Herro~! I'm so sorry about not keeping my deadline! XD (Really, I am. DeathBySugarCube was nice enough to spam me into writing this. So thank them. XD)

I have a chapter-by-chapter plan of this story, and I'd used up most of it in only 1600 words in this chapter, so somehow I had to create a 1400-word-long conversation between Ed and Luna. XD It was fun, though. :3

Disclaimer~

Chapter Eight - Too Many Questions

"Up, up, up!" Hermione's sharp voice cut into the boys' morning sleep as she rapped on the dormitory door. "You're all going to be late for class!"

Ron groaned helplessly. "Why...?" he pleaded to no one in particular. "Why does school have to exist?" he wailed, much to the agreement of his roommates.

"Get up, Ronald!" Hermione snapped, pounding her fist on the door a few times just for good measure before she strutted back down the staircase.

There was a quiet hum of groans and boys waking up the ones who were miraculously still asleep.

Ron turned to the bed on his right, about to wake up a certain deep sleeper, when he noticed the bed was already vacant. He paused, his arm still halfway over to where Ed's shoulder would have been, as he asked Harry, without turning around, "Did Ed go to bed last night?"

Harry shrugged, though Ron couldn't see it. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"'Cause he's not here."

Harry blinked, before abandoning his un-ironed robes and peering over Ron's shoulder. "Where'd he go?"

Ron rolled his eyes, turning to face his roommate. "I don't know, that's why I'm asking you!"

Harry grinned. "Well, I'm sure whatever he's up to, he'll manage it just fine. You know him."

"Not very well," Ron grumbled, but dropped the subject nonetheless as Hermione shouted up the staircase once more.

"May I ask why you are asking me about it?" Dumbledore's eyes glinted mischievously behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Because everyone I've asked says you're the cleverest here. So you must know something about time travel," a coffee-less (and therefore quite irritable) Ed asked from the opposite side of the Headmaster's desk.

Dumbledore merely chuckled, much to Edward's chagrin. "It seems you've done your research, because you're asking the right man."

Ed edged imperceptibly closer to the man in question. "Well then, what do you know about it?"

Dumbledore smiled. "I will not tell you everything I know, Edward," he paused to silence Ed's protests, "as I believe that would defeat the purpose of this mission, yes?"

Ed tried not to scowl.

"But," Dumbledore said before Ed could storm out of his office, "I believe there is something you should know from me."

"And what is it?" Ed asked, growing impatient.

"Time travel in this world is only possible with a time turner. If you do not have one, no matter how much knowledge you have on the subject, it cannot be done."

Ed considered this, before mentally scrawling it down on a hypothetical notepad. "Right." His eyes narrowed fractionally, though Dumbledore spotted the action. "Do you... Do you have a time turner?"

Dumbledore smiled broadly. "Yes, but I won't be lending it to you anytime soon, young man."

Ed sighed under his breath, before nodding as he stood up. "Thank you for the information."

"My pleasure, Edward." As Ed had his automail hand resting on the doorknob, Dumbledore called out, "Don't be late for lessons."

Ed smirked, but said nothing as he let himself out and made his way to breakfast.

"Where were you?" Hermione asked off-handedly as she and Ed took their adjacent seats in their first class of the day, Ancient Runes. "Ron tells me you weren't in bed this morning, and you were late to breakfast."

Ed smirked slightly. If only she knew. "Got up early to read in the library."

Hermione tossed him an approving (though still slightly suspicious) glance before bending over in her chair to draw her books out of her bag. "Studying or just light reading?"

Ed considered for a moment. The mission was compulsory, but he'd gone to ask Dumbledore about it by choice, so... "Both, I suppose."

Hermione hummed in agreement. "I see."

