Ah, chapter 2! Time to see what the REST of the world's up to, ne?

Harpygirl91: Thanks for the save. At least I don't have Envy to worry about, too...for the moment. And Dante with Voldy-moldy...-shivers- I'm with you there, hon.

Harry Potter/Sailor Moon

Full Metal Alchemist

"Harry Potter and the Living Stone"

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Chapter 2:

"Joint Effort"

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BOOM

"Well, that didn't work." Alphonse Elric coughed as his lab partner laughed softly at their smoking assignment. "I knew it should've worked but I didn't expect it to explode like that."

Hotaru Tomoe gently passed her hand before the smoke, using her essence to create a whirlpool in the center of the small dark gray pillar. The whirlpool sucked up the smoke, clearing the air around their station.

"You have to be a bit more careful, Alphonse." Hotaru gently chided as Alphonse dusted the small amount of soot off his Amestris State Military Academy uniform and Cadet Lieutenant Major ribbons. "Reactions are a lot stronger because we're at a mystic hub."

"I'll keep that in mind." Al coughed, getting a water bottle from his book bag. "My brother's lucky he doesn't need a circle. He just claps his hands once and away he goes. I could only do that when I had circles on my gloves."

Hotaru laughed softly as she took a handkerchief from her uniform vest's pocket to clean her glasses. "Just relax, Alphonse. You don't need to compare yourself with Edward. You have your own touch, your own way of doing things. Just do what you feel should be done."

Alphonse looked past his water bottle at Hotaru in her Hokkaido Academy Suzaku Tower uniform with her long black hair pulled back into a semi ponytail and her long bangs brushing her right cheek bone. A soft blush came to his cheeks as he thought of how soft her gently rouged lips might actually be. Would they be as soft as they looked?

"That's not such a good idea when you're an alchemist, Hotaru." Alphonse mumbled, looking away before she saw his blush.

"It's the same with being a mystic. It's just what the energy inside you tells you it wants to be used for." Hotaru's laugh was like wind chimes in an early spring morning. It made Al's blush darken…and it made every cell in Al's body just plead to grab her by the biceps and crash his lips into hers.

The Military Academy didn't have girls like Hotaru. She was smart and pretty, totally on the same level with both Al and Ed. She understood things that made the Amestris girls scratch their heads over, like the way a transmutation circle channels and focuses energy and a misdrawn circle and cause your class assignment to explode in your face. And she didn't get mad over small mistakes.

Needless to say, Alphonse Elric of Resembool, Amestris had a big time crush on Hotaru Tomoe of Tokyo, Japan.

Why Fuhrer Bradley thought it was a good idea to have the State cadets come to the Mystic Isle, home of the elite Hokkaido Academy and the place where many great mystics—witches and wizards that used the energy around them and their own essence, instead of magic alone—was beyond Alphonse. At first, Edward had been against it, sort of, because it meant having to leave the majority of his work behind at their school but Alphonse had reminded him of the advantages of coming to another school. And Al had been glad he had talked his brother into coming…until he first saw Hotaru at the welcoming ceremony. Now Ed wouldn't stop bothering him about asking her out.

"Let's just redo everything and figure out where we went wrong." Hotaru suggested with a sweet smile. "It was probably my fault since I've never been good at alchemy."

"You, not good at something?" Al asked surprised, his blush instantly vanishing in his shock. "Now, that I highly doubt. You've got straight A pluses across the board in math, science, cooking, potions—the very foundations of alchemy. You just need a little more self-confidence. Doubt tweaks even the best of alchemists. That's how Ed ended up with a neon pink stuffed rabbit stuck to his uniform last year."

"A neon pink stuffed rabbit?" Hotaru repeated in disbelief with a laugh.

"He was supposed to be making one of these weird bands that are supposed to cancel out aggressive alchemy but he wasn't really paying attention and ended up with a stuffed rabbit stuck to the collar of his jacket for a week and a half before First Lieutenant Hawkeye gave Ed mercy and made General Mustang remove it." Al shrugged. "I've got no idea how he got a rabbit out of a mixture that was two parts zinc, 5 parts iron shavings. I really don't."

"Edward with a rabbit stuck to his collar." Hotaru shook her head. "Please tell me he at least changed the color of the poor thing."

"He turned it white with a big red bow and gave it to Elicia Hughes." The blond replied, helping Hotaru clear their workspace. He watched as she rolled up her sleeves and got a cloth wet to get rid of their failed circle. She got it up pretty easy without using her essence and scrubbed away the soot on the polished hard wood.

"I have feeling that your brother wouldn't be too happy that you told me about his collar bunny." She replied, rinsing out the ink and soot of the cloth.

"He won't do anything about it." Al said distractedly, looking over their notes and formulas. What he didn't get was that it should've worked, since their calculations, measurements and circle were all correct. What was it they weren't getting?

BOOM

Alphonse looked up alarmed at the other smoking station. Russell Tringham and Usa Chiba were coughing and waving at the smoke of their misfortune. Their failure didn't make sense either. Usa was good at math and cooking, decent at potions and average at science. Russell would've been able to pick up any slack. And Al knew Usa had outlined the circle first, before they had put down their solid lines so the circle would be exact.

