Author's Note: Well. I had every intention of getting this to you in early December. And I had most of it written by the 10th. But that last scene did not want to happen, and when I finally wrote it, I got thrown a curveball. So, waiting as long as I did to write the very last scene may have done weird things to the plot of this story. Whoops.

I hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: WolfishMoon doesn't own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. She doesn't make any money off this whole shenanigan.

The Scientist's Lament

Chapter 20

Time to Move

The rest of Ed's first week at Hogwarts left him damn near homicidal. He had students dropping from his classes left and right. Al's class, the fifth years, had the highest retention rate and while Ed had always known that Al would be a better teacher, there was something there that rankled.

Astonishingly, Potter was still holding on in the 6th year class, but Ed was certain that it was thanks to competitive stubbornness against Malfoy. Potter couldn't drop the class, because that would be admitting he couldn't hack something that Malfoy was decent at. And that had been a surprise.

Ed expected Granger to excel in Alchemy - she alone among the wizards had maintained her science education. Even the ones who'd been raised initially by normal, rational people, Ed found, had stopped their traditional education after being admitted to Hogwarts. She had a tangible head start and he wasn't surprised to see it bear fruit. Ed had also expected Malfoy to be all talk. He wasn't.

Friday's class proved that well enough, with Draco turning over his periodic table on his desk, standing, and elegantly reciting them in order by atomic number. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron... "You didn't need to haff zat memorized till next veek!" There had been a quiz on the first ten elements, surely enough. But Malfoy hadn't needed to memorize all of them.

Malfoy gloried in his academic prowess, so Potter and Granger fumed.

After class, Ed caught Draco as he was leaving and asked about it. Draco gave him a rare tired smile - one that wasn't fueled by cock-sure sarcasm. "I told you that I studied Alchemy in my free time," Draco said. "I never got very far - I was working with the classical elements of earth, air, water, and fire. But I knew vaguely that Alchemy's output only ever equaled input and I had the benefit of needing maths for my arithmancy classes. I've even managed some small earth-based arrays."

Ed was caught somewhere between shock and horror at that statement. He feigned humor instead, snorted before he said, "You vere lucky you never suffered a rebound."

Draco nodded. "I know. But I wasn't trying to change composition at all, just shape. So, it wasn't the disaster it could've been. Seeing this muggle chemistry stuff makes everything click in a way it didn't before. "

Ed took a moment to consider everything, leaning back on his desk and studying the boy who was technically no younger than Ed himself. "I know you haff had some successes, but please. Until you understand zee riddle. Don't try anymore arrays."

Malfoy put his nose in the air, and though he assured Ed that he would not, there was a defiant light in his eyes that made Ed sincerely doubt that he'd be following instructions. "Iv you decide to ignore me, just make sure zat you haff more material zan zee transmutation calls vor in zee circle! Zee equation doesn't haff to use it all, but iv you don't haff enough it vill take it vrom you!"

Malfoy rolled his eyes and stalked out of the classroom, and really Ed's only option was to hope for the best. If he was lucky, Malfoy wouldn't do anything stupid. "And this," he said to the empty classroom in Amestrian. "Is why I didn't want to teach any of them any runes too early." Because Malfoy hadn't figured out the riddle yet. None of them had. And worse, none of them even seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the concept. Magic had ruined them to understanding the normal flow of life.

"Brother," Alphonse said, when Ed bitched to him about it. "Be fair. It took us the whole month and we had the right set of environmental stimuli." Ed couldn't deny that. But. Wizards were still astronomically stupid.

That night, Ed checked in on the running logs. Flitwick had provided him with charmed wristbands for each student that tracked their distance and time and automatically recorded it all on a chart that hung in his office. Granger, ever the overachiever had clocked in at four miles exactly. Malfoy had done only the three. The other Slytherins in year six had each done two and a half, except for the Greengrass girl, who'd done three and a half.

The Hufflepuffs had mostly done the assignment. The Ravenclaws had done the least running combined. The standout achiever, from all the grades, had been Ginny, who'd run a full six miles before Friday. Her Periodic Table quiz, which had only required memorizing the first ten on the table, stood among the worst though, so her score for the week came to average.

