Author's Notes:
This is basically "I wanted to have more on it but things got too long so I moved them to the next chapter" in chapter form. More details in the obligatory needlessly long notes at the end of the chapter. . .

Dear Roy,

How's the life as teacher treating you? I'm hoping that this message reaches you after you've had your first lesson. So are you able to tame the wild masses of students, or do they overwhelm you to the point that Ms Hawkeye has to help you? And how are the other teachers treating you, for that matter? I can just imagine that Professor Snape is ever so proud that one of Slytherin's star students has made it into the staff.

At any rate, as much as I'd love to have this entire letter be entirely be informal and personal, the reason I'm writing is also professional. I'm admittedly not 100% sure if I'm even allowed to disclose what I'm about to write in a letter like this, but for the sake of convenience, let's just assume that it's okay.
Head Goblin Alguff has finally disclosed who the vault that has been broken into belongs to. Turns out, it really is Professor Dumbledore. As you can imagine, I'd therefore need you to question him about this. This is especially vital since by now, we have interrogated every Gringotts employee that has been present on the day, and have learned nothing new. The only other clue we have right now is that there are two former employees that were fired on the same day as the break-in, which we will seek out today. So please, just get off your lazy ass for once, and confront Dumbledore about this, okay? To be honest, I still don't get why you didn't do that over the entire past month.

Maes

PS: Gracia says that I'm the greatest and smartest wizard she knows – so there really is no denying it, I have you beat!

Critically, Maes looked over the letter once more. He had written down everything that he deemed relevant. This was all the he would be able to do with regards to Dumbledore's involvement with the case for the time being.

Time to send the letter, then.

"Mr Fuery!" Maes called.

The young man looked up from his seat at the office space and came over.

It was the morning after Maes had learned the two former Gringotts employee, and as of right now, his entire team was gathered in their office space in the ministry. This wouldn't be the case for long, though, as Maes was about to head out with his original team to start their journey to Edinburgh, while Roy's men would remain here to deal with 'their' potential witness. The only reason they had gathered at the ministry in the first place was to review everything they had found out (which wasn't much), and so that Maes could write the letter to Roy.

"Yes, Mr Hughes?" Fuery asked.

"Please take this letter to the Owlery, and send it Mr Mustang."

"Understood, sir!" the young man said eagerly. "Uhm, so I assume that you'll be leaving now, sir?"

"That was the plan. Why, is there an issue with that?"

"Oh, no sir! It's just that I have something that I would like to give you before you leave!"

Under the eyes of Maes, he hurried over to his own desk, and began rummaging through its drawers. After a while, he seemed to have found what he was looking for, as he closed the drawers and came back.

"Here it is, sir!"

He held out a pair of roughly hand-sized mirrors to Maes.

"Mirrors?" Maes asked, confused. "Mr Fuery, you seem to be mistaking me for Roy. I'm not so vain that I can't go several hours without having a mirror in front of me."

Fuery shook his head. "You misunderstand, sir. This is not just a regular pair of mirrors. These are two-way mirrors."

"Two-way mirrors?!" Maes exclaimed in surprise. "Really? These things are extraordinarily hard to make and extremely expensive, from what I hear! And you just made a pair in your spare time?!"

The young Auror gave him a huge grin. "Spells and technology relating to long-distance communication are a bit of a special interest to me! That's part of the reason why Mr Mustang requested for me to put into his team to begin with, actually. I was already working on these before he left for Hogwarts, and originally wanted to give one to him, so that he can stay in touch with us. But since that's not really an option anymore, I figured that I should give them to you. It would allow us to directly relay status updates to you."

Maes was stunned. He had heard before from Roy how he hand-picked every member of his team for their abilities, but had not expected those to run so deep. Of course, Falman had already proven that he had an incredible memory and near-encyclopaedic general knowledge, but with how meek the man was, it hadn't really proven itself to be too useful yet.

Thoughtfully, he glanced at Havoc and Breda. He might need to look at Roy's notes about their own skills on occasion…

But one thing after another.

"Sounds like an excellent idea," Maes answered Fuery aloud. "Anything that might help us speed up this entire process is good to me. Fuery, you hold on to the one of these."

"Yes, sir!"

"Now, with that aside… Armstrong, Ross, Bosh – it is time that we head out. The train isn't going to wait for us."

King's Cross was, as usual, way too overcrowded. While the big rush of Hogwarts students heading out for this year already passed through the station yesterday, it was nonetheless still full of muggles who were on their daily commute, or there for longer journeys. As they forced their way to the crowd, Maes could not help but to wonder why the ministry had decided that it was such a great idea to have an overlap between the muggle's central station and what essentially was the wizarding central station. Sure, on the one hand, it made getting to the station far easier with other non-magical means. But on the other hand, the amount of charms and spells necessary to not draw attention to the magic activity was, quite frankly, absolutely ludicrous.

But then again, what did he know? He worked in magical law enforcement, not in the branch responsible for transportation. Surely, there were many reasons why this was the perfect setup.

Even if he himself couldn't really think of any reason.

If nothing else however, the crowdedness of the station didn't extend to the magic platforms. Once Maes, Armstrong, Ross and Brosh entered Platfrom 3½ , navigating the damn place became a lot more manageable. Wizards being so few in number compared to muggles did have some advantages, after all.

The train to Edinburgh was already at the platform, and people were boarding it. This didn't just include wizards and witches, either: In the crowd, Maes could see a handful of goblins, some house elves, and even a few centaurs.

