Wow, you guys! It's chapter 16! I feel so… tired. Three thousand words! Can you believe that? I know I can't… And now, for a formal apology: Things have been going slowly lately, and I'm sorry – I'm just not as enthusiastic about HP as I am FMA, I suppose… that and we were in an infirmary for a while… that makes me think of sick people… and things always go by slowly if you're sick. Well, we're leaving the hospital atmosphere in this chapter, and I'd like to think that things perk up right away! I've also explained a lot (and set up a whole lot more!) in this chapter, so hopefully you'll forgive me for being so dull before – hopefully I've made it up to you guys! Please feel free to send me a message if I wrote something that doesn't make sense – I'll go back through and re-type it!

I do not own FMA – but I did just find a cheap prom dress! ($30! Woohoo!) yeah…

Chapter 16: "Answers and a New Journey"

"Well, you seem to be feeling all right, so if you don't mind, we'd like some answers," McGonagall said, speaking calmly to Trisha, "I hope that you don't mind."

"Oh, no, of course I don't mind!" Trisha said quickly as she turned to face each of the four people sitting around her bed in turn. 'Maybe,' she thought, 'they'll have some answers for me, too.'

"All right, then; we'll start with this one: how on earth did you manage to get here?" McGonagall asked somewhat skeptically. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at Trisha, waiting for her answer.

"Wow, that's a tough one…" Trisha said slowly. "I can tell you, more or less, how I managed to get here, but I certainly can't tell you why," she said plainly.

"Oh? And why's that?" Hermione asked somewhat snobbishly.

"Because I don't know; I was actually kind of hoping one of you would."

"Is that so?" McGonagall asked.

"Yes. But anyway, I think I came through the Gate…"

"Hey, Hermione! I thought you said that that gate-thingy led to some kind of heaven or paradise!"

"I said that's what scholars believe, Ronald. Honestly," Hermione said in disgust.

"Well, the Gate I came through certainly didn't lead to heaven. It all happened really fast, though – I was back in Amestris – the nation that I'm from – and suddenly I felt like I was pulled by my arm through a door; it kept tugging at me, and there was this bright light everywhere; it was like I was in a giant room. I looked ahead, where the pulling came from, and I saw the Gate opening… there was a big flash of yellow light… and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ground in the dark. My head hurt, and for a minute I couldn't remember what had happened. Then I started to hear laughter…"

"Someone was laughing?" Ron asked, leaning forward.

"Yeah – they started talking to me… they knew my name! It was like they had been waiting for me all along… I'm thinking it was them that pulled me through the Gate. I felt really angry – I was about to ask what was going on, and why they knew me, but suddenly the someone shouted something… screamed it… I don't know what it meant, but something in my head told me told me run… like I had heard it before…"

"What did they say?" McGonagall asked, face drawn tight with concern.

"I'm not sure… it started with an 'A,' I think; anyway, I started to see this flash of green light, and then I remembered – I had heard it before. The night my mother died, someone shouted those same words – there was green light everywhere, and then when I realized what had happened, my mom was dead…"

Hermione gasped. "Avada Kedavra!" she whispered, her mouth covering her hands.

Harry said nothing, looking down at his shoes, face contorted with rage.

Ron looked over at his friend, worried.

McGonagall looked from Harry to Trisha and back again. Finally she asked, "So… when exactly did your mother die?"

"A few years ago… I was… younger then… much younger…"

"What do you mean by that?" McGonagall asked, eyes narrowing.

"You see… I'm a… special case…" Trisha said, choosing her words carefully. "Alchemy is a huge part of me… literally. It's in my very blood. It has to do with how I was born… you see, I was conceived through alchemy – and because of it, I don't age or grow normally; when I was little, I would age as much as 4 or so years within a single year. It's gradually slowed down, and now I'm at the point where my growth rate could be considered normal. Also, because of that alchemy being a part of my physical make-up, whenever I do a transmutation, I draw from the energy around me, but also from the energy within myself."

"That's not possible!" Hermione said crossly.

"What do you mean?" Trisha asked.

"To use alchemy from within yourself! How on earth do you do that? And how were you able to draw those transmutation circles so quickly if you really did fight the Death Eaters like you say?"

"Well, I still don't know what Death Eaters are, but this is how I was able to fight them," she said, picking up an empty glass medicine jar from the bed-side table and setting it in her lap before bringing her hands together,

"CLAP!"

"ZZAP!"

"Whoa!" Ron and Harry shouted; Hermione looked on in disbelief. Professor McGonagall simply bent down and carefully inspected the intricately carved glass vase that was now in Trisha's hands. "Poppy will be furious," she said simply, giving a small, rare smile.

"So…" Hermione said slowly, "you don't need circles…"

"That's right. I form a circle by using myself – bringing my hands together, that is. My dad could do it because he saw the 'Truth' inside the Gate when he tried to bring my grandmother back from the dead… I can do it because of what I am."

