Author's Note: Welcome back! It feels like yesterday, when it was early summer, and I had just posted Chapter 22 and was confident that Chapter 23 would be out within a few weeks. Ah the naivety of youth.

Disclaimer: WolfishMoon owns nothing. Hiromu Arakawa and J.K. Rowling, and the people/entities they have given rights to own everything.

The Scientist's Lament

Chapter 23

Scheming

Mundungus Fletcher was a desperate man.

He knew how to turn a coin, but that didn't translate into employability or long-term financial savvy. He was broke again shortly after every big score. On this cold mid-September evening, he could not fish even a stray Knut from his pocket. So, as he had many times before, he thought of where he might make a spare bit of cash.

With a crack! Mundungus landed in the abandoned kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. He kicked the wretched house elf in the head and wondered if he would ever be in a position where it was his will that decided the course of his actions. Instead, his driving force was always and only his poverty.

That same night, after Alphonse had pretended at innocence in his classes and after he slid into his pjs, he loitered around the Ravenclaw common room with a book. Eve was lying on the hearth stones, taking up the heat of the modest fire that flickered there.

Just looking at that cat made Al's heart swell.

It was dangerously close to curfew when Luna slid smoothly down the banister of the stairs to the girl's dorm. She, too, had changed into nightclothes. The mostly white nightgown sported a faint paisley print in soft yellows and pinks. It was so indescribably Luna that Al snorted.

"Let's go," she said, clutching at an object that hung from a chain around her neck.

Trying to ignore her white-knuckled grip on the necklace, he said, "Where?"

"Seventh floor," she said, tucking whatever-it-was back under her paisley nightgown. "Across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy."

"What? Why?" As far as Al knew, that was just an empty corridor. But Luna shook her head, took his hand, and led him down the spiral staircase towards Ravenclaw's riddle-guarded entrance. Quietly, quietly, Eve meowed from her place on the hearth. Al smiled tentatively first at the kitten and then at Luna's back.

He could trust Luna. Firm in that belief, Al shook himself, followed her down the stairs and out of the portrait hole. He followed her back up again to the seventh floor and around to the tapestry. The corridor was, as he remembered, otherwise vacant. He caught Luna's eye. "What is zis?"

She shook her head again, holding up a hand. She paced down to one end of the hall, muttering something under her breath. She turned sharply back around, paisley nightgown swishing around her ankles so violently at the turn that Alphonse was surprised she didn't trip.

Luna was walking toward him, but her eyes were focused at her bare sooty feet. She passed him, and Al turned to watch her walk away in the other direction. At the other end of the hall she turned back toward him again.

He counted the paces, recognizing that something in this act was magic. He could almost feel the particles of it stir in the air. In his mind's eye the hallway was lit with the golden dust of children's books.

Three times, she paced up and down the hallway and the feeling of magic in the air thickened. Really, Al could almost see it. He certainly felt it settle over his skin. Luna stopped in front of him, and he was so distracted by the blank and distant look on her face that he missed an obvious change in the environment until she regained herself and gestured at it.

Across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy a wooden door had set itself into the stone wall. "Vas?"

"It's called the Room of Requirement, or the Come and Go Room," Luna said. "We used it last year for training."

Al had known, in a nebulous way, that Harry had trained with the people who'd accompanied him to the Department of Mysteries. But it wasn't till now that he realized exactly how covert and organized that operation had been. It had Hermione's name all over it.

Luna tilted her head toward him, torchlight catching the pale curve of her jaw, said, "Shall we?" and pushed open the door.

They stepped into a replica of the Hogwarts Library. Al stopped short. "Vas? Why zee library?"

Luna furrowed her brow. "We're doing research," she said. "I thought it might be helpful to have the school's reference texts nearby. Besides, you'll find I added some legroom."

It was true. Unlike the cramped and cozy Hogwarts Library, there was ample space between the stacks. Luna began to march her way through them, towards the restricted section. Al scrambled to follow. There, instead of a closely guarded gate afore a shadowy set of bookshelves, was a wide expanse with a pile of books on a small table.

