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Chapter 49

Old Men's Secrets

Ed probably should have expected that Flamel would have the worst timing in the whole damn world. Most wizards had terrible timing. But none of them had gone so far as to interrupt him while he was teaching class, especially not when the kids were actually doing some simple transmutations.

It was his seventh years, and all of them were legally adults by wizarding standards. Theoretically, if one of them got hurt while Ed was distracted, he'd be in less trouble than if it was a minor. But that rationalization did not immediately come to him when Flamel's butterfly patronus landed on the tip of his nose right as the first kid was putting their fingertips to their transmutation circle.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the ensuing chaos, but nobody missed Flamel's echoing voice calling Ed to the headmaster's office either.

Edward really fucking hated magic sometimes. Aw, fuck. He shook that out of his head. Hating magic wasn't fair to Alphonse.

"Class is dismissed," he said. "To zose of you who actually managed to finish a transmutation, congratulations! Label your product and put it on my desk. I'll grade it when I get back. Zose of you who didn't, also congratulations! You've lucked into more time to look over your equations. We'll pick zis back up next time."

There was a stampede of general muttering. "The Headmaster's still bollixed up from his time away, innit?" said one of the Gryffindor students.

"Should we be worried?" said one of the Ravenclaws.

"He's getting up in age, too," said one of the Hufflepuffs. "A wizard can live a long time, but the Headmaster hasn't seemed well at all this year."

"None of your business," said Ed. "It might have been worth sharing wis zee students a month ago, but at zis point zee situation is stable enough zat it shouldn't affect any of you."

None of the seventh years seemed to know what to say to that. Ed pushed past them for the classroom door. "If I hear any of you tried your transmutation without me here to get it over with, I'll start kicking people out of zee class again!"

Ed felt content to leave them unsupervised with that threat. At this point, everyone who was still in his classes really wanted to stay. They also knew he wasn't bluffing. Ed felt a glow of accomplishment on both fronts.

That glow of accomplishment only lasted as long as it took Ed to arrive at the Old Man's office. "He isn't letting me in," said Flamel, in plaintive German.

"Of course he fucking isn't," said Ed. "I think being a contrary old bastard is what's keeping him alive, at this point."

Flamel looked mournful at the words 'old bastard' but he should have thought through the difficulties of an extended lifespan before he went ahead and made a philosopher's stone.

"Did you send one of your stupid butterflies to Alphonse, too?"

"Should I have?" said Flamel. "I was under the impression that he was here as a student, and that you'd prefer I communicate through you."

"You know we're both technically minors. Alphonse can take care of himself" said Ed, waving a hand dismissively. "You'd be right about my preferences anyway, except that Alphonse is better at people than I am, and apparently that includes dealing with the Old Man. So we'll get further if he's here."

Flamel accepted this, and another silver butterfly issued from the tip of his wand. It soared down the hallway, and Edward found himself momentarily transfixed by its glow. "Magic," he said, but with less resentment and more wonder than usual.

Ed looked at the door to the Headmaster's office. "All teachers know the password," he said. "Unless he's actually set the door to isolation mode. But somehow…" Ed switched to English to whisper the password at the guardian gargoyle.

Sure enough, it stepped aside. The stairs didn't act as a convenient escalator though. They had to climb them one by one. Bastard.

"Edward! Nicholas! To what do I owe the pleasure?" said the Old Man once they'd stepped properly into his office. It was somehow the most petulant voice Edward had ever heard.

Flamel looked at Ed, looked at Dumbledore. "Well, given that you wouldn't open your door to your old teacher, I had to call for back-up."

"Didn't answer the door? Oh darn these old ears of mine, I must not have heard you knocking."

It was some of the worst bullshit Ed had ever heard. He exchanged a look with Flamel, who looked nearly as exasperated as Ed felt. Flamel took a step toward the Old Man's desk, sat in one of the chintz armchairs before it. "I believe I have my wayward student in hand now, young Mr. Elric."

Ed recognized a dismissal when he heard one, and a large part of him wanted to rebel against it. Insist on staying. He did need to know for himself what Dumbledore was hiding. But Ed had been trying to wrangle this secret out of the Old Man for weeks. He was tired. He did not know that he actually wanted to be part of this conversation.

