The first of my post-Hogwarts Harry/Luna stories is also the first to go into The Cauldron for archival. This was my attempt to do a Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, and while it had a lot of neat ideas in it, I couldn't muster up the motivation to take it any further. Hence its placement here. That being said, for all that, I still have an (admittedly on-hiatus) pure Fullmetal Alchemist story called Saligia, so feel free to peruse it.
TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER 1:
TRUTH AND DARE
"Hello."
Harry Potter wasn't really expecting anything when he and Luna had stepped through the Veil. All in the name of thaumatological inquiry, of course. He had to admit to being nervous: it was the Veil of Death after all, or so it had been thought of until his research team (himself, Luna, and Hermione) had discerned something different about it.
But was he expecting a white void, with a massive, ominous gate inscribed with arcane symbols, and a bizarre outline, black ever-shifting smoke (or was it energy?) outlining a crudely humanoid figure that was as white as the void itself, and thus would have been invisible otherwise? No, he certainly wasn't. Nor was he expecting the strange, androgynous voice that sounded like many people speaking at once.
Luna didn't seem to indicate that she had expected it either way. Instead, she skipped merrily up to the outline, and said, "Hello. What's your name?"
For a moment, the outline seemed a bit bemused by her cheerful greeting, but it seemed to recover swiftly. "Oh, I'm glad you asked!" it said equally cheerfully. "I'm called by many names. I am the world. I am the universe. I am God. I am Truth. I am All. I am One. And I am you."
"It must be nice to have so many names," Luna said with her habitual dreamy smile on her face. "I only really have two: Luna Lovegood, and Looney. I sometimes get called God, though. Invariably by Harry. 'Oh my God, Luna!', he cries out, when I..."
"Luna, please don't discuss our sex life in front of the eldritch entity," Harry murmured in dismay.
"Well, it IS entertaining," the Truth (as Harry and Luna would come to dub the entity in front of them) said, a grin appearing on its otherwise featureless face. Then, the grin disappeared, and the Truth became literally faceless once more. "But sadly, your business here with me is somewhat more urgent and serious. You ventured forth through the Veil of Truth, voluntarily. Most came here involuntarily."
"I know," Harry said, thinking of Sirius. It was the biggest reason that he had set forth on this insane venture. Not the only one, though.
He was getting sick and tired of both the awed whispers and dark mutters. He was treated with both praise and suspicion for managing to vanquish Lord Voldemort. Not by his friends, at least. His break-up with Ginny had been amicable, and she found better love with Neville Longbottom. Ron Weasley was gaining fame of his own in the Muggle world in chess circles, which he did between assignments as an Auror. And Hermione was, as they had been, applying herself in the Department of Mysteries.
Their discoveries about the Veil, that it was not into Death, was astonishing. Then again, he remembered that time in the Forbidden Forest, when he couldn't recall Sirius' spirit with the Resurrection Stone.
After considerable discussion with Luna and Hermione, Harry resolved to embark on his next great adventure, albeit hopefully not into Death. He penned an open letter to be published in the Daily Prophet, said his goodbyes to his friends (Teddy being in the care of Ron and Hermione), and then went through.
Only to end up in this situation.
"In ancient times, the Veil and its arch was used to send the condemned of your world to me, as tribute to keep what they call 'magic' strong. The fools had no inkling of the truth, but even so, everyone who came here was offered a choice. And few chose wisely. Of late, they haven't done so. Come here, that is. They forget that a lot of what they call magic is fuelled from within their very bodies, something that your bushy-haired friend has come to realise. Yes, I can see events in your world. But to travel through the Veil is to travel irrevocably to another world. Assuming, of course, you choose wisely."
"Choose what?"
The smile appeared on its featureless face again. "When people pass through here, I exact a toll. In exchange for part of them, I grant them knowledge and power. Not that they have much of a choice in the matter. Anyone who is foolish enough to knock on my door should have realised that human transmutation through alchemy is a taboo. But for those who come here from your world, I offer a simple exchange: your magic, in exchange for the ability to perform circle-less alchemy. Refuse, and, well, I am sure you don't want to know…"
"Does it involve tentacles?" Luna asked. Harry facepalmed.
"…What."
"Luna…" Harry groaned. Then, to the Truth, he said, "This is a pretty leonine contract. You have us over a barrel. And I don't know how to use alchemy."
"True. But you came here. Your magic in exchange for that ability is pretty lenient. I'll even let you keep your cloak and stone. Plus, I am sure you want to know what happened to your dogfather."
Harry's eyes widened. "Sirius was here?! What choice did he make?"
"What choice do you think he made?"
Harry thought about that. And while Sirius was a wizard, he would have also not have refused. He probably would have wanted to stay alive to help his godson. "Luna? Are you willing to agree?"
"Of course. Magic gets a bit boring after a while. It'll be interesting to try something new."
"Okay, well, Luna says yes, so I do too."
