Envy was quite a sight, walking down the street from Kings Cross station to the orphanage. His trunk dragged loudly behind him, and his owl gazed back and forth suspiciously, narrowing its eyes at every staring passerby. Envy decided to ignore them.

The orphanage was quiet from the outside, and Envy got the idea that no one was near the front door. Good. Now he could haul his stuff up to his room and no one would see it. Sure, several already had, but he didn't want to make them any more curious than they already were. They weren't supposed to know. And he was used to keeping secrets.

So haul his stuff up the stairs he did. He stuck to the edges of the stairs so as to avoid the creaking steps and heaved his trunk to the top. If anything confirmed that he wasn't as strong as he used to be, it was this. He was gonna be feeling that tomorrow.

He dropped the trunk at the end of his bed—though it felt less like his and more like something he crashed on until summer ended at this point. Nipper went on his desk, and he decided to let it out the window. It bit him on the way out of the cage.

Envy groaned and plopped onto the edge of his bed, nursing his throbbing finger. So much for handy communication animals.

He probably needed to let Eliza or some such person know that he was back. He spent another minute sitting there before getting up and heading downstairs.

The halls and rooms were empty for the most part, and the few people he passed didn't notice him. When he came to the back door and looked out the window most everyone was outside. He stared for a moment, hand inching toward the doorknob, and finally pushed the door open.

"Hey guys, I'm back!"

Eliza, or Ms. Todd as she was trying to convince him to call her, spent a while fussing over him. "Have you had lunch? When did you get here? How was your year? Did you learn much?"

He was sure to answer the last two questions vaguely. Eliza raised a skeptical pair of eyebrows, but didn't bother commenting—Envy supposed she though he was just being a silly child, or something. Well he was thirteen, so shame on her.

Wait, no, he wasn't thirteen. He was way older than that.

"Hello Envy!" Ian declared as he bounced up to him, his sister trailing reluctantly behind. "Did you get any more weird stuff this year?"

"Shh!" Envy glanced over to where Eliza was helping some new kid dislodge his shoe from a tree branch. How that had even gotten up there… "We, uh, don't want her knowing I have the weird stuff."

Ian frowned. "Why? Which 'her'?" His eyes widened. "You don't mean Mia, do you? 'Cause I've told her about loads of your stuff!"

Ian's sister sent him an unimpressed glare.

"No, no, I mean El—Ms. Todd over there." He gestured vaguely. "You know how adults are about some things. She might decide I shouldn't have this stuff for some reason and take it away, and we don't want that."

"So it's all right that I told Mia, then?"

"...Yes."

'-'

The remainder of the afternoon was spent out in the yard under the burning sun. They finished off the day with a dinner that wasn't as good as the ones at Hogwarts, and Envy isolated himself in his room to start on summer homework. Might as well get it done early.

He tapped his quill on the corner of his parchment, leaving an ever soggier ink blot behind where there should have been the start of a title. Maybe he could go for something blunt and obvious, like, "Why Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless", or, "This Essay is a Pain and I Doubt You're Going to Read This Title Anyway So Whatever". He decided to play it safe and go for the first.

He managed to get a paragraph in before calling it quits for the night—it was summer, he could relax and do some Transfigurations homework. The good stuff. He'd continue the other essay tomorrow.

So of course the next few days passed homework-free, and it was an entire week before he sat down to work on that specific essay again.

It was about half past eight. Envy had his wand tucked behind his ear, having been using it before to practice spell motions, which he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be doing. Elbow leaned on his desk, he began scratching out sentences, stopping every now and then to flip aimlessly through his History of Magic textbook. He was staring blankly at a graphic picture of an unlucky witch being burned at the stake when there was a light knock on the door and it began to creak open.

Rude.

Naturally his first instinct was to hid away his out-of-place ink and quill, and not to slam closed the book. Or scramble his other magical objects back into his trunk. Or anything that would have seemed sensible to someone else.

"Mr. Novus," Eliza began as she glanced around the room. She stopped short.

Envy turned in his seat, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the wand he'd tucked behind his ear. He grabbed it and put it behind his back. "Uhhm. Hi."

