The next week was the longest week of Ed's life. He had been given a room across the hall from where Ron and Hermione were staying. It was quite plain, with a bed and something called a dresser with a mirror on it, and not much else. Which Edward was content with. He didn't need much, because he usually had Al to keep him company. With Al not around, Ed found that he had to interact with the other people in the house. Usually because Hermione drags him to do so, to improve his English.
There were the four people he met on his first day in, and three other regulars. Ginny, Fred, and George. Sister and brothers to Ron, with Molly being their mother. Every single one of them was surprised at the amount Ed ate, topping even that of Ron, their family's biggest eater, by at least two times. They were also surprised at his age. He threw a massive fit when they thought that he was 12, and a little short to be 15. Fred and George never stopped teasing him about his age or size since.
They were nice people, but he was content to be a non-participant in their usual conversations. He tried to only spoke when they asked him a direct question. It was difficult at the start, with all their talk of magic, to not burst out into laughter or scowl at their ignorance, but it got easier over time. Even when they did perform their 'magic' in front of him, like plates lifting by themselves or the house being cleaned by sentient brooms, he wrote it off as some unnatural alchemy that Flamel's notes would shed light on.
Other people would always pop in and out of the house, and sometimes they would hold secret meetings in the kitchen downstairs, but Edward paid them no mind. He'd keep himself busy with research on the Four-Point Circle or physical exercises to keep his body in working condition. Sirius was even kind enough to give Edward access to the library in his house, after Ed apologized, no matter how insincerely it was. Sirius even taught him some of the words Hermione absolutely refused to.
The monotony was finally broken when a new arrival came into the house. Hermione sounded extremely excited, judging by the squeals coming from her room, before her door burst open as she went down to greet the newcomer. The closing of her door a few minutes later probably meant whoever it was was in their room.
Edward lay back on his bed, a smile forming on his face. They had been talking about some hairy kid non-stop for the past few weeks, like he was so all mighty and important. He was their age too, apparently, and that he was in trouble or using magic or something. Ed had scoffed. He'd been in trouble many times in the military for wanton destruction or something like that. Never stopped him.
But if the kid's here means that they should be heading to Dumbledore's school soon, which mean he was oh-so close to Flamel's notes.
Screaming broke Edward's momentary happiness. Something about a sorcerer's stones or a riddle and dementia. He tried to block it out with his pillow, but the screaming came from right next door. It continued on about dragons and sphinxes and fowls until Ed couldn't take it anymore. "GOD, JUST SHUT UP ALREADY, PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!" Silence. Peace. Ed exhaled, finally relaxing.
There was a knock on his door. "Edward?" Hermione's voice. "Can we come in?"
Ed was about to reply when he realized he wasn't wearing his jacket or coat; his automail was showing. "J-just a minute!" he yelled, pulling on his black jacket and boots. "Alright, come in!"
Hermione slowly opened the door, and was followed by Ron and another kid that he had never seen before. This kid was taller than Hermione, but shorter than Ron, and had messy but short black hair. His eyes were surprisingly green, behind those round glasses he wore. A lightning bolt scar rested just above his left eye.
"Need something?" Edward asked, propping himself up on his bed.
"Who's this runt?" the new kid asked, bitterness lacing his voice. Ron and Hermione both shared a look that could only say 'Uh-oh' as a vein popped out near Edward's temple.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE NEEDS A STEPLADDER TO CLIMB A FULL SIZED LADDER?!"
Just then, with a crack, Fred and George appeared in the room. They looked at Ed in anticipation, before a disappointed look replaced them. "Aww, did we miss another great shorty rant?"
"COME HERE AND I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS SO YOU'RE SHORTER THAN ME!" Edward yelled, leaping at the twins. They Apparated away, leaving Edward to crash into the floor. Giggles could be heard further up the house. "Damn those bastards."
Ron and Hermione seemed both amused and scared "Umm... Harry, this is Edward. Ed, this is Harry," Hermione introduced the two.
Edward frowned at Harry, still coming off one of his famous rants. A thin and weak-looking kid, Ed could see something in the kid's eyes. Anger. Suffering. Determination. He was very familiar with those; saw them every time he looked in the mirror. But there was something else. Isolation. Loneliness. Whatever this Harry's been through, it was not pretty.
Harry didn't appear to share the sentiment. "What's he doing here? Is this another thing Dumbledore instructed you not to tell me about?" he demanded from Ron and Hermione. His voice was shaking. Another yelling match could start any time soon.
