A/N: I'm sorry, I've been jumping around all over the place, just coming up with new story ideas and updating things that are specifically not this story. The reason behind it was because I was actually getting stressed about writing fanfiction, and well, my whole reason for writing this is because I want to, and it's fun. I'm sorry for not updating, but honestly, I don't regret it because I will not stress over this. Unfortunately, that means no scheduled updates anymore (like that worked out too well anyway). From here on out, it's just whenever, wherever. I'm also trying to make an effort to make chapters longer, but that didn't really happen this time because I figure that you'd rather get an update half the size of what I wanted to do today, rather than an update in a year of a chapter double of what this is.

Also, I vamped up the prologue, so it's not just an itty bitty little thing that is dwarfed by just the author's note. It will be more of an action sequence so I promise it's not absolutely boring, and does a lot more "show" and not "tell." So, that's good. I also went back and revised some stuff, and discovered a whole bunch of typos. Woops.

Another thing! I put a poll on my profile that you should definitely check out because it determines pretty much absolutely nothing except for one minor detail that's been bugging me. I kind of also want to combine chapters two and three... they're both Halloween right? My chapters are pretty kind-of-short anyway. I mean, the scroll bar is huge on the right side of the screen.

reply to Guest: Err... Yeah. Ed is conveniently being silly for convenient plot reasons. :)

reply to Ugly Owl: Thanks. Err... I happen to be in the position of knowing exactly what house they will be in, but well... spoilers. ;P

Societal Interactions
Phase 9.

"Hey, Brother?"

"Yeah, Al?"

"Are we going to go to Tom and show him the letter?"

"No."

A pause.

"Why not?" There was a large intake of breath.

"Why do you think, Al?" he gritted out.

The two brothers were at one of the restaurants they frequented – not the Leaky Cauldron. This one usually had a more cozy atmosphere, bringing out the tension easily from anyone's body, but today, it did nothing to relieve Ed's headache. Someone he barely knew had just come up and destroyed the life-style he had spent hard effort on creating for them both, decided they were nothing but "children," and put them in a magic school (He thought the two words with the most derision possible). Well, he didn't have to do any of it. He refused to even do something as simple as give a letter to someone who might be their friend because it was all so stupid and –

"I think you're just being stubborn."

Ed glared at him.

"Yeah? And what's wrong with that?" For a long moment, his little brother was silent, staring at him eerily. Ed shifted uncomfortably. He knew that look, and he didn't like it.

But what came out of Al's mouth then surprised him even more.

"I think we should go to Hogwarts."

"What!?"

Ed found himself standing, hands planted firmly onto the cozy mahogany. His eyes were widened, staring at his little brother in shock.

"I think we should go to Hogwarts," Al repeated, and Ed groaned, slowly settling back into his seat, surreptitiously glancing around to see if anybody was staring. They were, but most looked away fairly quickly when met with the fierce golden glare. The chair scraped against the floor as he shuffled in closer to the edge of the table.

"Al," he muttered, "You better have some good reason for suggesting that."

There was an easy smile on the boy's face, feeling not at all threatened.

"Don't you remember? You said you wanted to 'fix' the Wizarding World."

For a long moment, Ed could only stare at him, a warm blissful feeling growing inside him. An insane urge to laugh, to smile, to hug this brother of his. Soon enough, there was a large grin growing on his face. He had already forgotten all the argument they had only a few minutes prior.

"You..." He licked his dry lips, suddenly afraid he was misunderstanding. "You agree with me? That it does need fixing?"

Al grinned and nodded. Ed shared in the sudden glory, laughing heartily.

"Damn right. Those elitist bastards are going down! Nothing can stop the Elric Brothers at their best." A smug smirk, before his eyebrows furrowed as he realized an inconsistency in this logic. "Wait a second... Al, what does this have to do with Hogwarts?"

"Well," the younger brother explained patiently, "If we're going to change anything, we have to understand the culture, right? We don't know anything about this place; it doesn't make sense to just barge in and demand social equality for everyone."

Ed scowled. That... had been something similar to what he had been planning.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." He looked down and absentmindedly picked up his fork, quickly eating more of the pasta. "What do you think about this whole business with Tom, though?

Al considered.

"It shouldn't matter if we stay someplace else for a while, right? As long as we sort out our bills and ask someone to take the mail for us. Besides, we'll come back eventually. We're just going on a side project of sorts."

"And school?" Ed asked wryly. "You were fairly panicked when you realized you skipped."

"What about work?" Al countered, then made a face. "That didn't help with my argument, did it?"

"No," agreed Ed. "It didn't."

Al shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, it's not like we did all this when we were just travelling around," he pointed out, and Ed had to agree with him. "Besides, Hogwarts is a school."

He raised an eyebrow at this one, though.

"You think they'll just let you off the hook because you're going to a magic school? Al, it's probably not even in the records."

"Well, they obviously get students somehow."

"Yeah, yeah." Ed sighed and leaned back. His bowl of pasta was now conspicuously empty, and he waved for the waiter. "I guess we'll go see Tom and see what this is all about."

Al's grin was answer enough.

When the waiter arrived, he asked for the check. It was time to go and take care of business, and he honestly had already eaten enough for himself. Al had already finished his plate off long ago. Soon enough, they were walking out of the restaurant, pleased and content with themselves for finally coming to a decision.

