first time he had ever been entirely assured of the existence of this world, but he was going to voice his confidence as though it had never so much as wavered.
He was met with a series of smiles, waves, and parting words as Ron and Hermione rushed to meet their families, surely eagerly waiting to tell them of all their exciting endeavours during the year they had not done over letter or visit at half term. But Ed stayed with him, right by his side even as they crossed through the boundary that separated the world of the magical from the mundane.
They both stood there for a moment more, on a platform so crowded they could barely hear the whistles and creak of the trains as they came in and went. Ed glanced down at his pocket watch a time or two, anxiously drumming his fingers over the surface between glimpses. Harry was very aware of the noise of metal gently striking metal to his side, he couldn't tune it out.
"How did you-" he began, but a train, louder though smaller than most, came into the platform nearest to where they stood.
Ed leaned forwards and looked around, braid disturbed by the wind.
"That's mine," he told Harry simply as he replaced the pocket watch, back into his pocket where it had sat for the whole year "Anything important you needed to say before I left?" he was smiling widely, like he was looking forward to something as well, like Harry was the only one who did not have something to go to.
"Nothing pressing, no." he felt his heart sink a little at the thought of being left alone to wait for the Dursleys who did not care enough to assume their usual punctuality.
"See ya then," Ed strode forwards, departing with a mock salute "I better get back to my brother!" His sharp teeth were exposed, but the usual feral nature of his grin wasn't there. "I'm sure you'll be meeting him, one day." That was him reassuring them both, one day these things wouldn't be so much a secret from the kids he felt he could call friends. Just not yet. Not until he fixed it. He was going to fix it.
With a sigh, Harry resigned himself to the fact he was being left alone as the train whistled away and Ed's face disappeared from the window. He wove through the bustling crowd in a manner only accomplishable by a scrawny kid such as himself, freeing himself from the depths of the station.
He wandered outside, into the warm air. Looking around, he located himself a ledge near the entrance where he could sit to wait for the Dursleys. Savouring the occasional breath of cool breeze, he remembered something. Without missing a beat, he undid his bag and dug through the new opening in search of the gift Hagrid had given him as he stepped up onto the departing rain.
There it was!
It was a fairly old thing, but, to Harry, it was perfect and precious. Two faces, semi familiar but not enough so, decorated the front of the photo album: his mother and father, smiling as though they hadn't known they would be dead within a five year maximum of the photo being taken.
Inside was a series of pictures, each taken with the camera of a wizard that could capture movement instead of the muggle's simple snapshot of life there would rarely be an abundance of context behind. Harry saw himself in a fair few, younger than he could remember being. He probably didn't even know the Dursleys existed when the pictures had been taken…
And there they were, their car pulling up to the station. They were late but began to hurry him in as though it were his fault they were dreadfully behind schedule.
As the car drove off at as fast of a speed as its little motor could manage, Harry sent a final fleeting glance to the station, already anticipating the next school year.
Ed sat on the train, a family sitting in the booth he could see, a group of old men sitting behind him, a man in his roup, kind-looking but very much absorbed in his newspaper, a few more miscellaneous people sitting elsewhere in the carriage. He kept checking his watch; he couldn't wait to get back to Al.
He smiled back at the little girl as she popped her head up over the booth for the umpteenth time. She giggled a little bit, her short, mousy hair moving with her.
There was a fair bit of Deja Vu there. He knew what it was - he just hoped it wouldn't happen again. Especially because he didn't have Al or Hughes there this time around. He did, however, have his wand should he need it.
Though, in a cart of Amestrian muggles, not one who had left at the last station, he wasn't exactly eager to reveal the magic world of Britain carelessly.
The train rattled over the tracks, the wind whistling through the open window. Ed hadn't realised but, judging by the piles of finished books and additional notes he had made, hours had passed.
He yawned, waved, and checked his watch for the first time in a while. But the ticking of the hands didn't stop, it didn't drop in volume at all. He drew it from his pocket, confused, and examined the clock face, looking anywhere but the engraving he had made in the top.
The noise and the movement of the hands didn't line up.
He looked up warily as he heard a voice thunder from only a few metres in front of him, at the front of the carriage.
"Hands up!" demanded a man with dirty blonde hair and a face set firmly into a scowl "or you all die!" he held up a little device menacingly. It continued to tick steadily as Ed felt his heartbeat assume the same pace. His stomach dropped to his knees as he sat there, hand above his head, sleeve slipping down.
Why did history have to repeat itself?
His eye caught the metal of his arm, exposed and reflecting the light that streamed through the slightly open windows as though everything was just peachy.
Across the booth, the man examined him, warm eyes travelling from the glinting steel to the golden eyes that were not appropriately scared.
"I can fix this," Ed whispered, mouth moving in exaggerated ways to ensure that he was understood when he could not speak loud enough to ensure he was heard "Just leave me a moment until he is distracted."
Then another man walked in, grisled and haggard, gun gripped firmly in his hand, pressed firmly against the temple of his hostage, conductor held close to the man's chest as he walked through the centre, through to the next carriage where they could no longer be seen. Everyone held their breath as the man walked past.
They were sitting on a train without a conductor.