"What good would that have done?" Edward answered for them. Harry's glare now turned to him, and he returned the look. His self-entitlement was getting on Ed's nerves. "Would all information in the world have done anything?"
Harry snapped. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "YOU'RE NOT THE ONE WHO'S BEEN TRAPPED IN HELL FOR FOUR WEEKS! YOU'RE NOT THE ONE WHO'S BEEN TASKED WITH TAKING DOWN VOLDEMORT! YOU'RE NOT THE ONE WHO'S HAD TO WATCH A FRIEND DIE IN FRONT OF HIM!"
Edward clenched his hands. What does this kid know about hell, running around screaming like the world revolves around him? About death? About-
"Edward?" Hermione gingerly asked, as if Edward was an atomic bomb ready to go off.
Harry gave her a black look. "SO YOU'RE TAKING HIS SIDE?"
"Get out." The softness of the command shocked everyone in the room. Harry didn't need to be told twice. Instantly, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut. Ron and Hermione just stood here, a mixture of negative emotions on their faces, looking back and forth between Ed and the door. They decided Harry was more important, and chased after him.
Ed flopped on the bed as he fumed. He hasn't been this angry- no, that wasn't the word; upset? Disappointed?- since, well, he couldn't remember. Al was always the one to talk him out of everything, his anchor to earth, but without him here...
He tried to focus the emotions into figuring out a way home, but the dead ends just frustrated him even more. Finally he just flopped onto the bed, closing his eyes, forcing himself to sleep, ignoring whoever came up to call him down for dinner.
An an hour and forty-eight minutes passed, and there was another knock on the door. "Edward? Are you hungry?" Mrs Weasley.
He got up, feeling his limbs creak from staying in one spot too long, and opened the door slightly. Her concerned face looked at him through the crack. "I'm not hungry." His stomach growled audibly. He looked down, irritated. Et tu, stomach?
"It's alright dear, the rest of the children have gone to bed," she explained. Meaning Harry. "Besides, there's a few people I want you to meet."
Ed's stomach growled again. "Alright," he muttered, grabbing his red coat before heading downstairs.
"There's only leftovers," Molly started to explain, but Ed stopped her from continuing with a noise signaling his understanding. As they entered the kitchen, Ed saw Sirius sitting there, and a couple of new faces and old faces he just didn't care to remember.
The first person he noticed was a woman with spiky purple hair and a pale heart-shaped face, who waved happily at him. Next was a short man with a distinct lack of hair, and smelled terribly like cigarettes and alcohol. Then there was a man with a pale face and a small, rough beard with gray tints in his otherwise light brown hair. Ed could have sworn he smelled like wet dog, but didn't want to mention it. The last two were obviously part of Molly's family, one significantly older than the other. Ed wondered how many people could one family fit.
"Ah, you must be Edward Elric!" the older Weasley stood up and extended his right hand. "I'm Arthur, Molly's husband." Edward took the man's hand, feeling him squeeze his automail in a firm handshake. "Quite a grip you got there," Arthur chuckled, surprised.
"Yeah, well..." Ed chuckled awkwardly. He flailed his hand around, pretending that it hurt. "You too."
The purple haired girl was eager to be next. She stood up, and gleefully shook Ed's hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Tonks!" Her hair turned from purple to pink.
"Uh..." Ed stammered, unable to believe his eyes. "Did your hair just..."
She nodded, grinning. "I'm a Metamorphmagus!" As she said so, he hair turned into a multitude of colors.
"How..." Ed muttered, as he moved around her, staring at the changing colors.
"Ahem," Mrs Weasley cleared her throat. Everyone else was staring in amusement at Ed's wonder.
The man with the gray streak in his hair stepped came to him next. "I'm Remus Lupin, pleasure to meet you." Ed shook his hand, trying not to crinkle his nose at the smell.
The balding man was Mundungus Fletcher, and the other Weasley was Bill. Ed didn't like Fletcher, he seemed too much like the criminal type.
As Molly gathered as much of the leftovers as she could, knowing Ed's appetite, the rest took an interest in the boy. They all studied him non-verbally, looking up and down Edward. He felt like a frog in a laboratory.
Remus Lupin was the first one to speak up. "So, Edward, where are you from?"
Edward looked at the man. From the look on his face, Ed could tell that he already knew the answer. "I'm from Germany," he lied, remembering a place he saw on this world's map. Lupin was surprised, but before he could say anything, Ed continued. "You already know, so why ask?"