Seeing non-human beings around at a magical place was nothing too out of the ordinary. While they were required by law to disguise themselves with spells when they were out among muggles, there was nothing stopping them from being there in the first place. Even if most of them did prefer staying away from muggles most of the time, which Maes couldn't exactly blame them for.

"I swear, I'll never get used to how crowded King's Cross is…" Maes thought out loud as they entered one of the train's carriages. Much like the Hogwarts Express, the train used for the magical London-Edinburgh line was a model that, to the muggles that originally build it, was already outdated by many decades, which in turn however made it far easier to enchant.

Unlike the Hogwarts Express however, these carriages lacked any kind of compartments, meaning that passengers had no choice but to be directly alongside strangers. But for the convenience of having a simple magic method of travel between London and Edinburgh, that was a small price to pay – next to the actual price of the journey, that is. At least the ministry would cover their travel expenses.

"Me neither, sir," Maria Ross meanwhile agreed with him. "I'm still surprised at how different the wizarding train system here in Britain is."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Maes recalled that she had only lived in Britain for a few years, having previously lived in Germany.

"Oh? How's the train system in Germany, then?" Maes asked curiously. He had never really had much of a personal or casual conversation with his subordinates, so considering how long this train ride would take, it was probably the best opportunity to do so for once. It helped that Armstrong and Bosh looked vaguely interested in the topic, too.

"Oh! Uhm, I'm not sure where to even start with this…" Maria stuttered, taken aback by the unexpected interest. "Well… for starters, the muggle railway system is really wide reaching and heavily used. Among muggles, it's really infamous for never being on time and unreliable, even though it is actually pretty punctual. But our ministry exploits that by having trains arriving at muggle stations delay or cancel muggle trains in exchange. Pretty much every muggle train station in Germany is also used by us, with our trains all enchanted so that muggles don't notice them. It makes it pretty easy for us to get around, so something like Floo Powder isn't all that commonly used."

"That sounds way more convenient than how it is here!" Denny exclaimed. "If we had that kinda system around here, I wouldn't have to decide between using muggle methods of travel, or forcing myself through the Floo Network. Do we even have any lines other than this one and the Hogwarts Express?"

Maes pondered this for a moment. "Well, there's also lines to Wales and Ireland at King's Cross – forgot on which platforms those are, though. Then there's also platform 7½ , which connects to all kinds of places on the continent, but it doesn't really follow any set schedule, I think."

"You are indeed correct, sir!" Armstrong explained. "The lines to Cardiff and Dublin both also leave from platform 3½ , while the lines from platform 7½ are departing on demand! They connect to various cities all over the continent with a lot of magical activity, such as Paris, Bielefeld…"

Their conversation continued like this. After a while, they moved on from talking about trains and railway system to just travelling in general.

Denny and Maria, having only been finished with Hogwarts (or in her case, the "Bielefeld Institut für Magie aller Art", BifMaA for short) didn't have many stories to share. Maes himself was much in the same boat, having only really travelled with Gracia for their honeymoon (a trip to Sweden). Therefore, Armstrong, being the heir to an old and wealthy wizarding family, essentially dominated the conversation with tales of his families' travels to the wizarding communities of countries all over the world, such as China, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and so on.

Personally, Maes didn't mind Armstrong talking all the time. While the man could be very verbose, he had quite a knack for telling interesting stories (or as he put it, "this art of storytelling has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations!"). Caught up in conversation like this, the hours passed by, and the train got ever closer to Edinburgh. At some point during the early afternoon, Maes stopped paying attention, and instead looked out of the window and around their carriage for a bit.

Outside of the train, meadows, forests, rivers and towns moved in and out of view. For it being early September, the weather was still nice and sunny, making the view from the window consistently good. The inside of the carriage meanwhile was nowhere near as interesting, but still worth looking around. It was not too terribly full: Some goblins were in the seats behind them, with the rest of the seats in the carriage being either kept empty, or being occupied by witches and wizards. In all, the carriage was about half full. Or half empty, however you looked at it.

As Maes looked around, he saw how a man with a black moustache that had about the same body type (if not the height) as Armstrong got up from his seat, and left the carriage into the direction of travel.

Probably needs to use the toilet, Maes thought to himself. The people that the man had shared a set of seats with, two men and a woman, meanwhile pulled out their wands, and started examining and polishing them.

Somewhat confused, Maes watched the three. Why would all three of them suddenly, at the same time, be concerned with wand hygiene?

Then, suddenly, a voice echoed through the train.

"Attention all passengers," the voice said. It was a deep, male voice, speaking in an authoritative and demanding tone. But most importantly, it was definitely not an announcement by the driver.

"This train is now under the command of the Knights of Walpurgis. Our members are in every carriage, so don't even think about doing anything rash."

While the voice was still speaking, the two men and the woman that Maes had been watching jumped up from their seats, and pointed their wands at the remaining passengers.

"Everyone puts their hands where we can see them!" one of them, a bald, thuggish-looking man with a manic-looking grin said. "The moment anyone tries anything, there's gonna be Unforgivable Curses!"

As Maes and the others put their hands up, his mind was racing, and his heart was racing like crazy. As an Auror, he had been in dangerous situations before, but he had not expected a terrorist attack at a time and place like this. Ever since the disappearance of their leader, the Death Eaters had been far less active, especially since the Ministerial Alchemists were used against them. Why was this happening? Why were these people – the Knight of Walpurgis, they called themselves? – acting now, of all times? There hadn't been any kind of terror attacks in magical Britain in years!

