Edward
Malfoy's eyes widened. "You-" He sputtered, looking over at the trio, most likely to see if they were shocked at this. Of course, they weren't. "You were on the train! You told me to piss off!" Ed had a hard time containing his smirk and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, and? There's nothing wrong with telling a pompous bully to screw off." He said, earning a few snickers from a handful of Gryffindor students and a few Ravenclaw. Dumbledore had informed him that students in the same year from all four houses would be present in his class at the same time, though a normal class would have only two houses. Malfoy turned red.

"You can't say that to your students!" Ed gave a small scoff.

"Oh? Well I already did. Is there a rule saying that I can't talk that way to assholes?" Malfoy's mouth opened but no words came out. An angry flush came to his cheeks.

"Are you even qualified to teach us?" Malfoy snapped. "Your our age! How can you teach us?" He said, looking quite triumphant. Ed shot a glare to him, getting a little irritated.

"Because I'm a prodigy." He said, a little smug with that statement. Malfoy grit his teeth, but said nothing. That's what I thought, Ed thought smugly.

"Who knows what alchemy is?" He said, changing the topic. For a minute, there was silence. Then, slowly, a shaking hand went up.

"Yeah?" He said. The boy was a slightly chubby, nervous-looking boy with brown hair and light eyes. He cleared his throat awkwardly before talking.

"I-Isn't alchemy s-some form of dead magic where you can turn something like lead into gold?" He said. Ed raised his eyebrows. What was up with this whole 'alchemy's a dying branch of magic' thing? Perhaps it was because these damned wizards couldn't tell science apart from magic that came out of a stick.

"Well, kind of," He said. "Alchemy's not a magic, it's a science. Basically, alchemy is when you manipulate natural energy. That's called a transmutation. However, making gold out of something is possible, but illegal." As soon as he said this, the room was filled with sighs and groans of disappointment. He rolled his eyes and turned around, then picked up a piece of chalk.

"Why is that, Prof- Ed, I mean," A girl asked. Ed raised his eyebrows. There kids were supposed to be his age- surely they'd understand that it'd mess the economy up, right? But, then again, He thought, they're all probably idiots.

"Because it can screw up the economy. Gold is, as you may all know, worth a lot of money. Transmute too much gold, then the item becomes useless. Any other questions?" He said. A girl raised her hand, a dreamy look in her eye as she stared at Ed.

"Yeah?" He said to the girl. She put her hand down and put her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her palm, a slow, somewhat-flirty smile spreading across her face.

"Are you single?" The question caught Ed by surprise. What. The. Fuck. He thought immediately. Ed was never good with girls, which meant that he was even worse at flirtations. That, and though nearly nobody knew but Al, and he could become quite flustered at times.

"Um." He started dumbly, heat rising to his cheeks, causing girls to giggle. "...Yeah...?" It seemed more like a question than a statement. Truth, why must you do this to me...

"And why's that?" Another asked, batting her eyelashes. Meanwhile, Ed was internally freaking out. What does he say? Why can't they go bother other guys? Why him?

"...I don't have time for something like that," He ended up saying. He left out the fact that he didn't want to put that special person in danger, or leave them grieving in case he died. Although he normally acted arrogant and rude, he always carried the small, dark possibility that he could die in battle. He constantly reminded himself of this. And he didn't want that special person's heart to ache for his death. He didn't want to cause people more pain than he already had. Before the conversation on his love life could progress, he immediately changed the topic.

"Alchemy is extremely complex. Since you're free to drop in and out and that I'm free to kick people out if I believe that they're not fit to perform alchemy, I estimate that at least half of you would be leaving this class in...let's say...two months." Hermione gasped, and Ed could tell that she was terrified of being kicked out. She seems to have a brain, Ed thought. She'll probably be fine. A boy from Gryffindor raised his hand. Ed recognized him as Harry.

"Why are you telling us this, sir?" Harry asked.

"Because. I'm just giving you a heads up if you fail the test I'm about to give you all." The room exploded in outraged shouts, sighs, groans, and gasped. Ed put his hands up. "Calm down," He tried, but it was fruitless. Everyone was either in a panic or angry.

"Test?! I didn't study!"

"It's only the first day!"

"Are we gonna get kicked out if we fail?!"

"That's rubbish!"

Ed had enough. Putting his fingers between his teeth, he let out a sharp, high-pitched whistle that rang out as clear as a bell throughout the classroom, effectively shutting everyone up. Ed crossed his arms. "If you'd all shut the hell up and let me finish, then I would've explained everything. Are you all willing shut your mouths and listen now?" He was greeted with silence. He took that as a yes.

"Good. Yes, there will be a test, and, yes, if you fail, you'll be kicked out." Several students started to sputter, but he shot them a glare and they immediately shut up. "You will all have to solve what this means: All is one, one is all. In exactly one month, you will all tell me what you think it means. You're free to come to me and try as many times as you want if it's before a month. That is all." There was a silence before students immediately began to speak again, all asking questions, none comprehensible. Ed put his hand up.

"One at a time!" He said. A sea of hands went up. He nodded toward Ron, who had his hand up.

"Why the bloody hell do we have a month to solve some riddle like that? That's probably not even related to alchemy! This is rubbish..."

"To learn alchemy, you need to understand it. If you manage to find out the true meaning, that shows that you're capable of comprehending it. When my brother and I were 10, our teacher, to teach us this lesson, abandoned us on a deserted island for a month with nothing except for a knife and the clothes we wore." He said. The students gasped.

"You survived on an island for a month when you were only 10?!"

"That's a bloody hardcore teacher..."

"That's terrible!" Ed shushed them all.

"It was hard at first, but it taught me the lesson. My teacher's a great, yet terrifying one..." He shuddered. Ed dug in his pocket for his watch then checked the time. They still had nearly 15 minutes left of class. He sighed. "Okay, so since we still have a lot of time left, I'll be teaching you the basics for now."

"In order to perform alchemy, you must know the three basic properties that make a transmutation up: Understanding, deconstruction, and reconstruction." After he wrote that down, he turned around to find the students still staring at him. He sighed. "Well? Why aren't you writing this down?"

I'M BACK! WHOOOOO...I'm so sorry. For a while I forgot about this fic because I had huge writer's block, but hopefully I'll be updating more frequently. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!