Ed was frustrated, sure, but he was so exhausted that he fell into the first true and deep sleep he'd had at Hogwarts. It had just taken minor fury at his students to get him there.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear - the sun fell across Ed's face, waking him from that blessed, nightmare free, sleep. The sheets slipped across his skin and across the pressure plates of his automail leg. And then set in the blood curdling sensation of wondering what time it was and whether he'd missed breakfast. The sun was high.

Ed rolled toward the edge of his bed, forcing the aching port of his automail leg to cooperate. Wham. Well. He was off the bed, and the fall had chased the last of the cobwebs from his eyes. He stood, stretched, and glanced to the time. It wasn't as late as he'd feared.

If he put his hair into a ponytail instead of a braid, he'd make it down to breakfast with enough time to shovel some food into his face.

"Slept in, I see," was Snape's snide remark when Ed shuffled into the Great Hall.

"Vell," Ed said, debating between answering sincerely or sarcastically. "At least zee sleep did somezing vor me. You could sleep vor days and your face would still be awful."

"Charming," he said, scowling as Ed took his seat next to him.

"You started it." And on Ed's other side, McGonagall was smirking into her tea, so he figured he won this round. "And I'm doing you a favor - I sink I haff supplanted you as least vavorite teacher here." He piled eggs and bacon onto his plate, just glad that the table hadn't been cleared for the post meal fruit and coffee.

"Yes, I'd heard about your ill-advised attempt to make the children exercise."

"Ill-advised my ass," Ed said. "To train zee mind, one must virst train zee body. I don't sink vizards understand zee principal."

Snape was clearly not going to set himself up for a losing battle, so he just scoffed. Dumbledore, who was sitting on Snape's other side, long mustachios dangling in his pumpkin juice, said, "If you would like to be the faculty advisor for a gym club," Dumbledore said, "We can meet in my office to arrange it."

Ed swore, and McGonagall raised an eyebrow at him. "I would hate to think you're all talk."

Hilarious. Ed had nothing against starting a gym club (aside from a feeling of general doom at the thought of accepting more responsibility), but he also knew Dumbledore was just trying to get him back into his office to plan other things. He snuck a glance at the Slytherin table and sure enough Malfoy was scowling at an owl.

Dumbledore reached over Snape and handed Ed a piece of parchment. "Today at one, do you think?"

"Fine," Ed barked. "I'll bring any students who vish to be involfed viz me."

"Perfect," Dumbledore said, pulling the orange-stained end of his beard out of his pumpkin juice, finally. It dripped onto his elaborate robes and Ed wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps age was taking a harder toll on the headmaster than any of them expected.

Across the Great Hall, at the Ravenclaw table, Alphonse too was looking at a letter. He looked up and the brothers locked eyes. Ed nodded. Be ready, Al. The blonde girl next to him – what was her name, again? Her performance was somewhat above average, but she was so permanently in the clouds Ed was terrified for the day she attempted a transmutation – looked up with a sharpness that belied her usual disposition. She sent Ed a smile, a clear attempt at projecting her usual haze, but her eyes remained speculative.

Ed shifted his gaze from his brother to his student, nodded again for good measure. Her smile widened, and he could see her work to project a hazy expression. Clouds drifted over the blue in her eyes in time with the clouds that crawled across the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling.

(Ed hated the ceiling. Truly. He'd spent so much time sleeping under the sky that eating under a fake was half depressing and half insulting.)

Alphonse, for his part, did not miss the exchange. He poked his classmate, and the girl's deliberate inattention was broken. She turned to Ed's brother and Ed turned to Snape, who's verbal harassment Ed had probably tuned out too much of.

"-muggle. Of course, you'd want a gym club."

Ed wasn't sure what had preceded that line, but he was going to answer it the same way he'd answered Malfoy in the hallway. "And zat is vhy I could kick any vizard's ass anytime no problem you ofergrown greaseball. Including yours."

"I would like to see you try."

"A few years back," Dumbledore said mildly. "I put Severus in charge of keeping students alive in the face of Gilderoy's disastrous dueling club."

And that was a referential statement that flew right over Ed's head. Gilderoy? He was so done with wizard names. But he understood the implication. "You haff tried to teach zee magic children how to fight," Ed said. "I vouldn't haff expected it ov you but zere it is."

