Author's Note: Welcome to Chapter 21! It's been a million years, but this chapter has some pretty big curveballs. Enjoy and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or Harry Potter. This work is free to read, and I make no money on it. Thanks.

Chapter 21

Fighting, Finally

They called it a time turner. A time turner! The glimmer of gold at Granger's throat – the one Ed had always disregarded as probably being a sentimental choking hazard – was a time machine.

What? The fuck?

Ed had already been a fan of that phrase in Amestris. But here, in England or Scotland or where ever he was, it had eclipsed even the usual favorite of "who are you calling invisible to even an amoeba's naked eye?!"

"Why didn't I come across zis in any ov zee books?" Ed finally said. Granger winced, and he startled. "You didn't!"

"Well," she said. "I didn't want you and Alphonse to figure out that I had one before I was ready for you to know!"

"Bloody hell, Mione," was Ron's input. "Didn't want them to know? You didn't tell me and Harry either!"

She froze, looking extraordinarily guilty. Ed pinched the bridge of his nose, but it was Alphonse who swooped in to save the day. "She's entitled to her secrets. I just wish zat she hadn't destroyed books."

"What?" she said, not looking from Ron's face. "I didn't destroy any books. I just put strong notice-me-not spells on the relevant pages."

"Typical Granger," said Malfoy. "Can't destroy a book even to keep vital secrets. You realize that one of the Elrics, at least, could've done a finite." He could play it cool all he wanted but Ed knew that Malfoy was as surprised about it as he was.

"Al's too trusting," Granger said. "He wouldn't have thought of it." But still she did not look away from Boy Ginger and Potter. "I'm sorry," she said. "Really, I am, but I wanted to use it as little as possible."

"We wouldn't have abused it!" said Ron, with a sort of soft outrage Ed would on anyone else consider paradoxical but seemed to be one of Ron's base expressions. It was outrage, but it wasn't the outrage of Major General Armstrong. Or the outrage of Teacher. Or the outrage of – well. The list could go on. But Ed knew one thing.

"If zee sree ov you are going to be fighting, I won't bring any ov you on Wednesday. We will vind some ozer mesod ov covering our tracks because even a time turner isn't worth working wiz an uncooperating team out in zee field."

"You're at war with Voldemort," Al said. "Don't confuse zat wiz each ozer."

With that, they turned back to ironing out the details of their jailbreak. Once that was done, and the group had trekked from Dumbledore's office to their respective beds, the time turner and who knew about it when and what methods went into its concealment went unmentioned.

The implications of time travel certainly haunted Ed's thoughts, but he had bigger fish to fry. Somehow, somehow, he had to make this warring group of teenagers into a cohesive unit of fighters.

As the days ticked closer to Wednesday and Ed taught his alchemy classes, he forced his "Gym Club" members out for extra runs and long sparring sessions on the green. He made Malfoy and Potter do trust falls.

"He's not going to catch me!"

"You're a madman!"

And that was what they said before he made them do it on broomsticks. Even Boy Ginger and Malfoy got along with better grace, and Ed was certain there was some generational family feud going on there. Oh, the "You dirty blood traitor" and "Your Daddy" insults continued undeterred, but they were automatic and didn't interfere with the two of them fighting cohesively against Ed and Al.

Ed and Al still destroyed them. That was a given.

Luna oddly turned out to be the strongest contender. She was rail thin and didn't really have the muscle to put behind her attacks but once she started actively dodging getting in a hit would be grueling if not for Ed's springy metal leg.

Though, again, Ed and Al could subdue her quickly enough, the rest of the fledgling Gym Club was at a loss and if all wizards had similar limitations, Ed hoped that Luna's fledgling dodging skills would be enough to get her through this whole scheme.

"Aren't Ravenclaws supposed to be nerds?" Ron said, readying his wand to fire at Luna again.

