A/N: Looking forward to making Ed the baddest bada$$ ever.. takes time to set it up though. Trying so hard NOT to Mary Sue him, which is a danger since he IS such a bada$$. I mean..in chapter 105 of the manga(YAY!!!!) he's actually gonna kick GOD's a$$...! How awesome is that?

Wanted to squeeze in the detention with Snape..but it would take me a while to perfect it..Snape's a hard one to write for. Sort of like writing for Dumbledore and NOT making it sound like he's lost his mind...Anyway..Thanks for the reviews!! And enjoy!

Ed looked his paper over once again with a critical eye.

"That it?" Ron said softly.

"Yeah.." Ed replied just as softly in a distracted tone. He took up a quill and scratched something out, and picked up a thick tome he had set aside and flipped through the pages. He skimmed along until he found what he was looking for.

"It's just a punishment essay, mate.."

"There. Dat should do it." Ed said evenly as he scribbled his addition in, and added a footnote on the last page.

"I'm just saying.."

"Shhh!" The librarian hissed as she walked by.

It was lunchtime. Ron and Harry were in the library to look up ingredients for potions. Ed..to write the report to perfection on the subject of Paracelsus.

"I'm just saying it doesn't count for..I mean why bother with this much effort?" Ron whispered as Ed took out fresh parchment for his third rewrite of the paper that day.

"Has to be perfect." Ed said in the same distracted sort of way. Ron scrunched his face in confusion and looked over at Harry. Harry shrugged and continued on in his reading on the properties of 'pickled snapping cabbages'.

"Nutter." Ron muttered under his breath.

"Has his reasons.." Harry said softly. "Last night he told me.."
"Harry." Ed said in as much a warning tone as he could in a whisper. "My business."

"Ed..I tell everything to Ron and Hermione."

Ed stared at Harry, and frowned. After a few moments, he returned to his paper.

"Fine. Do vhat you vant."

He soon finished up enough to look it over again. In time, he nodded with satisfaction, then got up from the table. He arrived at the dungeon door a bit breathless, but with just enough time to hand in the paper before the warning bell sounded for the next class.

He found the door was locked. He pounded on it with his right, hearing the echoes of his blows in the dank halls. A few dents in the door later, he folded his arms in frustration. He then noticed that there was a tiny gap below the door...just enough to slide the paper through. He bit his cheek, then thought it best to take the better option to be free of the hated thing as soon as he could.

'Besides..it's not like he'll miss it.' Ed thought as he slipped the paper in. He heard the warning bell sound as he stood back up, then hurried on his way. A tinny snicker echoed in the hall behind him.

"Well..?" Ron whispered in expectation.

Harry turned back to the table, and chewed on his bottom lip. After Ed left in such a huff, Harry wasn't so sure that telling Ron what Ed knew about Hohemheim ..no 'Paracelsus'.. was such a good idea. He looked at Ron's face, and knew instantly that he had to say.. something.

"Um..well. It's complicated." Harry said, and looked away a moment.

"Big surprise there. Don't think a thing's ever simple with 'im." Ron said softly with a snort. "Spill it. I know it's got be good now."

Harry took a breath. Then let it out.

"ok..This stays with you and Hermione." Harry said softly. "Ed said he isn't putting this in his paper. Said he's strickly using just what he can find in here."

"Right. Got it." Ron nodded politely.

"Here goes...Nicholas Flamel wasn't the only one who knew how to make a philosopher's stone. Paracelsus did, too. Only um.. instead of brewing the elixir of life ..According to Ed he used it to steal other people's bodies to keep living. Ed said he was a little over four hundred years old the last time he saw him."

"Wait. Steal..You mean like how Tom Riddle's..um diary.. almost took Ginny's.."

Harry nodded.

Ron swallowed, and his face tumbled into a kind of sick grimmace.

"Tell me the bloke's made it up? I mean, he's a ..a..and they can't..uh.....he says.. but.." Ron stammered, then took a breath. "How's he know?"

"He says Paracelsus's his father."

"You're kiddin'! You mean.. He's really half-blooded? But the charms..I mean you've seen 'im..and the um..And he didn't know.."

"I don't get it, either." Harry said as he leaned back. "'Member I thought he was a just real smart Muggle when I first met him. Now he says he's an alchemist..but I...and still..."

Ron leaned his chin into his hand.

"Whachafigure? "
"Huh?"

