Author's Note: Welcome back, everybody! Happy Quarantine. In honor of me being stuck in my house, and having this mostly written already anyway, I present to you another chapter. I hope this gives you a little something with which to occupy your time.
Disclaimer: WolfishMoon doesn't own Fullmetal Alchemist or Harry Potter. She never claims the contrary and makes no money from the online publication of this free-to-read fanwork.
The Scientist's Lament
Chapter 25
An Important Meeting
It was lunch on Sunday before McGonagall returned from her errand. Ed liked her, and he liked knowing that she was in the castle. He'd never admit it, but he breathed a little easier when he saw her step into the Great Hall. A tension he'd not realized he'd been holding all weekend left his shoulders.
Of course, he was a little discomfited when she took her seat next to him at the Head table and moved to immediately give him a whispered aside. "Professor Elric," she said, beating a hasty glance at Dumbledore's empty chair. "Can we speak?"
"We're speaking now," Ed said, unable to contain his inner smart-ass. She gave him a stern look, and he hastily added, "But sure. When?"
McGonagall hesitated, said, "I rather think we shouldn't let the matter wait. But discretion might be wise. Finish your lunch at leisure and meet me at my quarters after an hour." Perfect. He'd promised Ginny a training session by the lake after dinner, and he feared the consequences of cancelling.
He looked at McGonagall a little more closely. Perhaps her lips were pressed a little more firmly than usual, but her expression gave nothing specific away. Grim was more-or-less her base state, anyway. He looked across the staff table, seeking Ginny in the crowd of students at the Gryffindor table. He did not see her.
"Will we be done before dinner? I haff a training appointment wis a student after."
McGonagall frowned. "We should, but the student will simply have to be flexible if we are not."
Ed bit back a swear. "Alright, zat's fine. I can come by."
"Excellent," said McGonagall. "Bring your brother Alphonse with you." Now that was an iffier proposition. Al, by merit of his friendship with Luna, was bearing the brunt of the research into Pandora Lovegood's work. Ed had yet to even see the outside of the laboratory itself. He'd spent a good chunk of time over the weekend trying to decode the copy of Pandora's notes he'd been given, but it wasn't quite the same.
The point, though, was that Al was busy.
Ed looked to Al, sitting next to Luna at the Ravenclaw table. Maybe Al could be persuaded to take some time off, he decided. "I'll do my best." He would, too. But if Al refused point blank, Ed wasn't gonna push it, either.
McGonagall gave him a curt nod. "The less said about it, the better." She glanced deliberately at Dumbledore's empty seat. "I'll see you then."
Not subtle, these wizards. Not that Ed knew jack about subtlety. He had, in fact, written the book on flamboyance.
The conversation was over, though. McGonagall put aside her half-eaten plate and rose. The plate vanished before she even stepped away from the table. Ed could not quite help glaring at the space where the plate had been – he would have eaten it.
He contented himself with refilling his own plate and tucking in with gusto. One thing had to be said about Hogwarts – the food was fucking great. So much better than the shit at Humboldt-Universität. Or in Amestrian military institutions.
Ed considered that a moment, remembering that East had a mean Taco Tuesday. On the rare occasions that he and Al had actually been on base, Ed ate a lot of tacos. He shook his head, speared a potato on his fork and decided to focus on the food in front of him. No need to dwell on East.
Alphonse, it turned out when Ed cornered him outside of the Great Hall, was glad for a bit of a break. "I've always liked McGonagall," he said, rubbing a careful finger between Eve's glowing eyes and ignoring the fact that he liked everyone he ever met. "And Pandora's inspiring, but there's only so much you can read from one researcher at once before going a little cross-eyed. Besides, I think Luna's getting a little sick of having company in the lab at all hours."
Oh Al, always so considerate. If it was Ed, he'd unapologetically spend 24/7 in that lab. What he would give.
Once his plan with Alphonse was set – one hour, exactly – he went to go loudly ask Ginny if they were still on for the evening. It would give him an alibi of sorts, having witnesses to an agreed-upon plan. Ed wouldn't be privately conspiring about apparently covert topics when he had a student to mentor afterwards, would he?
When he asked her, she fixed him with her brown-eyed stare. "Why? You're not planning to cancel, are you?"
