Beyond the Gate: Edward Elric and the Truth of Sacrifice Chapter 1, a Harry Potter + Fullmetal Alchemist Crossover fanfic

Welcome back to Beyond the Gate for Book 3! I hope you enjoy!

For weeks, Edward Elric had been in a sort of coma from which he would not wake up. Initially, the coma had been induced by Augustus Rookwood upon his arrival at the Malfoy home in order to prevent the one he called his favorite guinea pig from escaping. Indeed, for several hours a day, the fanatic Death Eater indulged in experiments on the blond, hoping that these would allow him to discover access to the teen's strange magic. But he had been unsuccessful: at first glance, Edward Elric was a wizard like any other- except Rookwood had seen. And what he had seen told him that the magic Elric had used in the Ministry against him was no ordinary magic. He had been sure of that when he saw him again at work in the attack on the Brockdale Bridge. Such power just by clapping hands- it was unexpected.

When the Dark Lord learned of the feats of which the blond was capable, he gave orders to bring him back alive, a privilege few people had enjoyed except Harry Potter. Rookwood, who was in favor with Voldemort, had convinced his master of the inestimable value that the boy could have if he was alive when he arrived at Headquarters. When Voldemort saw the lifeless boy with his metal leg, he scornfully said that he was probably a Mudblood to resort to such a device. Rookwood had not denied that the metal thing was Muggle-made but he had insisted on the power displayed by the young wizard and that had interested the Dark Lord. Having such a power at his service could save him time in his seizure of power; he could learn it himself and then get rid of the boy to become the only one to have mastered this power.

Unfortunately, the boy was Potter's friend and therefore it was highly unlikely that he would agree to reveal his secrets so easily. For a while, Voldemort had considered using Elric as a hostage to trade him for bargaining, but he already knew that neither the Order nor the Ministry would agree to such an arrangement. Of course, he could use him as bait, but the Order would never let Potter go to his friend's rescue. So, it was better for now to use him as long as he had a use and then show off his corpse to demoralize Potter.

But for now, what he needed were answers and the boy's unconscious body had delivered none. At first glance, the teen was a normal wizard who used a normal wand according to Olivanders. But Voldemort was sure the old wand maker was lying. Unfortunately, he still needed him unharmed to explain why his wand had produced the strange phenomenon two years ago, during his rebirth.

When he had grown weary of gazing at the blond's unconscious body for weeks without obtaining any clarification as to the nature of his power, Voldemort had ordered that he be woken up and tortured until he revealed all his secrets, including those confided by Nicolas Flamel. It was then that he realized that Edward Elric had mastered Occlumency so well that he had taken advantage of his coma to dive so deep into his mind that he had become completely numb to the pain. His body was in pain, sure, but he was no longer aware of his surroundings.

He was in a state of magical stasis, his mind and soul were still present in his body but far too difficult to reach. Rookwood had tried all means: Legilimency, Veritaserum, torture spells of all kinds to try to get him out of this state, but in vain. Hearing this, Voldemort had thrown a beautiful, almost insane fit of rage and ordered the boy to be woken up before the end of the week or else he would kill him himself and leave his corpse in Diagon Alley.

It was Monday night and Severus Snape had Apparated as soon as possible in front of Malfoy Manor. He knew that there was to be hardly anyone in the dungeons of the beautiful mansion, apart from the usual few prisoners- those Death Eaters could torture and kill at their leisure: Muggles or Muggle-borns- and prisoners of value to the Dark Lord: their fate was no better because they were also entitled to torture but with the very specific aim of extracting information from them.

It was towards this grim place that Severus Snape was heading, passing without difficulty the wards put in place to ensure that the prisoners could not escape. He soon came to a cell which he only had to show his Dark Mark to enter. The cell was dismal, with no windows to the outside, and the only furniture was a shabby mattress on which lay Edward Elric, sound asleep. His body was covered with multiple wounds, some done in the Muggle way since the Death Eaters were not reluctant to use the methods of torture of those they despised to inflict more and more harm. In any case, there was no doubt that the teen who lay there was in very bad shape.