"Vicious nerds," Malfoy said. "You think Slytherins are bad but just be lucky that Ravenclaws don't take their noses out of either the books or the clouds long enough to try and take over the world. Stupify!" Luna dodged, and silently from her corner came a spell whose color Ed didn't recognize from any reading.

Ron barely leapt out of the way in time. "What the bloody hell was that?"

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!" came Luna's singsong voice and suddenly she was running again, putting her full running speed behind a hit to Malfoy's sternum. He just barely twisted out of the way and Luna tumbled with her built up momentum. She misjudged that one, sure, but to her credit, she immediately rolled into a crouch and stood.

Overwhelmingly, Luna won the fight and the teenagers continued to squabble. By Wednesday morning, Ed's nerves were shot. The universe must have known it, too, for it was Wednesday morning that Girl Ginger caught onto the ruse and cornered Ed and Al after the fifth-year section of Alchemy. "Okay what's with this gym club?"

Al blinked guiltily. Ed leaned back against his desk, trying to look casual. "It's just a trial run," he said. "Vee'll accept more members on Monday."

"Draco Malfoy warranted your trial run and I didn't?"

"We tried to keep it to six-years," Al said, and Ginny shot a pointed glance to Luna, who was packing her bag with deliberate slowness.

"Would you accept starting zis weekend?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. "You're dead, Elric." With a toss of her Weasley-red hair, she flounced out of the room, robes billowing about her.

"Tread lightly, brother," Al said in Amestrian. "I don't think we want to be on her bad side."

Ed laughed, replied in the same. "I mean everyone tries to kill us eventually." He switched back into English, "Now you two should get to your next class."

"Herbology!" Luna said brightly. "It isn't Care of Magical Creatures, but there are always things hiding under the leaves and plants are vital to understanding the broader habitat needs of different species!"

"Have fun!"

Ed turned to the chalkboard, clapped his hands, and returned the chalk he'd used to the stick. No point in wasting it. He had another class to get through before lunch. And then, cursedly, he was clear the rest of the day for office hours and grading.

He was careful to show face at dinner, getting into a loud and playful argument with Snape about the interrelatedness of Alchemy, Potions, and Transfiguration.

McGonagall mostly stayed out of it, but she put in her two cents here and there. If only he could punch either of them in the face, Ed might have blown some steam.

As it was, by the time he was scheduled to meet with the Gym Club, it was a strain to fake his usual devil-may-care attitude. He leaned against the gates and didn't even notice the approach of Granger, Weasley, and Potter under the invisibility cloak until he was poked in the shoulder by air.

He'd encased the trio in rock before he realized that these were, in fact, friends. "Shit," he said, transmuting the stone fist back into the ground. "Sorry."

"Jumpy, are you?" Malfoy said, appearing himself out of the gloom.

"Bugger off, Malfoy," Potter said from under the cloak. Malfoy startled. He must not have noticed them, either.

"Jumpy, are you?" Ed repeated back, sticking out his tongue.

"Shut up, Elric."

"Zat's Professor Elric to you."

"Bruder!" said Al, walking down the path with Luna. He'd come into hearing range just in time to scold him. "I expected better vrom you."

"Well," said Granger, cutting the group off before it could descend into squabbling. "We're all here."

Malfoy startled again. "How are you invisible?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Weasley said.

"I guess we're all here," Malfoy said with a sour expression. He shot a glare in the direction of the voices. "Let's move."

Ed nodded, pushed open the gates and stepped off Hogwarts grounds onto the road to Hogsmeade. The group shuffled through behind him, and he kept his sights carefully on the ground to note the occasional flashes of trainers from under the cloak. Once he was sure they'd all passed through, he shut the gate behind them.

Granger stepped from under the invisibility cloak and ushered everyone behind the nearest tree. They were probably still visible from the road, but barely.

She unhooked the necklace chain and when she tossed the end of it, it grew and navigated snakelike through the air to wrap around everyone in the little circle.

He could even see it wrap around an invisible lump that had to be Harry and Ron.