"I do have some skill," Snape said. There was something sharp in his expression that Ed knew meant something. What it meant, he wasn't sure.

"Vell – proof? – prove it." English man. Ed still hated it. "Vee should fight."

Snape drew himself up. "You propose we settle the matter with a duel."

"Fuck zat duel shit. Zee rules ov engagement are vor people viz death vish. Let's fight." Dueling. Was that even a thing past 1870?

"I don't know what example that would be setting for the students," McGonagall said, but her tightly held mouth was contorted in the closest thing to a grin that Ed had ever seen on her face.

"You vant in? I don't know how I veel about hitting old voman, but."

"Do I want in? Are the professors all engaging in a full-staff fighting tournament then?"

"Vhy not? Let zee students see some real-life applications vor zee sings zey learn. I'd bet zat charms vould be a great vildcard."

The only normal-sized person on the teaching staff, who sat on the other side of the staff table, piped up there. "Charms are wonderfully effective in dueling."

"Fillius championed the tournament circuit for many years." Dumbledore sent the goblin-wizard an indulgent smile.

"And I retired to teach charms for a reason!" Flitwick said. "They were my specialty both academically and in the arena!"

"I vould love to fight you, zen too!" Ed said. "I know how to fight alchemists, but vizards I really don't know how to counter, and I clearly need to learn."

"And why is that?" Dumbledore asked, a warning glimmer in his eyes.

"Knowing how to vight is important," Ed said. "You never know, really."

"Sensible. Is this something you learned from your alchemist father?" This came from Slughorn, who Ed had temporarily forgot existed. How he'd done that, when conversations with the man were all uncomfortable as hell, Ed didn't know.

Ed's father. Technically, if it hadn't been for Hohenheim's disappearing act, Ed wouldn't have learned to fight the way he did. He wouldn't have gone to Teacher and even his attempt at resurrecting his mother may or may not have happened. Ed wouldn't have joined the military. Ed swallowed. He thought he'd outgrown blaming his father for everything, but a kernel of resentment still swam somewhere in his belly.

"He didn't teach me. But I suppose he's indirectly responsible," Ed said, immediately cringed at how that probably sounded. Sure enough, there was thunder in McGonagall's gaze.

Slughorn just hummed. His expression didn't change much, but Ed could see that the great walrus was alarmed. Good.

"I wasn't under the impression you had much access to your parents," Dumbledore said. "You've raised your brother all by yourself, after all."

Raise wasn't the right word – Al was only a year younger than him, after all. But aside from Dumbledore and McGonagall themselves, the wizards all thought Ed was eighteen, bringing the age gap to a full three years. Still. There was something in the statement that rankled. "Our teacher raised us," Ed said. "And zen vee raised each other."

And he wasn't even going to address the other part of the Old Man's weirdly personal public question. Asshole. Asking that sort of shit at the breakfast table. The rest of the table descended into awkward silence at the undeniably tone-deaf question.

Ed shoveled a last few bites of eggs into his mouth, wrapped up three pieces of toast in his napkin, and stood. "I guess I'll see you at one. To start zee club." He left the Great Hall with clunky steps and his head tilted forward.

The first place he went after his sulky exit was the owlery. He'd not made it there yet in his week-long tenure at Hogwarts, but the portraits pointed him in the right direction. On the double doors was a sign: 'Please close the door behind you." Normally a sign like that was an invitation to misbehave for Ed, and he had every intention of leaving the doors open until he'd opened them.

"Oh shit!" Ed said in Amestrian, shutting the door jerkily behind him. The owlery was an odd combination of exceedingly neat and the largest mess he'd ever seen in his life. Even though it looked like the hay had been laid out recently, poop was all over the place. And. Was that an egg? Was Hogwarts speed dating for owls?

Every side panel to the room was made up of giant glass windows that stood proudly open and owls swooped in from outside and back again. That brought Ed to the owls themselves. They were all perched imperiously on fake branches that were hanging in midair at various heights. Up near the ceiling, Ed could see owls that were clearly off the clock for the day. They were cozied up and grooming each other in some cases, and in others they were simply off in corners by themselves or in piles, beaks tucked into their wings.

