McGonagall explained the Triwizard Tournament, the schools, and the tasks to Ed, but honestly, most of it went over his head – so much of everything was a surprise here that nothing really felt like one anymore, so he took the explanation in stride.
"Be careful around Headmaster Karkaroff, Professor Elric," she warned him. "It would be best if he never learned that you are a Muggle; he may have escaped Azkaban, but he is still very much a Death Eater."
"I've been keeping circles in my pocket anyway," Ed shrugged, though he couldn't keep himself from wincing at the warning. "I'll keep away though."
Minerva nodded. "I've heard that you have made friends with Alastor. It would benefit you to go out of your way to spend time around him, particularly if you ever feel unsafe." The corner of her mouth twitched. "After all, he was the one that caught Karkaroff in the first place."
Ed huffed a laugh and nodded. "Sure."
Pomona came and dragged him out for the arrival of the schools, which he was grateful for once he got over his disorientation; Beauxbatons' oversized horses were a sight to behold, and the ship rising out of the lake had made his breath catch in delight and awe.
"Mr. Professor is going to miss the announcement of the Triwizard Champions," Dobby piped up, as if he wasn't still kneeling on the table to eagerly watch Ed work. Ed grunted.
"I'll find out tomorrow," he said dismissively, fumbling with the quill a little as he drew – God, did he miss his right arm sometimes. "Watching the names get called won't be that interesting, and I'm busy."
Almost on cue, there was a brisk knock at the door, and Dumbledore called, "Professor Elric?"
"Door's open," Ed called back without looking up. He bit his tongue, scowling at the circle for a moment, and then added a few more runes.
The door opened, and footsteps tap-tapped toward Ed. "Professor Elric, I thought I would remind you- ah! Is that a spell chart?"
"Yeah, probably," Ed muttered, and then tapped the edge. "Can you tell what it's for without me telling you? I'm trying to figure out if I've got the rules down."
"Hm." There was a short, thoughtful pause, and Dobby shuffled nervously for some reason. "Unless I'm much mistaken, this would map perfectly to a basic stunning spell, stupefy."
Ed grunted, pleased. "Yeah, that's what I was going for. Awesome." He pushed himself up to look at Dumbledore. "Once I can do that for human transfiguration spells, I think I'll be ready to take another look at that diary."
Dumbledore gave him a warm smile. "That is truly astounding progress. I see your father's recommendation did not come lightly."
Ed's stomach twisted. Not sure of how to reply to that, he shrugged uncomfortably and turned back to the table. Without ceremony, he rolled out the parchment a little more, set a paperweight in place and started on a new circle.
"Did you not intend to watch the announcement of the champions?" Dumbledore asked. Ed shook his head.
"Sounds boring," Ed muttered, "and I'm making good progress. You go ahead."
"Very well," Dumbledore said, sounding faintly amused. "I appreciate your enthusiasm in this task, Professor."
The door closed behind Dumbledore, and Dobby sighed in relief.
"What is Mr. Professor doing now?" Dobby asked, leaning over to look again.
"Sounds like I got the stunning spell right," Ed told the paper, "so I need to start working on more complicated arithmancy. This one is a cheering charm, I heard Filius mention it the other day, and I think after that I'll try to map some healing spells. If I can map out some of those weird human transfiguration spells with minimal help, I think I'll be able to start studying that artifact Dumbledore showed me."
The Gate in his head was, admittedly, making his task much easier; he felt almost as if he was tuning an instrument by the ear, adjusting and plucking cords until the transmutation resounded precisely like it should.
"What does the circle mean?" Dobby asked, so Ed walked him through the spell step by step, input and transformation and output, pausing a couple times to frown, correct a rune, and continue on.
"Does elf magic work like this?" Ed asked, when he had to take a break to search through the books for the dynamics of psychiatric magic.
"No. Yes? No? No. Yes?" Dobby bit his lip, eyes going round and wet, but a warning look was enough to keep him from punishing himself for not having a simple answer. He was getting better.
