Edward's a sore loser.

Edward gasped and struggled to see. His vision was becoming blurry and he could not breathe. No. Not now. He had to see. Water dripped down from his head, drowning him. Edward tried to breathe and some of the salty water dripped into his mouth. He spat it out. Breathe. Breathe!

Shakily, he gripped the edge of the table and managed to choke out.

"Knight to D1."

Malfoy grinned triumphantly as he ordered his piece forward.

"Checkmate."

"Knight come back! Come back!"

No use. Edward watched in dismay as Malfoy's piece severed his queen's head.

Crabbe and Goyle had come to watch the game but neither of them knew how to play chess. They just hooted in delight when the heads rolled.

"Oh shut up!" Edward snarled as they laughed even louder when Edward's queen died. The Slytherins who had gathered to watch the game congratulated Malfoy and begged to play with him.

Edward snatched his Christmas gifts which had fallen out during the heat of the game and stormed away from the chess game. Stupid Malfoy. Stupid chess. He would have won if the board was not magical. In normal circumstances, all he had to do was switch the pieces on the board before Malfoy could even blink. But this was not normal circumstances and he had no need to touch the pieces.

Edward went back to his dormitory to empty his armful of presents. He put the journal Mustang and Hawkeye had given him on the desk. Maybe he could continue his research on the philosopher's stone while on the job.

He stared at the empty room for a while and instantly thought of Al. They were always together. Even after that incident. They had never been apart for so long. For the past few months, Edward had been diligently avoiding the thought of his brother lest he felt so homesick he could not cope.

It was Christmas. The first Christmas without his only family.

"Gah!" Edward hissed shoving the longing aside and occupied his mind by taking a shower in the communal bath.

The bath was thankfully empty so Edward could strip freely without worrying about anyone oogling at his automail. He sunk deep into the water and sighed in relief. One thing good about the hocus pocus place was that they had awesome baths. Edward adjusted the tap so that the water was close to steaming. There was some magic involved so that only Edward could feel the heat but since there was no one else bathing this late at night, the entire bath was soon filled with mist.

Edward could see his skin turn an angry red at the heat but he did not care, allowing himself to soak in the comforting warmth. He swam lazily in the water, distantly aware that his automail would not survive this abuse if he stayed too long in the water.

A soft shuffle made Edward stand upright in the water. He glanced around, trying to decipher where the noise came from through the mist. His eyes met a pair of bright ones, gleaming from the steam. The eyes were glaring at his automail, the saw-like teeth were glistening in a hostile snarl. Wait. Teeth?

Edward moved closer to the thing warily. The mist was thinning and Edward found himself too close for comfort, staring at a gigantic black dog.

Another chimera?

The dog's fur was bristling and he kept staring at Edward's automail as if it had never seen such a thing before. Well, it made sense because no one in the hocus pocus place had ever seen automail before Edward arrived.

For some reason, Edward felt the need to stay in the water. The dog had a human-like quality that made him feel embarrassed by his immodesty. His instincts were never wrong. The thing was a chimera. Those eyes were too human.

He clapped his hands and slapped them against the edge of the large bath.

The ground was made of pure stone and a little marble. Good. Marble was hard.

There was a shudder as slabs of rock shot out from the ground and tried to pierce the chimera. It was faster. It ducked around the corner and avoided the rocks completely. It did not come out from the corner for a very long time.

Abandoning his sense of modesty, Edward climbed out of the water and transmuted a marble spear from the ground. He tip toed cautiously towards the corner where the chimera was taking refuge. He felt very cavemanly as he poised the spear before him.

Edward crouched and prepared to spring up when he saw that there was no chimera. It had simply disappeared. There was no way it could have run away. It was a dead-end with a statue of an enormous snake curled on the ground.

Edward remembered that the one-eyed witch statue was a passageway to Hogsmeade. Maybe this snake would lead to somewhere. Edward clapped his hands against the statue and when the stone crumbled away, all that emerged from the ground was beetles. Edward quickly replaced the statue before the beetles could climb out.

Surveying the extent of the damage, Edward returned his spear to the ground and transmuted the stones back into place. It was as if nothing had happened.

Edward was too unnerved by the chimera to resume his bath so he quickly washed off the last of the grime and dirt on his body and prepared to leave when he felt the presence of another being return to the room.

