A/N: So, I was looking at the follower/favorite stats... Holy crap. 68 follows. That's over 50. Thank you for reading my story, despite at the glacial pace it's going!

Well, things are picking up right here, so glacial pace no longer. There's an actual plot! Surprise! And, merry Christmas! (Did you know that Merlin was originally a Slytherin? And that before the 6th book of HP came out, people thought Zabini was a girl? Sorry, spouting out interesting facts I'm learning from browsing through the HP wiki and Pottermore website up here... I wish real World History was as interesting as the HP world's history, but don't we all. Seriously though, merry Christmas. :) )

Hidden Knowledge
Phase 5.

"Alchemists be thou for the people", huh? It's just like back in Amestris. Those with power shirking their duties... Ed closed his eyes and sighed, leaning back into the armchair back in their house. No, here it was even worse. Here, the wizards would erase the very memory of anybody who found out about their power.

It made him sick. It always had, watching those who could abuse others do so, just for the sake of some kind of twisted enjoyment. Whether in Amestris, here, anywhere, it was all the same. Just because these people were "wizards" and had "magic" didn't make them better than everybody else.

The saving grace was that not everybody thought this way. From what he had gathered, many wizards were "muggle-born" – born from nonmagical parents. If that was so, they all couldn't be that bad.

"Brother?" He didn't have to open his eyes to know it was Al.

"Yeah?" He knew he sounded too tired, that now Al would only worry about him. He knew he should try to act cheerful, but he just couldn't.

It had been a long day, and they hadn't even fixed the lawn yet.

"What do you think we should do?" To his surprise, Al was just as resigned, just as tired. Of course. Why did he only think about himself? Al had been right there with him.

After they had left Tom, the two had gone out to explore Diagon Alley. First, they had exchanged their fifty pound note for a bag containing a mixture of gold, silver, and bronze coins in Gringotts. After that, it had been pure and simple fun, poking around and discovering new things. They had stopped at the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts, and gotten a few books they hoped would tell them more about magic. Everything was going fine, and they were looking forward to investigating magic more deeply.

That is, until they encountered the so-called-"pureblood." Ed scowled at the thought. Blaise Zabini. A thoroughly bred, snotty brat. And he had walked up to them outright and told them to polish his shoes because they were obviously muggle-lovers and he was obviously much better than them –

It made Ed want to knock his teeth out. A return to the good old days.

But he was older now, and he knew more than he had back then. It wouldn't have changed anything, other than getting the two brothers into trouble. Besides, Tom had warned them what would happen if anyone discovered they were muggles. Only bad things would happen by bringing attention to themselves.

Ed sighed and opened his eyes to look at Al. Maybe they couldn't use the old methods, but there had to be something they could do to change this world. They couldn't just sit back and watch.

"We have to do something, Al." Now, the frustration was clear in his voice. Not the dull response Al had gotten only moments earlier. "It's not right what these people are doing. I don't care if they're wizards or what, it's just not right."

"How though?" his little brother pleaded. "How are we going to fix this? We didn't even know about magic until yesterday, so how are we going to be able to do anything?"

It left Ed staring at him in shock. He was right. Simply resolving to fix things didn't give them the power to change the world. Even if they did come from across the Gate, even if they knew alchemy and were geniuses for their age, they were still human. They couldn't do everything.

And besides, they had enough problems of their own that came with living in this world.

Ed grit his teeth together. No, now wasn't the time to think about those. If he was lucky, they wouldn't ever have to deal with that again.

"I don't know, Al." His throat suddenly felt dry and he coughed, averting his eyes from his little brother's face. "I guess we'll just have to figure it out step by step."

Al couldn't know, could he? No, he would've said something by now if he did.

"Brother, what –" And as if by some kind of miracle, Ed's eyes latched onto a pile of books. The books they had gotten today from Flourish and Blotts.

"Hey, look, Al!" Ed quickly snatched one of them from the top of the bag and turned it over to read the cover. "Magical Theory. We can start here, right?" Al frowned, and Ed knew his little brother could tell he was hiding something. And yet, he also knew Al wouldn't make a big deal out of it. They trusted each other. If Ed was keeping a secret, then Al knew there was probably some kind of reason for it.

"Yeah." He could tell the smile on Al's face was forced and he hated himself for it. Why now, why now of all times, did he have to think about it? "I guess we have to learn about something before we can change anything about it." Al carefully selected a book from the bag. "I'll start here, and you start with that, okay?" He gestured to the book Ed was holding in his hands.

"Okay."

But he had the strong feeling everything was not okay.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Al watched his older brother carefully, even as he flipped the pages of his book and mutely absorbed the information on them. Normally, he'd be engrossed, finally learning the answers to the questions that had plagued them since yesterday, but now he couldn't muster the excitement he had only hours earlier, when they had been enjoying themselves in Diagon Alley.

What was Brother trying to hide from him? He couldn't help but be reminded of that incident after Lab 5 back in Amestris. He had thought Ed's secret was that Al wasn't real at all, instead only an artificial soul bound to a suit of armor. But no, what he had really wanted to ask was if Al hated him.

No. Al could never hate him. Ed should've known that.

But now, Al was worried. He knew it wasn't the same problem now – he had reassured Ed too many times about that already – so what was bothering him? Why was he trying to hide it now? Was it something to do with this "magic"?

Al wished Ed would only tell him what was going on. It could only make things easier for them.

"Al?" He realized he had been staring.

"Sorry." That's right; he had his own part to play in this act. "I'll go back to reading."

And this time, he did. He honestly put him mind to the words on the page, searching them for any helpful information. After all, if Brother wasn't going to share, it was unlikely being stuck thinking about it would help any.

But now, now that he actually processed the words he was reading, his eyes grew wider and wider with shock.

"Brother! Come look at this!" Immediately, Ed leapt up from his cozy armchair over to Al. His eyebrows furrowed as he read the passage Al had his finger at.

"Transfiguration is a branch of magic involving the change of one material or object to something else," Ed mumbled as he read, and then frowned. "But, Al, isn't this like..."

"Read on." He rolled his eyes.

"All right. Four different branches exist: Transformation, Vanishment, Conjuration, and..." His eyes widened as he processed what he had just said. "Wait, but that can't be right. Conjuration... That would break all the laws – of Equivalent Exchange and conservation of mass. It's impossible to create something out of nothing!"

"Unless it's not really nothing?" Al suggested. "What if they just think it's from nothing when they're really transmuting air into these objects?" Ed frowned.

"It's possible, but..." His eyes strayed over to the armchair, where the other book, Magical Theory, was still resting. "You know how the Philosopher's Stone could ignore Equivalent Exchange?" Al raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"And? They can't all have one. If they did, then..." Then there wouldn't be anybody left. The Philosopher's Stone required too much sacrifice for that theory.

"No, you're right. They can't all have Stones." Al looked up at him in surprise, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what Ed was implicating.

"So you're saying that there's some other kind of amplifier they're using?" Ed's grin was enough to confirm it.

"Exactly. Did you notice any of those sticks all those people had?" Al though back. Now that Ed mentioned it, he could recall seeing seemingly out-of-place sticks in both back pockets and hands, carried by both the young and old.

"Well, get this, Al. They're wands."

"Wands?" he repeated dizzily. "Like from all those storied about magic Mom told us." His grin faltered for a moment at her name, but a moment later, it was back in full force.

"Exactly, Al. And we're going to get some."