"We need to go back nine hours," Granger said, when the end of the chain had found its way back to her. "To this morning."

Ed barely had time to nod before she was caving her body around the machine, hiding the way the mechanism worked from view. He counted five seconds before the world around him began to spin and spin and spin and if he really tried to look he could almost see time moving backwards but only when focused because the pace was so fast. The sun passed overhead from west to east and once again the world slowed, stopped, and restarted in the right direction in real time.

He looked around at his Gym Club, and up at the suddenly eastern sun. "Vat. Zee. Fuck."

Malfoy was the first to orient himself. He pulled an intricate puzzle box from his pocket, worked the mechanism, and took out a used tire that from that. "Everyone grab on," he said.

"I thought your elf was bringing us," Granger said.

"She'll meet us there," said Malfoy. "The fewer times we pass the wards the better, and this way Beany doesn't need to go out of the wards once first."

Granger gave Malfoy a hard look. He raised an eyebrow, but after she had her moment to glare, Granger settled her hand on the other end of Malfoy's used tire.

Weasley, too, ducked from the cloak and joined the circle. Potter, Ed noticed, only stuck out a hand, preferring instead to remain otherwise invisible.

"If you betray us, Malfoy," said Potter's disembodied voice as he adjusted his grip. "I'll kill you."

Malfoy snorted. "If I betrayed you in the middle of Malfoy Manor you'd be dead before you could try."

Of the wizarding children, Luna was the last to grab on, if only because she was distracted by examining a leaf. As she settled her hand she turned, said, "Well come on, then." Ed traded a bemused look with Al, complied.

Just as soon as Ed and Al had settled their hands on the tire, Ed jerked not forward but in some indefinable direction by the navel. It would have been nauseating, if time travel hadn't been so much more disorienting. Ed lost awareness of his body – his entire consciousness, as if even his brain had migrated to his hand, was on his point of contact with the portkey.

They landed somewhere no less dizzying, a stench of mold and sick flooding him. Weasley let out a few dry heaves, but Ed was so busy trying to figure out which way was up again that he hardly registered it.

"Ed? Is that you?" came a small, feeble voice in the gloom. The voice was enough to orient Ed on his feet. He rushed to the sound.

"Garrick!"

"Mr. Ollivander!" Al somehow got there first and had his ash wand out in a flash.

"Wait," said Malfoy, "The wards. And be quiet. There will be someone guarding the main door."

At the sound of Malfoy's voice, Ollivander visibly flinched. Ed put a hand on his shoulder, pulled it back when Ollivander flinched again. "It's okay," Ed said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his borrowed black robe. "He's an ally."

"He's the one who put me in here."

The air turned oppressive. "I know," said Malfoy. "But I'm here to get you out."

Ed could hardly see it in the dim light, but Malfoy extended his wand, tapped the shackles that held the wandmaker, and was briefly illuminated by a silver glow. The shackles fell free. Ed pulled Ollivander into a standing position just as the chains hit the ground.

"I'm a Malfoy," Malfoy said. "I'm the only one here who can do any magic in the dungeons without it being logged for perusal in the wards. Anyway. Beany!"

A small, ragged looking creature popped into view. Ed tensed, every instinct screaming chimera at him. But no. The goblins were the way they were naturally. He had to believe, at least for the sake of this mission, that Beany's morphology was simply her natural biology.

"Young master?" What the ever-living fuck?

"Go get mother. Tell her I need her."

Beany looked around at the dungeon surroundings. Granger knelt to the elf's eye level. "Please, Beany. We really need your help."

Beany looked at Granger like she'd grown a second head, but with one last questioning glance at Malfoy popped out of existence just as suddenly and just as loudly as she'd come. After a moment, Beany was back, holding the hand of a tall woman with carefully styled blonde hair in elegant blue robes. "Draco? Why are you home?" She registered the rest of the group, and even in the gloom Ed could see her eyes grow wide. "And in the dungeons with this sort of company?"