Surely they were doomed?
The man across from Ed cocked a nervous eyebrow.
"Or until they are distracted," he amended, looking around frantically for a moment before darting behind the turned back of the initial criminal. The man watched on, somewhere between bemused and terrified for the strange kid as he disappeared from the view of everyone within their carriage. His arms ached dully and he could hear the gentle, hushed, whimpering cries of the young girl in front.
Ed crouched as he peered around the corner of the slight bit of cover he had been given. The criminal was still berating a woman as she sobbed hysterically, oblivious to Ed's disappearance.
Ed cursed his luck as he fumbled for his wand, drawing it after a moment. He poked his head subtly round the corner as he held the tip of the wand against the wall, just poking around.
He whispered "Petrificus Totalus,"
Then there was a flash, a blinding white light not one passenger in that carriage missed. It hit the mountainous man squarely between his shoulder blades. As though he had suddenly been bound by some manner of invisible bond that refused to relent, his limbs snapped as close to his body and each other as they would go. The bomb dropped from his hand and Ed whispered another spell to protect it.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he guided the explosive packet back to himself as he crimina swayed on suddenly unsteady feet. Ed pocketed his wand as the man fell, heavy and ungraceful, a log unceremoniously cut down, backwards. His head hit the ground with a resounding thud and his eyes, delirious even before, rolled back.
Ed supposed that was one of them dealt with - there was just the conductor's captor left.
In an Amestrian military HQ, a phone began to ring loudly.
It was answered by a man with a baby face, decorated with an expression of arrogance.
"Central HQ," he told the caller curtly as he listened to the voice on the other side of the line. It was a warning - an attack on a train. The receiver, Colonel Roy Mustang, felt as though he had had the exact same conversation a while before.
He snorted slightly and hope the amused noise was disguised well enough as a tired sigh, as he looked at the paper chart his lieutenant had kindly left him.
"Don't worry," he told the caller who had been requesting help to save the passengers "The Fullmetal Alchemist is on that train-"
The other line went dead. Mustang leaned back over his chair, relaxed and very pointedly avoiding the paperwork on his desk. His lieutenant, Riza Hawkeye, walked into the room.
"Why is it that Fullmetal always gets into trouble like this?" he asked her, not so much as bothering to open his relaxed eyes.
"Why is it that you've still got unfinished paperwork on this desk that was overdue a week ago?" She responded in monotone, hand placed gently on the handgun on her hip.
He stopped avoiding that paperwork.
Ed clapped his hands sharply, effectively rendering the bomb harmless, before sprinting down the length of the train, to the other criminal.
The cold barrel of the old man's gun was still pressed to the conductor's head. The poor man was sweating, his eyes unfocused, his hands shaking as he fumbled with a large key, scratching the lacquer off of the door with every attempt.
"Hurry up!" the old man said in a rough, scratchy voice. "We ain't got the whole shitty day!"
The conductor whimpered before glancing around. He recoiled when he saw Ed, approaching behind the criminal who was none-the-wiser. Praying to Truth the terrified man would understand and comprehend his message, he pressed the index finger of his left hand to his lips. His right hand was held slightly above his head, sharpened edge and end glimmering in the artificial light beaming down from the ceiling.
But the old man had seen the recoil of the conductor.
He spun with the speed of a whip, shooting off a bullet in Ed's direction without aiming. But you couldn't get the Fullmetal Alchemist that easily; Ed simply lowered his right hand and let the bullet strike the fat side of the blade, rebounding back off it.
Seeing opportunity where it may or may not have been, the conductor scrambled away, trying his absolute best to be silent.
The old man shot again, though straight up this time, in an attempt to draw Ed's attention to the flying bullet as he sprung forwards and aimed a punch at the boy's head.
But his fist was caught, just as he soon was, after his attack had been returned tenfold and he could not see through the swollen skin, a sickening shade of purple that faded to yellow the further from the source it strayed, surrounding his eye.
As the train pulled into the station, the two criminals, trapped in a cage Ed had alchemised, were deposited off to the waiting military staff.
"What did they want?" Ed asked the shaken conductor.
"Gold," The man said, staring at a young boy who seemed to have been made of the very thing the man who had damn near killed him had been asking for.
The man tucked his paper beneath his arm as he walked off the train, disoriented. But he saw the boy who had saved him, surrounded by a group of people dressed in blue.
"Not bad, Fullmetal," A man said as the boy scowled up at him.
The man from the train grimaced a little: this was a state alchemist - if the youngest of them was like this, how bad could the veterans be? - he supposed he could kiss that dream goodbye.
He walked off with a sigh, turning as he heard the clashing of metal and metal. He was startled, thinking the criminals had found another thing to use as a weapon, but there was the boy, captured in a tight… hug?... by a gargantuan suit of armour.
He left, shaking his head and shaking, trying to sort his thoughts and release his newly formed memories from their place in his head.
Ed smiled at his brother, lost as though his face would split. He couldn't wait to tell him exactly what else he would learn when he got there. He would - though perhaps not until the impeding danger had passed. He couldn't do that to Al twice, he was doing it to him in the world they shared and was not sure if he could live knowing he did it in the one that was his own as well.