Perched on branches that hung within arm reach were the birds that felt themselves ready to work. Distantly, Ed spotted Potter's owl among them and he hightailed it to her. "Hed-vatever," he said in English. "Can you take zis to Potter?"

Her cold stare told him that she was offended that he even felt he need to ask. She thrust her leg pouch in Ed's general direction and he sheepishly tied the letter in place. "Thanks."

He turned to the owls at large. "Anybody else willing to help me out? I need two more volunteers."

The owls blinked at him and Ed tried not to scowl as he marched over the section of school-owned owls. "Two of you."

Two nondescript brown owls hopped down from their perches and Ed tucked the letters to Alphonse and Malfoy into their pouches. "You know zee people?"

The owls gave him disdainful looks before alighting through the windows and disappearing with their identical messages – 12:30, Alchemy Office. We need to iron out details before meeting with Dumbledore.

He wrote it to Alphonse in code, but he just had to risk interception of the other letters and hope that the messages were vague enough to be potentially about a gym club instead of the half-cocked infiltration of enemy lairs.

"Thanks," he said with a heavy tinge of sarcasm. The birds' distain didn't rankle. Really it didn't. But Ed was glad to leave the owlery and the imperious gazes of the birds that lived there in exchange for quietly waiting in his office, flipping through Al's year of magic textbooks and arranging his own curriculum for Monday.

Really the Owlery was almost as bad as the Great Hall.

Once settled in his office, Ed alchemically made copies of worksheets that had students match the atomic numbers to symbols to names of the elements for the paper homework. Made passive aggressive slips with the words "All is one, one is all" to hand out. Just to be a dick and remind the students of the very important not-riddle that stumped them all.

It took you and Al a month, Ed. In the perfect scenario to find the answer. His students would find the answer with time and the extra exercise was good for that kind of thinking. Maybe he could plan a field trip to the greenhouses. Pomona had told him that she would be available to help him with anything. At the very least he could have his students start feeling out the elements in the soil and the plants and little animals carefully moving around and fueling the system.

Could a wizard understand soil microbiology? Good question. Even Amestris hadn't paid much attention to microbes.

Ed sighed, put the slips aside, slid from his chair to the floor and began counting out pushups. He didn't stop until his muscles were screaming – the weakened right arm especially – and he'd thoroughly lost count of how many he'd done. He rolled out of the position and started in on squats, attempting to engage his automail limb as little as possible. Relying on that strength was one way to keep a workout going nowhere fast.

When those muscles were burning and angry he turned to gently stretching out the hip and thigh that led to the prosthetic, wincing when he went a little too far in any direction and the metal port tugged slightly at the scarred skin it was grafted to.

Winry was damn good, but even her work couldn't keep Ed running perfectly after almost two years without her maintenance. Idly, he wondered if a quick reparo would do anything to help him. If it acted anything like an alchemical repair, Winry would kill him if he so much as tried it. But there wasn't time to do any of that now, with Alphonse and Potter and Malfoy no doubt on their way. So instead of dragging out the oil and getting it over with, he rolled onto his back and set in on sit ups.

He and Alphonse hadn't sparred at all this first week, they'd been too busy with schoolwork and with making sure the kiddos were running their miles. They weren't even running together. Alphonse took the morning shift and Ed took the evening, to give Al time to do homework. They each ran several miles each night, watching for what students showed their face.

Flitwick had assured him that the charmed wristbands he'd given each student would faithfully record their running, but neither Ed nor Al were quite ready to trust magic. Especially when it came to teenagers who might find some magical loophole to avoid their assignment.

So instead of sparring on the green together, they ran laps around the school in shifts and damnit Ed was missing his brother fiercely. They would have to find the time, especially with their break-in looming ever closer.

He had just switched from sit ups to burpees when there was a knock on the office door. He paused mid leap, took his landing carefully, and opened the door. Potter, Malfoy, and Alphonse weren't alone and in retrospect Ed wondered how he'd expected differently. Next to them were Granger, Boy Ginger, and the blonde girl from the train. Granger looked sternly disapproving, Boy Ginger was rippling with hostility, and Blonde Hair Blue Eyes was looking in completely the wrong direction at the vacant hallway. Why the fuck were they here?