It didn't make any sense. Something as simple as making a plain Japanese tea set from just the base materials and using alchemy would've worked on Amestris. So, why wasn't it working on the Mystic Isle?

"That's it!" Al muttered, realizing what they were missing. "Hotaru, do you have any of that enchantment chalk with you?"

"You mean, the ether chalk we used in 2nd period?" She asked, getting a nod. "Yeah, I haven't had time to stop off at my room yet." Al grabbed her book bag off the station's bottom shelf by his and opened the pocket he had seen her put the cigarette case of ether chalk into. "Alphonse, what's going on through your head?"

"I was looking at our notes to see what we got wrong and we did everything right." Al explained quickly, opening the case and taking out a slender stick of ether chalk, one that had already been used earlier. "And then I remembered you said we were at a mystic hub, where all the essence of the reign flows to and from. Alchemy this close to the hub will fail because the hub and the gate are connected. Ed doesn't have any problems because the energy is converted automatically and naturally inside him." He began to redraw their circle in the pale, pale purple chalk, the lines flowing from the piece like silk. "That's where we went wrong."

"The energy conversion of essence during a transmutation!" Hotaru earned a distracted nod and a smile from Alphonse. "We forgot to factor in the energy conversion into the actual transmutation and that's why it had an explosive reaction!"

"Now that we've figured it out, it shouldn't give us anymore trouble." The blond alchemist muttered, adding the finer points with the sharp point of the ether chalk. He finished the circle and put the chalk back into her case. "Get the tray ready. I've got a good feeling about this."

Setting the round steel tray on the circle, the 2 lab partners worked together to measure out their ingredients again. When they were finished with the measuring, they stood on opposite sides of the table and dusted off their hands.

"Ready, Hotaru?" Alphonse asked. Hotaru nodded. "On three. One…two…three."

They put their hand on their circle, channeling and coursing the energy into their transmutation. The circle glowed a pale indigo light and electricity surged over the tray and engulfed their ingredients. With a flash, the force of the combined and converted energy knocked the two off their feet and away from their station. Al caught the edge of the station behind him while Hotaru half crashed into the one behind her on the floor.

Hotaru groaned and grabbed the station behind her to haul herself onto her feet. "I haven't hit something that hard since Galaxia ambushed Setsuna and me at the Charon Castle." She muttered to herself. She looked at their station, seeing the tea set they had transmuted. "…Amazing…"

"You okay?" Alphonse asked, getting a distracted nod as he came to her side.

"Alphonse, look." Hotaru nodded towards their transmutation. Alphonse looked and he couldn't believe his eyes.

Their tea set was perfect. It was painted like a swirling night scene of dark blues, dark purples and blacks with a silver crescent moon and silver starbursts scattered amid the trio of dark colors. There were four cups and a teapot on their own tray on the steel tray.

"My God…" Alphonse mumbled as Hotaru brushed her bangs out of her eyes and glasses. He ran his hand through his hair in a degree of shock. "I can't believe that it worked and that we made this."

The other students were getting fed up. The station next to them used ether chalk as well, having watched Alphonse and Hotaru. The alchemy instructor, Professor William Dane, strolled over to inspect the duo's work, seeing they were the only pair just standing and staring at their station.

"Never in all my years of witnessing transmutations have I seen such a lovely end product." Professor Dane praised, getting Al to smile sheepishly with a bit of a blush and Hotaru to just blush a little embarrassed. Everyone was looking at them now, looking at their transmutation. The good professor took little notice. "Now, there's a box for each finished set by my desk—parchment paper inside. Wrap up your tea sets carefully and mark the outside and lids with both your names, station number and class period. Then carefully stack them on the back tables along the far wall." He patted Hotaru and Alphonse on their shoulders. "Well done you two. Once you put your tea sat on the tables, you're free for an early lunch."

"Thank you, sir." Alphonse muttered.

"Oh, Miss Tomoe, hold still." Professor Dane told her in a soft voice, reaching a steady hand towards her forehead. He pulled something from her hair, his fingers lightly brushing her skin. A strange tingle surged through her nerves as Professor Dane assured her that it wasn't a spider, like he had suspected.

An impossible thought ran through her mind: Professor William Dane of Ireland was an artificial human.

Hotaru looked over the tops of her glasses. No, his aura was the same. This man was the auburn haired 42-year-old Applied Alchemic Theories teacher they had started the year with. So, why did she think that he wasn't who appeared to be?

"How peculiar." Hotaru murmured to herself.

"Something up, Hotaru?" Alphonse asked, returning to their station with a packing box. She hadn't even noticed he had stepped away. How odd.

"No, everything's fine." Hotaru disregarded that feeling, chalking it up to remnants of the discharge of the transmutation's converted energy. She helped Alphonse pack their tea set in their box and even wrote their information in Japanese below her lab partner's English scrawl, taking a permanent marker from her book bag's small pocket, the same one her ether chalk was usually in. "Alphonse, do you still have my ether chalk?"

