Halloween was a new experience for Ed. He wasn't entirely sure what the point of the holiday was besides an excuse for candy and mayhem, but he didn't mind. He needed the free time. Normally, he would have been neck deep in mischief, but today he had other concerns.
Winry had told him that she didn't mind waiting for an engagement ring, but Al sent him a new box of rings every week for him to choose from. All of them were lovely, but none of them felt right. He had resigned himself to making one. It was much easier said than done and Halloween was the first day where he didn't have papers to grade or detentions to supervise.
His study desk had been transmuted into a work bench taking up most of the room. It was strewn with precious metals and pencils. Scraps of paper littered the floor and every other available surface. The only empty area was his chair where he sat, scribbling the latest design for the diamond.
A light tap on the door jerked him out of his frustrations and Remus poked his head through the door. Ed shoved his hands back into his gloves before Remus saw.
"I was just making a cup of tea," Remus said, raising a cautious eyebrow at the chaos. "Care to join us?"
"Us?" Ed asked.
"Mr. Potter is staying in Hogwarts today," Remus explained. "I thought I might invite him in. Then I remembered you're always working yourself to the brink of exhaustion. I figured you could do with a break."
Ed shrugged, looking down at the sketch. "Sure," he said. Maybe inspiration would strike him over tea.
Remus's office was warm and inviting. Ed felt instantly at home as soon as he crossed the threshold. It would have been worrying, if not for the welcome reprieve from his own study.
Potter already had his tea and was sipping it awkwardly. Ed pulled up a chair next to him.
"How's school treating you?" he asked.
"It's alright, I guess," Potter mumbled. "How's teaching?"
"It's alright, I guess," Ed replied as he poured himself a cup of tea.
Potter smiled a little at that then went back to looking morose.
Ed tried a few more times to pry some conversation out of the young wizard, but Potter wasn't talking. Finally, Snape interrupted with a steaming goblet of potion. Potter seemed incredibly suspicious of Snape, but he was reluctant to say anything with Ed there.
After that, Ed returned to his work with no new ideas, but a slightly clearer mind.
The biggest problem was that Winry worked with her hands. She never wore bracelets or necklaces because they got in her way. A large diamond ring was out of the question. A plain band would have been better, but it had to be distinguishable from the wedding ring.
The other problem was Ed's own hands. Ring making was delicate work and his right hand couldn't make all the subtle movements he needed it to. That left him with few options as far as engraving or small inlays were concerned.
He spent most of the day working, getting nowhere, until Apollo appeared at his window carrying a large box sealed shut with alchemy. There was a note affixed to the top in Roy Mustang's casual scrawl.
I hope you know what you're doing, Fullmetal.
Eight words. Eight words that carried a weight made a thousand times heavier by the dementors lurking outside the grounds.
There would be other feasts, he decided, as he set aside his work and began to read Shou Tucker's research notes.
That evening, a frantic pounding on his door startled Ed out of the research.
"What is it?" he called, pulling on his gloves and shoving the notes back into their box.
"Sirius Black attacked Gryffindor Tower!" McGonagall declared.
Ed was at the door in an instant. "Take me there." He paused only to reseal the box.
The path up to Gryffindor Tower was mostly empty, except for the frantically gossiping portraits adorning the halls. Even the ghosts had made themselves scarce.
"We're moving all the students into the Great Hall while we search the castle," McGonagall said as a staircase flew to meet them. Ed just nodded, focusing on fighting down the burning in the stump of his leg.
The castle seemed to recognize their urgency and it only took half the usual time to reach the empty portrait of the Fat Lady. McGonagall filled him in on the details as they went.
Dumbledore stood in the portrait hole. His normally jovial presence had gone dark and filled the corridor like a gathering storm. It reminded Ed uncomfortably of his father.
The headmaster was flanked by Remus and Snape, who looked just as grim, if unable to match Dumbledore for wrathful menace. Ed felt incredibly lucky that he was on Dumbledore's side.
"We've searched the entire tower and found no sign of him," Snape reported. "I highly doubt he's still in the castle." He looked disappointed.
Ed hummed. The stone floors gave very little away and he had never been all that good at tracking animals. Traps were more his style. Still, given how long Black had been on the run, there should have been more mud everywhere. Or anything at all to mark his presence, besides the slash marks on the portrait.
"Has the Fat Lady been found yet?" he asked. He sat down gingerly and sketched an array on the ground in chalk. It didn't reveal any residual energy hanging around, but given the amount of magic in Hogwarts, that indicated almost nothing.
"Not yet, but Peeves claims to have seen what happened," Remus said. He looked even more drawn and tired than usual and Ed suddenly remembered that there was a full moon in two nights. "Good luck getting him to talk though. He's made his mischief and now he'll make himself scarce."
"Do we even have proof that this was Black and not one of Peeves's little jokes?" Snape asked.
McGonagall shook her head. "I have been at this school for far longer than you have and I assure you, no mere poltergeist could frighten the Fat Lady from her position. Nor would Peeves dare to damage a House portrait."