Seeing his condition, Snape did not know what would be the most merciful: to end the sufferings of Edward Elric, one of the only students he respected with the help of an undetectable poison of his own composition that would kill him painlessly. It would be like dying in his sleep, and no Death Eater would suspect Snape's implication since the boy was already in a state of torture on the verge of death. Tortured daily, he only had a few potions in his stomach that would keep him alive because the teen had not eaten for nearly thirty days and he seemed determined to beat a record.

But on the other hand, he was dealing with a boy who had probably already had his share of suffering, just his metal leg said a lot about it and so there was a good chance that Edward Elric would be able to overcome the pain of his bruised body. Yes, he was certain that Edward had the physical and mental strength to be able to get out of his situation. But either way, he couldn't openly help him without compromising his spy position.

However, he could leave regenerating potions within reach of the boy in his potions lab, he could leave the young man's mechanical leg in the said laboratory, leaving the door open and not very firmly closed as he was used to and above all, he could whisper information in Edward's ear like now:

"The Dark Lord has summoned all of his Death Eaters for a meeting in less than an hour. They believe you are all in an irreversible coma and the guard has been relaxed. If you want to go, now is the perfect time."

Earlier that day…

In his mind, Edward Elric was very comfortably settled in a sort of room he had fashioned for necessities like these. He had taken the Room of Requirement as an example and it changed to suit his current needs: if he was bored, all the books he had ever read appeared; if he wanted to sleep, his mental room filled with cushions. Here nothing could reach him except what he decided- even the torture was felt only as a slight discomfort.

Of course, sometimes he would let the pain reach his mind to test and see if he would be able to take it when he chose when to flee. The suffering was there, present, but it was not unbearable. He had known worse situations and more excruciating pain, like when he had found himself impaled in northern Amestris. By focusing on the more important things, like survival, one might well be able to accomplish a breakout. And there had been plenty of time to think, stashed away as he was in his mind!

To organize his escape, he had established a list of his priorities which were as follows:

1) Find his automail or Winry would kill him when he returned to his world. And at the same time, retrieve his wand.

2) Find out as much information as he could without being caught.

3) Cause maximum damage while escaping.

In order to accomplish the first task, he first had to know what had become of his automail. For a moment he thought the Death Eaters had destroyed it because it was obviously a Muggle artifact. Fortunately, overly talkative guards had inadvertently revealed to him that Snape had taken it to study it and see if a particular magic made him able to walk. Of course, other than a few protective runes, he wouldn't find anything and the spy knew all too well how reliant Edward was on his automail to tear it apart into pieces. He should therefore find it intact. As for his wand… well, silent, wandless summoning charms weren't for fools and he bragged about not being one.

Finding out the most information without getting caught would be slightly dangerous, but it was worth the effort. If only he had Harry's magnificent Invisibility Cloak at his disposal, he could move around incognito and eavesdrop on Death Eaters' conversations. But hey, he had to make do with what he had: the disillusionment charm should be able to make his body translucent and therefore make it easier for him to hide. If he cast it well enough and if he stuck to the shadows, he should have no problem not being seen.

Regarding his favorite part, causing as much damage as possible to create a diversion, all he had to do was go to Snape's lab and he should find all the equipment he needed for that. Although a brilliant student including in potions, Edward was still good at causing explosions in this matter, the only difference was now he was able to turn them into real time bombs. You could say that he had brought this talent to a real level of art. With a nice explosion to create a diversion, getting out of this mansion would be child's play.

All that remained was to find the right moment because the deadline was approaching dangerously soon. Edward didn't want to wake up at the last moment, when there were people around him. This would make it difficult for him to escape and force him to use alchemy or one of his many hidden talents. But he would undoubtedly have to use them, anyway. He couldn't see himself attempting to escape using only Muggle methods that no one would have thought of- although he could try just to annoy the Death Eaters… But no. He shouldn't waste his opportunity to get out of this just for pride. If he had to, he would use whatever means he had at his disposal to escape and find his friends.