It wasn't lost on him that Flamel might have more luck without him there.

Besides, Alphonse was coming. That would be an opportunity for Ed to return to the conversation. He nodded to himself, looked at the Old Man, said, "We've already sent for Alphonse. I'll go out to the hall and wait for him. You'll have some privacy until he gets here."

That's what he did. This time, he noticed with some amusement, the spiral staircase carried him down to the gargoyle. Old men and their fucking power plays. When he was deposited next to the gargoyle, Ed sat unrepentantly on the flagstone flooring, nodded at the gargoyle in acknowledgement.

Of course, given that this was Hogwarts, and Ed was fairly sure that the school was specifically designed to melt his brain, the gargoyle nodded slowly back. He was starting to get used to that, though. He already knew that it could understand and respond to passwords, and the portraits were able to hold whole conversations. It wasn't too far a leap to assume that gargoyle statues (or perhaps an actual gargoyle, Ed wasn't entirely sure) could respond to nods.

"Does it get boring, guarding the Old Man's office?" Ed decided to ask, because a little conversation never hurt anybody.

The gargoyle gave a soft grunt, which should have seemed fairly non-committal, but somehow managed to communicate, Not especially. You humans spend so much time rushing around, but a gargoyle appreciates stopping in a single place and watching the world move around them.

"I guess you get to see a lot of bullshit, guarding a Headmaster's office. Not the worst place to sit and watch."

The next grunt was a hum of quiet agreement. Damn it all, Ed wanted to get back to Amestris. He looked at his knees, trying to figure out where he should take this odd conversation next.

There was a clack clack clack of delicate claws walking over the flagstone flooring, and Ed looked up to see a three banded armadillo scurrying toward him. Ed raised a hand in greeting, and the armadillo turned into Alphonse. Ed was getting used to that, too, really he was.

"Mr. Flamel sent a patronus," Alphonse said without preamble.

"I finally asked him for help weaseling that last secret out of the Old Man. But then the Old Man wouldn't let him into the office, so I came by to give him the teacher-access password and suggested you might be useful."

"Ah," said Alphonse. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"

"I'm tired of the Old Man's bullshit, and I thought Flamel might do better without me, so I said I'd wait for you out here."

Alphonse exchanged a look with the gargoyle. "I'm glad to see you making friends, Brother."

That was what was happening, wasn't it? Sue him, the gargoyle seemed like a nice guy!

"Do you think we should go in right away?" Alphonse said, glancing at the gargoyle and the staircase behind it. "Or should we give Flamel more time to work?"

"Well," said Ed. "I think we should go in together, be a united front. But I also think that the Old Man will be more talkative in front of you, and less talkative in front of me, so I'm worried that we'll just cancel each other out."

Alphonse sighed heavily. "You remember what I said about being tired of playing mediator? This is what I meant."

"I know," said Ed. "I'm sorry."

"No you're not," said Alphonse, but there was something good-natured in his tone that kept Ed from tensing. "The Headmaster could be hiding something only tangentially relevant to our problems, so this might just be wishful thinking on my part, but I think the sooner we get him to talk, the sooner we can go home. That's worth it."

"I'm glad," said Ed. "Once we get home we should draw up a concrete plan about respecting your boundaries, though."

"Yes please," said Alphonse. "But I don't mind a little mediation. Now and again. I'm good at it."

Alphonse was good at it. That's why Edward had always let him do it. Ed stood up from the floor to give himself a moment to think. The chill of Scottish October was setting into his automail leg. "And that's why I need to get better at not taking it for granted," he said as he dusted off his red coat.

The smile Alphonse flashed at him told Ed it had been the right thing to say. Thank fuck.

"Let's go in, then?"

"Yeah," said Ed. He turned to the gargoyle, gave the password, and also placed a hand on its stony shoulder. It leaped aside and the staircase began to turn. Ed stepped aboard, let himself be carried. "I don't know if this is a good sign or a bad sign."

"Oh?" Alphonse said from the step behind him.

"The Old Man was cranky enough earlier that he made me and Flamel climb it," Ed said.

"Huh." Whatever else Alphonse might have had to say about it was cut off by the staircase depositing them on the landing. The office doors creaked open.

Old Man Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk looking chagrined, chastened, and defeated all at once. Flamel was no less defeated, but disappointment was there too.