"I had the room pull all the books on immortality," Luna said. "And the rest of this space is for the lab. Ample space in case the pocket dimension collapses or explodes." She was gripping at the pendant around her neck again. It was, if he was seeing it correctly through the grip of her fingers, a small silver box.

Alphonse had seen the chain that tucked neatly into her shirt before, but it was always drowned out by loud necklaces of wine cork and large radish earrings.

He eyed it warily. One girl had already pulled an object of awesome power from around her neck in the past few days and if that trend kept up, Alphonse would look at every necklace in Hogwarts askance.

Luna let go of the pendant, let it fall to her chest, and lifted her straggly hair over her shoulder to access the clasp at the nape of her neck. When it was free, she placed it gingerly on the floor and tapped it with her wand.

The box expanded to the size of a park bench. Even more gingerly than she'd tapped it, Luna lifted the lid. The box sunk into the floor, the lip of it now only a small step. Alphonse leaned over it to see a flight of stairs leading down into nothing at all.

He looked at Luna, who smiled. "Welcome to Pandora's Box," she said, stepping over the lip and down onto the staircase. "My mother is a fan of puns. Come on," she said. "I think I know where she keeps the Volde-notes!" She winced. "Kept."

Placing a hand on her shoulder, Al followed Luna into Pandora Lovegood's laboratory. Gamely, he told himself. Unbidden, his mind whispered back, trepidatiously.

His trepidation subsided at the very sight of Pandora Lovegood's laboratory.

"Your muter is incredible," Al said to Luna as he looked around the impressive room. It was primarily a functional space – unusual in wizards. But the tasteful hints of silver and green littered around the room hinted at house affiliation. Al still couldn't believe how seriously Hogwarts graduates took that.

Luna smiled at him. "Thank you," she said. "Sometimes I like to do my homework in here – there's a rather impressive library in the next room and it makes me feel close to her."

Al looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "How old were you?"

"Nine," she said. "And I'm perennially surprised by how the feel of it lingers."

Alphonse nodded. "I was four and it seems like yesterday."

"It always will," Luna said. It shouldn't have been a comforting thing to hear, but somehow it was. She turned toward one of the bookcases and pulled out a plastic three ring binder. "The ones who love us never truly leave us. And sometimes, they can be helpful from beyond the veil."

Veil sounded a little too much like gate for Alphonse's taste, but Al was able to fixate on the binder to avoid flinching. It was the sort of thing he'd seen in Ed's muggle chemistry class – he'd not seen one since coming to Hogwarts. But there it was: the simple utility of being able to reorder pages had lured Pandora over to muggle technology. It was the sort of thing he himself was going to have to bring back with him to Amestris. His alchemist's notebook was never going to be the same again.

On the spine he noted careful lettering: Flight from Death. Right. That was the literal translation of Voldemort, wasn't it? Al's French wasn't great, but it was the sort of thing he'd picked up via osmosis, studying English from Amestrian and its peculiar German dialects.

Luna put the binder on a nearby podium, flipped it open. "My mother liked to make little books of things, so she could find it all again later."

"Makes more sense zan my Dad's organization."

"What was his study like?"

Al shook his head with a sort of fond exasperation. Ed would be furious to know it was the same sort of look that Al frequently directed at him. "Hard to sort srough," he said. "Zat's all."

He tapped on the first page of the notes. It said, in one large word across the page, "Niffler."

"What's a niffler again?"

"They like shiny things," Luna said, but nothing else. Alphonse had heard of them and wondered if Luna's enthusiasm for animals didn't extend toward those that were readily acknowledged by the public.

Alphonse tried to translate that. "So," he said. "Like magpies. Her point is zat Voldemort liked to collect things."

"Yes," Luna said, turned the page. Contents, it read, and under that was a numbered list. If Pandora Lovegood had managed to index her notetaking once it was done, Al was going give his father a binder and a pointed look when he got back home. That was just how it was going to go.