"Ov course not," Ed said. "An hour after dinner? Give us time to digest?"
"That works," she said, evaluating him suspiciously.
Ed gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder, passed her a folded-up bit of parchment. He didn't try to pass it discretely – the hallway was too crowded for that. "A list ov maneuvers to study," he said.
She unfolded it, eyes scanning what he knew read, If I'm late, don't worry. We'll work for the same amount of time no matter what. Just practice your basic forms and stretch until I get there.
She refolded the note and gave him a solid glare. "Will do," she said, flipping her red hair off her shoulder. He recognized it as akin to his antenna-swishing. Ginny, though taller than Ed, was not exactly large. Her signature hair flip was a move for maximum presence. With the way it billowed, Ed wondered if there was some sort of charm on it.
In any case, it was effective. Ed could not help but feel slightly intimidated. Ginny's persistence might have bordered on annoying, but it was good to see a fellow kid determined to learn how not to die in the world that they were forced to inhabit. He only hoped she'd get good enough, fast enough, to accomplish the sorts of things her friends needed of her.
Well. That was a load of shite. Ed was sure that Ginny would have been as fine as anyone else at Malfoy manor. But numbers. That force bordered on too big as it was. So instead they'd left a man behind, and while they hadn't exactly told Ginny what they'd done on that Wednesday afternoon they'd also been in class, Ed could tell she suspected something. Suspected something and burned.
It was not long after Ed returned to his office that Alphonse knocked on his door. "Brother," he said in Amestrian. "Good to see you."
"Yeah, you too Al," Ed said in the same. "You ready to talk to Stern?"
"Don't call her that," Al said, but a smile was creeping on his face and Ed grinned at him. "What do you think she wants?"
"Could be a lot of things," Ed said. "I don't know how much Dumbledore tells her about anything. But if he told her even just a little, well. I'd be curious too."
Al tilted his head. "Back home you would've refused the meeting on principle."
"Yeah probably," Ed said. "But I can't be a fifteen-year-old agent of chaos for the rest of my life."
"He says at sixteen," Al said. But the smile on his face was genuine. "Well, I'm happy to talk to her. I hate keeping secrets."
"I'm sorry you ever had to do it at all," Ed said.
Al gave him the look that said, Brother, shut up and stop feeling guilty. Ed didn't know if he ever would. There was so much to feel guilty for. His stomach took a moment to churn. Well. That was just another thing to shake off with his usual brashness. Fuck this noise. He gave Al a wild-eyed grin, said, "You ready to do this thing?"
"Whatever it might be!" Al said, and nudged him with his shoulder. His soft, human shoulder. It had been more than half a year since Al had gotten his body back, and Ed could not help being still awed. To feel his little brother's skin again.
Bolstered by the interaction, they left Ed's office ready to face whatever McGonagall had to offer. Maybe.
When they reached her door, Ed felt marginally less brave. But McGonagall ushered them inside with a tight expression, gestured for them to sit. It turned out that her own personal chambers came equipped with kettle and biscuits. Ed could tell just by the ambient humidity that the kettle about to boil, so wasn't surprised at all when it began its high-pitched wail.
The professor served them all with a round of tea and passed about the biscuit tin. "Have a biscuit, both of you."
Alphonse happily piled a few on his plate – after so long without food, he was eagerly trying everything he'd missed out on in their travels. Ed, while no food snob at all, felt just the barest trace of apprehension. As his fingers brushed the biscuit, he could not help himself from scanning it for chemical composition.
It was just a biscuit. Without further ado, he stuffed several in his mouth.
"Bruder!" said Al. Ed shrugged.
"I have plenty," McGonagall said. "My husband loved this brand. I keep well stocked."
Touching personal anecdotes were not exactly McGonagall's style. Suspicious, Ed endeavored to keep up a steady chew. Mouth still half-full, he said, "Alright so what do you want?"
There came a sigh from his left. "I sink what Ed wants to say," Al said, placing his own biscuit down delicately next to his teacup, "is sank you for zee biscuits. To what do we owe zee invitation?"
McGonagall's pursed lips morphed into something resembling a smile before sobering back into their usual grim line. "I believe you know that I left the castle this weekend to see to some pressing errands."