"What zee fuck happened?" Ed said, switching to English and looking from one to the other.

Alphonse elbowed him in the side, hesitated, said, "I was going to yell at Bruder for being coarse, but actually same question."

"Harry Potter is Voldemort's last Horcrux," Flamel said.

The Old Man looked at Flamel mutinously. "Just because I brought you into my confidence, Nicholas, doesn't mean I gave you permission to spread sensitive information to all and sundry!"

"Albus, you knew why I was asking."

"What zee actual fuck?" Ed said.

"We have to tell Harry," said Alphonse, turning away from the headmaster's desk to pace agitatedly. "This isn't fair. Poor Harry."

"So you see," said the Headmaster. "The only way to defeat Voldemort permanently is to kill young Mr. Potter. Certain rules of magical theory suggest that if Tom were to kill Harry himself, the horcrux would be destroyed and Harry would wake from death without coming to any real harm. But with Tom indisposed, I thought I would hold onto this information until it became relevant. Give the boy the rest of his childhood. Spare him as long as we can."

Dumbledore's little speech carried the weight of grief, pity, and self-pity. It filled Ed with incandescent rage.

"Zat is such bullshit," Ed said. "Do you not remember zat one of my alchemical specialities is soul manipulation? Zat I haff seen soul attachments of many kinds? Made zem? Dealt wis zem?"

"It's true," said Alphonse. "I'm zee proof."

"Not every magical malady can be solved with alchemy!" said the Old Man. "Don't you think I've tried everything I can? I've looked! Neither can live while the other survives. Even a fool knows that the harder one seeks to subvert prophecy, the more the prophecy becomes set in stone."

Ed slammed his palms on Dumbledore's desk. "Prophecies don't exist where I come from," he said. "And even if zey did, a prophecy is a shitty reason for leading someone to zeir death."

"This isn't your world, Mr. Elric," said Dumbledore, eyes uncharacteristically hard. "The rules are different here. Look around you! Surely you must accept that."

All Ed heard was more fucking excuses. "Zis world might be governed by prophecy, but I'm not from zis world. I sure as hell won't be governed."

This seemed to give the Old Man pause. Alphonse paused in his pacing. Flamel turned his attention from moping about his student's moral bankruptcy to Ed.

Edward smiled, and there wasn't anything warm about it. "Even if you're convinced by zis prophecy bullshit, zat sounds like a loophole, right?"

"Perhaps," said Dumbledore. "You've given me much to think on. Might I ask you to give me the space to do so?"

Another dismissal.

Ed hated being dismissed, but he hated going around in circles with the Headmaster more. "Yeah, whatever Old Man," he said, taking several steps back from the desk. "We're getting zat piece of soul out of him. Zen Alphonse and I will be out of your hair. Permanently."

Spinning on his heels, Ed looked to Al, who gave a subtle shake of his head. Ed accepted this, stormed to the office door by himself.

The heavy wooden doors closed behind him, but not before he heard the Headmaster ask Alphonse to leave too. Not before he heard Alphonse refuse.

Eh. He'd ask him about it later.

With Ed's volatile presence out of the room, Alphonse turned to face Headmaster Dumbledore. He approached the chintz armchair next to Mr. Flamel, shot them both moderately distasteful looks as he sat down.

"I wasn't lying when I said I needed time to think," said Professor Dumbledore. He still looked shaken, but Alphonse could see the edges of twinkle returning to his eyes. The Headmaster was pulling himself together, and frankly Alphonse didn't want to give him the chance.

"You should have told us," he said.

"Your brother made that exceptionally clear," said Headmaster Dumbledore. He lifted the stump of his wrist, gestured at it with his remaining hand. "But I might remind you how your last attempt at solving magical problems went. Your brother is rash, young Alphonse. And you follow his lead more often than not."

Alphonse looked at the Headmaster's wrist. "I remember us saving your life, Headmaster."

"With great consequences!" Dumbledore indicated his stump again, indicated his general self. "Harry Potter is but a child! He should not have to suffer your brother's next slapdash hack job."

"Harry Potter is Bruder's age," said Al. "Ed manages wisout his leg. He managed wisout his arm. I managed as a disembodied soul in a suit of armor. Don't misunderstand - I'm glad to have my body back. But zee armor was better zan being dead, which is where your plan for him ends."