In the meantime, the teen was experimenting in his head with ways to work magic. He was particularly interested in astral travel, in how he could extract himself from his body without damaging his soul by permanently severing the link with his body. It required seeing his mind a bit like an invisible ghost capable of extracting itself from his body at will. But for that, Edward had to use Legilimency to project himself outside of himself and it wasn't easy: admittedly, the young boy mastered this particular talent to perfection but it was something else to fly away without going automatically towards the mind or the body of another person. He could do this without any problem, but it was called Possession and it was considered dark magic, not without reason.

That hadn't stopped Edward from trying and that Possession talent had proven to be remarkably easy, which was to be expected since it was Legilimency pushed to its limit. And projecting his mind to grab a mind, Ed had already done that in Amestris, on Pride. So he had started using magic again this time. So he had tried invading the mind of a Death Eater without being noticed but he was quickly disgusted by what he had seen: scenes of murder, torture, pillage- an unhealthy mind of which he had been horrified by sensing the emotions and memories. After this experience, Edward hadn't tried anything for a week before starting over, reluctantly. This time he had managed to control the Death Eater's body as if he was under the influence of the Imperius and the experience had marked him deeply.

After that, in fact, he had long wondered about the notions of Good and Evil: did the mere fact of experiencing the limit of his powers justify him using the equivalent of an Imperius, a spell that affected the person's mind? By doing this, was he not lowering himself to the level of his opponents? Wasn't he risking damaging his soul, probably already damaged by his past experiences? Was it worth the risk to experiment?

In the end, he had decided that no, it wasn't worth it: he wanted to have a soul almost intact when he presented himself before the Truth. And Possession really was too evil magic that would stain his being if he practiced it too often. Ignorance could be excused (yet again…) but knowingly committing an evil act would not be forgiven so easily by the Truth before whom he would stand trial. And the young alchemist didn't want to do anything he might regret later.

So he had been trying for almost a month to practice astral travelling, a much less obscure application of Legilimency, but without any success. However, yesterday at least he believed he had felt something quite close to the sensation he should feel, as if he was about to take flight like a bird. So he had the certainty one, that it was possible and two that he was going to achieve it today. Period. And if there was one thing you could call Edward Elric, it was determined.

So he started to meditate in his head and, after a few hours, he felt as if something was detached from his body, like an invisible film wrapping something being gently peeled off from an object. Feeling that he was on the right track, he persevered and… he found himself in the ghostly form of a little fennec. It was so surprising that the teen in his animal form let out an exclamation of surprise in the form of a small bark inaudible to the human ear.

Then, regaining his composure, Edward observed his form as an astral traveler: it was very similar to that of his Animagus- same golden eyes, same blond fur, although the colors seemed translucent. He only had three legs, but that didn't bother him. It was easier to run on three legs than on one leg. His fennec form was connected to his body by some sort of golden link and in a bizarre fashion his brain was receiving information from both his inanimate body and his Anima.

Carefully, Edward started to see if he could get through the walls and he could verify that he was. He therefore began by visiting the other cells: in most of them were strangers and obviously unable to escape. He tried to speak to them but in vain: they neither saw nor heard him. Someone, however, was open-minded enough to perceive him: it was Garrick Ollivander, the wand maker. The latter was locked in a larger cell where Death Eaters watched him make magic wands. The old man had seemed to scrutinize him for a moment before whispering in an inaudible voice to run away as quickly as possible without worrying about him.

The further Edward in his Anima form moved away from his body the more pain he felt, but the pain was not overwhelming so he continued even as the pain got worse. It was like a rubber band being stretched but which, like any material, ends up loosening. Edward mentally moaned in pain and thought that if he had been in his body he would have cried without hesitation to the point of calling for his mother. This pain was some of the worst he had endured and this is talking about someone who had resisted the Cruciatus, someone who had had an arm and a leg amputated and had undergone automail surgery.