"Oh, yeah, Sorry." Al took the case from his pocket. "I just put it in my pocket to get it out of harm's way."

"It's all right. I need it for my 6th period, that's all." Hotaru reassured, making sure none of her chalk was broken after the discharge. She tucked it in her book bag and zipped the pocket closed as Al carried their box to the back tables.

"…None are safe…as long as the serpent lays close…"

Hotaru's head snapped up and she looked for the source of that whisper. She felt the hints of a dark aura, a demonic aura and sighed heavily under her breath. She hated it when the tengu flew past the windows and whispered to her. They usually had some sort of message for her to hear but that meant going to the top of the Suzaku Tower—the very top, since they roosted in the rafters above the crystal fires.

Hotaru huffed up her bangs in annoyance as she took her red blazer off the station's bottom shelf. A soft ting made Hotaru realize her pass crystal had fallen out of her blazer's inner breast pocket. She picked it up by its chain and inspected the metal phoenix with its wings spread, perched on top of the crystal. It wasn't damaged, meaning nothing bad would happen when she would return to her room…or went to the roof to hear riddle spewing tengu and all their confusing wisdom.

Damned demon crows. Hotaru thought, putting her pass crystal around her neck and under her white school shirt. She carefully secured her blazer under the flap of her book bag and shouldered the strap, brushing all of her hair to drape down the front of her opposite shoulder.

Alphonse finally came back to their station to get his own book bag. "I got stopped by another pair. They wanted to know what they were doing wrong."

"What did you tell them?" Hotaru asked as they headed towards the classroom door. Al opened it to let her go first.

"To think about where they were and what we knew about areas like this." Alphonse answered, closing the door behind them. He chuckled. "They weren't too happy when I wouldn't give them the answer."

"Everyone has to do their own work." Hotaru didn't blame Al for not telling. If that pair wanted to know so badly, they could their brains and do their own thinking. It was how Hotaru and Alphonse had figured it out.

Okay, mostly Alphonse.

Alphonse glanced at Hotaru from the corner of his eye as she fixed her bangs and moved them out of her line of sight. She was definitely one girl who didn't need to worry about her looks. She always used just a little eyeliner and a touch of lipstick before she left her room in the morning. That was all the make up she wore and still looked amazing. It just added to how well she wore her school uniform, like the simple ruby dangles and simple red studs she wore in her ears and the small ruby stud in her right nostril.

Heat rose in Alphonse's face as he thought about just brushing his hand against hers or even just holding her hand. He thought how her slender form would fit against his if he ever got the nerve to give her a hug. He wondered what her hair felt like between his fingers, what it smell like. And if he ever got enough of a spine, he'd tell her how he really felt about her.

They were alone, heading down the stairs together. Maybe this was his chance.

"Yo, Alphonse!" Edward's laugh and bigger form knocked Al out of his daydreams, his arm playfully around his little brother's neck as the 2 teenagers paused on a landing. "Heard those explosions all the way up on the next floor in Theories of Diverse Mechanics. What the hell were you guys doing down there in Dane's class?"

"Transmutations." Hotaru replied, coming to Alphonse's rescue from his elder brother's nettling. "What were you doing in Edogawa's class, Edward?"

"Something along the lines of String Theory, I think. I got lost when he started talking about some guy named 'Janice'." Ed earned a soft laugh. "What, I say something funny?"

"Not 'Janice' as in the woman's name. Janus, like the moon Janus of Saturn." Hotaru corrected with a laugh. "He's the Knight of Crossroads of Dimensions and if he was mentioned, then it was the Theory of Other Selves Doctor Edogawa was talking about."

"Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking." Ed admitted, his arm still around Al's neck. "Hey, Hotaru, what are you doing for lunch? Wanna join me an' Al?"

"I don't see why not." Hotaru replied with a smile. "I've got to do something first so I'll just meet you two down there."

"Fine by us." Edward grinned. "Just don't take too long. We might not be able to save a seat for you."

"I'll make sure to be quick." Hotaru laughed, going on ahead of the two brothers.

Alphonse waited until Hotaru was gone before he shoved his brother with a dark crimson blush on his cheeks. "What the hell is with you?"

Ed just looked at his brother unimpressed. "Al, if you keep dragging your feet, some other guy's going to pick her up and he'll be a complete loser. You need to just jump in and tell her how you feel."

"Oh, like you and Winry?" Al shot back, getting his brother to laugh nervously. "You and her are on the rocks again, aren't you?"

Edward sighed, running his hand through his bangs. "Yeah. I told her that if she kept getting violent, then I'd have to ask for a post in the boondocks as soon as I graduated. She blew her stack and threw her wrench at me." Ed lifted up his t-shirt under his open uniform jacket, showing the large bruise on his abs. "She gave this to me when I told her she looked sexy while she was working."

Al sighed, glad that he didn't like someone as violent as Winry. Ed could take it, no doubting that, but Alphonse wanted more of a genteel kind of girl. Someone like Hotaru. No, not "someone like".

He wanted Hotaru.

AL'S GOT A CRUSH ON A GIRL! AL'S GOT A CRUSH ON A GIRL!

..... now that's out of my system...

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