"Not necessarily," said Dumbledore. "I've already said that if Tom killed him…" He spoke in grand tones, but Alphonse was certain this was petulance.

"You don't know zat," Al said. "You're guessing. You hope. And zat possibility disappeared for zee time being when I killed Voldemort's body at Malfoy Manor. You should have adjusted your plans."

This did not make Professor Dumbledore look at all repentant. Alphonse looked to Mr. Flamel, who was being awfully quiet, for support. Mr. Flamel did not offer any. He was sitting in his own chintz armchair and staring off into the middle distance.

"My plans did adjust." Professor Dumbledore folded his hand over his stump. "My plan became to wait. To collect what horcruxes we could, leaving one for Tom to reconstruct himself with. The final confrontation could have proceeded."

Alphonse knew, logically, that his eyes couldn't actually roll to see the back of his head. He tried it anyway. "And what of me and Ed in this scenario? Were we supposed to just wait? Stranded in zis universe? You would have died in Summer at zee latest. Were we all supposed to carry out your grand confrontation without you?"

"So you reveal your true motivation!" Professor Dumbledore cried. "We must all make sacrifices in wartime. Your ticket home is not more important than defeating Tom."

Ha. "We must all make sacrifices in wartime," said Alphonse easily enough. That was true. "Except for you."

"Pardon me?"

"You wanted Bruder and I to wait. You wanted Harry to let himself die. You wanted your army - zose loyal to you - to keep fighting on an uncertain timeline." Alphonse leaned back in his armchair, raised an eyebrow. "And you wanted out. You didn't want to have to see any of it. Zat's why you were so keen to die."

"I am an old man," said Dumbledore. "I have sacrificed more in my life for the greater good than you could possibly imagine at fifteen."

Sacrifices. Alphonse exhaled slowly through his nose, let the whoosh of air through his nostrils ground him. He'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't make anything of it, that he'd never mention it. That he'd never embarrass the Headmaster like this, who clearly did not want to acknowledge it. But Alphonse was tired. Alphonse was angry. The practicality of the armadillo told him to use every advantage at his disposal. "Who was he?"

"What?" But the Headmaster knew what Alphonse was referring to. Every line in his body had drawn still, tense.

"Who did you sink I was? When you were in shock, after zee curse. You said zat I should be in Austria. You told me not to stand on ceremony. Who were you talking to?"

Professor Dumbledore's expression grew distant. "No one," he said.

"One of your sacrifices?" Alphonse asked.

The Headmaster shook himself, looked at Alphonse sternly. "If we're asking indelicate questions, what's so terrible about the Philosopher's Stone? Why was knowing that Nicholas made one enough to wreck him in your esteem? Why would you and Edward even know that information?"

With his own gaze still fixed on Headmaster Dumbledore, Alphonse felt more than saw Mr. Flamel freeze. It was Mr. Flamel's turn to go still and tense, apparently.

"Believe me when I say you don't want to know," Al said.

"Mass murder," said Mr. Flamel. Alphonse turned to properly look at him, blinked in shock.

"What?" Professor Dumbledore was also staring.

Alphonse pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you plan on telling him zee formula and giving him zee array, too?"

Mr. Flamel had been more crunched in that armchair than Al had realized. He seemed to uncurl as he straightened his back. "The primary ingredient of the Philosopher's Stone is human lives. For one the size of mine? Innumerable."

Well. If Alphonse had wanted the Headmaster off-kilter, the Headmaster was certainly off-kilter now.

Mr. Flamel wasn't done, though. "I swore long ago to never make another. I haven't. I won't. Still, I thought you a better man than I, Albus. Perhaps I was wrong."

Then, Mr. Flamel was done. He was so done that he strode directly to the fireplace, decisively tossed floo powder into the grate, and was gone in a swirl of his robes and a flash of green.

There was a long moment where Alphonse and Professor Dumbledore just stared after Mr. Flamel. Alphonse muttered a few of his brother's choicer Amestrian curses, turned to the Headmaster. "Zat's a terrible way to find out, from a mentor you respect."

Headmaster Dumbledore did not need much longer before recovering himself. "Mass murder?" he said. "Human lives?"