"You did mention," Ed said, swallowing down his mouthful and drawing his eyebrows together.
"Did zey go well?"
"That depends," McGonagall said. "In the interest of honesty, I'll start by saying that the errands were about you."
"Vas?" Ed said, he thought he trusted McGonagall, but evidently not as much as he thought he did. He was suddenly sure that his worst fears were confirmed. Blood rushed cold in his veins. He could almost see the wizard obliviators that might be coming for him. He'd hoped that as a professor and an alchemist that he would be safe from that treatment. But. Errands.
Al's hand quietly found his under the table and squeezed. Their joined hands rested in a ball on the metal above Ed's knee and below the place where the prosthetic met his thigh. He couldn't feel that in the same way that he could feel the clasp of Al's hand, but the sense of weight that traveled up his leg was reassuring anyway.
"I went to Berlin." Berlin? Why? "After your visit to the Malfoy's, Professor Dumbledore decided that he could no longer tolerate the blank spaces in our knowledge about you."
"He knows vat he needs to," Ed said, trying to relax his shoulders without making their tension obvious. From the look in McGonagall's eyes, the attempt came too late. There was an apology in them that she did not say.
The sympathetic weight to her expression did not fade as McGonagall inclined her head. "The headmaster is fond of mysteries that he can control. Of course, he is also fond of mysteries that he has no control over whatsoever. The two of you fall somewhere between those points, and that is where his discomfort lies."
There was something she wasn't saying, but that was probably a decent assessment of the headmaster. "Our lives are none ov his business," Ed said.
"And really," said Alphonse. "What he doesn't know about us isn't all zat dangerous." And that wasn't even a lie, Ed reflected. Their Big Secret of taboo alchemy was obscure enough not to even matter in this strange magic world – keeping that secret was habit. Their smaller Big Secret, that of dimension hopping, they kept mostly on the advice of the Truth.
It wasn't something Truth had told them, exactly. But it was something that seemed to weigh in the very air of the Gate where Ed grabbed hold of his brother's complete self for the first time since they were children.
Secrets are your friend, Mr. Al-chem-ist. Remember that if all goes to plan you will leave this world that I send you to.
"Not all that dangerous," said McGonagall. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling and she muttered something disparaging in English Ed could not quite understand. "Not all that dangerous," she repeated. "If we were having this conversation in any sort of true academic setting, I would dock points for lying. Are you truly telling me that going to a dimension not your own isn't dangerous?"
Ed's stomach should have dropped all over again, but somehow it did not. "How did you find zat out?" he said, exchanging a look with Alphonse.
"Lena Boden and Juna Klemm are the least discrete people I've ever met," McGonagall said, nose wrinkling. "And I have been mired in Gryffindors since I was eleven years old."
"How did zey find out?" said Alphonse, looking no less confused.
Ed wondered why their voices sounded so calm, why his muscles weren't any tenser than before. Surely both he and Al should be approaching panic by now? But their grip on each other's hands remained a loose reassurance. Ed's shoulders remained settled.
McGonagall gave him a tired expression. If she was surprised by their implicit confirmation, she did not give it away. "Dr. Boden lived with you and Ms. Klemm is an outright conspiracy theorist," she said. "The both of them have vivid imaginations. It seems that their reach, in this instance, hit the mark."
There was a moment where Ed could not help but feel a small twinge of betrayal. None of the Amestris crew had ever just handed strangers classified information about him! But again, the twinge in his gut was of betrayal – not panic.
"Their next big question was How did you get here? Ms. Klemm seems to think it was a government project gone wrong. Something about hiding aliens. Dr. Boden, on the other hand, thinks it might have something to do with alchemy."
Ed said, "We weren't brought by zee government. Don't sink your universe could hack zat if zey tried. Would you accept zat it was an unexpected result of a transmutation?"
McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "If it was an alchemical accident, then why aren't you frantically writing up arrays to get back home?"
Ah, there it was. Now Ed could feel a coil of panic somewhere in his belly. Really, he could think up a reasonable excuse for that. The lie was right there in his chest, as if it had been ready and waiting for the moment where it could be used. Why do you think we haven't tried? We tried and tried and tried back in Germany. We've all but given up. We need to focus on another problem for a while.