"-uck you too, Malfoy. Really why are you even here?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you, Potter, you self-righteous cretin."

"Do you even know what the word cretin means?" Granger said.

"I used it correctly, didn't I? Really it's your little ginger boytoy you should be worried about."

"Oi!" said Ron.

"Shut up, all ov you, vee haff work to do."

"He started it!" Harry said.

"Did I? Because I seem to recall – "

"I don't giff a shit, get in."

Behind them, Alphonse was shaking his head. "Zey're just like you, bruder."

"I am nothing like that muggle," Draco said. "I have subtlety, for one thing."

"Do you?" Ed said. "Because I haffen't seen you use it. Vhile I may not be subtle vor shit, I know plenty ov scheming bastards vis political aspirations. You don't efen rank."

Ed grabbed them both by the collar and dragged them bodily over the threshold. When Alphonse and the rest of the brigade stepped through, Ed slammed the door and Harry pulled his wand out of his sleeve.

"Vat are you doing vis zat?"

But Potter somehow refrained from pointing it at Malfoy, instead turning to the door and pronouncing, carefully, "Muffliato." Ed didn't see any change, but the wizards in the room all seemed to feel it take, quirking their heads to one side in identical expressions of curiosity.

Harry shrugged. "I dunno what it is. Think it might keep us from being over heard."

The group at large looked stunned, and Ed couldn't blame them. Harry had not seemed to be the person in the group to come up with new spells on a whim. That was Granger. Every single time. "You tried an unknown, untested spell on Professor Elric's door?" Granger said. "That is so irresponsible, Harry."

"You aren't efen supposed to be here, Granger," Ed said.

Her mouth dropped open, then closed resolutely. She said, "We're a unit, the three of us. You want Harry, you get me and Ron too."

"I didn't vant Harry, eizer," Ed said, scowling. "Zee smaller zis operation is, zee smaller the risk."

"The larger the operation," Granger said, "The more backup you have when Malfoy inevitably turns on you."

"Last veek you vere defending Malfoy to me against Potter's paranoia." Ed gestured from Malfoy to Harry and saw that Malfoy looked almost touched at that. Conversely, Potter looked betrayed.

"He's always been an egotistical purist," Granger said, and Malfoy's grateful expression replaced with disdain. "But before the train ride we didn't have proof that he'd taken the Dark Mark and was hosting Voldemort at his house."

"We weren't exactly having tea every afternoon, Granger." The disdain had turned to fury. Ed knew he wasn't one to talk, but really this child's blood pressure must be through the roof. "Excuse me for doing anything I could to avoid torture."

Granger blinked, crossed her arms to compose herself. "There's always a choice."

Malfoy scoffed and turned to Ed. "Why is she even here?"

"You heard her," Ed said. "Iz not like I invited her. But Potter comes in a pack ov three."

"You could use us both," Granger insisted. "We've gotten Harry through five years' worth of scrapes. We can get all of you out of this one."

"Really Professor," Ron said. "Someone needs to be the normal bloke with common sense. Even 'Mione can't help you with that one."

Ed clenched his fists. This was getting ridiculous. "Alphonse und I have gotten ourselves out of more scrapes zan you can imagine. But. Iv you insist, you do already know about zee scheme. So, vat all five of you – don't sink I vorgot you, Blonde Girl – are going to do is sit down and shut up. Alphonse and I vill go over zee details."

"Do you forget, muggle, that I have the plans to the house?"

"You vill haff your turn to talk Malfoy. But right now, you are going to listen vor once in your fucked-up life. Verstanden?"

Malfoy soured but joined the circle of teenagers perched on Ed's desk. It struck him, then, that this was the first time in his life that Ed was scheming with people his own age. Ed grinned. Surely, surely, fellow teenagers would be more willing to jump into stupid situations than say Mustang or Hawkeye or Armstrong.

Ed could not contain his shit-eating grin, even when his students began to look more than a little unnerved. "So. Zee plan is zis. Malfoy's personal elf is going to appearify (or vatever it's called) us into zee Bad-But-French place. Probably next weekend. Vee can iron out zat date viz Dumbledore. Vee vill haff people vee need to hide and as much as I kind ov dislike zee Old Man, he's zee one vis access to safe houses."