"Finding out zee formula was not zee worst day of our lives, but it definitely ranks," Alphonse said. "Bruder and I had thought for so long zat zee fabled Philosopher's Stone was our ticket to restoring our bodies, but we would not even use an existing one, once we knew what zey are made from."

"How does one simply come across this information?" Professor Dumbledore stood from the grand chair behind his desk. At first Alphonse thought it might be an attempt to intimidate, but the Headmaster wandered over to his shelves of knickknacks, focused his eyes there instead of looking at Al.

"We didn't 'simply come across it,'" Al said mildly. "We'd been looking for years, and our looking was military funded. Ultimately, we found zee answer in a military library. Zey'd burned down zee building before we could get to it, but one of zee librarians had a photographic memory. She was able to transcribe it for us. It was made to look like an ordinary cookbook."

Headmaster Dumbledore tore his attention from his knickknacks, looked at Alphonse with a confusion that Al was shocked he'd admit to. "A military library? If they already knew, why were they funding your research?"

Alphonse wondered precisely how much of this story he should share with the Headmaster. He wouldn't have shared any of it if Mr. Flamel hadn't abruptly lost his mind. "I sink we already told you zat zey mostly hired Bruder to keep him on a leash. It was a way of keeping powerful alchemists loyal to zee country, even as our military forced zem to commit atrocities."

The Headmaster turned his attention back to his shelves. "This is the government you helped to overthrow?"

"Of course," said Alphonse. He considered his options. "In zee end it was zat or die. Our entire country was founded with zee long-term goal of combining every soul within zee border into a massive Philosopher's Stone. Thankfully, zose responsible left Bruder's leash just long enough zat we were able to hang zem with it."

"That might be the worst story I've ever heard," said Professor Dumbledore. He did not sound surprised, but Alphonse figured that with enough revelations at once, anyone's disbelief mechanisms might be shorted out.

"Zee true ones usually are." Alphonse rose from his armchair, joined the Headmaster at the shelving. The knickknacks were whirring and sputtering and bright. "Bruder likes to say his alchemical specialty is metal, earth, and stone, but even in Amestris, he's probably zee most experienced alchemist alive in zee science of soul manipulation. Or at least zee most experienced soul alchemist who isn't evil or murderously insane."

"That doesn't make me feel better, young Alphonse."

Alphonse sighed, poked at a figurine of the solar system and sent it swirling around itself. "You know, zee alchemist who first managed to produce Philosopher's Stones for zee military, zee one's whose notes we discovered? He regretted his work more zan any other alchemist we knew. He helped us overthrow zee government in zee end. I sink he would have helped us even if zee stakes weren't quite so high."

Professor Dumbledore looked at him again. "I am well aware that good men often do terrible things," he said. "I am aware that they can regret them. I am over one hundred years old. I have seen it happen before, and I'm afraid I'll see it again."

"I don't trust Mr. Flamel," said Alphonse.

"I don't suppose you would," said the Headmaster.

"But you have reason to trust him. You have a lifetime of mentorship and friendship with him. I have trusted creators and users of Philosopher's Stones on less."

There was a moment of silence where they both again became absorbed with the magical knickknacks on the shelves. Professor Dumbledore poked at a toy carrot that emitted a rainbow of sparks. "Plural?"

"Plural," Alphonse said.

"I understand that you and your brother find this world to be a bit of a nightmare, but I can assure you I feel quite the same about yours."

Alphonse gave a small, uneasy laugh. Amestris was a nightmare. "It's home," he said. There was another pause in the conversation.

"I hope, for all our sakes, that you and your brother are right about your non-role in our prophecies," Professor Dumbledore said. "I hope that you and your brother can truly help Harry Potter, and not just hurt him."

"I sink we can. But zere's really no way to know until we try." Alphonse shrugged helplessly.

When the Headmaster again turned away from his knickknacks to face him, there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes at all. "Surely you had more of a plan than 'try' when you saved your entire country."

There were two answers Alphonse could give to this. He was tempted to shrug and say no, completely refuse to engage in the Headmaster's construct by closing any avenue for debate. He went with the truth instead: "We had a plan," he said. "We have a plan now, too. You just don't like it, because it's not part of your ongoing twenty-year scheme."

