Disclaimer:
I am not Ruby Tyra, I never was Ruby Tyra, I will never be Ruby Tyra, I had notes written for this chapter before chapter 11 of An Eventful Year was posted, and I have received permission from Ruby Tyra to post this chapter.
The point of this odd disclaimer is, I AM NOT IN ANY WAY PLAGERISING RUBY'S STORY OR STEALING HER IDEAS.
Just needed to put that out there before people start brandishing pitchforks and bitching at me.
Also, I don't own FMA or HP.
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Chapter 18: Fears of the Past, Fear of the Present, Fears of the Future
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About a month of being at Hogwarts, Ed was getting used to magic school's routine.
The constant game of hiding his automail from the wizard was still slightly difficult straining.
He'd had a few slip-ups, mostly occurring when he got dressed in the morning, or when he ate. He'd nearly forget to pull his curtains, or start taking his gloves off, when he would catch himself, and quickly correct his mistake. Thankfully, no one had noticed.
While he was busy most of the time, Ed missed Amestris. He missed pondering new theories, or worrying over conspiracies. He missed sparing with Al, and arguing with Mustang. He missed Winry's yelling at him over automail, missed Sensei. Hell, he almost missed the Armstrongs (it didn't matter which one, they equally scared him).
Through Al's constant, (and Winry's occasional) letters, Ed noticed that things had calmed down after he'd left. The homunculi were trying to find out where Ed was, and without him as a sacrifice, they'd had to regroup. So far, the only dangerous thing the group had done was find the nearest loop of the giant transmutation circle, and blocked it up. That way, the circle couldn't be used until the problem was found and fixed, buying them some time.
Despite all of the good news coming in, Ed still missed his homeland with a passion, and was glad there was only another two months left before he could see everyone.
Although, Ed thought sometimes, if I broke my automail, I'd either have to go back there, or Winry would have to come here. Neither of those options would be that bad.
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Though he missed Amestris, Ed made good friends with the wizards, finding that he made friends surprisingly easily with people his own age.
"It's weird," he remarked to Luna one night. "Back home, I was only close to four people that were within a few years of me. Here, it's slightly crazy how many non-adult friends I have."
He hung out mostly with Luna, Jude, and Neville, sometimes the Golden Trio. The girl he had partnered up with in DADA (Zaneh) turned out to be friendly and fun loving, though often very sullen and moody. She and Ed didn't actually hang out (she had other friends), but they partnered up together in DADA.
Classes in general got a lot harder, as the other teachers insisted they do all of their in-class work non-verbally as well. They got to perform new spells verbally once, but only Ed was allowed to use a previously covered spell out loud once during class. Ed was grateful for this, because otherwise he'd have never been able to keep up. Well, he would have, it just would've been a pain in the ass to do so.
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One day, Ed walked into Defense Against the Dark Arts and instead of being met with Severus's usual civil nod, he saw a familiar face.
"Remus!"
The
werewolf smiled. "Hey Ed. How's life?"
Ed grinned. "Pretty okay, you?"
Remus shrugged. "I'm fine. I'm happy to be teaching again, even if it is only for a few days."
Ed gave him a look riddled with confusion, and was stopped from asking more questions by excited shouts of "Professor Lupin!"
The classroom exploded as the rest of the class entered the room (Ed was the first one there). Remus fought his way through questions and admirers to the front of the room, quieting the class. Once the room was silent, he began.
"Thank you for your enthusiasm at my arrival. As much as I would love to stay and teach you once more, I am afraid I am only a substitute for Professor Snape. He is away for personal reasons, and as he subbed for me when I was unable to instruct you, I am returning the favor."
Murmers echoed throughout the classroom, all wondering where Snape was.
Remus stepped up closer to the whispering students, so that he was level with the first row of desks. "Wands out please. You won't need your books. Today is going to be much like your first day when I taught you, except we shall use material from this year to go about doing it."
The room instantly filled with exclamations of "Yes!" and "Awesome!"
Ed turned to Zaneh. "When did he teach here? What did you guys do?"
She turned to him, and grinned evilly. "Third year. You'll find out. It's amazing though, trust me."