Eliza furrowed her brow, eyes roving over the multitude of abnormal objects and books he had strewn about. "...I'd like to talk to you about what you've learned over the school year."

He rose to his feet. "Sure, sure! Just let me clean up first." He snapped the book shut on the brutal illustration Eliza's gaze had come to rest upon, then gathered up the rest of his books and his wand and anything else that looked too weird and dumped them safely in his trunk. He hoped that tinkly noise hadn't been one of his potions vials shattering. He slammed the trunk closed and took a seat on his bed, offering the desk chair to Eliza.

She took it with the grace of a harried housewife mixed with a regal nanny. "What are you up to this evening, Envy?" Her voice was pleasant curiosity veiling concerned confusion.

"Just summer homework." He shrugged.

"It's good that you're keeping up with your schoolwork." She smiled a strained smile. "What topic are you writing about?"

It was easiest to go with the truth, but maybe withhold a little. "Witch burnings in the fourteenth century. For History." That was something Muggles learned in class, right?

Eliza's eyes flicked to his trunk and back again. "Ah. An interesting assignment." She folded her hands in her lap. "What else have you been learning this year? Have you been getting good grades?"

What else had he been learning that didn't sound too much like wizardry? He rubbed a lock of hair between his fingers. Potions. "We've started on Chemistry. It's interesting."

Eliza's smile grew a smidge less tight. "Oh, well that's wonderful. Are you enjoying it?"

"It's good. Only I'm not sure whether the teacher likes me or not. I'm in his house though, so I think he might be just a little biased." He grinned.

Eliza's smile froze. "House?"

Maybe normal schools here were more similar to those in Amestris than he thought. "Um, yeah! It's a special thing our school does. To encourage competition. It's like teams."

"I see." Her hands clenched each other tightly. "Mr. Novus, I want you to be honest with me. What sort of school is this? You've been attending for two years and somehow I know nothing about it." She sent him a sharp look. "There is obviously something wrong with that."

Envy glanced to the side. "It's just a normal school." It was, in a manner of speaking. Normal for wizards.

"I said honest, Mr. Novus. No more skirting around the truth. The things you've had since you started going to this school—they're strange. You use parchment instead of normal paper. Quills and ink instead of a pen or pencil. You have an owl, and a cauldron for God's sake!" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Forgive me if I sound rash, but it seems almost as if you've joined a—a cult."

Envy clenched his fists. There wasn't much that could be done now; Ms. Todd could see too much, she wasn't an idiot. He would be hard pressed to hide anything from her.

Well, telling her the truth couldn't be too bad—a lot of Muggle guardians knew about magic. That was fine.

"You're close, but not quite right—I'm actually attending a magic school."

Eliza was unamused. "This is serious, Envy. Don't joke about it."

Envy sighed. "I'm not joking. I go to a magic school called Hogwarts where kids learn to control their powers with wands. Wait a sec—" He got up and opened his trunk, rummaging through the mess, discovering along the way that the tinkly noise had indeed been one of his potions vials breaking, until he found one of Lockhart's books, which had a moving picture of a wizard fighting off a werewolf on the cover. He turned and showed it to Eliza. "There you have it; moving picture on a book. Not possible without magic."

Eliza took the book and frowned at the cover. There was a moment of silence. Envy hoped she was taking this well. Then the book thumped to the floor.

"Why didn't I know about this?" Eliza demanded. She acted strong, but her voice shook. "I think if one of my children is attending a—a magic school, then I should be the first to know about it."

Envy rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, uh, I guess they don't want anyone other than immediate family to know about magic—"

Eliza's face slackened.

"Not that you aren't like family or anything!" Envy added. "It's just that there are laws in place to make sure Muggles don't find out about magic. Something to do with the witch burnings in the fourteenth century. But I think it's fine if you know since you're my legal guardian. Technically."

Eliza shook her head slowly. "I can't believe this. And right under my nose—" She frowned. "The witch burnings? Weren't you just writing an essay about those?"

"Yeah, for History of Magic."