No, if he had to qualify the pain, it would be more like a great spiritual suffering, as if, voluntarily, he had inflicted on himself the greatest pain in the world. It reminded him of the day of Human Transmutation, when he realized that he had just lost his brother through his own fault. Yes, if he had to describe the pain he felt now, it was that of a deep betrayal of which he was both the object and the one who had committed it. The worst pain remorse could cause and he felt it full force.

For a moment, Edward thought he had accidentally killed himself and rushed back to his cell to return to his mortal coil. To his relief, his heart continued to beat, his brain continued to function, and when he wanted to merge back into his body, he managed to do so without difficulty. Better yet, the pain subsided although he felt that the pain in him was also spreading through his body and in particular in his heart.

In his mental room, Edward cried for the first time in months and then he heard his Anima Fennec speak to him, as when they first met:

"I see you have just learned to detach your Anima from your body without being broken. This is good, very good. Now we have just taken a further step in knowing and understanding."

"I don't see how, unless the pain is a form of knowledge…" Ed muttered, trying to catch his breath, his heart still feeling heavy.

"Pain is a form of knowing about your self. It tells you in particular that you are alive."

"I've never felt so alive as I do today…" Edward growled, thinking that his Anima was mostly right about this one. He was fully aware that he was alive and well at the moment. If he had died, the suffering would have ceased.

"You see?" Replied the little desert fox sarcastically.

"If you could tell me if I just did that out of stupidity?" Ed asked.

"Let's say from now on, you can astrally travel in your animal form at will. You have forced the spiritual bond between your soul and your body to stretch so much that you have stretched it to the point that I, your Anima, can go for a walk to the other side of the country without you feeling the slightest pain. Cool, isn't it?" Explained the Anima Fennec.

"You mean I separated my soul from my body for good? How come I'm not dead? Oh shit, don't tell me I created some sort of Horcrux for myself, that would be awful!" Edward panicked, turning drastically pale at the thought that once again, by mistake, he had ventured down paths he should never have taken.

"Calm down, I said stretched, not cut short. Your soul is intact, I know because I am one of its facets. Among the other facets, there is what we call the impression of the deceased- the ghost. For the others, you will discover them maybe one day if you continue to wander between the Worlds… But understand this well, even if your soul has facets, it remains united and it is made to remain so. So don't go fooling around, thank you very much!" Said the fox in a tone of false pompousness.

"I didn't mean to, you little Reynard clone!" Edward exclaimed, outraged that he could be thought capable of such a thing.

"Are you aware that you are insulting yourself? I know you aren't, after all I'm you!"

"Wait, uh, you! What's your name?" Edward asked desperately.

"Hannael." The fox replied after a long moment of silence and then disappeared.

For a few long minutes, Edward lay in his mental chamber. He felt like he had been told one of the most important secrets of his life, as if he had been given his real name. Anyway, he liked this new name, it sounded good. He would no doubt have continued to reflect on the mysteries of his soul for a long time if a familiar voice had not resounded in the room:

Edward stood up when he heard the ex-professor's voice echoing in his mental room. Snape was there? And he came to warn him of the possibility of an imminent escape? Well, he wasn't going to let this wonderful opportunity slip away. At the moment he was still under surveillance but from what he could see it was Crabbe and Goyle's fathers, not extremely intelligent people like Rookwood who would notice the slightest anomaly in his condition.

So he gradually began to send magic energy to all his muscles to re-energize them while being careful not to move any muscles- not even those in his eyes. After an hour, he was fully back in his ailing body, but it was oddly in less pain than before. According to his very experienced opinion on the matter, nothing could match the pain he had felt a few hours earlier.

He was attentive to the slightest noise, so he rejoiced when he heard Crabbe and Goyle answer their Master's call, leaving him alone since obviously, according to Goyle, it was as if he had been kissed by a dementor... The Death Eater was going to kick himself when his prisoner successfully escaped.