The grin widened. "Excellent choice. Just a bit of warning, though…" The gate nearby opened, revealing darkness, from which a massive, eldritch eye peered out. Hand-like appendages on the ends of tendrils made out of shadow lashed out of the gate and grabbed Harry and Luna and began to drag them in. "This will hurt quite a bit."
The last thing Harry heard before the Gate (he capitalised the name without realising it) shut was Luna yelling happily, "I was right! There are tentacles involved!" And the last coherent thought before everything went very strange and very painful was that he hoped those weren't the last words he would ever hear…
Isaac McDougal's luck had changed with ridiculous frequency, as if Lady Luck herself had some sort of bipolar disorder. He had managed to draw most of his transmutation circles before the soldiers sent by Bradley found him. He had been forced to flee, true, but he had been doing well until the Fullmetal Brat turned up. A short teenager with a shorter fuse and a little man complex, he was nonetheless ridiculously capable of using alchemy far beyond what he should have been. McDougal was both impressed and annoyed. And he was confused as to why Edward Elric didn't have to use a transmutation circle, or why he had an automail arm. Or, for that matter, why his little brother seemed to be wearing a massive suit of armour that should have been too big for someone like him.
The Elrics had managed to capture him, but Lady Luck smiled when McDougal realised they didn't know about the tattoos of his personal transmutation circles on his hand. He faked tripping and falling, and was able to use a puddle to distract his guards via a blast of steam. He fled, knowing that once he put some distance between him and the others, he could use a water jet to cut his handcuffs off.
But his luck seemed determined to change for the worse, now that it had gotten better, if only briefly. And by a ridiculous means, too. He didn't expect two people to simply fall from the sky and land on him. After all, such things were impossible and sounded like something from a contrived story. This, of course, he would only think about in retrospect. He got knocked out by these two people, in actual fact. But he would come to curse the names of Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood during his dying days…
Edward Elric had seen some pretty strange shit in his time, a good chunk of it admittedly happening during the failed attempt to bring his mother back to life. In short order, he lost his leg, his brother lost his body, he saw some weird thing called the Truth, and was forced to sacrifice his arm in order to give his brother a body again, albeit a suit of armour.
Still, seeing Isaac McDougal on the ground, unconscious, with two rather oddly-dressed people on top of him, was amongst them. One was a young man, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. At first, given the dark hair, he thought the guy was a relative of the Bastard Colonel, but the hair was a lot messier, and the face was different. And his green eyes flashed from behind spectacles. The other was a woman of the same age, with blonde hair and pale eyes, and a massive grin that reminded him too uncomfortably of the Truth.
"Oh, wow," the young woman was saying, getting to her feet rather shakily. "Didn't get what I was expecting with the tentacles, but that was an experience!" She blinked for a bit. "Feels like the wrackspurts have gone away! Can we do it again?"
"Luna, no," the young man said. "I've had enough of mental violation when I had those bloody Occlumency 'lessons' with Snape." He rubbed his head as if to get rid of a headache, before he noticed Edward and Alphonse. "Besides, we've got company. Hello! Is this guy a friend of yours?"
"Nope. Thanks for catching him," Edward said.
"Brother? Who are these people?" Al asked.
This sparked off an unusual response in the woman, Luna. Her eyes widened, and she skipped over to Al, before rapping her knuckles on his armour. She blinked at the sound, before leaping up and grabbing his helmet and taking it. "Ooh, wow. Harry, come and have a look at this!"
Edward snatched the helmet away from Luna, while the young man, Harry, came over. "What's the matter?"
"It's a private thing!" Edward snapped as he gave Al his helmet back.
"He's hollow," Luna stage-whispered into Harry's ear. "This poor boy's soul is bound to this armour."
"A Horcrux?!"
"No, no, it's his whole soul. And judging by the look this guy is giving us, I don't think he had much choice."
Edward was, indeed, getting angry. "For God's sake, shut up! You're upsetting Alphonse! We didn't ask to be that way!"
"Oh," Luna said, cocking her head. "So you've met the Truth as well, have you?"
Elric's eyes widened in shock. "How could you…?"
Luna nudged his automail leg with her own foot. "You're missing an arm and a leg, and your brother's missing his whole body. Clearly, Truth's sense of humour is more twisted than we thought. We were lucky. All we had to do was give up our magic."
Edward stared at them. Not in disbelief, really. Because that was what he had said.
"Brother…isn't that what Mr Black said?"
Al's words had an effect on Harry, his eyes widening, and he rushed forward. "Mr Black? Sirius Black? Black hair, grey eyes, inveterate prankster?"
And then, a connection was made in Ed's mind. Memories of the anecdotes the older man would regale them with, impossible anecdotes, but most of them centring on one name. "Hang a moment…are you Harry Potter?"
Harry's eyes widened even further. "So you do know where he is?!"