"Sort of?" Ed prompted, and Dobby nodded, looking relieved.
"Sort of!" Dobby echoed happily, kicking his feet in the air. He tapped the circle. "It works like this, but not like this, you see?"
He waved his hand as if using a wand, looking earnest, and Ed pondered that for a moment, tilting his head back. "The underlying rules are the same, but elf magic maps to it differently?" Dobby looked anxious, and Ed scowled, trying to rephrase. "Like- maybe one rune marks a particular wand movement, and elves do something else for the same rune, but the runes are the same?"
Dobby's ears perked up, and he nodded until they flopped around. Ed snorted and grinned, leaning back to return to his book. "Cool."
He fell back into his research. He had a long ways to go before he hit soul magic and necromancy, but if he didn't at least look at the real circle before Christmas, then he was wasting his and everyone's damn time.
Ed found out later that the three champions were Cedric Diggory, Viktor Krum, and Fleur Delacour. Eight different people gave him 'CHAMPION CEDRIC DIGGORY' badges, and feeling indulgent, he had Filius stick them in a row along the back of his wheelchair.
It made the kids grin, anyway.
As an alchemy student, Cedric was good but not great. He didn't have Hermione's flair with logic, Cho's surprisingly encyclopedic knowledge of runes, or Draco's near-mathematic precision when drawing circles. Bluntly, he was average, about on par with most of the street alchemists Ed had encountered.
But he was a hard worker, and after he was made the Hogwarts champion, he started attending duplicate lessons. He still wasn't as stringent as Luna, who was diligently attending every single session Ed held, but Ed saw him three or four times a week instead of twice, like most of the students. He'd probably never be a battle alchemist, but from what Minerva had told Ed about the tasks, he'd probably be able to keep it in his back pocket, and it looked like he was planning to.
Ed made the executive decision that all students could benefit from a lesson on improvised circles, and they spent a few fun hours with all the desks cleared away, drawing on the granite flooring in chalk and paint and chunks of sharp, hard rock. Students carved pictures, signatures, and family crests into the flooring; the Weasley twins made the circle for granite using the improvised circle, which he gave them points for. That was the sort of thinking that demanded reward. (They seemed kind of outraged, though.)
It was one of the best lessons they'd had so far, and Ed had seen Cedric and, oddly, Hermione taking diligent notes, two of the only students that had their quills out this class. But it was Luna that was really worrying Ed.
Luna had started the lesson only a little less cheerful than she normally was, but as it progressed and the other students started having fun, she started to become uncharacteristically frazzled. Retiring to a far corner of the room, she'd taken out her parchment and a few inkwells to check her calculations for granite, and he could see the three drafts she'd done of the circle before she'd gotten it right. There were burns and papercuts all over her fingers from failed attempts.
She glanced up as he approached but looked almost immediately back down, scratching out errors in her last set of calculations, including at least one thing she'd done right. Ed lowered himself beside her with a grunt, and seemingly without thinking, she dropped her quill and lifted her hand for him to take for support, which he did.
"God, I miss my automail," Ed muttered, and then leaned over to look at her work. "You're close, Luna. Really. You want to go over it?"
Luna started to say something, but instead she squeaked, and when he looked up, she was rubbing at her cheeks, head turned away, trying to hide the fact that she was crying.
Immediately alarmed, Ed shifted over to put himself between Luna and the rest of the class. "Luna? What's wrong?"
"I didn't think I'd be bad at this," she whispered, voice wavering and fragile. "I'm not usually bad at things."
"It doesn't matter," Ed said firmly, more worried than he wanted to admit. "Alchemy's one of the most difficult studies in the world. There are plenty of incredibly intelligent people who can't do alchemy. Albus Dumbledore doesn't know alchemy."
"But I wanted to be good at this," she said quietly.