The first thing Edward did was to disarm the magical alarms that were around him that might alert the Death Eaters, using wandless magic. It had been the most awkward moment of the game and Ed was on the alert for long minutes in case the alarm went off but no one came. He changed into a fennec to free himself from the irons that held him to the wall, then once he got to the door, he transformed back into a human and transmuted a second exit in a baroque-neo-Gothic style. But before leaving, he took care to leave a little message to his jailers.

Once out, the blond changed back into his fennec form and hobbled through the halls on three legs, looking for the potions lab that should logically be somewhere around here. After all, at Hogwarts potions were made in the dungeons so why not here? He looked behind every door, more and more anxious and hoping not to be surprised by Death Eaters when finally…

'Bingo,' Edward thought as he stepped cautiously into the lab. The latter was spacious enough to accommodate several cauldrons at the same time. A few potions were already on sitting on the fire and were under the influence of a stasis spell to keep them in a stable state. Edward glanced at them and recognized several complex poisons aimed at bringing painful deaths to victims and potions aimed at healing Death Eaters who would return from their missions injured. They were all incomplete, at various stages of their preparation. As he opened the cupboards, he discovered several potions already finished and labeled meticulously with Snape's fine handwriting. He closed the door, keeping them in mind to use for later.

In another cupboard, Edward found his automail, which luckily hadn't been dissected into a thousand pieces. But now he had to put it back and it wasn't going to be fun. He knew how to do it, after all he saw Winry do it a dozen times and he would have been a fool not to learn how to do it. No, the problem was, could he do it without screaming in pain? For safety, the alchemist tore a piece of fabric from his wizarding robe and stuffed it into his mouth to stifle the howl he was about to utter. Then he took a deep breath, counted to three, and hooked his automail to his body. Edward's scream was indeed muffled by his gag and a moment later he heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that his metal leg was responding as well as before.

Now he had to deal with his diversion… Edward glanced at the potions and almost felt sorry for all of Snape's hard work that he was going to have to destroy… almost. He had no doubt that his former teacher would rather see these potions destroyed than help the Dark Lord's cause. He just hoped Snape wouldn't suffer the consequences of his actions, though it would be too much to ask that no one did. He knew that Voldemort would inevitably shift his anger onto someone else.

Looking at the time, he calculated that the meeting of Voldemort's Inner Circle must have started. Hesitantly and with a little trepidation, he called Hannael wondering if it was going to work when he was in his body. To his relief, the golden fennec appeared, visible only to him and sarcastically, asked him what he could do to help himself escape. Firming his voice, Edward asked him if he could go spy on the Death Eater reunion. Hannael nodded and raced through the walls to reach the room where Voldemort and his Death Eaters were standing.

While part of Edward was doing a brilliant calculation to figure out how to detonate different potions at the same time, the part of Edward in Hannael's form circulated throughout the Malfoy mansion as if he owned the place. Fortunately, no one could see him, although the House elves seemed intrigued by the strange presence passing near them. Hannael eventually arrived in the room where the meeting was taking place. His gaze was immediately attracted to a strange sight: a woman suspended upside down in the air, slowly spinning above the table. He recognized Charity Burbage, the Hogwarts Muggle Studies teacher. The unfortunate woman was probably going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The meeting had barely started and Snape was giving information regarding Harry Potter's departure from Privet Drive. Apparently, according to the spy, he was going to leave his family next Saturday and not the 30th as predicted by a Death Eater named Yaxley. The latter announced that Pius Thicknesse was subject to the Imperius spell and Edward remembered this name to be sure to send it to the minister. Even though he didn't like the Minister, he didn't want him dead. Too many people were dead for him to want more.

The teen watched the Death Eaters' interactions with interest. Yaxley in particular seemed determined to please his master, and he seemed well established in the Ministry, which was worrying. Apparently, he not only had the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement under his control but also several workers from the Department of Magical Transport. Little by little, the jaws were closing in on Scrimgeour and obviously it wouldn't be long before the Ministry fell.