Remus restored order to the room after a few moments, and then began again. "Now, who can tell me what a boggart is? Hermione?" he asked, seeing her hand go flying up before anyone else's.
"It's a shape-shifter. It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most," she said quickly, a nostalgic smile growing on her face.
"Excellent answer Hermione, 5 points to Gryffindor–"
"Heh, re-usuing answers," Zaneh muttered to herself, causing Ed to grin.
"–Like she said, a boggart changes shape according to what you fear the most. As you can imagine, this is particularly stressful to some, and is a common Dark Creature. Fortunately, a simple charm exists to counter the boggart. Who can tell me the incantation? Zaneh?"
Her hand had shot up before Hermione's, and being called on suddenly caused many to notice her for the first time. Ed could hear Ron say loudly "Who's she?" and also heard Harry in the chorus of voices echoing the question.
Rolling her eyes, Zaneh said clearly "Ridikulus."
Remus nodded. "Very good, another 5 points to Gryffindor."
A loud voice said incredulously, "She's in Gryffindor?" followed by a number of hard glares aiming to the side to the class.
Ed replied loudly, "Yeah she is. Don't you know the names of anyone besides your closed circle of friends?"
Light laughter followed his comment, as well as several red faces.
Idiotic arrogant people who don't know anyone in their own House, Ed thought cynically, his already low opinion of the Gryffindors in general sinking further than he'd thought possible.
Zaneh gave him a grateful look, and based on her reaction to the two notes hurriedly passed to her from behind, her other friends had just comforted her as well.
Remus looked rather uncomfortable with the whole scene playing out before, him and cleared his throat loudly. "All right, everybody, come back to earth now. As Miss Chioke just told us, the Ridikulus charm is what is used to counter a boggart. But what really finishes a boggart is laughter. When you are casting your spell, it helps if you can try to turn it into something funny, that way the resulting laughter can weaken it. Now, if everyone could please line up, we will perform the spell verbally on one boggart in order to get refresh ourselves with the experience, then we will cast it on a second boggart nonverbally. Does everyone understand?"
The groans at the mention of "nonverbal" must've resembled "Yeah", so Remus went over to a rattling truck sitting next to his desk, and opened it all except for one buckle.
Meanwhile, the students filed into a line, Zaneh and Ed heading for the back. Zaneh's two friends, who proceeded to assure her that the ones who didn't know her were stupid gits, joined them at the end of the line. Ed smiled at their attempts to comfort her, remembering Winry once doing to the same for him, and him once doing it for Al. The thoughts made him slightly sad, but he shook the feeling off.
Neville was surprisingly the first one in line, having been led his way there by people who remembered the Snape-in-a-dress he'd made before.
"Ready Neville?" asked Remus.
Neville nodded, gripping his wand tightly. Remus opened the truck, and out of it stepped a tall dark woman, with heavily lidded eyes. Her face was cruel and she smiled an evil smile before beginning to shriek with maniacal laughter.
Neville pointed a trembling wand in her direction and yelled, "Ridikulus!"
The woman suddenly had on the outfit of a Muggle cheerleader, and was holding her pom-poms in utter confusion. The class laughed at the sight of the dangerous Death Eater, Bellatrix Lestrange, in such a stupid position.
"Very good Neville! Next!"
The line proceeded as usual, Harry facing his Dementor, Ron his spider, Hermione her failed test score, the usual business. The line finally came around until Zaneh and Ed were the last two. After Zaneh's blaring sun became a rainstorm of rose petals, Ed stepped up to face the boggart.
It swirled for a moment, changing shape, before becoming a pile of human remains, an arm coming out of the mass, a freakish head with locks of dark black hair protruding from it. Ed froze as the sight of the result of him and Al's failed human transmutation lay before him.
Hearing people gag behind him, he raised his wand shakily and whispered "R-Ridikulus."
There was a crack and then the image changed to a destroyed suit of armor with a visibly scratched out blood seal.
Ed's knees buckled and he slid to the ground. "No," he murmured. "No…not Al… Ridikulus!" he screamed, sadness climbing into the sound emitted from his throat. There was another crack and the creature turned into Winry lying on the ground, dead, the side of her chest impaled, bullet wounds in her head.