"Is he mental, a liar, or..?"

"Wait..What? Why you say that?"

"Sounds a bit..I dunno..odd. I mean, suddenly telling you, out of the blue, that he happens to have a four-hundred year old dad that's some famous wizard when he himself's a...?" Ron looked at Harry with narrowed eyes. "Like he's trying too hard...the bloke's not exactly popular right now."

Harry frowned, then nodded.

"Yeah..I've noticed." Harry shrugged. "Still..I want to believe him, Ron...I do...and.."

"I'm gettin' a headache." Ron said wearily, then after a few moments, a crafty sort of look appeared on his face. He glanced over at Harry. "You don't suppose ..y'know.. that Ed knows how to make one, too..do you? I mean, since his suppos'd dad knew and all."

"He didn't say." Harry said. "But then..um, look. You come from a wizarding family, and you aren't exactly..well look.. you're good, but not.."

"Yeah.." Ron said with a bit of a scowl. "Just wondering, s'all. I think some extra gold in my pocket would be nice to have once in a while, y'know."

The warning bell chimed, and both Harry and Ron gathered their things. Harry found he had a lot to think about, and he let his eyes study his shoes all the way to the Care of Magical Creatures class.

The pink toad was in the "Chimeras R Us" class, doing her inspection. Ed ignored her, once more focusing on the snail problem in his notebook. She annoyingly hovered over him for a while, causing a deep shadow over his calculations, but moved on to question the others soon enough.

That night, Ron and Hermione stayed up with him in the common room, waiting for Harry to come back from the grueling detention. He noticed Ron kept looking at him with the strangest expressions on his face, one of which looked something like pity enough that Ed scowled in his annoyance as he struggled on with Charms.

As they waited together, gradually the room emptied out, (though there was certainly something of a wide berth around Ed no matter how crowded the common room got).. Ron moved next to Hermione by the hearth and the two whispered to one another for a long while.

Ed shifted in his chair as Crookshanks jumped up and curled himself into a tawny ball on his belly. He soon snorted his disgust and mentally tagged Charms as 'hopelessly unscientific', (a category which really meant it was largely a waste of his time, joining the likes of 'Divination', 'Care of Magical Creatures', and 'Defense Against Dark Arts'), and returned happily to his snail calculations in his notebook.

In time, Ron's eyes became watery, and soon enough, he was slumped limply in his chair.

Harry came in, holding a bloody scarf to his hand. Hermione dutifully handed over a shallow bowl that had some sort of liquid within, explaining it was "murtlap tentacles" and Harry dipped his hand in the liquid with relief on his face. Seeing that Harry was in good hands for the night, Ed yawned and closed up his notebook. As he freed himself from Crookshanks and stretched, catlike himself, he heard Hermione speaking in a small voice.

"She an awful, horrible woman. Just as you came in, I was telling Ron that we should do something about her."

Harry looked over at the snoring Ron with a raised eyebrow.

"I mean..She's a dreadful teacher. If we don't do something, we won't learn how to defend ourselves this year at all." Hermione said.

"What can we do? She has the post and she's here to stay. Minister Fudge will see to that." Ron said sleepily, rubbing one bleary eye.

"Well..I was thinking..maybe, um..we should do it ourselves." Hermione said.

"Vhat? NOW you.." Ed started loudly as he tumbled to his feet.

Hermione looked at him and frowned.

"DHAT vas de point of me showing you KATAS." Ed said firmly, pulling himself to his full..albeit not very tall..height. "IZ Self-defense."

"This is different." Hermione said with a blush. "We wizar.."

"Show me difference." Ed said impatiently.

"It's Dark magic..Ed..We..um..we aren't...can't really.." Hermione stammered.

"Can't do this with books." Ron said.

"Yeah..I think we're past the point where books would be helpful." Hermione said "We need a teacher."

"Maybe Lupin...?" Harry said

"Lupin's too busy with the Order." Hermione said. "No. I was thinking..maybe... you..?"

Ed folded his arms and smirked. Then chortled as it was clear she was serious about choosing Harry as a self-defense teacher. Ron and Hermione glared at him. Harry..he looked somehow surprised, hurt, and ..if possible..terrified all at once. Ed palmed his face.

"Vriiiight." Ed looked to his friend with the glasses. Ed sighed, sat back down and returned Ron and Hermione's glares. "Tell me. Vhy choose him for dis?"