"Now then, what we're gonna do will be very simple," the woman out of the group of three said. Like her partners, she looked completely unhinged "We're gonna play a simple little game known as 'purge the mudbloods and halfbloods'! The purebloods here exempt from it. But don't try to lie to us about your heritage, because we have ways to find oouut!" At that, she pulled out a small bottle with a clear, water-like liquid in it – Veritaserum, no doubt. "And as for the non-humans..."

She grinned maliciously at the goblins, who met her expression with a cold, defiant glare.

Without moving his head, Maes took a quick glance over at his subordinates. He that he could rely on them to attack once he gave any kind of signal. All he needed to do is give an order.

He took another look at the Knights of Walpurgis. There was no way that they could know that Maes and the others were with the ministry, let alone Aurors. If they played their cards right, they would be able to take them out before they could do any damage. Judging by the subtle distortion of the air around them, though, it seemed like the terrorists had already cast shield charms around themselves. That would make it harder to throw curses at them. But he did have knives with him, and metal objects were, to an extent, inherently anti-magical…

"One of you needs to fake a panic attack as a distraction!" he whispered to the others, as he began to quickly put together a plan in his head.

Armstrong, Maria and Denny looked at him. They didn't understand yet, but they had heard him. Denny gave him a small nod to indicate to the others that he would do it. Then, he started breathing heavily and loudly, shuddered, and then, after a few seconds of this, fell to the ground.

At once, Maes knelt down next to him.

"Denny? Denny?!" he yelled, hoping to catch the terrorist's attention.

"Excuse me! Our friend needs help!" Maria shouted at them.

"The hell are you going on about?" The bald man asked, and slowly came over to them. Throwing a calculating glance around the room, the woman followed after him, leaving the last member of their trio at the end of the carriage.

Closer and closer the two of them came, watched not only by their partner, but also by the other passengers. Then they were at the seats of Maes and the others, and critically looked at them.

That's when Maes struck.

He didn't even get up. He didn't need to.

In a quick motion, he pulled a knife out of his sleeve, and threw it at the bald man. With a blinding sizzle, the knife hit his magic shield, which tried all it could to stop the attack.

But a knife isn't a spell – and so, just as Maes had hoped, the knife passed through the shield without really being slowed down, and hit the man in his right shoulder. With a scream, he fell down to his knees.

At the same time, Armstrong charged at the woman, and knocked her out with a swift but fierce punch. After all, as strong as a shield spell is, it's not meant to protect from physical attacks.

That left only the man at the end of the carriage – who luckily enough was completely caught off guard by the coordinated attack. Before he could react, Denny had jumped back to his feet and fired a spell together with Maria.

"Expelliarmus!" they yelled in unison. The combined force of the spells managed what one alone could not have managed, and destroyed his shield, forcing his wand out of his wand, and knocking him back against the wall. As he was still trying to recover from the attack, Armstrong had already dashed over to him, and knocked him out as well.

Maes took a deep breath. That took care of this carriage. Now…

"Who– who are you people?" asked a witch anxiously.

"Please remain calm, everyone," Maes said. "We are Aurors. We will do everything in our power to make sure that no one on this train gets hurt."

"You had better! I can't believe that you ministry folk have gotten so inattentive that this kind of thing happened in the first place!" one of the goblins exclaimed agitatedly.

Maes had to resist glaring at the goblin. The nerve! As if dealing with the Gringotts goblins the past month hadn't already been bad enough. Did this one honestly think that there was a way to completely guarantee that nothing like this ever happened?

But then again… had these Knight of Walpurgis been able to carry out what they wanted, the goblins would have been dead for sure, while the wizards and witches had at least some chance of making it through this all unharmed, even if they were muggle-born. From that standpoint, the goblin's anger was understandable enough.

"We will do what we can." Maes said confidently, even if he didn't fully believe it himself. There was no telling how many terrorists there were on the train in total. And no matter how many there were left, they wouldn't have the same element of surprise with those as they did with the ones in this carriage. So with just the four of them, there was no telling that they would be able to save everyone…

"Mr Armstrong, Ms Ross, Mr Bosh – tie these criminals up, and then come join me over there. We need to come up with a plan on how to go about this."

With a few simple motions of their wands, the three did as they were told. While they were busy hauling the terrorists off into a corner, Maes reached for his pocket, having suddenly remembered something. A moment later, he had found what he was looking for: The two-way mirror that Fuery had given him earlier.

"Fuery! Do you hear me?" Maes shouted into the mirror. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, Maes' reflection disappeared from it, and in its place, he could see the confused-looking face of the young Auror.

"Mr Hughes? We are still–"

"No time for that!" Maes cut him off. "The train to Edinburgh is under attack from a group calling themselves 'Knights of Walpurgis' – get in contact with the Scottish ministry, and tell them to send Aurors to Edinburgh Waverly! These people want to kill everyone who's not a pureblood!"

Fuery went pale. "S-sir, are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking, man?! Get to it!"

Fuery nodded, and then vanished from the mirror. Maes looked up – Armstrong, Maria and Denny had returned to him by now.

"All right then," Maes said. "If I'm remembering this correctly, this train had three carriages, along with the engine. We need to act quickly – assuming that these Knights of Walpurgis are also in the other carriages, they might have already begun playing their sick games with the passengers. And eventually, they're gonna wonder how their pals here are doing. We need to do something."