"No, Winry, no…Ridikulus!" Ed cried again, his voice weak. The image changed to a large set of doors, a childlike silhouette figure sitting cross-legged in front of it.
Ed straightened, and stood up, facing the Gate. "You aren't real. You're more of an imitation of Truth than Gluttony is. Ridikulus!" Ed bellowed, the strength in his voice amazing considering what he had been like a few seconds ago. There was a final crack and the boggart exploded, gone for good.
Ed turned around to find the class staring at him, most mouths hanging open as they tried to process what they had just witnessed. He shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring the chorus of "Ed?"s and "What was that?"s of the other students, pulling the classroom door open and running out.
He ran to the library, knowing it would be empty. Making sure Madam Pince couldn't see him, he raced into a small section nobody ever visited (there was way too much dust on the surrounding books for people to have been there), and collapsed. Pulling his knees up to his chin, he sat in fetal position and rocked back and forth, the encounter with the boggart darting back into his mind.
Suddenly, it was just too much, and Ed let the tears come. They flowed out of his eyes like they had never before. Seeing Al and Winry dead, and reliving the moment of failed transmutation… Ed cried for his friends, his homesickness, his stress, his situation, all of his goddamn secrets pouring out of him in hot salty drops of water.
After a few minutes, Ed could see that someone was standing at then end of the aisle, watching him. Vision blurred by water, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, shook his head to clear it, and then opened them, standing to leave. Not pausing to see the person's identity, Ed pushed past whoever had seen him, and started walking away.
"Ed!" they called, following him. Ed quickened his pace.
"Ed wait!" called the voice again.
Ed broke into a run, racing out onto the grounds and throwing himself into one of the niches in the castle walls. His pursuer slowed, and walked steadily, most likely looking into every niche they passed. Ed didn't bother putting up a wall, he would be found anyway. Finally the footsteps stopped, and someone sat down next to them, their shoulder warm against his. Ed pulled his knees closer to him and stared straight ahead.
"Ed," the person said softly. Ed ignored them.
"Ed, look at me," his follower said imploringly.
Ed looked up and into Luna's face. She smiled at him, Ed returning it half-heartedly. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, gazing out at the lake.
Finally Ed spoke. "How'd you find me?"
Luna shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure. I knew you would probably be in the library, since it was the middle of class, and I just had to look in the sections nobody ever reads anything in. You're an alchemist, so I decided to check that aisle first. And there you were," she ended cheerfully.
Ed half-smiled. "And there I was." They were silent for another moment, before Ed asked, "Did they tell you?"
Luna nodded, staring at him thoughtfully. "Your friend Zaneh came to my classroom right after you left. Apparently she was franticly yelling at Ron –his sister and I are friends– and Professor Lupin to tell her where my class was, so I could help her find you. She would have come herself, but she looked a little off, so I told her I'd find you on my own."
Ed smiled briefly at Zaneh's friendship, glad to have paired up with her that first day. Turning his gaze back on Luna, he said, "I meant, did she tell you what happened. With the boggart."
Luna's normally distant face was grave. "Yes, Ed. She told me. But I don't really think any less of you because of how more significant your fears are than ours, and neither does Zaneh. None of your other real friends will either. Think of it as a test if you feel like it."
Ed sighed, again thankful for Zaneh and Luna's friendship. He felt particular warmth towards Luna, who was now getting up and brushing herself off.
"Come on Ed. We'd better get going. We're both going to get in trouble for this you know, seeing as we both abruptly left class like that. We may as well get to dinner on time," Luna smiled impishly.
Ed grinned. "Yeah. Hope they have pudding." He replied, naming Luna's favorite "normal" food.
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Meep! Tis me again! This would've come sooner, but my computer is being a bitch and quits Safari every time I try to access my FF profile. Hurray for loopholes!
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I had a long rant/ disclaimer-y thing typed here, but it was rather silly, so I deleted it.
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oh, and btw, I'm not trying to start a Luna/Ed, I just like the friendship.
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Another Random Quote:
"If at first you don't succeed, find something else to fail at"