Voldemort started talking about Harry Potter, he was obviously almost totally obsessed with the boy but he thought he owed his life more to luck than talent. Soon, he would change his mind when he saw how Harry had progressed, Edward promised himself. At the same moment, a piercing scream rang out a few rooms down from the potion lab, and Ed jumped: it was Ollivander who had just screamed like that, probably under the control of the Cruciatus. But unfortunately Voldemort had heard it too, and he sent Wormtail to silence the prisoner, which meant that his escape would soon be noticed. So it was time to take action.

Feeling the pain reappear and start to slow him down, Edward rushed over to the potions cabinet and chugged two pain relieving potions to recover momentarily. He also stuffed most of these remedies into his pockets so that he could heal himself when he was safe. Then he cast accio with as much precision as possible to summon his wand. Ollivander would kill him if he lost it.

The only wand that came from behind the Door entered the room at the same time as Wormtail, who had unfortunately noticed the wand heading straight for the potions lab. Fortunately, Edward's hours of training with Harry had paid off and the Amestrian had become faster at spellcasting- fast enough to stun the Death Eater.

After that, knowing he was out of time, he called Hannael back and tossed into the now bubbling cauldrons the ingredients needed to detonate the potions at the same time. The little fennec came back to merge with him. After some careful consideration, Edward levitated the short Death Eater outside so that he was only slightly hurt by the expected upheaval and he waited, protected behind a wall, for the explosion to sound.

Meanwhile, Snape watched the Malfoy family: the father, Lucius, seemed petrified by the loss of his magic wand requisitioned by the Dark Lord, and his wife, Narcissa, had turned extremely pale. Draco Malfoy, meanwhile, couldn't help but look up at the Muggle Studies professor still hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles. The Dark Lord was sadistically pleased to remind them that they had family belonging to the Order of the Phoenix. A family member, who, moreover, had married a werewolf… The Malfoy family struggled to ignore the mockery and sarcastic laughter from the audience. The fierce Bellatrix was trying to convince her Master of her steadfast loyalty and the Dark Lord launched into one of his hypocritical talks about Pure Blood. But at that moment, an explosion echoed below them, violently shaking the walls of the room.

"What was that?!" Roared the Dark Lord as his severely shaken Death Eaters didn't know what to do. It was finally Rookwood, seated to the Master's left, who, after checking something, exclaimed:

"Edward Elric has escaped from his cell, Master!"

"Catch him! I want him alive and conscious!" Voldemort ordered, full of fury.

The ex-professor, meanwhile, had remained calm and stood up quietly and observed with detachment how the Death Eaters sought to be the first to reach the exit to please their master. As for him, he descended the steps leading to the dungeons of Malfoy Manor and contemplated the damage Edward Elric had caused to his Potions lab: nothing was left of it and a large hole pierced the castle wall. It was a miracle the mansion hadn't partially collapsed as it was one of the retaining walls of the Malfoy mansion. He only realized afterwards that he was stepping on Peter Pettigrew's stunned body but didn't really care. To tell the truth, he was admiring the damage caused by the explosions which had all taken place at the same time: it meant, to put it simply, that Edward Elric now knew enough about potions to cause this type of mass destruction...

Through the hole he saw a figure rushing towards the walls surrounding the property instead of running towards the gate which, anyway, would only open for a Death Eater. No, instead, Edward Elric rushed to a wall, clapped his hands, and opened an archway he stepped into before Apparating to an unknown destination.

When Snape and the others returned empty-handed, Voldemort took his anger out on his prisoner, Professor Burbage, who was tortured to death before being killed and served to Nagini as a meal.

Original author's note: I did indeed take the concept of Daemons from Phillip Pullman, which I would call Anima (Latin for soul) here. Edward's is called Hannael and I'm in the mood for you to guess what it might mean. It's very ironic when we know our dear Edward.

[note: this is from the opening author's note from chapter 2, which I'm putting here because I wouldn't usually translate it.] For the name of Edward's 'Daemon', I initially leaned towards 'Divine Grace', but 'God has Responded' has an equally ironic connotation and suits Edward wonderfully. I'm glad you enjoyed the introduction to Daemons. Edward won't use him often for a good reason: wrong universe.