"At any rate, we're in the last carriage. Maybe we could just charge into the other ones, and overwhelm them?" Maria suggested.

"That would be too risky," Armstrong disagreed. "There's no guarantee that we would be able to surprise the terrorists in the other carriages the same way as we did with these."

"Maybe if we could somehow get to them from both side of the carriage… but there's no way to really do that, is there?" Denny wondered.

Maes looked past him, at the door connecting to the next carriage. There was a window in it, from which he could see that there were ladders on the outside.

Ladders which lead up to the top of the carriages.

"Actually… I think there might just be a way to do that."

-7-

As it turned out, it would be several days before Edward got his opportunity to go to the library. Adjusting to life at Hogwarts simply ended up being a bit more difficult to adjust to than he had expected. Nothing that he had ever heard from the Rockbells about the architecture and scale of the castle could've prepared him for what being there was actually like, which was to say nothing of the actual classes.

The evening after the feast at least wasn't too bad, as Percy lead them from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor common room, circumventing the issue of getting lost entirely. The common room itself was a warm and welcoming place, just like their actual bedrooms. Despite Dumbledore's remarks about the bedrooms potentially 'rejecting' students, no such thing happened with them, which Percy said was something he hadn't seen in a few years. Edward, being too tired to really think about any of it, still didn't understand it, and didn't want to ask.

The bedrooms themselves were a huge relief to Edward: the way everything was set up, with their room having its own bathroom, and their beds all being four-posters with curtains meant that he wouldn't have to change in view of anyone else. Even if he would have to spend the next seven years with everyone else in this bedroom, he still preferred it if no one found out that he had automail, even if it meant that he would have to leave Harry and Ron in the dark.

But despite how tired he was, and how comfortable the beds were, Edward had a very hard time falling asleep. Now that he had the time to lie down and rest, the various uneasy feelings caused by his automail kept him awake for quite a while. He kept having phantom pains, the fact that he had no feeling in it made it hard to place it anywhere where it didn't bother him, depending on how he lay, it hurt him… in all, it was making him wonder if he was ever going to get used to it. At same point during the night, he heard how Harry jumped up in his bed, and breathed heavily. Before he could however make up his mind on whether or not to ask Harry what was wrong, he had already gone silent again, having no doubt gone back to sleep.

Eventually however, Edward must've managed to fall asleep, as was woken up in the morning by the ringing of a bell. But even though he could hear how the other Gryffindor boys got up and ready, he remained lying for just a few more minutes. He was just too tired.

It was not until Ron tugged at the curtains of his bed that Edward finally got moving.

"Oy, Ed get up! We're not gonna wait for you forever!"

"Comin'..." he mumbled tiredly.

By the time that Edward was finally finished with everything, he, Ron and Harry were the last ones remaining in the bedroom. Everyone else had already left.

"You look like you're still asleep," Ron noted. "Bad night?"

"Couldn't sleep for ages," Edward said. "Harry doesn't look much better, though."

"I doubt that I'm still as sleepy as you. And, we better get going, or we won't be having any time for breakfast."

Edward immediately was wide awake. Breakfast was an excellent point.

"You're right! What are we even waiting for any more?!"

He stormed off, with Ron and Harry following closely behind him. The moment they left the common room, though, one big problem with leaving so late became immediately apparent: None of them knew much about the layout of Hogwarts, or had a good memory of the way that Percy had lead them last night. And by now, there was no one else really left who they could ask for the way, meaning that they were on their own. The only thing they really knew was that they had to head down.

Accordingly, reaching the Great Hall already took them quite a while, leaving them hungry and exhausted when they did reach it.

"With how much Fred and George always brag about knowing all kinds of secret passages, I would've thought that getting around the castle would be a lot easier," Ron exclaimed once they headed down the last staircase to the Great Hall. "I should ask them about drawing us a map. That would make this all a lot easier."

Edward shook his head. "I think it's better if you don't ask them for help. Based on everything I know about them so far, I wouldn't be surprised if they charged you for it."

"That's… a good point. How do you know that? You've barely even met them twice."

"I mean, it's what I'd do," Edward said, shrugging.

"Considering that you were willing to make a bet with your brother about having met me, you definitely would," Harry said.

"Wouldn't you have done the same, if you had been in my position?" Edward objected.

"I'm… honestly not sure," Harry admited.

"I would," Ron offered.

Edward nodded. "There we go."

They went a bit further in silence.

"Hey, what's going on there?" Harry then asked, as they got closer to the Great Hall.

Standing in front of the doors was Winry, who looked at them as if she had already been waiting for them. But she wasn't alone: Professor MacGonagall was standing right beside her, together with another woman that Edward didn't recognize.

"Mr Elric, I need to have a word with you and Ms Rockbell," Professor MacGonagall said as the Edward, Harry and Ron got closer. She must have also realized the look of concern on Edward's face, as she added, "There's no need for you to worry. But I would nonetheless ask Mr Potter and Mr Weasley to go on ahead."

Edward exchanged a confused glance with Harry and Ron, before the two headed into the Great Hall. Once they were gone, Professor MacGonagall and the other woman led Edward and Winry into the nearby chamber that she had led the first-years into on the last evening.

"What's this about, Professor?" Edward asked. He half considered to also ask if whatever this was couldn't wait until after breakfast, but he realized that it probably could have if he had been quicker to get out of bed.