Ed cocked his head and studied her, brow furrowing. It wasn't like Luna to let things get to her; he'd gathered that much over the last month or so. There had to be something he didn't know here, and he wasn't sure how to help without knowing more. So he resorted to his usual: alchemy.
"This is supposed to be a fun lesson," he reminded her, as gently as he could. "I'll walk you through it one more time, okay?"
Luna sniffled and nodded, so Ed leaned over and walked her through the circle, then the calculations. He explained how the circle determined the equation, and how to put the numbers through, and he held her hand through it until she'd gotten all the numbers right.
"Perfect," he said quietly, when she was done. "Now go ahead. Have fun with it."
She wiped her eyes and nodded, flashing him a fragile smile, and touched the circle, brushing it with the knuckles of her fingers. Sparks danced out of it, and instead of converging on her hand, they dove into the stonework and carved something into it. When they cleared, he could see that it was a name and message, written in beautiful cursive. Pandora Lovegood. Love you, Mom!
All at once, Ed understood.
"Was she an alchemist?" he asked softly. She nodded.
"She liked to experiment," she said, staring at the carving she'd made. "She liked to do things just to see if she could."
"That's why you want to learn so badly," Ed said. She nodded, and he smiled at her. "You know, my brother and I learned alchemy to make our mom smile. It made her think of Dad." She smiled, too, and he relaxed a little and continued, "Hey. You remember the first day of class?" Luna cocked her head. "There's a philosophy to alchemy too. That's what I learned from my alchemy teacher, not this stuff. Would you want to learn that?"
"Yes please," she said, almost before he was done talking. Her eyes were wide.
"You doing anything after class today?" he asked. She shook her head. "Stay after, then. I'll walk you to the Forbidden Forest and we can get started."
Luna nodded eagerly, looking excited for the first time he'd seen. "Yes, Professor! I can't wait!"
Luna seemed more cheerful for the rest of the class, and rejoined the group after only a few more minutes. She didn't make anything else, but she had lots of suggestions for the other students, and Cedric specifically called her over to offer to make something for her. He looked indulgent and fond when she spent almost five minutes describing something called a 'crumple-horned snorkack,' which turned out to look like a cross between a narwhal and a hippopotamus. Or a unicorn and a hippopotamus, he supposed.
He was presented with a problem when their allotted time ended, and both Luna and Cedric stayed after, with Cedric giving Luna a slightly quizzical look. Luna hummed and fidgeted on the floor, waiting patiently, so Ed beckoned Cedric over. Cedric seemed to dismiss his curiosity and approached.
"Professor," he said, meeting Ed's eyes with unusual confidence for his age, "I noticed that you never mentioned how to identify what something is made from if you don't already know. Is there a way to transmute without knowing that?"
"You get an eye for materials after a while," Ed said apologetically. "You should ask Filius if there's a spell for it, but if not, I can probably figure something out to help you learn the look of common ones."
Cedric nodded, but he still didn't leave, and Ed cocked his head expectantly.
"Can you tell me what the Hogwarts grounds are made of?" Cedric asked at last, eyes intense.
Ed considered him for a moment, and then nodded.
"I promised Luna a lesson in alchemical philosophy this evening," he said, "but if you stay after another session, we can have a look around the grounds and I'll tell you the highlights. You're lucky; transmuting stuff out of earth was my specialization for a while."
Cedric relaxed, giving Ed a broad, genuine smile. "Thanks, Professor. I'll see you next class."
Ed nodded, and didn't realize he was smiling too until Cedric left. Luna looked up at him, eyes hopeful, and Ed grinned at her. "Let's head out. I'll be right back."
Ed's classroom was right next to the bedchamber he'd been given, and he'd stashed his wheelchair near the door. He sat down, keeping his prosthetic on, and propelled himself out and back to the classroom. The enchantments had made this leg better than a typical one, but he didn't trust his control enough to take it out to the forest. He'd fall flat on his face.