"We're leaving," he said. "I need you, and Beany, and Ollivander to disapparate. Now."

Mrs. Malfoy looked around the gloom. Her eyes locked on Ollivander, who was half hiding behind Alphonse. "Draco, what on Earth are you talking about?" Her eyes went from Ollivander, to Alphonse, to Granger, to Weasley. "Why did you bring the better half of the junior division of the Order of the Phoenix here?"

Ed grasped her arm, and she jerked away as though burned. He sighed, said, "Just go, Frau Malfoy. Aren't you sick ov being a prisoner in your own home?"

Mrs. Malfoy's glare put Granger's to shame. The power of it was near enough to make Ed quail. But he held firm and finally Mrs. Malfoy sniffed, turned to Draco. "Where, son, do you imagine I will go?"

"We have a safehouse setup," Draco said. "It's very secure."

"And you're certain it's not a trap?"

"They don't have an ounce of cunning in their bodies mother. Too much valor." Even in the gloom, Ed could see the glimmer of humor on Draco's face. The red-and-gold house was no longer his personal boogeyman. Good.

Draco's expression seemed to resonate with Mrs. Malfoy, too. She extended a hand to Ollivander who gingerly took it. Beany grasped onto the hem of her blue robes and the three of them disappeared with a crack!

Malfoy stared a moment at the spot they vanished from before shaking himself. "All of that," he said, "and the wards still haven't blown."

"Shut up, Malfoy," Boy Ginger said. "Don't jinx it."

"We have more people to evacuate," Granger said. "We should maybe get on that."

"Right," said Potter's disembodied voice. Malfoy didn't argue, for once in his life, and it was he who blasted open the door. It was so loud that they almost did not notice Beany reappear. Ed did, though, so he took the opportunity to give direction.

"Stay close and quiet, Beany," Ed said. "We may haff need ov you, but I sink zere would be a riot iv I tried to send anyone back now."

Beany nodded her understanding and slid into formation with a know how that belied the idea that she was purely a domestic servant. But asking her why was perhaps not a relevant question.

They took the rest of the dungeon in pieces, going down first the right hallway and then the left, sending Beany out with small groups of no more than three or four at a time and then again with the next batch.

"Won't zis many disapparations show in zee wards as an anomaly?" asked Alphonse, and Malfoy could only shrug.

"I don't know much about elf magic," he said. "But I'm more worried about the wizard presence in the disapparation overpowering the elf presence and thereby register with the wards as wizard magic."

Ed thought he knew where that train of thought was going, but he'd only just begun reading about warding magic when they'd finalized this shenanigan. Alphonse began to pitch a counter theory, and for once in his life Ed could only tune out the educated conversation. He fought down an instinctive pout, scouted ahead, instead.

The people held in these cells were in awful shape. He could see in the quivers of their body that they'd been subjected to the harshest of interrogation tactics. Ed was a member of the Amestrian military; he was unfortunately familiar.

Even before things all went to hell, they'd given him mandatory training in resisting interrogation immediately after he passed his State Alchemist exam. That training would have been hard for an adult, and Ed suspected that it had been toned down for him on account of his age.

It was enough to recognize the shaking in the limbs. Enough to recognize the round eyes and trembling fingers.

When they made the last rounds through the gloom, and they'd assembled the last few prisoners, Ed turned to Alphonse. "I want you to oversee zee last evacuations. Get zee rest ov Gym Club out ov here when zat is done and zen come find me."

He turned to the rest of the group. "Malfoy, Potter, and I will go confront zee Mold. I vant zee rest ov you to stay wiz Alphonse and leave once all ov zee prisoners are out."

Lovegood nodded gamely, her gaze directed somewhere at the ceiling, but Granger and Weasley clearly wanted to pitch a fit. "It's a matter ov numbers!" Ed said. "A small group can sneak around better zan a large one and Malfoy is zee only one here familiar wiz zee terrain!"