"You're using an elf?" said Granger, standing up from her own perch on the cluttered desk. "And here I thought that you and Alphonse would be a shoo-in for S.P.E.W."

"Vat's spew?"

Granger began to spell out the acronym, but Boy Ginger proved himself useful by cutting her off. "Don't ask, mate. Err. Prof. She'll go on for hours."

Ed grimaced. "Vee can talk about it later, Granger?"

She scowled but nodded and shuffled back on her perch. Ed continued onward. "Zee elf will take us directly to zee prison area, and Malfoy will go from zere to collect his mozer. He vill zen make his own vay out of zee manor. Zee elf will stay vis us, because vee aren't keyed into zee Malfoy wards and Malfoy, obviously, is. Vrom zere, vee vill collect zee prisoners and apparate zem out ov zere by twos to vatever safe house Dumbledore sets up vor us. I vill leave last."

"But!" Potter said. "You can't leave last! You don't even have magic!" He brandished his wand, sparks shooting from the end. He jumped at that, and carefully pointed it back at the ground. Ed rolled his eyes. If that had been a gun, the entire room would have just been sprayed with bullets. Idiot.

"A wand may be more versatile zan gun, but please treat it like veapon. Anyvay. Alphonse'll leave last vis me," Ed said, glancing to Al who confirmed that. "Vee haff sing vee need to try to do vhile vee're zere."

Potter glared. "What thing, Professor Elric."

"None ov your business."

"I think it's the Chosen One's business," Potter said. "If everyone expects me to finish Voldemort, I deserve all the information."

Ed sighed. That. Was not incorrect. He weighed the costs and benefits in his head and knew that if Potter knew that part of the plan, he would try something vaguely suicidal to help. It's what Ed would do and while Potter was technically Ed's age, even he didn't have the same kind of battle experience. Ed suddenly empathized with the adults in Amestris who handcuffed him to hospital beds.

"Trust me," Ed said. "Al and I haff it covered, and it's personal besides. Iv vee need to get out fast, zee elf vill be vis us."

"We've been in worse scrapes," Al said, sounding almost properly British. Ed flinched at the sound of it but disguised it by reaching for the floor plan to Malfoy Manor that Draco had spread on the desk. He studied it for a moment.

"So many vorse scrapes," Ed said, placing the plans next to a stack of blank paper. He reached for a vial of ink, dumped it over the blank stack. Granger winced at what Ed was sure looked like a heinous waste of paper. "I'm making copies." And with that, Ed slapped his two flesh palms together through his gloves, closed his eyes as he felt the equation balance, and opened them again as he crouched down and slammed his hands to the stack of the paper.

Distantly, he could hear gasps of astonishment. It had been so long since he'd performed alchemy in front of even a small crowd, and he could feel the adrenaline of it thrumming in his blood. The ink seeped into the paper and arranged itself. Ed glanced back at the original plans for reference, but really, that detail had been keyed into the very equation in his mind. In the corner he included Elric Print Services. There. Perfect.

Ed picked the small stack up from the floor when the last of the blue lightening faded. "And now I hope you all see vhy I am alchemy teacher."

"All right I mean I logically knew there hadn't been back when we first met, but. Where was the transmutation circle?" Granger said, and Malfoy glanced at her having clearly noticed the same thing.

"Don't ask," Ed said. "Iv you follow any ov my instructions, it vill be somesing you'll never be able to do."

"And you don't vant it, either," Al said. He smiled, his face betraying a lingering sadness that stabbed Ed somewhere in whatever pocket he'd stored his ample residual guilt. "It isn't worth zee cost. Iv you learn how to use basic circles creatively, it can be almost as vast."

"I don't understand this bloody circle business," Boy Ginger cautioned, hands splaying palms out and shoulder width apart. "But does that mean you can do it too?"

Alphonse winced, and Ed understood that his brother may not have wanted to give that away. "I can. But you don't vant to know vat vee paid."

