Disclaimer: No own, no money made, TERFs are trash.

Chapter 47

Little Armored One

After the headmaster's abrupt return to work, Ed had the sudden and crushing feeling that he was on a deadline to figure out whatever the hell the headmaster was hiding from him.

He knew damn well there was something, and with Dumbledore apparently feeling well enough to be back to work, there were inevitably going to be shenanigans. Ed knew that the Old Man was more or less acclimated to the idea of living past Spring, knew that he'd mostly accepted the idea of staying alive in the longer term, but Ed wasn't entirely sure that he could trust the Old Man not to accidentally-on-purpose trip into something else lethal.

Ed needed to get the information from him while he still had the chance.

Operation: Interrogate an Old Man started simply. Ed just went to the Headmaster's office. "So. Zere's something else you're hiding," he said, after refusing the offer of a lemon drop.

"An Old Man accumulates many secrets over his lifetime," Dumbledore said. "Most of them are hardly relevant to our situation."

"Right," said Ed. "Most. Which means zere's something and you're avoiding it."

"Why do you always assume that I am hiding things from you? Young Mr. Elric, living this way must be exhausting." That's how Ed knew it was something really bad.

Dumbledore must have been feeling better, though. He was managing both the eye twinkle and the infuriating air of magnanimity. "I don't know whether to be upset wis you for fucking wis me, or to be glad you're feeling well enough to play games."

"I think I have regained a certain spring to my step," Dumbledore said, looking exceedingly pleased with himself. Ed felt a rush of affection despite himself, and that's how he knew this conversation wasn't going anywhere.

His next strategy was to go to Greasy Potion Guy. Surely, the only person in the castle who'd known that Dumbledore was dying had to have something practical to share.

"How have you gotten around zee Old Man's information hoarding?" Ed asked, throwing himself across Snape's desk, arms stretched out in front of him.

"I am the wrong person to ask," said Snape. "Both because I have never successfully managed the Headmaster in my life and because I find the sort of plaintive display you're putting on absolutely disgusting."

"Oh come on," said Ed, scrabbling his hands in Snape's general direction - he'd give him a plaintive display. "A sly bastard like you? Zere's no way you let somebody have zat much power over you in zee long term."

Unfortunately, the look of deep discomfort that passed over Greasy's face told Ed the truth: Snape had let the Headmaster have that much power over him in the long term. "My arrangement with Professor Dumbledore is none of your business," he said.

"Fuck," said Ed. "Sanks for nothing."

"You're welcome," said Snape in the nastiest tone Ed had ever heard. Classic.

After that, Ed turned to Professor McGonagall. She hadn't known that Dumbledore was dying, but she was the Deputy Headmistress. That had to count for something. "Albus and I enjoy a good working relationship," she said. "But honestly, I don't know fuck all about him. I just interpret what I can and hope for the best. Surely you've observed that it doesn't do me much good."

Well. At least she was self-aware.

If Ed had taken a moment for self-awareness himself, he might have realized that his sense of desperation was at least partly driven by the knowledge that Alphonse was still hiding something from him. But Ed didn't have the time to take a moment for self-awareness.

What Ed found most frustrating, however, was that he did have a clear avenue forward through this puzzle, and he made sure to complain about it when Alphonse came by his quarters on Friday night. "I just don't want to ask Flamel," he said. "I don't want to need that asshole for anything."

"Tell me about it," said Alphonse, with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. "I hate that we still don't know why he made the stone."

"Does it even matter? Is there any reason out there that makes it less disgusting?"

Alphonse slid out of his chair to lay on the floor. "No. Of course not. But Marcoh was a good man, at the end of it all."

"Somehow, I don't think that Flamel was a product of state-sponsored violence," Ed said, sliding out of his own chair. "But I think we have to trust him when he says he isn't gonna make another one. It's either that or kill him, and I don't want to do more killing."

"Just write to him," said Alphonse, throwing an arm over his eyes. "He's known Professor Dumbledore longer than anybody else we have access to."

"I know," said Ed. "I just want to register with the committee that I hate it."

"Registered," said Alphonse. "Believe me."

It wasn't until Alphonse left for the night that Ed realized he'd again forgotten to ask about that fucking lisp. He kicked at one of his chairs before sitting in it, poured all his desire to know into the letter he composed to Flamel. Surely, Flamel would have answers for him.