Although, Al couldn't quite help the smile that came when he thought of his younger self pouring through scrambled notetaking. And when it was organized, it was coded. Alchemists are so paranoid, Al thought fondly.

By contrast, Pandora Lovegood seemed to rely on enchantments to keep the unwanted out of her study. She didn't try to make her work impenetrable. Instead, the table of contents read, very plainly:

How Many Did He Intend to Make? … page 3

How Many Did He Actually Make? … page 5

What Might He Have Used? … page 10

What Happened? … page 25

Where is he Now? … page 56

It was plain, but Al realized that Pandora had somehow managed to index her entire notebook about Horcruxes without once using the word. Maybe Pandora's and Van Hohenheim's notes had more in common than Al initially supposed. You'd have to be looking for information on Voldemort's horcruxes specifically to know that's what she was talking about.

In fact. Had she even used Voldemort's name? Al checked the index and the first page again. No. She had not. He looked at Luna. "Can we make a copy of zis? So, we can read at zee same time?"

"And perhaps an extra one for your brother?" she said, a knowing twinkle in her eye.

"Zat would be great, Luna. Sank you."

"Do you know the duplication spell?"

"I don't," he said. "But wis zee right materials I could alchemically create a copy?"

Luna sent him an intrigued look. "And I would bet that it wouldn't decay more quickly over time, like copies made with Geminio do."

"Zee trade-off is transmutation marks." Al picked up a nearby pile of blank parchment and pulled an inkbottle and some chalk from his pocket. He drew the circle on the floor, placed his materials and Pandora's original notebook inside it, and felt his soul soar when the laboratory glowed with the blue light of transmutation.

When the glow faded, he broke the circle and looked back up at Luna who flicked her wand at the original. "Geminio," she said, and another duplication appeared.

She picked up Al's alchemical copy and her own magical copy, examined them. "So, these little scuffs are transmutation marks?"

Al nodded, taking the magical copy from her to inspect it. "It still surprises me zat objects created by magic don't have zem. I keep sinking I'm used to it, and I just get surprised all over again."

"I like the transmutation marks." The statement is a declaration and Luna hugged the alchemical copy of her mother's notes before handing it back to Al. He looked at her, tilted his head.

"Yeah?"

"It's a reminder of the power that went into it," she said. "Wizards take magic for granted. Maybe transmutation marks help keep an alchemist humble."

Al didn't know if that was true, but he laughed, and placed the alchemical copy on a table for Ed to have later. Al planned to use the magic copy. Obviously, he decided, the original copy should stay in Pandora's laboratory.

Actually. With that thought, Al quickly assembled fresh materials and placed it with the original into a pile – he didn't bother with a circle this time. Instead he clapped his hands together – reveling, as always, in the fact that he could truly feel it – and let the equations and runes balance in his mind.

When Al opened his eyes again, Luna was watching him with an unabashed fascination. He placed Pandora's original reverently back on the shelf, shyly handed Luna the second alchemical copy.

"So, you don't haff to feel weird about writing in it."

"Thank you, Alphonse," she said, taking the fresh alchemical copy from him. "I wonder if Professor Dumbledore would like how many copies of these we're making."

"Probably not," Al said. "Bruder says he likes to keep sings under wraps. And zis is zee exact sort of sing zat would make him very paranoid."

"I think so too," Luna said. "But while Professor Dumbledore certainly has his patterns, he can still be surprising."

Yes. That was true. Al thought back to his hushed conversation in the Hospital Wing with Ed, only a night before. Ed had been as straightforward and forthright as always about the important details of his conversation with Dumbledore, but there was a glimmer of surprise in his expression that told Al that Dumbledore had probably done something out of character.

He wondered what it was, and what it would mean for Luna's question, and the question of the rapidly multiplying copies of her mother's notes. He suspected that he wouldn't make it more than a few days without making several more.