"A few days ago, the school received a letter from Pinako Rockbell, informing us of your recent automail surgeries. The purpose of me calling you here is to inform you about your options for maintenance, as well as to give Madame Pomfrey an idea of your current health."

The woman that had accompanied them nodded at this. "I'm the school nurse, so it is best if I know all about your current situation. I must say though, the thought of a child your age going through not one, but two of these surgeries…! Attaching the nerves alone must have been horrible!"

Edward remained silent. He should've known that Granny Pinako would send a letter to Hogwarts about this… but it wasn't like he could blame her for it. Keeping his automail secret from the other students was one thing, but keeping it secret from the staff was probably a whole less feasible.

"Now then young man, I must see your automail, the ports in particular for myself. Where do you have them?" Madame Pomfrey continued.

"Right arm and left leg!" Winry piped up. "I helped Granny a lot with assembling it, so if you have any questions, I can help."

"Your grandmother informed us of as much," Professor MacGonagall noted, giving Winry a reasonably impressed look. "Mr Elric, if you could?"

"Yeah, sure..." Edward said half-heartedly. He still didn't particularly like the idea of having to show his automail off to other people, but in this case, it couldn't be helped. With some difficulties, he the shirt he was wearing under his robes, and pulled up the left leg of his trousers.

With a professional glance, Madame Pomfrey examined the ports. Then, after while she said, "Expertly applied, as expected from Mrs Rockbell. Your rehab also seems to be coming along nicely… I take it the leg was applied first?"

Edward nodded. "We figured that it would be best if I could walk again as soon as possible."

"A good call," Madam Pomfrey agreed. "Regardless of how well your recovery is coming along, you should still not be put under too much strain, especially your arm. But I assume you already know that. I personally would say that you should also sit out flying lessons for this year, but I doubt that I will be able to convince someone your age that that's for the best. As for maintenance..."

"There are several automail shops down in Hogsmeade, which are also used by some staff members and fellow students," Professor MacGonagall continued. "Normally, first-year students are not allowed to go to the town, but in your case, we are obviously making an exception. This also applies to Ms Rockbell, since Mrs Rockbell was quite insistent on her being your mechanic."

Winry looked like she was in heaven. Being told that she was allowed to visit a town with several automail shops had must've been like learning that Christmas and her birthday suddenly fell on the same day.

"Uhm, Professor, since we're already talking about this..." Edward said awkwardly, having just remembered something "I don't really want more people to know about this than is necessary. So is it okay if I wear these to my classes?"

He held up his thin white gloves.

"Is a bit unusual, but I see no issue with it. I will inform the rest of the staff about this. But please keep in mind, Mr Elric, that I can give you no guarantee that your fellow students won't somehow find out regardless."

Edward shrugged. That was better than nothing. Now he only needed to hope that any of the other automail users at Hogwarts didn't notice and decided to blabber about it. Although the thought of there being other people with automail at Hogwarts did make him wonder just how many there were…

Professor MacGonagall and Madam Pomfrey parted ways with them at the entrance to the Great Hall. Before they went in, Edward and Winry paused.

"Did the hat even consider you for Gryffindor?" Edward asked.

"For a bit. But it changed its mind pretty quickly. Said something about me being a far better fit for Hufflepuff," Winry said, looking unhappy.

"Really would've preferred it if we had managed to be in the same house…"

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it, is there? Those decisions are final. And I think I'll manage with Hufflepuff. The others are nice enough. How about you?"

Edward thought about this. "I… think it's not that big of an issue. Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the same house, so I have people I come along with. And hey, I hear there's some classes that two houses have together, so it's not like we're not gonna see each other."

Winry smiled. "That'd be nice. But, mh, by the way… are you gonna tell any of the others that you have automail?"

"No." Edward said, grimacing. He had hoped that this would not come up.

Silently, Winry looked at him for a moment, and then let out a sigh. "Fine – that's your call to make. But don't be surprised if they keep asking you what's wrong."

"Please," Edward said dismissively. "No one's gonna notice anything."

The more time Harry spend around Edward, the more one particular thought formed in his mind: Namely, that Edward was weird. Not in the kind of way that he behaved strangely, or in a way that confused everyone around him. But rather in subtle ways, that made Harry wonder a whole lot of questions which he knew he wouldn't get an answer to if he asked.

What first made Harry think this was when Edward rejoined them in the Great Hall after he had been pulled aside by Professor MacGonagall. After Harry and Ron had asked him what had happened, he made a vague statement about how she had needed to talk to him about a recent injury that he had, and then refused to elaborate. Winry, who had accompanied him to the Gryffindor table for a moment, also didn't say anything more than that, though she did give Harry and Ron an apologetic kind of glance. What that meant was obvious enough: She knew what Edward was keeping from them, but that she felt that it wasn't her call to reveal it. Not even Hermione, who also had noticed that Edward was being pulled aside, could get him to talk about it.

Beyond this one instance though, Harry quickly noticed a number of things about Edward that puzzled him. One thing in particular was that he never seemed to be taking off the white gloves that he had already worn when Harry first met him. Be it before going to sleep, after waking up, during class, or even when using the restroom, Harry never saw Edward without them. With what he remembered from their visit to Ollivanders, he figured that whatever reason Edward had for wearing the gloves, it had something to do with his right hand or arm – but he could, for the life of him, not figure out what it was. When Harry brought this up to Ron (who himself hadn't really noticed anything odd, but admitted to never having seen Edward without his gloves, either), he said that he didn't know of any magic diseases or injuries that would require him to wear gloves. But whatever it was, it made Edward constantly use his left hand for just about everything, even though his right hand seemed to be moving just fine. Harry half considered asking Hermione if she knew anything, but decided against it – her bossy attitude was making it not worth it.