Of course, Flamel didn't respond.

"I believe it's the full moon, young man," said Madam Pomfrey on Saturday, October 26th. Alphonse looked up from where he was stocking the potions cabinet.

"Is it?" he said, because he had genuinely lost track of the days. He and Ed were spending nearly every spare moment working and reworking the Philosopher's Stone math. Even the constant bitterness seeping across his tongue from his mandrake leaf wasn't enough to keep Al as focused as he should be on the days. The general nausea and mild hallucinations weren't helping, either. Mandrake poisoning. Ugh.

Madam Pomfrey seemed to sense some hesitation from him, because she softened. "You don't have to go through with this," she said. "You know that, right? You could reset to the typical process tonight if you wanted, switch leaves, and have another month to think. You could drop it entirely, and consider picking it back up later. There's no hurry."

Alphonse appreciated the sentiment, really he did. But. "I just lost track of zee days, Madam Pomfrey," he said. "I'd like to go through wis zis."

"Alright then," said Madam Pomfrey. "Shall we continue this conversation in my office?"

Once the door was shut against the wandering eyes and keen ears of hospital-bored students, Madam Pomfrey cast a patronus. "Minnie. Young Mr. Elric calls for our guidance tonight."

Minnie. Even through its silver glow, Alphonse could see that Madam Pomfrey's cat patronus was a tabby. It was a tabby and the marks around its eyes looked oddly like spectacles. Huh.

As the cat vanished from the room, Alphonse felt Madam Pomfrey's attention land on him. "Do you have your cloak with you?"

"No," said Alphonse. "Should I?"

Madam Pomfrey began muttering to herself after that - something about foolhardy boys who don't think ahead and risked their health - but with a wave of her wand, a thick cloak settled onto Al's shoulders. His own cloak, he noticed.

"Do all zee staff members have zis sort of access to student belongings?"

"No," said Madam Pomfrey, tugging Alphonse's hat further down his ears. "Just me and your Head of House. It's to help keep you all safe and cared for."

"Right," said Alphonse. "Zis school takes zee safety of its students so seriously."

Madam Pomfrey snorted, and Al preened. Before the conversation could dwindle, the fireplace in Madam Pomfrey's office lit green. Professor McGonagall swept through it.

"You know you could have told me that you were planning on going through with this," she said to Alphonse. "Some day before the full moon?"

Alphonse rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm sorry. I should have let you know."

Professor McGonagall sniffed. "Well, you're hardly a singular offender. Madam Pomfrey didn't bother to inform me that she had given you a mandrake leaf until just recently."

Madam Pomfrey looked a little sheepish at that. "I have a lot going on here at the Hospital Wing," she said, crossing her arms over her apron defensively.

Wow. Alphonse had totally thought that she and Professor McGonagall had planned together about starting him on the New Moon.

"Never mind all that, Poppy," said Professor McGonagall. "The moon is rising."

"That it is," said Madam Pomfrey, summoning her own cloak and settling it over her shoulders. It was a rich golden brown that fell to her ankles over her practical medi-witch robes. Professor McGonagall was already dressed for the late-October weather, her cloak the same bottle-green as the set of teaching robes that Alphonse tended to picture her in.

Alphonse gripped his own cloak - black, per the Hogwarts uniform - tightly shut.

Madam Pomfrey brandished her wand at a portrait in the wall, smiled with satisfaction as it swung open. The two witches ushered Alphonse into the secret passage. For a long moment, the only sound was the echo of their footsteps and the swish of their cloaks brushing against each other and the walls.

Lumos, Alphonse thought at his wand. The passage filled with light, making even the dull gray of the cobblestones glimmer.

"We won't need the light long," said Madam Pomfrey. "The passage isn't long."

The passage felt long. "We can't be close to the castle anymore," Alphonse said when the passage spat them out deep in the Forbidden Forest.

"You would be surprised by how close the Forest flanks the castle on some corners of the grounds." Professor McGonagall gingerly lifted a hanging tree branch out of her way, held her hat to her head as she ducked under it.

"I jog around zee castle every morning," said Alphonse flatly. "I know where zee forest is."