Moving so that the chimera could not detect what he was doing, Edward silently clapped his hands underwater and made a ball of water suspend in midair. He arranged the water molecules, pushing them closer together with an alchemic reaction in his head. The ball of water slowly turned into hard ice. Swinging around, Edward flung it behind him.

"ELRIC!" Malfoy roared, barely dodging the ice ball.

He was in deep trouble.

"Malfoy?" Edward said incredulously. "I thought you were-"

Edward was still panting for breath. "Did you see a big dog with creepy eyes here just a minute ago?"

"What? You mean a big black dog?" Malfoy sneered, putting down his bath soaps.

Edward narrowed his eyes and nodded sharply.

"It's the Grim," Malfoy explained with a smirk. "Ha! I heard it was after Potter too. They say people who meet the Grim die within twelve hours."

"What?" Edward said. The steam from the bath was making his head spin.

"You heard me, now get out. I want to bathe in peace."

"But the dog-"

"It's after you. It won't hurt me, dumbass."

Reluctantly, Edward left the bath. Twelve hours. He saw Malfoy gawk at him and realised that no one had seen his leg automail before.

"You have two metal limbs?" Malfoy said. He sounded a little scared and looked at Edward like a monster. Twelve hours. It was all because he came to this stupid magic school.

"Yea, problem?" Edward replied shortly and pulled on his bathrobe. At least Malfoy had not seen him perform alchemy. That would be very bad.

He left the bathroom but waited at the entrance in case the Grim came back. Twelve hours. But he could not risk Malfoy being another victim of the chimera. Twelve hours. And he had not even said goodbye to Al yet.

"MALFOY!" Edward shrieked the next day. His eyes were bloodshot from not being able to sleep, spending most of the time researching on how to undo the curse and composing his final and heartfelt last messages to his brother. He even had given Mustang a one-liner special mention in his dying message. It was twelve freaking hours of not being able to sleep and eat. He had even used the freaking wand to ward against evil forces and lots and lots of complex alchemy to block out external interference.

Malfoy turned, so did many people in the Slytherin common room who had not gone home for Christmas. Edward was still in his sleeping robes and there were ink spots all over his face.

"WHY AM I NOT DEAD?" Edward demanded.

This time, everyone in the common room all stared at Edward.

Malfoy hesitated for a second, confused. Then he threw back his head and convulsed in silent laughter.

"I can't believe you actually believed me! Everyone knows the Grim is a kid's story to make them eat their vegetables!"

"WHAT?" Edward shouted, grabbing Malfoy by the front of his robes. He wanted to punch the boy so bad. He had even mailed the freaking letter to Al last night!

"Hey, Ed, chill dude." Amy called from one of the couches. She did not even look up from the book she was reading.

"CHILL?" Edward hissed. "You're asking me to WHAT?"

"Elric," the oily voice made Edward freeze in midsentence. Snape was glaring at him from the doorway.

"I must ask you to unhand Mr. Malfoy at once and follow me."

Edward numbly let Malfoy sink back into his seat and wanted to ram the boy's smug face into the ground. He walked apprehensively to Snape who was already climbing the stairs out of the dungeons.

"I warn you, Elric, do not test my patience on this matter. If you're trying to play any funny tricks on me, I have to make it clear that I will not stand idly by."

"What are you talking about, Professor?" Edward asked grouchily. Oh great, just when he thought things couldn't get any worse.

"I think you know better than me," Snape said tersely, glaring distrustfully at the student.

They made their way in tensed silence to the Great Hall and walked towards Dumbledore who was speaking in mellow tones.

"I assure you, that our school has maximum security. There is no way a student would just die under our watch. Ah! Just when we need him! There he is!"

"Al?" Edward said, stopping in his tracks. The giant suit of armour whirled to face him. If armour could show relief, Al was flashing it like a neon sign. Al clanked towards him and grabbed him in a body crushing hug.

"BROTHER!"

Edward wriggled in protest while Al turned his body into pulp. Even as he was shrieking at Al in protest, Edward missed how the joints in the metal poked his skin painfully, how his brother was way taller than him, how the chilling coldness of the metal ran through his body.

"You're alright!" Al exclaimed gleefully and if possible, hugged Edward even tighter. Edward swore he heard a bone snap.

"And here I thought I had to lug your scrawny body back to Central."

Edward glanced up and was surprised to see Mustang and Hawkeye there.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, Fullmetal."