"Should we make extra copies?" he asked. Luna shrugged, her eyes suddenly a little bright.

"I think my mother would want to help however she could," she said. And so, Al turned back to his pile of extra materials and began to clap his hands.

His hands fell back to his sides when he flinched, and it took him a moment to recognize that it was because Luna's hand had landed gently on his arm. His sensory processing still wasn't the greatest, and something inside Al was rueful. He looked at her and she shook her head, lifted her wand.

"Geminio," she said. And without the blue light of transmutation, several copies of Pandora's notebook appeared on the stone floor of the laboratory. Once they'd been shrunk into the pocket of Luna's nightgown, she beckoned him through a doorway on the right of the back wall. Through it was a cozily decorated library. Green and silver were still the predominant colors in the room, but the silver accents glowed with the rosy hue of fire once Luna had set her wand on the fireplace.

They settled into enormous emerald armchairs and began to read.

Meanwhile, in the Gryffindor common room, Harry was looking at his Potions textbook. It had already won him a vial of Felix Felicis and given him Muffliato. He'd continued to use it in class, but with all the excitement in other areas, and with 'Gym Club' running him absolutely ragged, he hadn't had much time to look at it.

Even with the morning's news that Voldemort wasn't dead, Harry felt lighter somehow. His sleep had been marginally easier, for sure. His classes were going well enough – even Alchemy. It was hard and annoying and memorization-heavy, but there was no way Harry was going to let Malfoy outlast him in Professor Ed's class, even if Malfoy's grades were consistently ranked just below Hermione's.

With success wrapped around his shoulders, Harry was floating. For once, Harry could take the time to read for fun, even if it was a textbook. He shuddered. Maybe Hermione was contagious. But how could he help it when the Half-Blood Prince was just so insightful?

Everywhere, there were little scrawled improvements in the margins. Each potion made more potent. Made better. Harry didn't know much about potions or academia in general, but even he could appreciate the elegance to the changes in the book. The Half-Blood Prince knew their stuff. Idly, Harry wondered what he was doing now. He would have been a better Potions Master than Snape, anyway.

Later that night, Harry would ill-advisedly try Levicorpus on Ron. But for now, he just read. He wasn't the strongest reader, but he was content to take his time with it. This Half-Blood Prince character made Potions fun. Who knew that was possible?

In his office, Ed was grading quizzes. Or pretending to grade quizzes. Or something. It was some of the most mind-numbing work he'd ever done in his life – even after teaching plain old chemistry to high school delinquents. Fuck these wizard kids, honestly. But he wasn't the Colonel Bastard – he didn't shirk his paperwork. Hell, even in the early days, when his pressure plates broke his pencils and his left hand wobbled, he'd gotten his reports in on time. How else would he get his State Alchemist Tab paid off and requisition resources to help rebuild the towns he cheerfully destroyed?

He buckled down and was pleased to see that Girl Ginger's most recent quiz grade was slightly less abysmal than the last. Really, if she didn't improve drastically and soon, he'd have to remove her from the class. And she was pissed at him as it was!

But if Ed was supposed to be a Real Adult, he'd have to maintain his distance from the children that were his age-peers. It was the only way to keep his students and his classroom safe. Kicking out Ginny if she didn't improve was unavoidable.

He was already writing up dismissal notes for some of the cockier Ravenclaws. To avoid disaster, Alchemy needed that hardworking Hufflepuff spirit. It was the only way, really.

And okay, maybe Ed was the posterchild for brash and loyal Gryffindor but he was a muggle and so they'd never know that for sure.

He marked Girl Ginger's quiz score in his ledger, moved the sheet of parchment to the 'Already Graded' stack, picked up the next. Luna's, because of course that was his life. Her quizzes, while technically correct, remained painfully nonsensical.