Professor McGonagall just looked at him, let go of the tree branch at just the right moment for it to knock the hat off Al's head. "Then perhaps you aren't surprised."

Maybe Alphonse deserved that. He rescued his hat, then dispelled the Lumos, because no matter how long the corridor was, it was true that he didn't need the spell out here. The moon almost seemed swollen. He could have sworn that it didn't look like that from the enchanted confines of the Great Hall.

Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey did not seem disconcerted by the moon's light at all. There was something feline about the way they walked through the forest. They were light on their feet and discerning about their path.

They knew exactly where they were going.

"You have your mandrake leaf?" Madam Pomfrey looked back at him, like checking on a trailing duckling. Her eyes reflected more light than they should have.

"Of course," said Alphonse, suppressing a shudder.

"Just checking," Madam Pomfrey said, refocusing on the dense forest in front of them. Professor McGonagall had not even slowed in her own trek through the undergrowth.

Except that the forest wasn't dense any more. It was less that the trees thinned into a clearing and more that a clearing had abruptly sprang around them, chasing the trees away. Again, neither of Alphonse's mentors seemed perturbed.

A boulder loomed at the center of the clearing. Alphonse could not help a sense of foreboding as he looked at it, but Madam Pomfrey put a hand on his shoulder and led him unerringly toward it. Professor McGonagall pressed a silver teaspoon into his hand.

"Go," the Professor said. "Collect the dew that has seen no light and felt no feet."

Alphonse was not sure how that was possible, because the clearing was absolutely flooded with moonlight, but Madam Pomfrey shoved him. Caught by surprise, Alphonse stumbled forward, right into a camouflaged entrance into the boulder. Suddenly, there was no light at all.

"Hallo?" Alphonse called. There was no response. "Professor? Madam?" Nothing. Well, Alphonse could follow instructions like the rest of them. He'd read about this in the classic preparation of the Animagus transformation: it required a dew drop that had seen no light and not been stepped on by human feet in seven days. He dropped straight to his knees to avoid stepping on anything he shouldn't.

He couldn't see a thing, but Al could feel the damp of the grass soaking through his trousers. That was enough. He adjusted his grip on the silver teaspoon and swept it through the grass in front of him, hoping that he was collecting enough. Hoping that he was collecting at all.

Oh. As the dew collected in the teaspoon, it began to cast a luminosity of its own. A lump caught in the back of his throat. Alphonse rose to his feet, keeping the spoon as steady and level as possible.

He backed out toward the crevice in the rock, as invisible from the inside as it was from the out, and just kept walking until his eyes were again flooded by moonlight.

"I have it," he said, breathless.

"Pour it here," said Madam Pomfrey, holding out a delicate crystal phial. Its mouth wasn't exactly narrow, but Alphonse rather thought that he would have difficulty aiming if the moon wasn't so swollen with brightness. His visibility would be better in the light of day, certainly, but he could see across the clearing easily. He could see each line in his mentors' faces, could see the graceful folds of their cloaks, the long fall of their robes.

Alphonse gently tipped the silver teaspoon, and the shine of the dew seemed to brighten as poured.

Plink! The dew landed in the phial, and the sound of its landing seemed to echo across the clearing. Madam Pomfrey let out an audible sigh - of relief? Exasperation? Worry?

Alphonse couldn't tell, and he didn't have time to think about it, because Professor McGonagall was taking the teaspoon from him, secreting it away in her robes. She took the phial from Madam Pomfrey, pressed it into Al's hand. "Spit," she said.

It didn't sound or look like any spell that Alphonse had heard of, but it must have been magic. He felt his own sticking charm fail, the mandrake leaf spilling yet more bitterness across his tongue. Alphonse spat, watched as the mandrake leaf landed squarely in the phial.

Moonlight - not quite moonlight, not really - exploded across the clearing. It didn't actually exert any physical force, but Alphonse found himself stepping backward anyway.

Stand your ground, Professor McGonagall said. Except she hadn't said it, because she was a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.

Show the magic no fear, said Madam Pomfrey. She was a tortoiseshell cat now, the precise colors of the fallen leaves around them.

It didn't occur to him that most wizards couldn't understand animagi in their animal forms.