"We used to. He left home years ago with some friends of his, a couple of Ishvalans. Look, we need to get this guy to prison. He's been killing a lot of people left, right, and centre. We'll talk later. I'm Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and this is my brother, Alphonse."
"Fullmetal? Then how come you only have two metal limbs?" Luna asked.
Edward blinked. "You know, you're the first person to ask me that." Better that than calling me short, he mused inwardly.
Only Harry noticed when Luna picked up a small, red stone that seemed to glow from within. It had rolled out from underneath McDougal earlier. There was something about that stone that reminded him of something, but of what?
Colonel Roy Mustang dearly wanted some aspirin. Headaches were always an occupational hazard when dealing with Edward Elric, especially given the teenaged alchemist's hair-trigger temper, his impulsiveness, and his bad reaction to even so much as thinking someone called him short. He had been in Central quite by chance, as had the Elrics, when Isaac McDougal made himself known. Edward had captured him, only for the Elrics and the escort to mess up, and nearly let him escape.
Of course, it meant that he now had to deal with two new headaches: a pair of unknown alchemists who had ties to one of Elric's acquaintances. Mustang had met Sirius Black on a number of occasions, and had clashed with both the man, as well as the Ishvalans he was with. The boy could have been his own son, and with a haunted look to his eyes that didn't belong to anyone so young. A fading, but still-visible scar, like a jagged lightning bolt, was half-hidden by his hair. The girl was strangely ethereal, and she didn't help by making these strange comments, a few of which even her friend didn't get. Though they were apparently categorising people according to some strange names, shortly after being debriefed on their role in catching Isaac McDougal. They called it the Sorting Hat Game, whatever that was.
"I think he's a Slytherin or a Gryffindor," Luna said, peering at Roy.
"And Edward?" Harry asked. "I reckon all but Slytherin. Ditto Alphonse."
"Exactly what I thought," Luna said. She looked at Riza Hawkeye. "Gryffindor or Hufflepuff," she said.
"What are you talking about?" Riza asked.
Before her fellow blonde could answer, the door opened, and Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, her of the glasses and stubble, came in. "Hey, Roy! I heard about McDougal getting caught. And these must be the people of the hour!" He went over to Al, and began pumping his arm up and down. "You must be the Fullmetal Alchemist! It's a pleasure to meet you!"
"Um, I'm his little brother, Alphonse. You want big brother Edward," Alphonse said, pointing to Edward.
"He's the Fullmetal Alchemist? I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were…"
"Don't say it," Edward growled.
"…So young?" Hughes asked, hoping that the answer wouldn't earn him a beatdown.
"…Better," Edward said.
"Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff," Luna declared.
Hughes wheeled to look at them. "Ah, yes! You two must be the ones who the Elrics found on top of McDougal."
"Harry Potter," Harry said. "And this beautiful eccentric goddess is Luna Lovegood."
"Eccentric?" Luna demanded, as if offended. After a moment's silence, she said, "Harry, I'm more than eccentric!"
Riza pinched her nose. "Please tell me you're not related to Major Armstrong?"
As if summoned by the very mention of his name, the big burly bear of a man burst through the door. "Colonel! Is it true? Have you caught McDougal?" bellowed the man.
Of course, the oncoming headache was partially ameliorated by the Lovegood girl blinking bemusedly, before turning to Harry and saying, "He'd have his own House." Harry promptly began to laugh, and Roy had to wonder what the big joke was…
In a town called Liore, a buxom woman with black hair and violet, slit-pupilled eyes answered the phone in her room at the massive Church of Leto. "Lust here. Oh? So McDougal's been captured? What about the Stone?" She frowned when she heard the response. "That's not good. He may have dropped it…or overused it. Or somebody's stolen it. If we're lucky, it's just some stupid thief who thought it a pretty jewel."
Suddenly, her compatriot, a rotund man with simple, cartoonish features and an even more simple demeanour chomped noisily into the leg of some fool Father Cornello had sent them. Lust, with a sigh, covered up the mouthpiece of her phone, and said, "Gluttony, try not to chew so loudly. This is a very important call." Returning to the call, she said, "Sorry, what else did you have to say?" Her eyebrows knotted together. "Two new alchemists have appeared? And one of them is the godson of Black? Hmm…should be interesting. They've been touched by the Gate too, huh? Then that makes them useful. Of course, I'll keep an eye out for them. Hopefully, they won't do too much damage here…"
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
And here you have it. The first chapter. Hope you enjoy it.
And seriously, what House would Armstrong be in? I've honestly no idea, save that it would probably be Armstrong House, passed through the Armstrong line for generations…
As mentioned in my foreword, the premise owes quite a bit to Ex Astris Gloria by alienyouthct, as well as the pairing and the humour about Harry and Luna's relationship, while the conversation with the Truth owes a bit to similar scenes in Daughter of Flame by sakurademonalchemist.
But what of Sirius? And who are the Ishvalans (yes, plural rather than singular) that he was friends with? I know you can guess who one of them is.
No numbered annotations this time.