Ed liked Luna, really, he did. He liked how she was kind to Alphonse, and he liked how she looked at life from a crooked angle. But Ed frankly didn't have time for her shit. He lived and breathed directness and so did his favorite people. The alchemists that tried to put too much artistic flair in their arrays usually ended up blowing themselves up. He'd have to watch her. He had a funny feeling that Luna's calculations would end up being needlessly convoluted and that was an easy way to make a mistake.

Her quiz, however, managed to maintain its logic train and arrive at the right answers. Good for her. He marked the top margin with an A, swore, scratched it out, and re-marked it with and O. Stupid grading system. Just like every part of this stupid castle and these stupid wizards.

Well. Her mother had supposedly been a brilliant researcher. He could see the ways in which that had bled across the generations. He could only hope that there was a careful element to that inheritance.

Looking at Luna's quiz, Ed wondered where she was. If she'd meant tomorrow when she'd said tomorrow, or if she'd really meant not with Hermione's common sense breathing down my neck. If it was the later, and Ed was increasingly certain that it was, then Luna was sitting in her mother's laboratory at this moment.

And Alphonse was probably with her. Ed felt a brief streak of jealousy. He'd do anything to see Mrs. Lovegood's notes. From what he'd heard, her work might be the only place he'd really see the scientific method applied to magic. And he bitterly wanted to see it.

Ed shuffled Luna's quiz to the bottom of the pile. The next was a Ravenclaw in their class. He received an E. The next quiz after that however, earned the 'T' Ed marked on the page. Fuck that kid. Was he even trying?

Ed huffed, blowing his bangs out of his face and his hair antenna higher. Alphonse was the one who'd managed to befriend the girl who honestly creeped Ed out a little. He had every right to be the one on the Pandora Lovegood mission. And he was no dumber than Ed was. Ed would just have to quash the jealousy and let his little brother succeed in peace. Al had every right to succeed and flourish and Ed would just have to let it happen.

That decided, Ed gave the next series of students slightly easier grades. Maybe that one kid hadn't really deserved the 'T.'

Sometimes, even after all his years, Albus Dumbledore wondered if the world was coming to an end. He'd seen so many catastrophes that, most of the time, he held a strong faith that the world – that life, that magic – would always continue in the face of strife.

But when fate spelled his death in the charred flesh of his injured hand and placed the responsibility of the world on the shoulders of a child, Dumbledore could not help but wonder.

"Who are they, Albus?" asked Minerva from across his desk.

And that brought Dumbledore around to the Elric brothers. The children on whom – though Harry's age and younger – Dumbledore had come to trust, and even, rely. He would have to do something about that – blind trust could never stand.

There was something about them that seemed to call for that reliance and blind trust. That sort of innate charisma was a dangerous thing. Dumbledore had thought himself immune to it. Something had to be done.

"I don't know," Dumbledore said, smiling deliberately. "Isn't a mystery exciting?"

Minerva pinned him with that glare of hers. The one that reminded Dumbledore that she wasn't a Hogwarts student anymore. That said she wasn't his transfiguration apprentice anymore either and that he'd better stop treating her like one.

Telling her everything was out of the question, of course. But if Dumbledore couldn't trust his own apprentice, he wasn't as good at indoctrination as he thought he was. She had proven herself time and again as his colleague. Really, the only reason Dumbledore trusted Severus Snape over Minerva McGonagall was because he had things to hold over Severus's head. Minerva had nothing to hide – and she knew better than to tell him if she did.

She deserved to know something.

Dumbledore peered at her over his half-moon glasses, resolved to give her some of the truth. "I truly don't know," he said. "I have managed to uncover nothing substantial about their lives."

"Nothing?" Minerva said.

Dumbledore rummaged in his desk, withdrew a slim file. "These are young Edward's transcripts from the University of Berlin."

The file slid easily across the sleek finish of his wooden desk. Minerva caught it deftly with a slim and wrinkled hand, opened it. "These are very sparse."