Ed exchanged a glance with Al. He could see the same lie building behind Al's eyes. For a moment it hovered, unspoken, in the air. And then, for some reason, it broke. Al shook his head, said, "Coming here is equivalence for a transmutation. We need to complete a task before we can go back home. Zat's all."
That was probably the best way to put it, but Ed could almost hear the questions it might draw. He groaned.
"A task? For whom?" Her eyes had grown narrower. "In what I've studied of alchemy, equivalence is never met by a task."
How did they talk their way out of this one? Ed looked down at his gloved hands, squeezed Al's gently. He said, "Zee Truth is a capricious bastard, what can I say? I've never heard of zis myself. I sink zee only reason it suggested zis exchange is because I gave it zee correct offering first."
In its colorless dimension, the Truth had grinned. That's the correct answer, Alchemist. You've beaten me. You've learned your lesson. Because of this, and because I've come to like you and your brother, I offer an alternate solution.
"Pardon, are you referring to the truth as a sentient 'it'?"
Ed shrugged. "Can you just accept zat it vas an alchemical process that brought us here?"
"If it is something sentient with a clear agenda, then I cannot. If you have a planned purpose in being here, other than securing your brother's magical education, then I must know. In the interest of war intelligence."
Ed should have expected that. When had he ever respected anyone's clear boundary? McGonagall's eyes were burning with a fierce protectiveness, and Ed realized that he was receiving the look she reserved for potential combatants. For people who might be there to hurt her students. Ed met Al's eyes again, shrugged. Al nodded, and really that was enough confirmation.
"For certain branches of alchemy," Alphonse said, adopting a professorial tone, "equivalence goes haywire. When you make a substantive demand on an array zat is physically impossible to provide, zee Truth decides upon a different toll. It is typically designed to be as cruel as possible, to put zee alchemist zrough emotional and physical turmoil equivalent to zeir mistake. Zee heartbreaking truth, at zee end of it all, is zat zee intended result is simply impossible. Regardless of zee toll paid, zee alchemist never gets what zey wanted. We hope you never, ever, try it."
There is something closed in McGonagall's expression, like she thinks Alphonse might be feeding her bullshit. "I've never heard of this. And aside from the two of you and Albus Dumbledore, I know more about alchemy than anyone in this castle."
Ed snorted. The alchemy in this world was second rate at best. "Nobody hears about it. Alchemists who have encountered it don't talk about it. And zat's just zee ones zat live. Zee warnings are in textbooks: 'If you try zis, you will die. Here's a graphic photograph of zee alchemist's mangled corpse lying facedown on zee array zat killed zem.'"
McGonagall did not look impressed when she said, "If this is the alchemy that brought you here, then why are you here instead of lying dead in your own transmutation circle?"
"We've met Truth a few times," Ed said, desperately trying to sound casual. "Enough times zat I guess it decided it liked us."
"You've encountered this being multiple times? I didn't take the two of you for the sort of boys who make the same mistake twice."
Ed shrugged. "Not much choice in it. Given our specific circumstances, repeat visits were basically necessary. I would say zat most people don't visit more zan once, but."
McGonagall took a moment before she answered. Her face, though as grim as always, gave nothing particular away. Ed could only guess she was processing, though. If anyone had told him about the gate before he'd been there, he would have needed a minute to process it, too. She ends up changing direction a little, said, "And so this entity that kills more often than it doesn't just sent a repeat visitor another universe?"
Al hummed thoughtfully. "If you're wondering if all zee dead alchemists just ended up here, I can tell you zey didn't. Zee Truth doesn't typically kill outright. You just can't always survive what it does take. Usually, zere is a recoverable body."
Ed looked at Al sharply. "Yours wouldn't haff been." It was the sort of reflexive statement that he probably shouldn't have said. Heck, it was so reflexive that he was surprised it didn't come out in Amestrian.
Al shrugged. "We got it back eventually," he said.
McGonagall shook her head slightly. Ed's eye was drawn by the slight slip of her hat. "What did it send you here to do?"
"Vhy would zee bastard give us specific details?" Ed said.
"It told us to go to England, zat we would find our tasks zere. Based on zee sort of sing Truth regulates? Bruder and I sink zat he probably wants us to kill your Voldemort."