Luna hardly seemed to notice the difference, to his surprise; she kept pace with him, and seemed perfectly content to watch the paintings as they passed by. Ed echoed her silence and spent the short trip out to the front of the castle thinking about how to approach the first lesson. The topic, at least, he'd chosen without thinking: the same lesson that Izumi had started with. But how to get there...
"How much do you know about decomposition and plant life?" he asked her, once they'd reached the treeline. She tilted her head quizzically. "What about the food chain? The digestive system?"
Luna blinked at him placidly. "Little animals eat plants," she said after a while. "Small animals eat little animals and also plants, and bigger animals eat smaller animals."
"More or less," he agreed, pleased, and pulled himself out of the chair to sit on the ground instead. He gestured for her to sit beside him, in the leaf litter and undergrowth, and she did. "When an animal eats something, its digestive system breaks down everything its food is made of." He plucked a leaf from one of the plants and turned it over in his fingers while Luna listened attentively. "Most of those components get incorporated into the animal. Its food's proteins become its proteins, its food's vitamins become its vitamins. Then that animal gets eaten, and all of those components become part of the bigger animal. Animals that die another way, and everything any of them shit out, those decompose."
"That's when something rots, isn't it?" Luna asked. "It turns to mush and the middledons eat it."
Ed chuckled. "Yeah, you get it. So the same thing happens: those components become part of the middledons. Or they could get eaten by worms, bugs, that sort of thing, and eventually they get broken down enough to become part of the soil." He pushed his fingers into the dirt, and Luna scooped up a handful and let it run through her fingers, smiling. "So those components become part of the earth. Yeah?"
"Mmhm," Luna agreed, eyes soft and pleased. She was more patient than Ed had ever been; he'd've been going nuts if Teacher had explained it like this, but he was almost certain Luna wouldn't know enough science to work it out on her own.
"And what happens then?" Ed prompted. "When those components are part of the soil, where do they go next?"
"Into plants," Luna said without hesitation, pushing her fingers through the soil and then trailing a finger up the stem of a nearby shrub. "So they become part of the plant then?"
"Yeah," Ed confirmed. "The entire world works this way. Everything is made of the same components, and they're constantly flowing and transforming. The first thing my alchemy teacher taught my brother and I was this: all is one, and one is all."
"All is one, and one is all," Luna echoed softly, eyes still on the shrub. "...I think I heard my mother say that once."
"She was a damn good alchemist then," Ed said, giving her a small grin. "Look around." Luna looked around. "Can you picture the energy flow? Everything you see is strung together by that flow. The animals into the soil, the soil into the trees and shrubs, the plants into the animals."
"It's beautiful," Luna said, like she really could see it. Something about the sparkle in her eye told Ed that maybe she could.
"Yeah," Ed agreed. "When I was little, I thought it was just a literal thing, like a law of physics. But it's not. Everything works this way. Teacher's second lesson to me and my brother was more of a rule: Alchemist, be thou for the people. Think you can connect the two lessons for me?"
Luna's brow furrowed, but she didn't look upset like she had in class. She looked like she was truly concentrating, maybe for the first time since Ed had met her.
"Alchemist, be thou for the people," she echoed blankly, her fingers stroking and petting the branch in her lap like it was a cat. "What does that mean?"
Alright, that was fair. As an adage, it was kind of meaningless unless you already knew what it meant. "It means that an alchemist should do good in the world. Be a public servant, I guess, like a teacher or a doctor."
Luna's mouth formed a small 'o,' and she was quiet for a while. She rocked to herself and hummed, still stroking the branch, and tilted her head one way, then the other, eyes dreamy and unfocused, as if she was very far away. She reached up to tug at her cork necklace, and then tucked her hair behind her ear.
"What goes around comes around," Luna said eventually, and glanced at Ed and smiled. "It's something I've heard the Muggleborns say. So... if you do good things, then those things become part of the flow of the world, and eventually they'll connect to you again. So an alchemist should always put good into the world, to add it to the flow. Right?"
"Exactly," Ed said, giving her a small grin. "You've got it exactly right."