Ed didn't hear Professor Babbling irritably tapping the blackboard to get the chaos to quiet down. Neither did he see the searching gazes Hermione was not-so-subtly sending him from his right. He was lost in a swirl of thoughts as he considered whether to ask possibly the cleverest student in the school about time travel. He knew it would only raise more suspicions, but he could deal with those later. Hermione could provide an easy way out of part of his mission, as he'd overheard her mentioning time travel to Harry early last week, and he'd often spotted her reading about space travel. Well, Ed inwardly sighed, if worse comes to the worst, then I'll tell her everything. She doesn't strike me as the type to gossip, anyway. With a quick sideward glance, catching one of Hermione's long stares - Hermione quickly snapped her head to face the board and hurried to copy down notes she'd missed - he braced himself.

Instead of going for Ron's rather obvious tactic of 'Pssst!', he decided something more subtle was called for.

Well, for Edward Elric, 'subtle' could mean a whole lot of things between 'unnoticeable' and setting off a four-dimensional firework display inside a transparent whale.

Ed quickly slipped his pen into his hand and began to write notes. He wrote them as fast as possible, with a very loose grip on his pen, and soon enough, with a quick flick at the end of an 'n', said pen was flying out of his hand and under Hermione's desk.

Of course, some students noticed, but that would just make it look more natural.

"Hermione," Ed whispered, pointing at her feet. "My pen."

Hermione turned to face Ed with a look of alarm. That pen hadn't been dropped. It had shot out of his hand like a dart. Just what in heaven was he trying to do?

With a warning glance, Hermione bent to retrieve the pen, mentally sighing when she realised it was, in fact, a pen, and not a quill. She handed it over, relinquishing the feel of smooth plastic pen, and was slightly startled when instead of her fingers or the air, her palm met crinkly paper.

Ed winked cheekily as Hermione rested the hand in her lap to uncurl the scrap of paper. She glanced down when the professor had her back turned, not quite believing she wasn't just reporting this to the teacher immediately.

It read, quite clearly: 'What do you know about time travel?'

Hermione blinked, squinting at it in case she'd misread the messy handwriting. What on earth does he want to know about time travel for?

She tossed him a dirty look for making her pass notes during class, but she scribbled something down on the back and lobbed it at Ed anyway.

Ed caught it with trained precision, immediately drawing his fist down into his lap, just as Hermione had done, before quickly skimming her concise answer. Hid brow furrowed slightly at the words. 'Not much. Impossible without time turner. Why?'

Ed quickly jotted down a suitable response before holding out his right hand equipped with the note, and Hermione quickly snatched it before Professor Babbling turned around to address the class about a mundane question.

Hermione frowned at the response. It read, 'Private studies. Have you got a time turner?'

She quickly wrote, 'No, but I've used one' before passing it sideways again.

Ed unfolded the note, one eyebrow raising as he read her willing information. 'What for?' he asked.

She gave him a sharp glare, before scrawling (in what Ed assumed to be angry handwriting), 'None of your business.'

Ed rolled his eyes, deciding he wasn't going to get anywhere with this. 'What about space travel?'

'As in, going to the moon?' Hermione's reply read.

Ed sent her a sarcastic look. 'No, stupid. As if that would happen. I meant travelling between worlds.'

Ed's answer left Hermione somewhat perplexed, but she decided to ignore it and add it onto her mental list of things she deemed 'Edward'. 'I know it's proven, but that's about it. You've read the same book I did about it.'

Ed frowned, scribbled two words down and chucked the paper to Hermione before focusing on the board for real, quickly jotting down everything on the board that he didn't already know about runes. Complicated transmutation circles often included runes, and now Ed was finally glad of his basic knowledge of them. He didn't want to have to stoop to copying someone else's notes.

Hermione got the message that the conversation was over, and breathed a silent sigh of relief before mentally slapping herself for not paying attention during class. She opened the note up, smiled slightly at the words of thanks and tucked the paper into her pocket. It wasn't like she had anywhere else to put it, anyway.