"Ah." She shifted, discomfort flitting across her face. "What subjects are you learning at this school then?"

Oh. Well, she had said she wanted to know what he was learning earlier. "Last couple years, we had Potions, Charms, Transfigurations, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Herbology. Oh, and we had flying lessons, with broomsticks. Next year we get electives, so I'm adding on Care of Magical Creatures, Divinations, and Ancient Runes." He noticed the odd look on her face. "Is that too witchy for you or something?"

She took time to form her next words. "Are these subjects, this school… dangerous, at all?"

"Well, no—" Wait, scratch that, "—yes. They can be. But any magical harm caused can be undone, so there's no use worrying about it."

"Oh," Eliza said with a cloudy sort of sunny tone, "are you speaking from experience?"

She wasn't taking this nearly as badly as expected. Still, best to play on the safe side. "Last year I was petrified for a little while by a magic snake. I'm fine now, they got me fixed up pretty quickly." He grinned. Eliza's expression was sliding in the opposite direction. "And the year before that, some guy was trying to steal a magic stone from the depths of the castle—the school's a castle, I forgot to mention. We've got talking paintings and moving staircases, it's interesting."

Eliza's face grew paler with every word that left Envy's mouth. Perhaps he hadn't been vague enough. "This is a school for children? It sounds anything but safe—what are your teachers thinking?"

Envy shrugged. "No idea. No students have died, though, as far as I know." Other than Myrtle, but he wasn't mentioning her. "Like I said, there's magical solutions for practically everything. Though I've heard the Care of Magical Creatures professor lost a couple limbs and couldn't grow them back." He needed to shut up.

The lady took a deep breath. "Right, then. Envy, I'm not sure I want you going back there."

...What?

He stared blankly at her hard, glistening eyes. "Excuse me?"

"It seems more than a bit dangerous. You say this creatures professor lost limbs—why would a teacher be losing limbs? And you're planning to take his class next year? This seems the least of it, after the rest of what you've told me. Petrified? By a snake? In hiding because of witch burnings? You need to stay in a place where you're safe, and it seems as if that place is here, where there is no magic."

Not going well not going well. He clenched his sweaty fists. "We—I'm perfectly safe! These last two years were just exceptions, usually this doesn't happen, plenty of the older students have told me so. It's not like it'll be that way three years in a row, and I don't think the earlier years of Care of Magical Creatures interact with things dangerous enough to rip limbs off—"

Eliza winced, bad wording.

"—so I'll be fine. I might not even make it far enough into the curriculum to see those creatures. We have exams in fifth year, so I could just get booted out of class for not passing."

She frowned. "Still…"

"You can't pull me out," Envy continued. "I'll find a way to go anyway. And it'll be perfectly safe, the headmaster is the most renowned wizard of the age." Leaving out the fact that he was an old man.

Eliza considered. Envy waited. She considered. He clenched his fists harder, harder.

At last she let out an explosive breath. "Fine. You can go, just this year, and if nothing dangerous happens… you can continue. But only under that condition."

A grin splashed across his face. "Yes!" He punched the air, and Eliza jerked back in her seat, startled. "I guarantee nothing will happen."

"I don't think that's up to you." She smoothed her skirt and pasted on a shaky smile. "How about you show me some of your magic, then?"

His grin faded, and his hand resumed its earlier nervous neck-rubbing. "Oh, sorry. We're not supposed to do magic outside of school—Statute of Secrecy and all. We get expelled if we do magic outside of school before the age of seventeen."

"Ah. I'm sure there's a reason for that." She bent down and plucked Lockhart's book from the floor. "I have to be going now, I must check that the younger children are getting to bed." She handed it to him. "Good night, Envy." The woman walked out, closed the door behind her, and he was left alone in silence.

He hoped he hadn't just made a terrible mistake.

Don't worry, I have an ongoing feeling of motivation with this story. Long waits are just due to procrastination. Need a little something to get me in the mood to write sometimes, y'know?

In other words, I'm definitely continuing this for now. You just gotta be patient with me. :)

Hope you enjoyed!

-Quiet Leaf