"Listen mate," Ron said. "I trust you. But I don't trust the ferret. And if he turns his back on us and you and Harry don't have enough numbers to escape, I'm laying the blame at your feet because we warned you." He looked to Malfoy, and said, oddly enough, "Take care of 'em. If you don't I reckon 'Mione'll punch you in the face again."

Punched him in the face? Ed turned to Granger with a grin. "How haff I not heard zis story? Granger, you were so against exercise!" Granger assumed her customary glower, and this time it was hard to tell who at.

"He was asking for it," she said. "I don't start fights. I only finish them."

That was a blatant lie, but Ed was too busy laughing to call her out on it. When he managed to compose himself, he returned to business. "Let's go," he said, and he turned one way with his party and Alphonse turned the other with his.

The instant they were separated and there was a group active in the dungeons unaccompanied by someone on the approved list, the alarms went off.

Shit. Be careful, Alphonse!

Ed, Malfoy, and Potter turned up a narrow staircase, climbed a rickety ladder, and continued up into the main house, even as Ed's stomach sunk below the floor. Al would be alright. They'd fought separate battles before.

Like in those other battles, Ed took a moment to transmute a spear from the stone floor. As the hall lit up blue around him and the stone streamed into his hands, Ed felt better. The long familiar balance to the weapon was instinctive. The spear settled into his hands, and his gut settled too.

His gut settled to stone when Ed stabbed the spear at their first hurdle. A Death Eater went down to both Harry and Malfoy's alarm, but with the room cleared, they slammed the door shut and moved to the next.

He wiped a blood spatter off his brow, and tried to ignore the horrified expressions of his students.

It was in the drawing room that they found Voldemort. Malfoy shrunk instinctively back from the door, but Harry continued inside as though tugged by a string.

"Zat him, Harry?" Ed asked, following him through the door. Maybe he shouldn't have bothered asking, because Harry and the snake eyed man were staring each other down with mirrored expressions. There was revulsion, there was hatred, contempt, but there was also a curious recognition. In both of them. "Oi! Snake face! You the Mold?"

For the briefest flicker, Voldemort's attention redirected to Ed, looked at him, then beyond him, and hissed something incomprehensible.

Harry flinched, clearly recognizing whatever it was, and turned to Ed. His mouth opened, and oddly enough another set of hissing issued from it. Voldemort flinched, his attention directed back at Harry.

Snake face hissed again, this time at Harry, as opposed to whatever was behind Ed. Behind Ed. Oh shit! Ed whirled around and to the side just in time to avoid the snapping jaws of the largest snake he'd personally ever seen.

"Mist!" Ed swore, jumping into the air, raising the spear he'd transmuted. He swung down, only for his spear to be met with the snake's lashing tail. He took the resulting fall well, letting the spear clatter to one side as he clapped his hands in time to break his fall with Scar's destruction alchemy.

The snake exploded.

It was the first time Ed had ever used that array on a living, breathing, animal, and as he rolled the rest of the way out of the fall, covered in blood and chunks of flesh, he retched. Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

"Nagini!" It wasn't a hiss, but Mold's anguished howl was almost as incomprehensible. He turned to Ed, slit-like eyes narrowed with fury. "You."

"Me. Sorry about your pet. But she vas trying to kill me." Ed moved before Mold had a time to level his stick, ducking to the side for his spear and back again, keeping just fast enough that wizards would have difficulty tracking him.

But not too fast. Ed had a feeling that, even if he ended this quickly, he would have to fight his way out of this place. They'd brought down as many Death Eaters as they could on the way there, but the alarms were wailing, and Ed was sure backup had been called for. He spared a moment to glance to Harry, refocused to duck away from a beam of green light. It whizzed past his ear.

What a terrible green.

He did see that Harry was on the move. Good. Ed clapped his hands and exploded the ground in front of him, clapped his hands again and set the dust to dissipate. He repeated it, to keep Mold's attention. If the spells were ever redirected back towards Harry, Ed had failed.