Fur brushed against Alphonse's exposed ankles, and he let himself absorb the quiet strength his mentors offered. And then they were off, darting to equidistant points on his either side.

Cats casting a circle was not a sight Alphonse had ever expected to see, but that's what was happening. If cat animagi counted as cats, at least.

Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey paced a complicated pattern around him. Their tails were alert and their noses high, but they were careful to drag their paws, leaving unbroken trails in the dirt.

Alphonse thought he'd been paying attention, but he was still surprised when lightning crashed down around him. Merlin, it was bright. He felt the static in the air, felt his hair frizzing, tasted ozone. It seemed to have barely missed him, striking instead the golden wand that stuck out from the top of the rock.

When his eyes recovered from the lightning's brightness and adjusted back to the comparative gloom, Alphonse saw that his phial was filled with a mouthful of blood-red potion.

Swallow it, said Madam Pomfrey.

We will cast the incantation, said Professor McGonagall.

Alphonse brought the phial to his lips and drank, taking a moment to savor the now-familiar bitter of mandrake leaf.

Center yourself, said Professor McGonagall.

Alphonse centered himself. He felt for the ground under his feet, felt for the flow of chi that connected him to his cat mentors. Felt for the flow of chi that echoed off the trees, echoed off the ceremonial rock and its ceremonial wand. He exhaled.

Amato Animo Animato Animagus.

The words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and Alphonse lent his own voice to the magic. "Amato Animo Animato Animagus."

It was small and sandy-yellow. It was round, compact. Plated? It only existed in Al's mind's eye, but somehow it noticed him watching. Surprised, it jumped straight in the air. Alphonse made sure to catch it on the way down.

It was him, he was it. The clearing grew wide, the trees grew tall, and suddenly Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey had very sharp teeth.

Alphonse jumped three feet straight into the air, tucked himself into a tight ball as he came down, and rolled.

Is that an armadillo? said Madam Pomfrey.

I think so, said Professor McGonagal. Mr. Elric. Alphonse. I know cats might not be a comforting sight when your animal instincts are so new, but please let us know that you still have your mind.

Alphonse slowly unrolled, fought the impulse to roll back up again when he saw two pairs of luminous cat eyes glowing at him. I'm me, he said. I'm definitely still me. He found his feet, stood on his hind ones. Merlin, I think I'm doing this to make myself look bigger.

He took the opportunity to touch the edges of his plating with his front paws, though, pretending that it hadn't started as a fear reaction.

Thank Merlin, said Madam Pomfrey.

An armadillo, Alphonse! said Professor McGonagall. How handsome.

If Alphonse was a human, he thought he might have blushed. But armadillo skin worked differently than human skin, and any flush he might have felt was completely obscured by his plating and his fur. An armadillo, he said. Does that have something to do with armor? Because I notice that I'm armored.

It does, said Professor McGonagall. Armored, and then a diminutive. Might translate roughly to 'little armored one' in some languages.

Damn, said Alphonse, Oh shit. Wait! How do I stop broadcasting my swear words, you aren't supposed to hear any of that!

Both of his cat mentors laughed.

After a moment of flailing in embarrassment, he felt a tongue rasp against his forehead plate. Alphonse opened his eyes, gave Professor McGonagall an affectionate nudge.

Discovering the animal manifestation of your soul can be overwhelming, said Madam Pomfrey, pressing her warm flank against his. Take time to process it.

I will, said Alphonse. Just when I thought I'd never have to think about armor again. Now. How do I become human again?

His mentors leaned a little more firmly into his sides before reestablishing personal space. Well, Professor McGonagall said, you start by remembering your human form.

They spent the night in the clearing, turning into wizards, turning into animals, and turning back again. They did it until Alphonse could reliably transform with his wand, then toddled moon-drunk back to the castle in their animal forms.

If I catch you transforming to get around curfew, said Professor McGonagall, I will take house points.

That set all three of them off to giggling. It had been a long night, and they had warm beds to return to. Everything was funny.

Word Count: 3252

Date Posted: 8/9/2023

What did I say about all of this being uploaded before the end of June? Whoops. That last week before I left for the trail got ridiculous, but my pet's medical emergency brought me back into town for the foreseeable future, so here we are. Lol. I'm so tired.