She couldn't help thinking, though, that Ed was an incredibly suspicious person. Sure, he gave off the 'you can trust me' vibe, but that didn't mean he was actually trustworthy. She'd seen many confusing and potentially suspicious things happen around Edward, and he'd also said quite a few peculiar things. For example, he knew how to use alchemy. Something that, even if known, wasn't supposed to work within Hogwarts walls. He had a metal arm, and if you looked closely, you could see faint scars all over his face, left arm and neck. He dressed bizarrely and had hair longer than her - not that she had anything against boys with long hair - and seemed to be rather close to Luna, of all people. He also seemed to personally know Dumbledore, had a punch strong enough to send someone into the hospital for a week and had the strangest accent she'd ever heard. Not to mention he was constantly disappearing to the 'library', and had been spotted more than once reading letters in the Owlery in the middle of the night, rather than at breakfast like everyone else. Add in the fact that he seemed to think going to the moon was ridiculous and you have a very suspicious person on your hands.

She made yet another mental note to ask him about it at a convenient time before concentrating once more on the class she was currently in.

"Are you disappearing again?" Harry asked disbelievingly as he spotted Ed halfway through slipping out of the door.

Ed froze in place, before backtracking a few steps and scratching the back of his head with a very Ed-like grin. "Yeah."

"Where to?" Harry asked, flopping further down into the sofa. They hadn't received any homework that day, so Harry was left with nothing to do but talk to people, and Ed happened to be his only companion in the common room at that moment.

"I don't know," Ed replied casually, a broad and slightly cheeky smile on his face.

Harry blinked. "You don't know?"

Ed grinned cheerfully. "Nope!" he said before skipping out of the room, clicking his tongue.

Harry stared after him with a look of complete bafflement. What had gotten into Ed today? He just seemed so... happy.

Ed, meanwhile, was in a very good mood. He had absolutely no idea why, but he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just go with it. It wasn't often he felt as happy as this. Hell, he'd even helped a first year pick up her books when she'd dropped them in the corridor. Random acts of kindness were more his brother's thing. It was slightly disturbing for Ed. What if he was turning into his brother?

Ed shivered at the thought. No offence, Al, he apologised mentally. But being nice and helpful and a pacifist just wasn't his thing. He liked being loud and obnoxious and punching people in the face just fine, thank you very much.

He only realised where he'd been subconsciously heading after he was standing in front of an increasingly familiar wall.

He snorted quietly at himself, wondering if this was the reason he was in a good mood, before tapping automail knuckles softly against the stone.

The stone rippled away, leaving a rather obtrusively decorated door standing in its wake. Anyone would have laughed at the face Ed pulled as he cast his eyes over the gaudy design before quickly opening the door and shutting it behind him.

He was greeted with a smile and a lukewarm cup of sugary tea. He accepted gratefully, having been too busy studying to eat lunch earlier. He collapsed onto the stripy sofa, sighing in relief as he sipped the tea and grinning in thanks at the dirty-blonde now sitting beside him.

"Why are you here?" Luna asked, though not offensively, tilting her head slightly to the side as she took a gulp of her own tea.

Ed rested his head against the back of the sofa, smiling up at the ceiling. "I guess I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" Luna questioned again, now staring dreamily at the boy beside her.

Ed's face scrunched up a little as he considered his options. "I thought I knew when I came here, but now I'm not so sure... I've just realised there are some other questions I could ask you instead, and I don't know which ones to ask you anymore."

Luna took this in, pursing her lips in thought as she stared out of the fake window at the lush rolling hills. "Maybe you could ask me all of them."

Ed hummed in response. "Perhaps. But it wouldn't make much sense if I did."

"Are there any questions that are in both groups? Like a Venn diagram."

Ed turned his head away from the ceiling to face Luna and blinked owlishly at her. "Well, I guess a couple are."

Luna smiled. "Then ask me those, and then you can decide."

Ed drew in a deep breath. "For starters, why is the decoration today so... bright?"

Luna giggled airily. "I'm in a good mood. That's why it's sunny outside," she said with a smile, staring out of the yellow-paned windows at the glaring sun and fluorescent clouds.

"Strange," Ed murmured. "Me too."

Luna turned back to face him, smiling broadly as if straining to hold back laughter. She didn't drop his gaze once she'd caught it, though, and soon enough the cups of tea sitting in their laps had been entirely forgotten.