The next green flash of light passed closer than was comfortable. He darted left, clapped again, feeling the crackle of the tectonic energy under his palms. This was good. He'd forgotten what this felt like, the heat of the battle with blue lightning crackling about his hands.

And to think he'd been willing to give it up when he activated the forbidden array to bring Alphonse home. Ed bent, brought his crackling hands to the ground and finally, finally, sunk the ground under Mold's feet.

He advanced. "Fuck you," he spat, clapped his hands, and prepared to place them around Mold's cranium when instead the doors burst open.

There was Alphonse, wand leveled, eyes burning, and - for the first time that Ed had ever seen - he moved with killing intent. "Avada Kedavra!"

As Tom Riddle fell dead, Alphonse Elric fell to his knees.

Ed rushed to his brother, panic cloying in his throat. Alphonse met his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I saw Draco loitering in the hall and I was so scared."

Malfoy peered around the door, stricken. "What just happened?"

"Ed? Al?" This came from Harry, hand raising shakily to point. Ed's eyes tracked the motion as black smoke issued from the corpse, and the corpse itself crumbled into dust. "Do corpses normally do that?"

"No," said Al. "No, they don't."

"Let's get out ov here," Ed said, grasping Al's hand and helping him to his feet.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yes."

"Please," said Alphonse, voice small.

Ed wrapped an arm around him. Al hadn't shivered this much since he was newly reacquainted with his body.

"Absolutely," Malfoy said, casting a disturbed glance around the room. "Did everyone else get out alright? Yes? "Beany! Beany!"

The elf appeared with a pop! "Yes, young master?"

"It's time we got out of here."

It was a somber party that made the trip back to the castle from Hogsmeade that Wednesday midafternoon. For all Ed and Al's talk of killing the Mold-man, Ed had expected he would be the one to kill him. He'd been ready to add more blood to his hands.

But Al?

The four of them had clustered under Harry's invisibility cloak and Harry kept sending them both glances that trended between horrified and grateful. Malfoy, on the other end of the huddle and carefully holding his end of the cloak so as to come into as little contact with Harry as possible kept his silver eyes on his shiny black shoes. Even through the whole debacle, the glamour charms held up on them.

Ed could respect the wand work.

"Brother?" Al said in Amestrian, and Ed tightened his grip on Al's shoulders and lifted the cloak a little further above their heads.

"Yes?"

"Why aren't we home?" Al's voice was so small, that Ed felt his stomach churn all over again. "If that was the imbalance we had to correct why aren't we home?"

Oh shit. Al was right. "I don't know, Al."

"What if we were wrong? What if this isn't why we were sent to this universe?"

"How could there be anything else? How?"

Al shrugged, and Ed tightened his grip again. The fabric of the cloak jerked slightly, as though someone on the other end had tightened their fist.

"Care to share with the class?" Malfoy asked, eyes glinting dangerously.

"Nein," Ed said. "Go back to glarink at your shoes."

"Are you two okay?" Harry said, his expression once again switching from horrified to worried.

"We're vine," Al said. "It's vine."

"Are you sure?"

"Leaf it alone," Ed said. "Bitte. Please."

To Harry and Malfoy's credit, they did.

They were met at Hogwarts's gates by Dumbledore, who ushered them all to the hospital wing. "Just to check in," he said.

The prisoners of Malfoy manor were being treated at various Order homes, but Granger, Weasley, and Luna had been returned to Hogwarts. They were all sitting up in hospital beds by the time Ed, Al, Harry, and Malfoy were brought in.

"We're fine," Granger said, when it became clear that any injuries would make Alphonse cry. "The Headmaster just wanted to be sure."

"Really," said Luna. "The Death Eaters were swarmed by nargles. None of them could fight properly."

"Regardless," said Dumbledore. "I have asked Poppy to put you all up for the night."

The rage was universal, but somehow Dumbledore managed to keep everyone in beds. "Professor Elric? If you would join me for a debriefing?"