They were. Edward Elric had taken exactly the number of classes needed to graduate with a degree in science education. He'd achieved average grades – not a hair under or over. He'd received no honors. There were no extracurriculars listed, no notations from professors who'd been either fond of him or furious with him. Dumbledore took off his spectacles and folded them on the desk, said, "I believe these records to be fake."

Minerva nodded. "I agree. I can't see that boy doing anything but excel in muggle university. It says here he got a C+ in Chemistry."

"I assume you are familiar with the muggle grading system?"

Minerva dealt him an unimpressed look. "Of course," she said. "Did you try to contact one of the lecturers listed on his transcript?"

Dumbledore had been planning to. But he could see that Minerva's discontent with him might fade if she had a task to accomplish. "I was going to ask you."

"You want me to go to Berlin? You are the one of us who happens to speak German."

"I would be most grateful, and you are proficient in translation charms," he said. "There are projects here I cannot afford to abandon."

She was giving him The Glare again. "Only because I wanted to make a working model for the magical rediscovery of dead languages. My knowledge is very hypothetical."

"Don't be modest. You're much better at conversational language conversion than I am."

"Is there a reason I can't cast a translation spell on you, then?" Her lips were in the grimmest line Dumbledore had seen from her in a while, and the Scottish accent she usually kept to a prim minimum began to flavor her intonations.

If it were not from decades of established trust, Albus knew that he would be under the point of her wand right now. This was a Minerva McGonagall who was done. So, he gave her the most plaintive look he could muster. "Please, Minerva," he said. "You are the best person for the job. You know how to navigate in the muggle world rather better than I do."

"On the weekend," she said. "If we manage to get through the week without the castle collapsing."

"It is Thursday night," Dumbledore said. "The week is almost done."

"And it's been more than eventful enough for it only being Thursday," Minerva said. Dumbledore could not help but nod in tandem with her. She'd spent most of Wednesday night establishing a reasonable alibi for herself before leaving the castle to help Molly manage the freed prisoners.

Ollivander had to be restrained from returning immediately to his wand shop, and he was not the only person anxious to return to their former normal. But the news that Voldemort was at least temporarily dead had yet to break. Dumbledore was certain that there was an advantage in that – it was good sense to keep quiet as many details as possible. Get as many things done as he could while the rest of the world didn't even know there was something that needed doing.

Voldemort's prisoners, for the time being, had to remain missing.

Indeed, the chaos had only begun with the prison break itself. Dumbledore had received no fewer than three howlers from Molly Weasley about sending children into danger. And don't tell me there was an adult in the group, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore! We both know that Edward Elric is not an adult!

When she'd figured that out, Dumbledore did not know. But he supposed that it would be natural for a mother of seven to know a child's age to look at them. Especially when that child was around the age of her own.

The politely worded, but no less scathing, letter from Arthur Weasley had been a surprise. Thank you, Professor, for giving my son this excellent field opportunity. We are very proud of him, and we understand that to a certain extent you cannot control what he decides to do on his own. However, until he turns seventeen, he is still legally a child and I would appreciate it if you'd account him in your plans as one. The same goes for Harry. Really you rely on that boy too much.

Minerva rapped her knuckles on the desk. "Albus," she said. "Albus."

He started and was pinned firmly by her gaze when he made the mistake of making eye contact. "Yes?"

"If I'm going to the University of Berlin, we need to come up with a plan."

Dumbledore gave her a small smile. "Of course, Minerva. We can start on the preparations right away." With a twirl of his wand, he pulled out a map of Berlin at large, and another of the University itself. "Here is the library," he said, tapping the spot with his wand. A purple floral mark bloomed over it. "With the librarian who vouched for him."

"And the Chemistry building is where?" Minerva bent over the map, seeking the legend, and Dumbledore knew he'd directed her sufficiently.

Word Count: 4796

Leave a review and tell me what you thought! As always, criticism is welcome and appreciated. I shall see you all in December, hopefully. Once NaNoWriMo wraps up.

Happy Halloween, Samhain, Dia de los Muertos, and so on down the line, if it applies.