But despite all this, at the end of the day, Edward was still undeniably Harry's friend. Therefore, he tried to ignore his own nagging curiosity, no matter how hard it got. And it was a good thing, too, that Edward was his friend, because as it turned out, he was a huge help in keeping up with classes. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand saying a few funny words.

That Edward would most likely be one of the best students in most classes already became apparent as early as one of their first classes, transfigurations, which proved itself to be challenging already early on. Professor MacGonagall, who taught the class, gave them a talking-to the moment they had sat down.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. That alone was seemingly enough to get Edward fully engaged in the class, as he immediately raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr Elric?"

"Professor, I was wondering – what exactly is the difference between transfigurations and alchemy? And does Equivalent Exchange apply in any way to transfigurations?"

Professor MacGonagall was impressed.

"That is a question that I usually hear far later in this class," she noted. "Do you have any prior experience with alchemy?"

"Me and my brother basically grew up around our father's alchemy books. We've been studying since I was about five years old, and… spend some time with a private teacher."

"Interesting… well, to answer your question, Mr Elric: Transfigurations and alchemy are indeed rather closely related, and being proficient at one tends to help with the other. The fundamental difference between the two however is that alchemy primarily uses the energy of tectonic shifts to bring about a permanent change in matter. Transfigurations on the other hand solely use magic, and are entirely reliant by the witch or wizard that cast them. The moment no active effort is put into keeping an object or being transfigured, it regains its original shape. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, professor," Edward said. For a moment, Harry thought that he looked somewhat disappointed, but if he was, he didn't remain so for long.

After that, they first had to make a lot of complicated notes, before they were given the task of turning a match into a needle. By the end of the class, only two students had made any visible progress towards that goal, those being Edward and Hermione.

But for as good as he was at transfigurations, Edward was no better than Harry and Ron at other subjects. Not even he was able to follow the incredibly boring History of Magic class (taught by the ghost Professor Binns), and seemed to be outright struggling at Charms (taught by the House teacher of Ravenclaw, Professor Flitwick).

When the time came for their first of three Herbology lessons this week, they had a positive surprise waiting for them, in the form of them having the subject together with the Hufflepuffs – and by extension, Winry. Being reunited with her did wonders for Edward's previously somewhat sour mood, as he became a lot more open after that. Even if the constant flow of subtle and not-so-subtle plant puns by the teacher (Professor Sprout, House teacher of Hufflepuff) was a bit much.

In contrast to Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts turned out to be a huge disappointment. Professor Quirrel could barely control the class, which in itself was comprised of nothing but dry theory. Before class, Edward had remarked that Quirrel seemed like a pushover to him. After class, he was certain of it, and Harry was inclined to agree with him.

The classes that Harry unexpectedly found himself looking forward to the most were the (to him) most normal-sounding classes, Math, English, Physics and Biology. While he somewhat knew to expect from the classes based on his previous muggle school experiences, what got him curious was to see how differently these subjects would be taught at Hogwarts.

Ultimately however, none of the subjects were too drastically different from what Harry had seen before. But this also meant that children from wizarding families were in for many unexpected new things. All four of the subjects were pretty normal, with the only magic in class being used whenever the teachers moved things around the blackboard to make them easier to understand. Two of the subjects, Math and Physics, were pretty similar in the regard that they were taught by teachers who also taught elective subjects for older students: the Math teacher, Professor Septima Vector also taught Arithmancy (which dealt with the magical properties of numbers and the like), while the Physics teacher, Professor Aurora Sinistra, also taught Astronomy. Both of the teachers were also pretty similar in how they handled their classes, being more on the strict side, but not unfriendly or unreasonable.

The teachers for Biology and English meanwhile had no other subjects that they taught. Biology was taught by Professor Shou Tucker, a kindly middle-aged man with a receding hairline, who, like Quirrel, had some considerable difficulties controlling the students. English on the other hand was taught by Professor Duncan Ladair, a young man with a heavy Scottish accent that, between his fancy clothes and long, dark hair that looked like he stepped right out of a painting of an 18th century novelist. His class was rather easy to follow, on account of him being so incredibly enthusiastic about it all that it was difficult to not get swept up in it. He also handed out a book that they would have to read for class over the next weeks – The Hobbit. The way he explained it, they would be starting class by getting a muggle perspective of magic and the like.

Throughout all of their classes, Harry quickly found out that he was barely better or worse than any of his friends, or even any of the other students. And while he was more quick to adapt to the 'muggle subjects', Ron surprised him by taking to Math extremely well, being even better at it than Edward. But no matter how good any of them was at any of the subjects they had so far, Hermione was better still at almost everything (except for Edward and transfigurations).

By Friday, Harry and the others had, more or less, been able to adjust themselves to life at Hogwarts – it was the first day that they had managed to make it to the Great hall in the morning without ever getting lost. Proud with their accomplishments, the three of them sat down at the Gryffindor table, next to Hermione at Edward's silent insistence. Harry and Ron, in an equally silent agreement, sat down on his other side, just like they had been for the entire past week. Shortly after they started eating, Winry passed by their table, together with two girls that Harry vaguely remembered being Lan Fan and Tiffany.