The rage was once again universal, but somehow the Old Man managed to get Ed out of the hospital wing and up to his office without any of the students.

Ed knew a losing battle when he saw one so, instead of fighting, he relayed the basics.

"Tom's dead?" said Dumbledore, eyebrows rising into his hair. "I wouldn't have thought that possible."

Ed shrugged. "Well. He disintegrated into smoke."

"Did the smoke dissipate or did it go in a concentrated direction?"

Ed had noticed that, yes. "It stayed together. Went out a window."

Dumbledore sighed so heavily it had to be scripted. The man had expected this and was more prepared for it than he necessarily wanted to seem. "This is why I needed to get you alone."

"Zey all could haff heard it, I am sure."

"They're children, Edward. You, at least, they believe are a legal adult."

Ed himself began to feel rage on their behalf. "What is so bad, zen? Zey risked zeir lives for you, under your direction!"

"The fight isn't over. Voldemort is still alive."

And somehow, despite the concentrated smoke and even Voldemort's previous "return from the dead" Ed had not seen this coming. "Zat is impossible. Al killed him! Life only moves in one direction."

The body crumbled before any of those wounds could have received magical attention. There was simply no way. Hadn't Ed seen that bringing back the dead was impossible? Hadn't he seen it again and again?

Dumbledore's eyes somehow still maintained a melancholic twinkle and Ed wanted to punch him in the face because what the hell was wrong with this fucked up universe and these wizards? Dumbledore took a lemon drop from his dish and looked at it, said, "He has anchors that keep his soul tied to the world." He popped the lemon drop in his mouth, probably to give himself a valid excuse for staying infuriatingly vague.

But Ed's mind was already racing, thinking back to the blood seal he'd painted on the rim of Alphonse's armor so many years ago. Anchors. Ed could handle anchors. Once they were broken, the soul would travel to the gate and there was no way for it to come back this way then.

This was why he and Al hadn't found themselves back at the gate, when Voldemort fell.

"So, he was never really dead. Vee can fix zat, iv we can find zee anchors."

Dumbledore blinked, adjusted the glasses on his nose, and worked the hard candy in his mouth somewhere more convenient for speaking. "You're familiar with the concept?"

Ed nodded. "It can be done viz alchemy – if someone is very newly dead and zeir soul hasn't past zrough zee gate, it can be sealed to an object. Zere vas a government lab zat made its guards vrom death row inmates. I blew it up."

Dumbledore blinked, but Ed was fairly certain that nothing he said there would give away his the dimensional location of his homeland. Probably. "Do you make a habit of blowing up government laboratories?"

"I mean zee government was corrupt and knew zee answers to some questions I was asking in my research, so even zough I technically worked vor zem, well. Zey were paying me to do research."

"And research involved blowing up laboratories?"

"When zey're top secret labs in my field zat my bastard boss somehow didn't see fit to tell me about, zen yes. Blowing zem up was basically my job description."

"And you know how to destroy these anchors?"

Ed looked at him quizzically. "It isn't hard," he said. "Zee weak point ov zee fighters zey made zis way vas zat if I could get to zee seal to mar it, zee alchemy holding zeir soul in place would stop working."

Dumbledore looked bemusedly down at his withered hand. "I'm afraid, young man, that perhaps the magical variety is more difficult to destroy."

And so, began the most surreal discussion of Ed's life. He'd theoretically known that souls could be split – in a philosopher's stone bits of them could be used at a time. Hell. His own riskier healing alchemy could almost count as tearing away part of his own soul as payment. But the unit of measurement, there, was in lifespan.

To split a soul and therefore make that soul immortal, that, Ed could not quite believe was possible. But then, the Truth had given some vague warnings about how fucked up this world was. Ed had just assumed that the fuckery was a sort he was familiar with. Perhaps even fuckery he could find in Amestris. But it was not.

"Horcruxes," he tried, being excruciatingly careful over the English syllables. "Invented by Herpo zee Foul?"

"Correct."