"He's the best in the year at Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"You don't know what it's like!! All of you-- you've never had to face him, have you? It's not just about memorizing spells and and throwing them at him. Like you're in class or something. The whole time you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own..your own brain or guts or whatever..like you can think straight when.." Harry yelled.

Ed looked at Harry with narrowed eyes as he ranted on and on, argued with Ron. And Hermione. At length, Ed weaved his fingers together and leaned his elbows on his thighs, and frowned as he listened to them yell back and forth. These.. children.. caught in little more than a petty... street brawl.

It wasn't a war ..not likely to ever be worthy of the word in his estimation. When they stopped talking, and silence filled the room...

"Iz true. I have not faced dis Vold- i- mart..." Ed said evenly, then took a breath..and paused. He then shook his head and stood up. "Tch. Zee jou in mornink."

'What am I doing..? This isn't my fight.' He thought to himself as he strode to the spiral stairs that lead to the dorms, not bothering to gather his books or hated!robe to take with him.

One day flowed into the next, one much the same as the other. The pink toad showing up in classes here and there, clipboard in hand and scribbling down notes. Before he knew it, Friday morning dawned.

He arrived in the dungeons, fully prepared to be bored out of his mind happily fussing with the simplest of alchemic techniques for three hours. He was even careful to bring along the ridiculous scales he had bought in an effort to keep peace with Severous, though he had no idea what the man found wrong with how he measured things.

"Guess I should've eye-balled it like usual instead of doing things the most basic way." Ed muttered in Amestrian as he set the stupid thing up. He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat as he looked it over on desk, and held one of the weights it came with between his forefinger and thumb -- it was marked as 'one gram'.

"No way this thing's going to be accurate. This is definitely NOT one gram. My pressure plates are more accurate than this, and that's really saying something."

He tossed the weight to the desktop and was about to head over to the cabinet to gather his and Neville's supplies, when Severus stood before them at his own desk. Or rather, looked coldly down at them from his hooked nose. Silence descended upon the class immediately.

"You will notice that we have a guest with us today." Severus said in a low sneer, and gestured to a shadowy, far corner of the room. Ed couldn't see a thing thanks to being a good foot shorter than anyone else present, even when he stood on his tiptoes.

'Has to be the pink toad.' Ed thought as he turned back from his futile effort.

"Instructions.." Severus waved his wand "..are on the board. Carry on."

After he placed both his and (the melted remains of) Nelville's cooking pots on the table, Ed soon returned with the ingredient tray, making sure he did not handle any of the ingredients with his gloved hands. Instead he used tongs, cups, or even spoons to maneuver the things into place on the scales. Severus swept by his table just as he completed one such highly awkward maneuver.

"Detention, Mr. Elric. Today. My office at 5." Severus said maliciously. Ed grit his teeth.

"May I ask vhy?" Ed said, more coolly than he felt as he stood back up to his full height, careful to keep his face stony.

"Certainly. Failure to complete an assignment."

"vhich.."

"The report on Paracelsus, obviously." Severus sneered and moved on towards another table.

Ed banged both hands to the table and leaned on them. Severus turned slightly in his direction.

"It IS complete. As all de books I could find in the library said." Ed said coolly as he met Severus' cold eyes.

"Then where IS it, Elric?" Severus replied. "As you well know, you were to turn it in at the beginning of this class session."

"...Vas turn in alvready."

"That is clearly not the case. 5 points from Gryffindor for this pointless argument."

Ed scowled and lifted his hands from the table. He continued on with the potion assignment and added the orange power to the bubbling liquid in his pot. He saw Neville make a quick glance down, and looked himself. The tabletop before him now had a small dent. He heard the distinct sound of scribbling on a clipboard, and glanced in the direction.

He heard the pink toad mutter something that sounded like "..dangerous half-breeds allowed to attend classes and damage school property..." as she strode by the table with a haughty glance at him from her beady eyes.

Ed snorted in amusement. He caught Neville's confused expression, one that quickly morphed into outrage as he slowly worked out for himself what she meant. Ed grinned widely then slid up his right sleeve a little, enough to expose a bit of shining metal, and whispered out of the side of his mouth.

"Complement vreally. My mechanic did good job, ja?"

"She hasn't the right." Neville whispered back. "I mean..you..a half breed?"

"..been called vorse." Ed shrugged. "Just vords."

"'Cept... Words damage people." Neville replied so softly that Ed almost didn't hear him.