"Hey there," she said. "Did you have Potions yet?"

"Not yet. We have double Potions with the Slytherins next, and Alchemy with the Ravenclaws after that. Why do you ask?" Harry answered, checking their timetable. Edward looked like he had wanted to answer as well, but his mouth was too full with food.

"We had Potions yesterday with the Ravenclaws. It was just the worst! The teacher, Professor Snape began class by asking us some obscure questions about things from our textbook, and then belittled us when no one could answer him! He must've taken at least a dozen points from both us and the Ravenclaws."

"And we're having the class with the Slytherins," Ron noted darkly. "My brothers always told me how Snape favours them. That'll be fun…"

"Do you still remember what things he asked you?" Hermione piped up. She was probably already mentally rehearsing everything she had read in their text book.

Winry thought about that. "Hmm… only one thing. He wanted to know what a... I think it was called a 'bezoar' was? It's a stone from the stomach of a goat that's supposed to save you from poisons. I only really remember it because it sounded gross. There was also a trick question about two plants that are actually one and the same. Can't remember anything else though, sorry."

"Don't worry, it's all right!" Hermione said.

At that moment, post arrived. Hundreds of owls flew into the hall, landed near students, and dropped off their letters and packages. And for the first time this week, Hedwig had something for Harry, in the form of a note that she dropped near him. Harry took it and tore it open at once.

Dear Harry,
I know you get most of your Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around four? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig. Your friends can come, too, of course.
Hagrid

"Well, I should be going," Winry said meanwhile. "I still want to eat something before we have Biology. I need to be able to pay attention for that!"

"Seems like someone found their favourite already," Edward noted dryly. "Lemme guess, you like it because it's important for automail?"

"This is from Hagrid! He's inviting me for tea at four. Do you want to come along?" Harry quickly asked, before the two could get into an argument. Being around them for three Herbology classes already was more than enough to notice that that tended to happen.

"Yeah, sure! I haven't really met Hagrid yet, so I'd love to come along. See you then!"

With that, she left together with the other two girls, who had both waited for her. Harry let out a sigh of relief, glad to have that crisis averted.

"You're coming along as well, aren't you?" He then asked Ron and Edward, who both agreed… as well as Hermione. For a moment, Harry considered telling her that he hadn't been talking to her, but decided against it. She came along with Edward and Winry well enough, and he himself didn't really mind her that much, unlike Ron. Ron would just have to deal with it.

Harry borrowed Ron's quill, scribbled 'Yes, please, we'll be seeing you later' on the back of Hagrid's note and sent Hedwig off again.

It was lucky that Potions was only the first class of the day, as it turned out to be the low point of the entire week.

Snape began the class, which took place down in the dungeons, by taking the register, like pretty much every other teacher (sans Bins) this week. And like pretty much every other teacher, he paused at Harry's name. And unlike pretty much every other teacher, he used the opportunity to make a dismissive remark about Harry.

After giving a little introductory speech – which did an excellent job of establishing him as the kind of teacher who ruled over class with an iron fist – he turned to Harry.

"Potter!" Snape exclaimed. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry remained silent, and exchanged a quick side glance with Ron and Edward. This was clearly the 'quiz' Winry had mentioned. Hermione's hand had shot in their air, but between the three of them, everyone was stumped.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry.

"Tut, tut – fame clearly isn't everything."

He ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Harry felt a wave of relief come over him. It seemed like Snape was asking them the same questions as the ones he had asked the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. It seemed like he wouldn't be entirely ridiculed, after all.

Next to him, Hermione, Ron and Edward all raised their hands, but Harry also still remembered the answer. Just as Winry had said, it was too gross to forget.

"In the stomach of a goat, sir. It is a stone that can be used as an antidote."

Snape raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. It didn't seem like Harry had won his approval, but he at the very least seemed satisfied with the answer.

"Would you look at that. It seems like you aren't an entirely hopeless case, after all, Potter. But that may just as well have been a fluke. Last question: What is the difference between monkswood and wolfsbane?"

Just as before, Hermione raised her hand. This time however, Ron and Edward didn't. Harry however remembered what Winry had said about a trick question – assuming that these were still the same questions, maybe this was it? It was at least worth a shot.

"I think they may be the same plant, sir? I'm not entirely sure, though."

Snape seemed almost a bit disappointed.

"Correct. And for your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar can indeed be taken from the stomach of a goat, and will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "Your spotty knowledge will however not go unpunished, Potter. Five points will be taken from–"

Before he could however finish, someone spoke up.

"Excuse meeeee? Professoooor?" the person said in a cheery tone, while drawing out almost every word for a needless amount.

A rush of panic came over the Gryffindors. If Snape was already ready to take off points for not knowing one answer, what would happen to someone who just spoke up without asking?

But as it turned out, the speaker wasn't even from Gryffindor – it was a Slytherin.

"What is it, Yao?" Snape asked disapprovingly to an Asian-looking boy that Harry remembered as having been one of the last students to get sorted.

"Weeeeell, it's just that I didn't know any of these, either," he said. "So I was wondering, are you gonna be taking points from Slytherin as well? And I think that aside from me, the others don't know it, either!"