They sat in that position beside each other, staring, hopelessly caught in each other's line of sight, for god knows how long. After what must've been at least two minutes, Ed's left hand twitched minutely, wanting suddenly to reach out and grab Luna's. Luna noticed, however, and blinked down at it, breaking the moment as if she has smashed a glass.

Neither said anything for the next five minutes. Luna seemed to have spaced out again, leaving Ed to wallow in his own thoughts.

What the hell was that...? he wondered, staring down at the guilty hand clasping the pinkish-orange teacup. It was like I was drowning... except it felt nice.

With that thought leaving him thoroughly confused, he decided to put it to the back of his mind and think about it while he had nothing better to do. And unfortunately, now was not one of those times.

"Luna..." Ed started, his voice cracking slightly as his throat had suddenly run dry.

Luna looked up slowly, a small, dreamy smile cracking her nonchalant mask. "Ed?"

"... The questions."

Luna nodded. "Yes."

Ed gave her an odd look. "I haven't even asked you yet."

Luna smiled and said, "I know. I was just guessing."

Ed couldn't resist the small smile that seemed to want to crawl onto his face.

"What's the first question?" she asked dreamily.

Ed drew in a deep breath, thinking over which of his numerous questions would be best asked first. He decided that business should come before curiosity, however, and so asked, "What do you know about time travel?"

Luna hummed as she thought up a response. "It's possible. There's a spell for it, though no one's ever managed to cast it properly before."

Now that was new information.

"Do you know the spell?"

Luna shook her head, sighing. "No. But my mother did."

Ed wasn't quite sure what to say to that, especially since Luna's strange smile has vanished somewhere. For some reason, that just seemed to twist a knot in his gut, and he suddenly didn't want to talk about it anymore, almost as if he was talking about his own mother. "What about travelling between worlds?"

"It's possible, definitely... Apparently the Ministry sent some people over to another world a few months ago, though they haven't come back yet."

"Really?" Ed asked, genuinely interested. Heck, he might've met these people! "Do you know any of their names?"

"No, but I heard they were supposed to be going undercover in the military."

The military? Ed screamed internally, before deciding there was a limit to how much of this he could take. "You... don't know anything else about space travel?"

Luna shook her head distantly, staring thoughtfully at the fire roaring in the chequered fireplace that had suddenly appeared. "Not much, I suppose... but it was something about the speed of light."

Ed nodded. That was how he'd got here. He had just been wondering if there was a... safer method of transportation than shooting through the sky faster than the speed of light. "I see. That's a shame."

Luna sighed lightly, before turning back to Ed with a smile on her pale face. "Are there any other questions, Ed?"

Ed bit his lip. He knew Luna could be trusted, and no one would believe her even if she did spill something, but there was still something nagging at him... Perhaps because the only person he'd ever trusted wholly was his brother, and Luna certainly wasn't his brother. Still, he readied his breath and glanced upwards, hoping that if there really was a heaven, it wouldn't give him a hard time about this. Or even worse, somehow tell Mustang he was considering telling Luna military secrets. "Luna..." he started slowly.

"Mm?"

He took a breath, before blurting quickly, "Are we friends?"

Luna looked at him as if she'd never seen a teenage boy before. "If you want us to be. I don't mind," she said lightly, as if it wasn't making Ed's heart hammer in his chest.

Ed nodded slightly. "Then we're friends."

Luna smiled. "I've never had a friend before."

Ed looked at her in mild surprise, before he smiled to himself. He didn't have many friends apart from Al and Winry, either. He could relate. "Then I can trust you, right?"

Luna nodded enthusiastically. "Of course. Friends don't give each other's secrets away."

Well that erased the possibility of Luna telling someone.

Ed took a breath, nodding to himself.

"Is it about the letter?" she asked curiously.

Ed let out the breath in a slightly nervous laugh. "Yeah. It's about the letter."

Dun dun dun~ Ed's gonna tell her *evil nya face* But how much~?

ED/LUNA FLUFF. OH YESH. FINALLY.

Doesn't this quick (though deadline-missing) update deserve a nice, cookie-filled review~? ;D