"Ah, um," was all Edward managed to utter as an intense silence followed Mrs. Flamel's words. Keeping his eyes on the glass of juice in his hand, Edward's thoughts raced from one possible explanation to another. Mr. Flamel seemed rather harmless, but there was something about the Dumbledore fellow, that made him hesitate to bend the truth too much.

Then again, he was entirely sure himself of what exactly had happened. It was possible these people knew something he didn't; after all they had seen him cross. Although just the fact that they had seen him cross was rather unnerving. Sure, Dumbledore had claimed to have been surprised by his sudden appearance, but they just didn't seem surprised enough. The only explanation to that was, Edward though, that either they were past senility or they had seen something like that before. And just what was it Mrs. Flamel had meant to say about the broken tea pot? Why change the subject so abruptly, if all she was going to do was glue the pot back together? Was it possible…?

"Go on, dear," Mrs. Flamel interrupted once again, beaming benevolently at him. Edward gave her a nervous smile, running his left hand through his unbraided hair.

"Well, um. There's this Gate," he began. They had already heard him talking about a gate so that much was safe. Well, as safe as any of this could possible be.

"Yes, you mentioned that before. Didn't you say this Gate possibly affected those metal limbs of yours somehow?" Dumbledore cut in. Edward frowned. He hadn't said as much, although that was what he had meant. Whatever this man was, senile was definitely not one of his attributes.

"Yes, that's what I think. They don't work like they're supposed to," Edward said, directing his attention to Dumbledore.

"So what exactly is this Gate of yours? I take it allows you to travel from one place to another?" the professor eyed him keenly.

"You might say that," Edward replied in careful tones. Dumbledore nodded, eyes thoughtful.

"Mr. Elric, as there's hardly a point in beating around a bush as they say, I'll go straight to the point. What do you know about alchemy?"

The question got Edward completely off-guard.

"That's the old fairytale magic of changing lead into gold, right?" he said with a nervous laughter, silently hating himself for saying something like that about alchemy.

"Not quite so, Mr. Elric," Mr. Flamel cut in. "You see, alchemy is more like a science. Magic has hardly anything to do with it…" his voice trailed off as Dumbledore coughed meaningly.

"I'm sure Mr.Elric knows that much. The problem here is that, he knows we know something, and we know he knows something, but we can not tell him what we know, until we know what he knows and vice versa. In other words, this is a trust issue; he doesn't trust us and we don't trust him," Dumbledore summed the situation. Mr. Flamel frowned, and Mrs. Flamel looked disapproving.

"What nonsense is this, Albus? Of course we can trust Edward! Such a handsome young man," she smiled fondly at Edward, who blushed lightly at the last comment and wondered what on Earth did his looks had to do with how trustworthy he was.

"Oh Nelle, nonsense yourself! What do his looks have to do with any of this?" Mr. Flamel exclaimed exasperatedly, clearly reading Edwards thoughts on the matter. Mrs. Flamel scowled at him, but her expression softened quickly.

"Well, just look him dear. How could anyone with such nice eyes be a liar?

"You see, Edward dear, we're wizards – well of course I'm a witch. So would you like some toast or porridge with your orange juice?" Mrs. Flamel beamed like a small and wrinkly sun. Edward blinked, going over the words in his head. Wizards? Judging by the fact that Mr. Flamel was apparently trying to pull out his beard, while breathing in small huffs and puffs and moaning "Oh, Nelle, you goose," and even Dumbledore looked rather stricken, Edward was fairly certain that either the old men had just lost all hope on Mrs. Flamel's sanity or she was in fact telling the truth. Truth being, Edward thought wryly, that these people were all stark raving mad.

"So how about it?" Mrs. Flamel gave Edward a small nudge.

"Huh?"

"Toast or porridge? Or would you like both?"

"Um, toast sounds nice."

//AN:

Now, I'll explain a few things here that I should've explained earlier (please bear with me, I have the memory of goldfish XD ).

This story takes place after the anime series and the movie of FMA and book 1 and 6 of Harry Potter. These first chapters take place during the first book, but there's going to be a time shift after the next chapter. After that it's going to be book 6 with some changes.

So where's Al?

I'm sorry, but he's not going to be here. I wanted to write about an adult Ed at Hogwarts, and I couldn't fit Al in the story. Think of it like this: according to some theory alternate universes come into being whenever someone makes a choice. Well, the universe of this story was born when Al decided to hop in the weird ass flying rocket thing after Ed. Or in this case, didn't make the choice. So Al is safe at Amestris, and what's important for this story, Ed knows Al's safe at the home world. Though I bet Al's just trying to find a new way to bring nii-san home, but that isn't relevant to this story.

Does that make any sense to you?

Hmm.. I'm pretty sure this was all. If you have any other questions about the story I'd more than happy to answer them (heck, I'm just surprised anyone has bothered to read this ramble). I promise things will get more interesting when they get the talking done – no wait, they don't really get all that interesting. Sorry, I'm just boring ;;