Blonde Girl's eyes gained a moment of clarity, haze lifting from her expression. She placed one hand on Al's shoulder and the other on Ed's, fingers landing where the next piece of metal was beginning to surface. Ed winced, but it was almost as if she'd predicted tenderness and inflammation there, because her fingers landed gently and sapped the heat from the spot even through his clothes. "Certain admission prices are altogether too high. There are some plays that I would rather miss, no matter how philosophically relevant they are."

There was subtext behind those words. "Admission price?" Ed asked, eyes shifting to Blonde Girl.

"Even just to get through the gate."

What. "Vat did you say your name vas, again?" Even Alphonse was visibly perturbed, gently patting the hand that was on his shoulder before carefully extricating himself from it.

She smiled, the haze slipping back over her eyes. "Luna. Luna Lovegood. I hope you've been assigning my grades to the right person."

Ed blinked. "I can assign grades just vine. Anyvay you're zee only one who didn't explain. Vhy are you even here? Zose three may be a solid unit, but I sought you vere more an auxiliary arm."

"That was cruel, Professor Elric," Granger said, thought for a moment. "But actually, I have no idea how she found out about this."

"My fault," Al said, sheepishly. "She saw zee note zis morning and, well."

"It feels wrong, somehow," she said, with that airy voice. "To sit back when I know there's a fight somewhere that I should join."

"How thoroughly Gryffindor of you, Looney," Malfoy said, lip curling. He turned to Alphonse. "How could you let her come?"

Al shrugged. "Eve insisted?"

"Zee cat?" Ed said.

"She's part kneazle," Luna said, as if that was any proper explanation.

And somehow Ed knew that was the best answer he was likely to get. "Fuck zis," he said. "Vee need to meet vis Dumbledore in like five minutes."

Granger frowned, waved her wand, said, "Tempus." Her eyes flew wide. "We're going to be late!"

"Vho cares? He is bastard anyvay," Ed said. Al switched to Amestrian to give Ed a thorough tongue lashing on that one, and Ed winced. "All right! Iv being punctual is so important to all ov you, let's put your running homework to zee test! You're all Gym Club vounding members, avter all!"

He didn't even wait for his shitty wizard students before kicking open the door and pelting down the hallway.

"Bruder!" But Ed knew he could trust Al. Sure enough, Al kept to the back of the pack watching for stragglers. And maybe it had only been a week, but a week of consistent running (none of Ed's new students were fit enough to manage three miles in one go) had made them all nearly capable of a five-minute dash to the headmaster's office.

"Zat vasn't very nice, brother," Alphonse said when they came to a halt at the gargoyle-entrance. Even Malfoy's hair was bedraggled from the run, and Ed was sure Malfoy used spells to keep it in place. Granger looked like she sorely wanted to chew him out, but all the kids were breathing too hard to it. Ed's favorite way of avoiding confrontation. When, at least, he was pretending he didn't thrive on confrontation.

Alphonse very politely gave the gargoyle the password and the spiral escalator-style staircase descended into view. Granger gave Ed one last glare and huffed out one last hard breath and stepped onto the stairs before everyone else.

"I suppose she's allowed to be pissed," Ed said before following her, not looking back to make sure the rest of his small crowd of students and compatriots followed. They did, of course, and even Dumbledore looked a little uncomfortable with how many people were abruptly involved in their scheme when they came into view of the office. Because really. Seven was excessive.

"Dear boy," Dumbledore started with, which had Ed bristling before their conversation had even begun. "I thought you said you wanted to be discreet."

Ed sighed deeply. "I had zee best of intentions."

Alphonse snorted, said, "Brozer isn't a naturally discreet person."

"I gathered." Dumbledore waved his wand and chairs abruptly appeared behind each of them. "Please sit, have a lemon drop." Alphonse's hazy blonde housemate was the only one to take one.

"You're zee one who got caught by Head-In-Clouds, Al. Shut up. Anyvay, Old Man, who are you talk about discreet? Zee only vay you can think to meet viz me is by contriving a Gym Club?"

"This isn't helpful," Granger said, spreading her copy of the plans to Malfoy Manor on the desk. If she looked a little too satisfied with herself to be pushing Dumbledore's papers into disarray, Ed didn't comment on it. "We need to have a solid plan and really we should do this before next weekend."

"So soon, Miss Granger? I was under the impression that you were the sensible one."

Granger scowled. "The longer we stall the longer we give Malfoy here to betray us."