Harry stared at him. Ron stared at him. Edward stared at him. Hermione stared at him. The remaining Gryffindors stared at him. The other Slytherins stared at him. Everyone was in a collective shock at the notion of a Slytherin student complaining about points being taken from a Gryffindor student. Then, everyone's attention slowly shifted to Snape, as they were awaiting his reaction.

You could see that the cogs were turning in Snape's mind. His desire to give preferential treatment to his house was battling with his desire to remain in full control of his class. Then–

"You are correct. Consider yourself lucky, Potter. No points will be taken."

Before the class had a chance to fall into a collective shock again, or to even process what they had just heard, Snape continued the lesson, seeming to opt for the 'we're never talking about this again' approach. He put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. As they did, Snape did his best to make sure the Gryffindors weren't getting any wrong ideas by going out of his way to criticize everyone for even the slightest mistake, while praising the Slytherins (sans Ling Yao) for the most mundane of things.

For the Gryffindors, this meant an extra amount of stress, and eventually, the inevitable happened: Neville had made enough mistakes with the potion him and Seamus were working on that it melted through his cauldron, spewing an acid green smoke and a loud hissing.

Within seconds, the whole class were standing on their stools. Neville himself had just narrowly managed to avoid being drenched by the potion.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "Make sure that this cauldron is replaced or repaired until next lesson, because otherwise, you'll be facing detention."

Neville whimpered. He looked like he was just about ready to storm out of the classroom, crying.

Next to Harry however, Edward was grinning confidently. A thought seemed to have crossed his mind.

"Uhm, sir? I think I might be able to help with this!"

Snape whirled around to look at Edward. "You must be an even greater idiot than him if you think you can do anything about this! Metal objects are difficult even for adults to cast spells on, so what makes you think a first-year student such as you can repair it?"

"Just watch me, sir."

Edward got up from the table that he and Hermione had been working on, walked over to Neville's cauldron, and examined it closely. Snape, apparently willing to let Edward try what he wanted to try, just watched him. He was probably assuming that Edward would fail and embarrass himself.

But rather than pulling out his wand to use a spell, Edward clapped his hands together in front of his body – which produced an odd ringing sound – and then placed his left hand on the cauldron. At once, blindingly blue sparks appeared around it, as the cauldron began to change shape. Slowly but surely, the hole closed itself, and before long, the cauldron stood there, as if the potion had never melted through it to begin with.

For the second time already, the entire class was left in a state of shock. No one, not even Harry, Ron or Hermione had expected this. Neville meanwhile just looked at Edward as if he had saved his life.

"If spells or transfigurations can't do it, then alchemy can!" Edward said somewhat smugly. "It should be usable like this, right, sir?"

Snape however didn't answer right away. He just gave Edward a look that was… hard to interpret, but seemed… confused?

"Yes… that will do, Mr… Elric?" He said slowly. As he did, he seemed to be regaining his composure, as he quickly added, "But this will still be five points from Gryffindor. I haven't such a sloppy attempt at a simple potion in years! You had better be glad that you didn't get into contact with this acid, boy, or else you would've spend the rest of the day in the hospital wing!"

He paused and looked around the rest of the class. "Did I tell you to stop your work? Get back to your potions! And you two," he pointed at Neville and Seamus, "start over at once! I expect a finished potion by the end of the lesson!"

Hurriedly, the students got back to working on their potions. Edward dashed back to Hermione, while Snape continued looking at him, as if he was trying to figure something out.

Harry meanwhile another point on the list of things that were weird about Edward.

Author's Notes:
Well then, here's the obligatory notes. Let's see if I can keep them somewhat short for once!
My original plan for Hughes' part of this chapter was to just have the journey to Edinburgh go through without a problem. But then I had some more ideas on how to have his story play out, so I added this train incident. The plan was then to have this resolved in one chapter, but things got too long, so I made the cut where it is now. If the set-up seems familiar, it's because I based it on something covered by the FMA manga and 03 anime - but of course, things are going to play out a bit differently here.
"Knights of Walpurgis" is actually a name that JK Rowling originally considered using in place of "Death Eaters", so it was really just ripe for me to use.
Now, regarding all the references to wizarding Germany. Well, I am German, so I just had to use this opportunity to throw in my headcanons for that. And I think I speak for everyone if I say that JK Rowling is, with regards to the whole "there are seven wizarding schools in the whole world", full of shit.
About the teachers: I didn't really want to cook up any OCs for all four of the "normal" subjects, so for two, I just used existing Hogwarts teachers that never had much of a role. Astronomy is also now an elective, because it also never really played a role. The English teacher is an OC in the loosest way - I could really think of any FMA or HP character that could fit the job, so I quickly modelled a character after a game character. Just google "Dunban Xenoblade" to find out more about that source. And the Biology teacher. . . I have nothing to say on that. And Ron is good at Math now, because I wanted to give him something to be good at.
Last thing to note, Snape. Snape, Snape, Severus Sna- uh, I mean, what to do with him. If you recall me having Hagrid call Dumbledore out for the Dursley's treatment of Harry, you might be able to tell what my stance on child abuse is. Snape's horrible teaching methods and blatant will definitely not be ignored going forward. I definitely have some plans for the guy, but I'm not quite sure what to work towards. By having his questions for Harry be something that he does for every class I'm already giving him the benefit of the doubt to a huge degree. In my later use of him, I'll probably be a lot more critical.
And. . . that's about everything I can think of right now, with regards to notes? I might edit these later and edit more, but that's all for now, yeah. I think they are getting shorter. . .