Predictably, the Headmaster didn't like this answer. "Using experimental alchemy to solve a magical problem on a child is not my idea of a plan."

"You're forgetting zat Bruder has actual experience manipulating soul attachments, zough. I have experienced living as an attached soul. It might seem hasty and ill-advised to you, but any alchemist in Amestris struggling wis a problem like zis one would probably go to us for advice."

"As an educator, I fully understand that children can be extremely capable," the Headmaster said. "But I confess I have trouble believing that researchers all over your country would turn to a sixteen-year-old for advice on extremely complicated alchemy."

"You hired him as a professor, sixteen years old and all," Alphonse pointed out. Then he smiled, because, "Truthfully, most of zem don't realize quite how young we are until zey meet us face-to-face. But Bruder earned his position, and he's continued making a name for himself ever since."

"Your reputations proceed you."

"Zat zey do," Alphonse said. "Because of zee armor, zey usually sought I was zee notorious Edward Elric. Sent Bruder into a meltdown about his height every time."

It occurred to Al that poking fun at Ed's little immaturities was perhaps not the best way to soothe Professor Dumbledore's nerves about relinquishing his hard-won control, but the Headmaster actually laughed. Maybe this conversation wasn't a complete disaster.

"We'll get zee horcrux out of Harry," said Alphonse. "We'll drag Voldemort srough zee gate. And zen we'll go home. If you still wish you were dead when it's all over, maybe you can retire. See if a change of pace does you any good."

"Perhaps," Headmaster Dumbledore said. "You know, every time I have encountered young men with government toppling aspirations, it never goes well."

What. "Plural?"

"Plural." Professor Dumbledore gave a grim little smile. "I'm afraid I was one of them as a young man myself. Allowed myself to be steered toward hatred and politics of domination. He was from Austria."

Oh. Alphonse gently grasped the Headmaster's shoulder. "You don't have to tell me zis," he said. "I was just scrambling for a way to hurt you, to make you react to somesing."

The Headmaster let out a huff. "That, young man, was obvious. But I suppose I should apologize anyway, for thinking you were a man I put in prison myself."

Instinctively, Alphonse knew there was more to the story than that. He prised the Headmaster away from the shelves of knickknacks, steered him to the chintz armchair Mr. Flamel had vacated. "You weren't thinking of him as a prisoner," said Alphonse. "When you imagined him while delirious."

"I wasn't," the Headmaster agreed. "And that's what scares me, that despite the evils in his plans for the future. Despite the war he started and the people he killed, I reach for the memory of him when I'm at my weakest. You and your brother both remind me of the best of him, and it seems you accomplished together what he never could. You brought down a corrupt government without attempting to install yourselves as something even worse."

Alphonse settled back into his own chintz armchair. "We got whisked here before zee dust even settled, we have no idea who's going to be in charge when everysing is over."

There was something fevered in the Headmaster's expression when he leaned across the gap between them and gripped Alphonse's elbows. "Promise me," he said. "Don't go into politics."

Alphonse met his twinkling eyes steadily, knowing full well that the Headmaster was a master legilimens with no sense of ethics whatsoever. He thought of Mei, whose entire life was politics. He thought of Amestris, desperately in need of restructuring to support a society that wasn't supposed to simply end. "I can't promise zat," he said. "But I can promise zat I have no desire to be in charge. And Edward has only ever wanted to be a researcher."

"Good." The fevered something in the Headmaster's expression seemed to wane, and the grip on Al's arms disappeared as the Headmaster settled back into his chair. "I think I almost believe that."

"I appreciate zee advice," Alphonse said, because that was true.

Professor Dumbledore gave a short nod. "Try your solution," he said, like Alphonse had asked for his permission. Like the Elric brothers didn't do whatever they thought was right, whenever the need arose.

"Of course," said Alphonse. "You couldn't stop us if you tried."

Alphonse turned into an armadillo before leaving the office. Partly to decisively end the conversation, but partly because he was proud of the sandy plating that covered him. He waved a claw at the dumbfounded Headmaster and delicately stepped through the great wooden doors.

The moving spiral stairs were a lot more fun at this smaller size.

Word Count: 4971

Date Posted: 8/13/2023

Author's Note: Thoughts? Three and a half chapters left! Thanks for reading.