"He von't," Ed said, the phrase almost rote.

"Really? And you know this how? You've known him so long, after all."

"Please," Malfoy said. "Like you know me so well."

"I know you well enough to punch you in the face." That sort of threat didn't sound like Granger. Ed glanced sideways at his student, and then back at Draco, who winced. And really. That wasn't threat in Granger's eyes. That was nostalgia?

"Please tell me zat really happened," Ed said.

"Bruder!"

"Should detentions have been assigned?" Dumbledore said, eyes still twinkling. Damn that twinkle.

"Yes," Malfoy said at the precise time Ron said,

"No. Bloody jerk had it coming."

"Thank you, Ronald," Granger said.

"Not the sort of thing a proper witch would do," Malfoy said, and Granger had her wand pointed at him in seconds flat, almost as though trying to prove that she could fight like a witch.

"Glad to see you're still a blood purist," Potter said. "We can't trust him."

"I think everyone needs to take large steps away from each other," Alphonse said. "We have the allies we have, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"Why do you two trust him?" Ron said. "I mean I know I wasn't exactly suspicious of him before the train fiasco but why are you willing to put our lives – your lives – in the hands of this prat?"

Ed sighed. "Vould it be weird if I said zat vee put our lives in worse hands before?"

"What?" That was said almost simultaneously by all quarters of the room.

"They had their reasons," said Luna, one of the two holdouts from the chorus.

The other holdout was Dumbledore. "We cannot allow discord and malcontent to spoil our plans," he said, changing the subject entirely. "And we must start on those plans at once. If the seven of you cannot put your arguments on hold for just a few minutes there is no possible way that you can enter a combat scenario and come out of it with your lives. Please. Learn to work together or leave this to your comrades. Young Mr. Malfoy is our in, and without him this whole mission would not be possible."

"Exactly," Ed said, finding himself in rare agreement. "Now shut up and let me talk."

Dumbledore extended an inviting hand and Ed took his cue to rehash the plan they'd decided upon in his office. "So really, the only question is when."

"Wednesday night," Granger said immediately. "It would be the most inconvenient time for students and teachers to leave the school, so it'll make our identity not immediately obvious."

"Miss Granger," Dumbledore said. "Do you remember your third year?"

Her expression turned guarded, hand twitching as though she wanted to reach for something. "Yes?"

"And you remember your schedule?"

"Of course," she said. "But I gave that back."

Dumbledore gave her a disbelieving look. "Did you?"

"You think a fourteen-year-old could have made a fake to fool Unspeakables?"

"I don't know."

"Why is this even a factor?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, and Ed had come to recognize that as a tell for when she felt backed into a corner. Potter and Boy Ginger both clearly recognized that tell too, because they were looking at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Wouldn't solid alibis do you all favors?"

"I gave it back," Granger insisted.

"What a pity," Dumbledore said. "But it's probably for the best that you didn't attempt to steal from the Department of Mysteries."

"But," she said, her voice breaking with anxiety. "I may have taken it apart and rebuilt it and made a copy. If that might help."

Dumbledore flinched, and Ed knew that the Old Man had barely restrained a jump. So he'd thought her capable of making a convincing fake but not capable of making the thing itself.

Malfoy and Luna both looked befuddled, and Ed knew he himself was.

"Vat is it, exactly?" said AL, and Ed nodded. Granger's hand quaked up to the gold chain that disappeared into her jumper. She withdrew the pendant and Ed's heart stilled. An hourglass imbedded in several golden circles all marked with numbers.

"You made a time turner," Malfoy said. "At fourteen."

Luna's own confusion lifted. "Oh that," she said. "You mean none of you knew?"

Ed, however, was stuck on time turner. While his brain short circuited, the plan moved forward.

"We move Wednesday morning," Granger said. "After we've already done the whole day once."

And finally, finally, Ed reacted. "Vat. Zee. Fuck." Dumbledore looked triumphant.

Word Count: 6578

At least this very late chapter is on the longer end of the scale? Please review folks, it always helps me get through things. Also, thanks to The Mightier Pen and Guest for giving me the kick in the ass I needed to finish this chapter up.

But really thank you to all of you. This whole experience has been really great.