Ed, however, was now having second thoughts. There were too many problems with this idea of just going off someplace they barely knew about. And yet, Al didn't know about the worst problem – how could he? – so it was difficult to argue against. He had worried about it, earlier when he had seemed so close to figuring it out, when the tension between the two brothers had almost been palpable, and yet… Al had given it up. Al trusted him.

That thought alone sent thousands of beams of warm sunlight to his heart.

His thoughts settled into a form of contentment. Here they were, the two of them, together, just walking. There were no worries, not any that needed to be addressed at this moment. The weather was nice, a cool breeze throwing off the oppressive overbearing sun. And because it was daytime and this was London, most people were at work rather than wandering the streets. Of course, the traffic was always a nightmare, but it was … nice. A sign of normality, almost.

And of course, when anything became even close to normal, it had to be completely and irrevocably destroyed.

"You!" A shout came from behind him. Ed whirled around quickly, old instincts ingrained into him flaring up once more. His eyes easily found the lone man behind him, pointing a finger wildly at the two brothers. His eyes squinted as he looked at him. Did he know him?

"Me?" he repeated, loosening his stance slightly.

"Edward Elric!" the man spat. Ed stiffened. Wasn't this the sort of thing that happened in Amestris, when he was the Fullmetal Alchemist? Why would someone here bear such a grudge?

"Yeah? And?" The man looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. He quickly glanced at Al, but his little brother looked just as confused as he felt, if not even more.

But all confusion evaporated when the man pulled out a wand, only to be replaced by panic.

"Stupify!" Ed's eyes widened.

"Duck!" he cried out, immediately dropping to the ground. He heard Al do the same beside him. Soon, they both were back on their feet, running at the man to stop him from casting any more spells.

"Isn't this supposed to be muggle London?" Ed yelled out as he ducked a green bolt of light. Luckily, not many people were in the streets to be in danger, but there were plenty of people inside their cars staring. He thought wizards didn't like that, after all the warnings Tom had pounded into their head.

"Do you think I care?" the man snarled. "You ruined everything! We were going to discover a new world, and you stopped us!"

That brought Ed's racing thoughts to a stop.

"A new world?" he repeated slowly. "You mean… you're from the Golden Dawn?"

Damn it, he had thought all of that was over and done with.

Then another thought occurred to him.

"Wait, you mean you knew that magic was real?"

He dodged another blast of red light.

"Of course magic is real!" the man snarled. "It was only you idiots who never realized that. Obsessing about science and alchemy –" he spat it out as if it were a dirty word, "– never even realizing what was right in front of you all along."

Suddenly, Ed was able to place the man's face.

"It's you! That bastard who told Noah to read my mind!"

His eyebrow raised, even as he bit out another incantation and sent another flying bolt of light Ed's way.

"How eloquent of you."

And despite himself, Ed couldn't help the smug expression on his face. Of all the bastards he had wanted revenge on after that day, this was the one he had most envisioned punching in the face with hard automail. It was only too bad that the man never bothered to even look behind him, never even bothered to wonder where the second boy had been during the entire fight. For right behind him, Alphonse was readying to knock him out.

Ed grinned viciously as he watched the man fall to the ground, and casually walked over to the collapsed body, giving it a nice kick in the guts.

"Nice job, Al." But when he looked up, his little brother was frowning.

"Brother… if the Golden Dawn already knew about magic, then why did they want to learn about alchemy too?"

"I don't know, Al." He frowned, then looked around. "Hey, is it just me, or is it odd that no one's come to bug us about knocking a guy out? Not even the people in the cars are staring anymore."

Somehow, the London streets had returned to the normalcy that had encompassed it only moments before. And yet, for the two brothers, things couldn't have been further from normal.

"Ministry of Magic, get your wands out!" A shout came from behind him. Ed groaned.

He had jinxed it.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

"So… you're saying that this man just started attacking you?"

Two wide-eyed boys nodded eagerly, and she sighed.

Mafalda Hopkirk was not having a good day. Oh, it had started perfectly ordinarily, filling out forms, sending out letters, doing the Ministry business as usual. She had even felt satisfaction at how she had neatly solved the Elric case, finding them a place to stay after registering them for Hogwarts. She didn't know how they had managed to escape detection for so long, but nonetheless, she was pleased at herself for fixing the issue completely.

That was before she had discovered exactly how troublesome these two boys were. Before a perfectly respectable wizard, Moralt Bulstrode, had apparently attacked them, and had managed to have been knocked out by two seemingly-innocent boys.

Two seemingly innocent boys.

She sighed again.

"And can you explain to me again how you managed to knock him out?" She had begun thinking she had made a mistake in approaching them in the first place.

She didn't know that was exactly what the two boys had been hoping for all along.

"Well, um…" the younger one stuttered. He glanced at his older brother, who was now looking curiously out the office door to watch the hustle and bustle of Ministry officials, before adopting a serious expression and leaning in. Subconsciously, she adopted his position, some part of her feeling as if she was just about to learn some great secret. The other part was plain tired, and wanted to be done with these kids as soon as possible.

"What do you know about the Golden Dawn?"