…

"Basically, then, you're one part alchemy – is that it?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, pretty much. It's kind of weird, I know, but it does account for quite a lot about me…" Trisha said simply.

"Like what?" Hermione said, crossing her arms.

"Like how my hair and eyes were silver when you guys ran into me in the woods," Trisha told her, looking the young witch in the eyes.

"Explain." McGonagall said.

"Well, when I was little, I used to go outside and play with other kids all the time. There was one day where I absolutely exhausted myself from being out in the heat all day long. When I got home, my mom screamed – my hair and eyes were silver. She thought something was wrong with me; she put me straight to bed, and said she'd call a doctor. By the time the doctor came I few hours later, I had woken up and I was back to normal. What had happened was that I drained a lot of my energy; because in alchemy energy is so easily expendable and so malleable, if I'm not careful I can use up too much energy, and my body will begin to shut down. My hair and eye color is the first to go – the alchemy in my body controls it, keeping it the color that it is. So instead of the alchemy part of me taking over and everything shutting my body down from lack of energy, the more natural and normal part of my body tries to hang onto as much energy as it can by allowing energy to be taken from things that are 'unnecessary,' like hair color. So, my body exchanges brown hair for white hair that involves no cost of energy. If my body didn't do that, my vital organs could be the first things to go. Over the years I've trained myself and built up my stamina and strength enough to the point where I don't have to worry so much about my body gradually breaking down from exhaustion. Except when I fought those men tonight… I was hurt so badly that I was losing strength faster – couple that with those rock domes I made and I here I am in a hospital!"

"But you're fine now…" Ron commented.

"Yeah, I know – some kind of weird thing… a 'potion,' I think the nurse said, just perked me up right away! It gave me such a boost that the alchemy part of my body was able to expend energy to revert my hair and eyes back to normal."

"That's all… a little complex…" Ron said, "About your body taking away energy and using it for something else… So, what would happen if you just kept going? When you say your body would shut down, do you mean that you would just faint or something?"

"No… it means that I would die… If my heart stopped working, I would die; I also wouldn't be able to regain energy fast enough to get it back to working. The only reason my hair can change colors back and forth is because hair is never really alive in the first place – it's just a bunch of pigmented minerals. Same with my eyes – my vision stays the same, it's just the pigment that gets replaced."

"Oh…" Ron said, looking somewhat sad.

"So…" Harry said, speaking for the first time in minutes, "you're an alchemist… you don't need transmutation circles, and you have an arm made of metal…"

"Don't forget my leg," she said with a small grin, mocking offense at Harry's lack of mentioning her left leg.

"Right, that… and the only thing on the other side of this 'Gate' thing is a nation called Amestris… Is that right?"

"Um, yeah, pretty much," Trisha said simply. "It's kind of odd, though. Apparently my dad was in this world too at one point – but apparently he couldn't even use alchemy!"

"Well," Hermione said, taking back her role as lead explainer of anything and everything, "this world is separated – there's the magical world and the non-magical world. It's possible that your father was in the non-magical one where you can't do things like magic or alchemy unless you were born able to do it."

'Hmm…' Trisha thought to herself, 'Maybe that is it… when he went through the Gate, he gave up his ability to use alchemy… I wonder if my uncle had to do the same?'

"Hey, speaking of your dad," Ron asked, snapping Trisha out of her thoughts, "You said that he saw some kind of truth in the Gate – do you think that maybe he only saw our world?"

"I don't know… I have theories, though… I'm thinking that maybe there's more to the Gate than anyone's aware of… I remember passing through a room from a set of doors; apparently all he saw was the Gate standing in front of him, in this huge void. Like maybe… there's a gate within the Gate…"

"Now I'm really confused…" Ron said, rubbing at his head.

"So…" McGonagall said softly, "you're missing your arm and leg and have machines for replacements…"

"Yeah," Trisha said, trying her best not to sound sad, or possibly even bitter. "Hey, wait a minute!" she said, examining her arm for the first time since she got to this world of magic,

"What?" everyone asked, looking up at her.

"Where did they go?" she asked herself, examining the back of her hand. The others bent over and looked to. Trisha began to get concerned… the alchemy circles were gone…

…

The next morning, Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat in the Great Hall. They were waiting for Trisha to come back down and meet them.

'What do you plan on doing now?' McGonagall had asked her the night before.

'I want to be able to eventually get back home,' Trisha had told her, 'but first I want some answers – and the only way that I'm going to get them is by tracking down those Death Eater people…'

There had been no use trying to stop her – there was something burning in her eyes – was it revenge? The three former Hogwarts students had no way of knowing. They just knew that their party was about to become four.

"We probably shouldn't have come," Hermione said, leaning back in her chair.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked her incredulously.

"I mean, Neville, Luna, and everyone else is going to be upset that we just came and left again the way that we did."

"I suppose you're right," Harry said, thinking of Ginny… His thoughts were interrupted when McGonagall came hurrying into the hall.

"I've just received word from the Order!" she said excitedly.

"Really? What is it?"

"Tell us, Professor!"