"Man, you wizards haff weird names. And Herpo is zee only one in history to do it, ozer zan Moldy-man."

"Correct."

"And Moldy-man did it six times?"

"I think he was going to make the seventh with Harry's murder." There was something quiet in Dumbledore's face when he said this, and Ed was certain certain that Dumbledore was holding something back.

Something about that last sentence, but Ed wasn't quite sure what.

Did wizards think that the soul split with every murder or did they think that a sacrifice was necessary to split a soul? Those meant two very different things and in one case, they would react very poorly to Ed's body count, by the end of things.

He'd mostly avoided killing humans. But the Homunculi did carry the last remnants of thousands of people. And what about all those people he'd failed to save? Ed could easily believe that his soul had torn at each of those deaths.

"I remember at zee beginning of all zis, I heard zat Harry was prophesied to defeat him. Why are you telling me zis, and not Harry? I sink he needs to know."

"Harry should be allowed a childhood," Dumbledore said. "And with his discovery of the prophecy last spring and the simultaneous loss of his godfather, I want to preserve what he has of it."

Something hardened in Ed's gut there. Preserve Harry's childhood? "I am sixteen," Ed said. "You would not preserfe my childhood?"

That hit the mark – Dumbledore looked visibly stricken. Admittedly, Ed hadn't responded well to Mrs. Weasley's attempts to do just that, but Ed hadn't been a child in a long time and while Harry was more childlike than Ed had been since age eleven he still had every right to know about the responsibilities already on his shoulders.

"I know that you are only sixteen," Dumbledore said, having reigned his expression back to center.

"But I am not sixteen like Harry is sixteen. I know."

"Have a lemon drop," Dumbledore said, and Ed looked skeptically at the dish. He was not one to turn down food, but there was food and then there were lemon drops.

At least it wasn't milk. With that thought, Ed took one, sniffed at it, popped it in his mouth. "Why?"

"I've found, in my life, that sweets are good for morale."

Ed shuddered at the thought of morale and what Colonel Bastard's opinion on morale was. Morale led to Hawkeye putting bullet holes in the wall. "I guess," he said. "But do lemon drops count as being a sweet?"

It was sour against his tongue, and he would be surprised to hear that this was a common candy choice among children.

"I think so," Dumbledore said. "But what does it mean to be a sweet? And what does it mean to be sixteen?"

Ed couldn't help but laugh. "I sink zat I am zee last person qualified to answer zat question."

"Or maybe the most?" Dumbledore pinned Ed with an uncanny expression. After a moment of that gaze, Dumbledore nodded to himself, settled, said, "Mr. Elric. You of all people know what young Harry can and cannot handle. What do you think I should do?"

That was not part of the carefully constructed character profile Ed had built for Dumbledore. "You don't sink you know best?"

A pained expression flitted across the old man's face. "When I think that I know best is when, historically, I've made the worst of my blunders. So please. Permit an old man his question."

Ed raked his bangs out of his face, said, "You already expressed an interest in giving Harry more sorough instruction. Tell him everysing. And whatever it is you have not told me, in zis conversation – I know you have not told me everysing – you need to tell him zat too."

"It is such a burden to place on his shoulders."

"And it will be easier to carry, having known about it in advance," said Ed. "Look. When I was involved in a huge conspiracy and everyone was going to die unless I got sings exactly right, we had little time to prepare. Iv it wasn't vor some last-minute quick sinking vrom Alphonse, we would all haff died. Don't leaf zis fight up to chance."

Dumbledore nodded. "I will think on this."

"Sehr gut." With that, Ed left the office. He had to bring Eve the kneazle kitten to Al's hospital bed. And maybe book one for himself. He didn't want to leave Al isolated. Not after this.

Word Count: 6199

I decided to give Ed and Al their Ws.

We're now segueing into a 6th year Horcrux hunt, and I know not everyone will like where I decided to take this chapter. But this is the way it wanted to be written. So let me know what you thought in a lovely review!

Thank you!