In an old myth, the planet lived in a realm known as Theia, a universe joined with it's twin sister, Gaia. Over time, plants and animals would travel between the worlds doorways and spread their species until both planets had near identical ecosystems.

As a doorway would open, humans would gather around the point. Trade booming briefly before shutting back down as the rip sealed. Rinse and repeat, a constant pattern. Science, culture, and language splintering and branching between the worlds. The cultures of all kinds of wixen and muggles mixing and melding until the hybrid art of alchemy was born in a small city-state called Xerxes.

But as time marched on, empires rose and fell. Xerxes swelled into a great power only to be slaughtered, and slowly but surely, people began to forget where the bridges between realms lied.

Infinity spirals. A snake eats its own tail and chokes to death on its flesh, The Unknowable Truth grins at a joke untold. Four and a half centuries passed and there were only three left who remembered.

And then there is only one.

As the second man, the last man on Terra to know of these passages, died, he left his sons with the information needed to find and enter Earth. Armed with their father's journals, the two left on a mission to chase these stories and revolutionize their world. Passing the boundary for the first time in hundreds of years.

Their first stop, a land that called itself Britain.

"Sir? Sir, you need to wake up."

Edward Elric-Rockbell frowned in his sleep, golden eyes blinking open in sleep drunk confusion. The bus driver, a portly man with dark eyes, stood frowning at him.

"It's the end of the line," the man explained gruffly, "you need to get off."

Ed groaned, rubbing at his cheek where the cold glass had numbed it to the touch. He hadn't meant to fall asleep like that, and it'd no doubt be hell finding his way back to the dingy motel in the dark. Alphonse was going to skin him alive.

Picking up his suitcase, he thanked the man in heavily accented and broken English. Stepping off the cold bus and into the even colder October air, he figured he could still ask for directions from the locals. His old wounds ached dully, and his breath fogged as he squinted at a nearby sign.

Privet Drive, huh?

Identical houses lined his either flank like sentries, and the broken streetlights produced no light at all. Leaving him with an almost eerie feeling, like he'd somehow stepped out just a little out of time and space.

Then the lights clicked on, and Ed winced at the stabbing pain in his eyes. Ow. Consider the spell broken.

A loud cry punctuated his thoughts, and his wide eyes quickly tracked down the source. There, on the doorstep of a house labeled with a shining 4, was a fucking baby.

Holy shit, it was the middle of winter.

Tripping over his feet in his haste to reach the child, who was apparently just as disgruntled at the sudden light as Ed, he quickly shoved his fingers against his face. Breath breaking out in a relieved huff at the gentle heat the babe was swaddled in. At the very least, someone had left a warming charm on the child's blanket.

The baby fussed at his comparatively cold touch, shrieking loudly and swigging his tiny fist at his fingers. A jagged and angry cut had been carved into his forehead, and inky black hair shot out in every direction around his light brown face like the uneven down of a newborn chick. The child looked to be around Ethan's age, and Ed found himself smiling despite himself.

Plucking the old fashioned letter out of the child's fist, he settled the boy against his shoulder. Bouncing lightly until he had stopped crying and fell into a sniffling silence. The letter was written in fanciful cursive, giving Edward a headache as he tried to decipher the handwriting on top of the already foreign alphabet.

After a minute, he decided that the names were probably Dunsley, or perhaps Dimsley. The rest was the address, so he didn't bother past the first line. Turning back to the house's door and rapping loudly on the wood. When nobody answered, he tried the doorbell.

Another baby began screaming somewhere in the home, and loud thundering steps shook the door. As it was wrenched open, Ed came face to face with a man who bore uncanny resemblance to a walrus, all the way down to the flabby, flipper like arms.

"Who're you?" The man immediately began yelling, "I should call the police for this! Get off my property!"

Ed wrinkled his nose as the man's screaming landed spittle across his face. Wiping it away, the Amestrian frowned at him, "are you Mr. Dinsley?"

"Dursley!" He barked, face turning a concerning shade of purplish red.

Edward offered the envelope, "sorry for waking you, someone left a baby at your door with a letter, any idea why?"

A stupid expression crossed the man's face as he decipered Edward's words, who's thick accent often times made him hard to understand for the natives. Mumbling something rude and more then a little racist, he tore the letter from Ed's fingers.

Waiting patiently as the man scanned the letter, Ed idly rocked the child drooling on his travel coat. Behind him, Ed could see a thin, horse faced woman peering at them from the stairwell, another toddler in her own arms. Waving passively at her, she sneered and turned away.

As Ed's impression of the family tanked steadily lower, Dursely let out an inarticulate shout of rage. Tearing the parchment in his hands to shreds and whirling on Ed so violently he instinctively fell into a defensive position.

"We're not taking him!" He screamed, "we will never let one of those freaks into our home! You take care of it, and you bloody well never come back!"

Jerking his automail foot into the door before he could slam it shut, Edward forgot to censor himself in front of the child as his own rising temper flared, "freak!? He's a fucking baby! What the hell is wrong with you!?"

The man's already radish colored face turned a few shades darker, "we're not taking it! You picked it up first, it's your problem!"

"What the- 'You're the last one who touched it' doesn't apply to children!" He snarled, his already low opinion crawling into rock bottom's basement.

"If you don't leave I'm calling the police!"

Both children were crying now, and the woman was glancing at the windows nervously, clearly afraid to wake the neighbors.

"Fine!" Ed yelled, tucking the child closer to his chest, "I'll fucking take him. What's his name?"

"Harry Potter," Horse said before her husband could respond, seemingly just desperate to get him to go away. "He was born July 31st to my sister Lily and James Potter. If he's here, they're dead."

Nodding once, he slid his foot out and let Walrus, who looked ready to punch him, slam the door shut in his face. Turning on his heel, he strode away from the building, neighboring lights beginning to blink on.

Simmering in anger as he once again bounced the child in his arms into a calmer state, he shifted him onto his back so he could peer down at the babe's face. Harry's face was wet with tears, and as he shoved a hand into his mouth he peered up at Ed with red rimmed eyes. His irises were a cross somewhere between the bottle-green hue Edward's mother had sported and an electric acid green more akin to Hughes' bright gaze. The dual remembrance made him grin sapily at the child.

He sighed, Winry was going to kill him. She had only just given birth to Frankie, and here he was carrying home a third child.

Shifting the baby back onto his shoulder so he could better grip his suitcase, Harry's pudgy fingers tangled into his hair, slick with spit. Ed tipped his head back to breathe in the crisp winter air. Looks like he and Al were heading back a bit early.

Now if only he could figure out the way back to the motel.