"Well," McGonagall said happily, "they've just recovered the seventh horcrux!"

"You're kidding me!" Harry exclaimed. "Is everyone all right, though?"

"Oh, yes, they're all fine! Lupin and Kingsley are a little worse for wear, but Mundungus is the one that took the full hit of the curse on that thing… not that anyone's really all that concerned," she said, giving each young Order member a smile. She had been against them joining, but following all of the events just a few months ago… and Sirius' death… the other members (Molly Weasley excluded) had all eventually agreed that Harry, Ron and Hermione should be inducted into the Order of the Phoenix.

"Just a moment ago – Ron's father just sent me an owl!" the new Headmaster replied.

"You still seem awfully excited, though," Ron observed. "Has anything else happened?"

"Yes," McGonagall said somewhat breathlessly, "Fawkes has returned!"

…

Trisha Elric walked down the stairs slowly, transfixed and utterly fascinated at what was perched on her right shoulder.

"So," she said to the large crimson bird, "your name is Fawkes and you're a phoenix, huh?"

The magnificent animal looked at her with dark, sad eyes.

"And your master is gone… well, that's quite a predicament." Trisha was starting to scare herself; she would have been completely freaked out if she weren't so curious. The bird let out a soft, wavering note – like part of a sad song.

"I see," Trisha said. 'This is weird,' she thought, 'He's not saying anything, but I'm able to understand him… Ha! Maybe I have an animal intuition as well as an alchemical one!' She smiled. Fawkes continued to stare at her.

"You shouldn't be so upset – it wasn't his fault," she told the bird, saddened by what he felt. The phoenix continued to stare stonily at her. "Fine," she sighed, "don't listen to me…" Trisha looked again at the back of her auto-mail hand, and Fawkes rode stiffly on her shoulder. 'I still don't understand,' she thought as she entered the Great Hall, 'where did those circles go?'

…

"I still don't understand!" Roy Mustang shouted, exasperated. "Where did that girl go?"

"We still don't know, sir…" Havoc replied wearily. It had been over three hours since the General had come running through the office door… two hours and fifty minutes since the General's wife, former sniper, had scared everyone out of their wits. So far their research had been fruitless. Military police had been deployed, phone calls had been made and files had read through, but there was still no lead on what had happened to the girl… It was turning out to be a long night…

…

"Fawkes!" Harry shouted, springing up. He ran towards Trisha, reaching his hand out to the bird. Fawkes let out an angry cry, gripping his claws into Trisha's shoulders as he spread out his wings defensively.

"Fawkes!" McGonagall chided. She had never seen the phoenix behave that way before.

"Are you ok?" Ron asked Trisha, concerned – Fawkes didn't exactly have manicured nails…

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine!" Trisha reassured the red-head. "That's my auto-mail arm – he's just digging his claws into metal – I'd be more concerned for him than for me!" she laughed. Fawkes spread his wings farther, lifting off and flying to perch on a chair by the door. Harry looked crest-fallen. He had never had Fawkes treat him that way before…

Trisha inspected the tear in the cloth on her shoulder. "Oh well," she said, clapping her hands together and placing them on her blue jacket with the black flamel, repairing the damage in a flash of light. She had changed back into her own "uniform" – blue duster jacket, black pants, boots, and shirt, and white gloves to conceal her gleaming, transmutation circle-less hand.

Ron looked impressed as Hermione scowled.

"Ok, then, fill me in!" Trisha said, smiling as she rubbed her hands together in anticipation. Harry, Ron and Hermione had already told her about the Death Eaters, Voldermort, and how he was using horcruxes to stay alive.

"Well," McGonagall started, "we've just received word that another horcrux has been found!"

"Great!" Trisha said, "So do you know how many are left?"

"We think that there are only two more left," Ron told her eagerly.

"That's assuming that whoever 'R.A.B.' was already destroyed one," Hermione put in.

"I'm sure it has been," McGonagall told her, "According to that note it should be."

Harry pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket.

To the Dark Lord
I know I will be dead long before you read this
but want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,
you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B.

He involuntarily shivered, thinking back to that night… the night that he and Dumbledore had found the locket…

"So that's it, then. Find the last two or three?"

McGonagall nodded. "But don't think that it's all going to be a walk in the park – those things are guarded by some of the most evil curses out there… it'll be dangerous." McGonagall told her sternly.

"I understand," Trisha said solemnly. "So," she asked, turning to Harry, "when are we leaving?"

"Right now," he told her with a small smile.

Harry led the way out of the Great Hall and towards the castle door, Ron and Hermione following. Trisha looked inquisitively at the large bird hunched on the chair. Fawkes spread his wings and flew to perch on her metal shoulder as she followed the others out.

"Be careful," McGonagall told them, watching sadly as the group of four left Hogwarts castle. They would have all laughed in disbelief if they had been told what lay in store for them...

…

Woo! How did everyone like it? Please review! Let me know if I wrote something that didn't make any sense! I'll go back through! Thanks:)