Sirius burst out in laughter. "He got you, Moony!" The rest joined in the laughter as well, but Ed didn't miss the impressed look on Lupin's face.
"You're good, Edward," Lupin conceded, and Edward had a proud smirk on his face. "You're right, Dumbledore told us about your situation." Molly placed a plate full of food in front of Ed, who promptly dug in.
Tonks spoke next. "Wow, that's a lot of food, Ed! You're gonna eat all of it?"
"You'd be surprised," Molly chuckled as Ed started scarfing down the meal.
Between mouthfuls, Ed engaged in conversation, to the displeasure of Mrs Weasley. "He told you about me teaching, too?"
The people at the table nodded. "Dumbledore said you'd be teaching alchemy, right?" Bill asked. Ed nodded. "Well, isn't alchemy about potions or transfiguration?"
Ed sighed. Even the adults were clueless. "No. Alchemy is the art of manipulating and altering matter using natural energy," he recited, to the look of utter confusion of the adults. "Alright," he tried to explain like he was talking to a child, "see this table?" he knocked on the dining table. "It's made of wood." The adults nodded, showing no signs of displeasure that they were being treated like idiots. Instead, they were nothing if not fascinated.
"So, wood is made up of 50 percent carbon, 42 oxygen, 6 hydrogen, 1 nitrogen and 1 percent of other elements combined." Edward shook his head at the utterly confused look of the adults.
Arthur, however, had a great curiosity. "This is what the muggles call 'chemistry', right?"
"Umm... Yeah." Ed made a mental note to find out what muggles are. "So, by understanding the chemical makeup of this wood, I can deconstruct it and remake it to what I want." He clapped his hands and placed them on the table. There was a flash of blue light, and in the middle of the table stood a small, perfect replica of everyone in the room sans Edward.
"Wow! It looks like just me!" Tonks exclaimed. "Even the eyes!"
"My nose doesn't look like that!" Fletcher growled.
"Is that me or Bill?" Arthur poked his own statue.
"Why do I look like a homeless person?" Sirius asked.
"Dammit, Ed, not on the table!" Molly scolded.
Another clap, and the table was restored to normal. "So that, fundamentally, is alchemy."
"And you can do that with anything?" Lupin asked.
"Yeah, if I know what makes up the object I want to transmute," Ed elaborated. He left out the part about human transmutation. That was one thing they could remain in the dark about.
"It's no wonder Dumbledore asked you to teach Alchemy," Bill chuckled. "So what did you do before you... got here?" He paused awhile to phrase his question appropriately.
"I was a State Alchemist." Edward returned to eating his food.
"What's that?" came the inevitable question, from Sirius this time.
"Basically I worked for the military." This came as a shock to everyone.
"How can your military employ someone so young?" Tonks asked.
"Hey!" he snapped. "I am not a kid! And I'm a genius, just so you know." He took another bite. "And State Alchemists aren't your average military soldiers. You have to pass rigorous tests before you get your license."
"Isn't there an age restriction on the tests?" Molly asked. Why couldn't everyone get over his age?
"No, but they thought that the difficulty of the tests would keep anyone like me out. Obviously that failed," Edward gloated.
"So you're familiar with war?" Lupin questioned. Ed noticed some agenda behind the question, but didn't call him out on it.
"Not really. I joined during a time of relative peace. The military funds all State Alchemists research, so I do that most of the time. Research."
"So you join and they give you money to do whatever you want?" Sirius asked. "That sounds like a good life."
Ed hesitated. It wasn't like he was relaxing in piles of money... "Sort of. Every year the military conducts a review on the research State Alchemists do, to see whether we are a worthy use of the military's funds." He put down his utensils, done with his meal. "If we're done here, I'd like to head to bed." The questions were getting too close to dangerous territory.
Arthur seemed to want to ask more questions, but Lupin stopped him. "Yes, of course. See you around, Edward."
A chorus of 'good nights' and 'bye byes' echoed as he left for his room.
"So, what do you think, Remus?" Arthur asked, all their expressions now one of business.
"He doesn't seem harmful..." Lupin started.
"But he could be if he wanted to," Sirius finished, not as an accusation, but as an observation. Lupin nodded.
"But he's just a kid..." Tonks pondered.
"Yes, but those eyes are one that's seen tremendous pain," Lupin announced. "Even for one as young as himself."
"Like Harry has?" Sirius asked.
"No. I'd reckon he's seen worse."