Ed can see when it all clicks in her head. Her teacup clatters in its saucer. "You're here to kill Voldemort? Because of the things the Truth regulates?"
"A man who circumvented zee circle of life appeared in our laps, while we're on a mission for zee Truth" Ed said. "Sounds like it."
"Life is only meant to flow in one direction," said Al. "And if Voldemort managed to resurrect himself without encountering zee Gate. Well. Someone has to escort him zere."
"Truth regulates life and death," said McGonagall, eyes skewering them both.
"Yes," Al said, and true understanding spread across McGonagall's face.
"Ed didn't lose his arm to some sort of war crime," McGonagall said. "The gate regulates attempts at human transmutation."
Ed froze. His first instinct was to kill Molly Weasley. His second instinct was to wonder how the hell McGonagall, of all people, knew about Amestrian alchemy taboos.
"It does," Alphonse said, inclining his head. His face bore none of the shock that Ed knew was writ upon his.
"Vat zee fuck?" he said. "How do you know about human transmutation? Since when is your world's alchemy even close to zat advanced?"
"How are ye doaty enough to perform it multiple times?" McGonagall retorted, an inflection Ed couldn't quite place coming over her words. Whatever the hell "doaty" meant, Ed was sure it was an insult.
He could feel his shoulders tense. "I said already zat zee ozer times were consequences of zee first one! If we hadn't been ten years old und stupid, vee wouldn't haff done it at all!"
Though Al had been more composed than Ed throughout this whole conversation, a small bit of hurt had entered his expression. "We just wanted to see our mutter again."
McGonagall put her head in her hands, muttered something under her breath. Ed was sure it was vulgar, but her voice was only just audible. Just audible, and in that inflection that Ed was realizing was not quite the English he knew.
She seemed to compose herself. "The two of you committed human transmutation at nine and ten and lived to tell the tale?"
Ed agitatedly tapped his foot. "Our formula was closer zan most. We just missed zee simple fact zat zere is no way to bring back a soul zat has completely passed. Zee sing it took from me I could haff lived with. Al would be dead if zee Truth didn't let me see how to keep his soul on Earth."
Ed wasn't sure why he shared that. He probably could have left it at the first part of his explanation.
"Truth took bruder's leg," Al said, evidently also moved to share too much information. "It took my entire body. Wizout a vessel, my soul would have passed srough zee Gate eventually. Ed traded his arm to tie it to a nearby suit of armor, instead."
"Even zat would not have worked if I hadn't performed zee transmutation immediately. If I'd passed out, or hesitated, or if I'd had to look around to find a suitable vessel."
Al shrugged. "Please. If zee suit of armor hadn't been available, you just would haff put me in somesing else."
Ed shrugged, though it was probably true. The armor had been an incredible stroke of luck. A rare good point to Van Hohenheim's eccentricities.
In all this explanation, McGonagall said nothing. Her eyes were wide – something akin to horror in her expression. Her wrinkled hands were wrapped tightly around her teacup.
"And you were ten years old?"
Alphonse shrugged, said, "I was nine. Ed was ten."
McGonagall unwrapped her fingers from her teacup. "And now you are here. Back in your own body, I presume?"
"Zat's why I was so atrophied," Al said. "My body had been waiting for me by the Gate for many years. About six months ago now, Ed got it back in exchange for coming here. You can see why traditional exchange might break down in those circumstances."
McGonagall looked very much like she wanted to wrap Alphonse in a hug. But after a moment she blinked and focused her attention on Ed. "You said this option was only available to you because you gave the Truth the correct offer first?"
Oh no. Ed recognized that look in her eye. "Absolutely not. I'm not giving you zee key to human transmutation. It's a bad idea, and even if it goes exactly right and you offer zee right thing, if zee soul isn't still waiting to be returned to the world, it will simply not work. You will pay a serious toll for no reason at all."
McGonagall's expression stayed stubborn for a moment before it wilted. "I know," she said. "I might have done the reading once upon a time, but I'm no fool."
"Bruder hasn't even told me what he offered, and he knows zat I would never try it again," Al said. "Please don't ask him."
"I hadn't realized you were an alchemist," Ed said.
"Don't be silly," McGonagall said. "I'm a transfigurist. Of course I have some working knowledge of it's parent art. We've had this discussion."