Ed drew another array. "Someone passed through here recently and made sure to cover their tracks. The ground's been disturbed recently," he announced. "How many passages lead into this corridor?"
"Only one," Dumbledore said, "But there are many ways into that path and there is no telling which one Black may have taken. It appears we'll have to search every room of the castle until we find him."
Ed grinned, pushing himself to his feet. Remus helped steady him.
"You underestimate me, old man," Ed said. "I'll find him."
Dumbledore gave him an appraising look and the customary twinkle returned to his eye. "Well then, if you'll excuse me, I must see to my own students." The feeling of wrath dwindled as Dumbledore turned away. The other staff members made their excuses to follow him.
After ensuring that no one else would try to help and end up disrupting the few signs Black had left, Ed slowly began to retrace Black's path.
The corridor leading into the Fat Lady's only had one portrait. Ed almost missed the tiny fairy hiding in the corner of a bouquet of flowers. She was trembling far worse than the leaves in the light, painted wind.
"Hey," Ed said gently. "Are you alright?"
The fairy ducked even lower into a daisy, shaking her head.
"What's wrong?" Ed asked, keeping his voice low and gentle.
The fairy uncurled a little to peer at Ed through her ropy hair. She muttered something too low for Ed to hear.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Ed asked. She did. This time, he caught the word 'knife'.
"Did you see someone come through here with a knife?"
The fairy shuddered and nodded. "He looked really happy when he came and then he looked really mad when he left and then the Fat Lady came through and she looked really bad and I got scared and I hid. I don't think he saw me. He wasn't looking." She straightened up a bit more and spoke loud enough for Ed to understand.
"Can you tell me which way he went when he left?" he asked.
She raised a trembling finger towards the darkest of the three corridors.
"I'll make sure he doesn't come back," Ed reassured her.
She choked out a hollow laugh. "Muggle like you doesn't stand a chance against him."
"How did you know I was a Muggle?" Ed demanded.
The fairy smirked. "Didn't. I heard the gossip, thought I'd ask. You're the one who told me."
Ed's eyebrow twitched. "I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself," he warned.
The fairy shrugged. Her confidence had returned. "I don't tell tales. I just point." She pointed down the corridor again. "Best hurry, Muggle. The moon isn't too friendly tonight. Not to folk that walk on two legs."
Ed thanked her and strode off down the corridor. There were no portraits on this hall, which meant no witnesses, but there were still footprints barely visible in the dust. Ed had never been down this hall before. Remus had once mentioned that large portions of the castle were unused. That left a lot of secret places for someone who cared to find them.
It worked to Ed's advantage. Black hadn't bothered to hide his footprints here and they were easy enough to follow, at least until the path began to darken.
A single candle sat in a wall sconce just where the path became too dark to see. Its wick was blackened, but it was covered in dust. A small, empty cobweb wove between the candle and the sconce.
Ed lit the candle with a spark from his metal fingers and transmuted the sconce into a lantern.
He traced Black's path through what felt like every wing of the castle, weaving and winding and always keeping out of sight of the portraits, until the tracks abruptly vanished at the intersection of two halls on the ground floor. At least, Ed thought it was the ground floor. He'd lost track at some point.
Ed had been told it was impossible to vanish into thin air inside Hogwarts, so he sat down again and drew an array. The dust had been overturned, swept back into place for at least a few paces ahead, but he couldn't determine which path Black had taken. It looked like he had gone down the right-hand path, but there were signs the left had also been tampered with.
Ed moved towards the right path to see if it had been covered further along, but he slipped when he tried to stand and the ensuing cloud of dust ruined any tracks that might have been left.
Swearing under his breath, Ed continued down the right-hand path. It twisted in every direction, but no other paths led off of it, so Ed didn't have to worry about getting lost.
After a few minutes of walking, he hit a dead end.
He turned to retrace his steps, but a glint in the corner of his eyes stopped him. He turned back to the wall. Sure enough, a sliver of moonlight gleamed through a crack in the wall.
Ed ran his hands over the crack, looking for a catch. He found nothing except for a tiny peephole. He tried to transmute a hole, but the wall resisted. The castle absorbed the energy just as he started to feel the crackle of a rebound.
The wall sealed itself completely shut, turning smooth and shiny.
Ed took off his left glove to feel it properly. As soon as his fingers brushed its surface, it shuddered and pulled back into a hole large enough for him to squeeze through.
He emerged out onto the grounds nearby the Whomping Willow. The moon shone bright enough to see by and Ed extinguished his candle.
There was no sign of Black and he had too much of a head start for Ed to follow the trail. The wall closed behind him and refused to reopen.
He started the trek up to the main gates, but before he could take more than a handful of steps, he felt an arm wrap around him and a knife press into his throat.
Author's Note: Sorry this is so late. I meant to update on time, but last week was Not A Good Week and I had writer's block on top of it. Posting should resume as normal.
Thanks everyone for y'all's support. Y'all are still awesome. Last chapter had more reviews per chapter than anything else I've ever written.