"Enough 'working knowledge' that you considered human transmutation?" Ed said, raising an eyebrow. "Who for, by zee way? For us it was our mother."
Alphonse shushed him, poked at his ribs. "Don't be rude, brother," he said in hushed Amestrian. He turned back to McGonagall, said in English, "You don't need to tell us. Brother's just really nosy."
"My husband," she said, gesturing at the biscuits. "I don't suppose you tell many people about your mother? I don't usually talk about my husband, but in the interest of fair play, it is only right for you to know."
"You never actually tried it, though," Ed said. He was fairly certain on this point – she would have encountered the Gate if she had. But. It doesn't hurt to ask.
"We'd understand better than anybody if you had," Al said.
McGonagall gave them both a thin smile. "No. I never did," she said. "I recognized that even if human transmutation could be possible, I did not have a strong enough mastery over alchemy. Resurrection also has an extremely dark magical association. That was a strong deterrent in the years following the last war with Voldemort."
Okay apparently fucking with the circle of life was a magical taboo, too. Who would have thought wizards had any boundaries at all? Ed wanted to ask how far along she'd gotten in the planning stages – had she started plotting out the elements of the human body? Purchased large amounts of Carbon? Or had she kept her husband's body in some sort of magical stasis? But he felt certain that Alphonse would throttle him if he did.
Which would be honestly fair.
"So yes," Ed said, deciding to change the subject entirely. "We're stuck here until we can kick Voldemort's ass to the gate." And then he froze, looked at Al. "Do you think?" he said.
The light of realization was dawning in Al's eyes, too. "We have to open the gate with him, don't we? Killing him isn't enough."
Ed nodded, feeling a grin start to form. "I wonder if we need to actually collect all the soul pieces, then. Or if we just need to collect one?"
"I think we need to be dealing with the bulk of his soul," Al said. "So maybe not all of them, but more than half. We can work out the math later."
"What do you think would go into trapping Voldemort?" Ed asked McGonagall, who was looking between Ed and Al with tinges of exasperation and alarm.
It seemed to take a moment for her to notice that a question had been asked of her directly. When she did, her eyes came into abrupt focus. "I'm sure I don't know," she said. "I can look into it for you, if you'd like."
Ed leaned back in his chair. "If you have time, zat would be wonderful."
"I'm glad you know about us," Al said, after a beat of silence. "I know it's a lot to process – dimension hopping and childhood alchemical taboos."
"Have you told Dumbledore?" Ed said. "I mean, if you have, we can probably deal wiz it."
"I haven't," McGonagall said. "It was a stroke of luck that he wasn't at lunch. I'll have to tell him something about my time in Berlin, though."
Ed looked to Al before saying, "Just tell him,"
"I think it would be easier zan lying," Al said, nodding thoughtfully in agreement. "Tell him you've spoken to us and zat you're certain we aren't a threat."
"I'll do that," McGonagall said. "Now, Professor Elric, I believe you have a meeting with a student to get to?"
Ed pulled his watch from his pocket, flipped the lid, swore when he realized that it was already half-way through dinner. They'd been at this discussion rather longer than he'd thought. If he hurried, he'd be able to eat a few sandwiches and still have time to digest before meeting Girl Ginger.
McGonagall looked at him disapprovingly, but Ed would bet money that much of the indecipherable language she'd used over the course of the discussion had been vulgar. So, there.
"Should we make an effort to go down to dinner separately?" said Alphonse.
McGonagall glanced at the clock on her wall. "If you don't mind me sharing this conversation with Professor Dumbledore, then I suppose it doesn't much matter."
That was a relief. Trying to scatter arrival times would just make the time crunch worse. With a plan for food decided on, Ed stood from his chair. "Shall we?" he said.
McGonagall and Alphonse stood almost simultaneously. If they weren't going to be subtle about it, they might as well swoop into the great hall as a group.
Word Count: 5002
Posted 3/25/2020
And it's only been three months! How about that. I've decided that I'm going to work on this fic for the Camp NaNoWriMos this year. So, with any luck, we'll have a couple of chapters written up by the end of April and July.
Please review, I'm always eager to hear what people think and how this fic can be improved!
