A/N: It's finally here folks! And the longest chapter yet. Really though, thank y'all so much for waiting patiently. I'm also beginning to add a few illustrations over on a03 where this is crossposted, so if you head over there onto chapter 8, you can meet 13th century Ed (or at least, Nicholas Flamel's interpretation of him anyway). I'm hoping to add more visual stuff here and there as we go, but this fic will remain image-less on the ffnet version.

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[Present]

"A hat? A hat? I can't believe Fred let me believe that the sorting was going to be some sort of fight!" Ron exclaimed as he and Harry flopped onto their dorm room beds.

"At least you knew there was a sorting at all," Dean said from the other side of the room, "My mum's not magical. We almost missed the Hogwarts Express trying to find it in the station."

"I did too," Harry said, incredibly relieved he wasn't the only one in the room who didn't know anything, "I only found it because of Ron's mum. I don't know anything about magic either."

"Really? But you're Harry Potter!" Seamus exclaimed in confusion, "You should know more than us all!"

"Not really," Harry shrugged, embarrassed, "I was raised by my aunt and uncle. I didn't know anything until I got my letter. The only magic I've seen is when Hagrid and Professor Elric took me to Diagon Alley to get my school supplies."

"You've met Professor Elric already?" Neville asked, surprised.

"And Professor Quirrell, we ran into him there." Harry explained.

"What are they like?" Ron asked.

"Professor Elric seems like a pretty dodgy dude," Seamus muttered, "Kept glaring at everyone."

"He'a not so bad," Harry mulled, "He is kind of crabby," he agreed, "Sometimes nice? And… sad? He dealt my awful aunt and uncle a new one which was cool, but I'm not sure he likes me very much."

"I don't think he likes anyone," Seamus commented. Harry shrugged.

"What about Quirrell?" Ron asked.

"Um, nervous. Very nervous." Harry said, "I think he almost fainted when we met."

"Wow, some teachers we've got," Dean said.

"My brothers said we need to watch out for Snape, the potions teacher," Ron frowned, "they said he's mean and hangs students up by their ankles over boiling pots if they fail their tests." He wrinkled his nose. "It was Fred and George who told me that, though…"

"Seriously?" Dean's eyebrows rose higher. "What kind of a school is this?"

Harry shrugged. He was sure that it couldn't be worse than going to Stonewall High in a flabby, home-dyed gray uniform three times the size of him, even if the teachers were weird. Not even Uncle Vernon would dare chain him up by his ankles though. He hoped Fred and George were lying.

"Say," Neville asked, looking terrified at the prospect of potions and wanting to change the subject, "What are muggle schools like?"

"Wild," Dean said, "At my last school they pitted the football team against the rest of us in dodgeball and we got creamed. Encouraged me to get into sports though," he added as an afterthought.

"My cousin's school gave him a beating stick," Harry supplied helpfully. "I'm sure he's knocking other students with his gang even now."

If anything, Neville paled even further. "Are all muggle schools that bad?"

"Nah, just the sports teams," Dean shrugged. "So long as you're not bullied, anyway. That's always bad."

Harry tried not to look embarrassed. He hoped he wouldn't be bullied here.

"Well I, for one, think magic school is better." Seamus announced. Ron gave him a scrunched incredulous stare that Harry interpreted as 'You just got here.'

"I hope so," Neville looked terribly nervous, "I don't think I'm any good at magic."

"That's what we're here for though, isn't it?" Seamus shrugged, "to learn."

"Yeah!" Ron agreed, "No more fake spells from my brothers." Ron nudged Harry's shoulder jovially, "We're gonna learn real magic. I wonder what'll happen if I really turn Scabbers yellow…"

Harry laughed, relieved to know that he wasn't alone.

[Present, Morning]

As expected, sleep didn't come easily. Edward tossed and turned for most of the night, finally achieving some sort of slumber in the wee hours of the morning.

Class time came too soon.

Edward dragged his feet into the classroom five minutes before the starting time, nerves eating his groggy state. There were already students in the room, speaking in hushed voices. Scanning his eyes over them, he noted red and blue trim announcing them as Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. He glanced at the parchment schedule in his hands. Fifth years.

The students stared at him, quieting as they gaged his presence. Edward made the silent walk to his desk at the head of the class, boots clomping unevenly on the floor as he had the strangest sense of dejà vu, like he was walking up to his own guillotine. Eyes burned into him as he stopped at the desk, shuffling his papers and nervously stalling for a few more moments. The souls in his chest muttered anxiously.

For Flamel's stone.

The blade fell.

He cleared his throat.

"Right," he began, swallowing the knot in his throat and finally gazing the students down properly, "As you probably already know, I am Edward Elric, and I'm here to teach… alchemy."

The blade severed flesh.

Almost immediately, an explosion of questions erupted.

"Can you turn coal into gold?"

"What is alchemy?"

"Isn't it supposed to be a lost art?"

"Aren't you our age?"

"Isn't alchemy just transfiguration?"

"Why hasn't alchemy been taught at Hogwarts before?"

"Where did you learn alchemy?"

"Quiet!" Edward fought the urge to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. Of course he shouldn't have expected the students to just accept the new subject. Alchemy, in the wizarding world, was viewed as an outdated or forgotten art. Something lost to obscurity that was invented by clever muggle-borns who knew of their powers but were never trained how to use traditional magic, or procured as a means for outcasted wizards to be able to continue using magic. A rudimentary form of transfiguration. In the end, nobody had a consistent answer, rumors only growing wilder and wilder as the years passed until it was near unrecognizable even from that.

Edward wished it would stay that way.

Instead, here he was.

"One question at a time," he spoke above the students, "This is a classroom. Raise your hands."

Immediately, most of the student body quieted and raised their hands.

"Okay," Edward fought the urge to sigh. They sure weren't going to make this easy. "You first," he pointed randomly to a brown haired girl in the front of the class. "Name?"

"Penelope Clearwater," she stated sweetly, looking at a black haired girl behind her and giggling.

"And what's your question?"

"How old are you?" She leaned forward, her mascaraed eyes wide.

"Older than you." Edward scowled at the pointless question. Of course they wanted to know. He knew he looked only a year older than the students in front if him. Why did his body have to get stuck at seventeen? He supposed it was a little better than getting helplessly wrinkled and old. "Next name and question… you!" He said, pointedly ignoring the new burst of giggles between Penelope and her friend, pointing at a light-haired kid in the back of the class.

"Cooper Pelton. Um, where did you learn alchemy? I haven't heard of it as a class before."

Ah.

".. I had a personal teacher." He responded shortly.

"So lots of people know alchemy? Why haven't we heard of it more then?" The question erupted from a Gryffindor girl on the right side of the room.

"Name?" Edward demanded.

"Sorry, Sir," she had the decency to look a little sheepish, raising her hand pointlessly as she answered, "I'm Agnes Worthart."

"Then to answer your question, Agnes, no. There are not many of us. In fact, there are only a couple alchemists alive today, and one of them is me. If anyone else claims they are, they're lying." He stated flatly, clear it was the end of that conversation with a glare across the room. The last thing he wanted to do was have to think about his father.

"Who was your teacher then?" A different student asked, clearly not getting the hint.

"I don't remember you raising your hand," Edward said, holding in a scowl. Truthfully, Izumi Curtis, like so many others he once knew, was probably lost; mind muddled and confused inside of the stone in his chest. He couldn't bear to think that anyone he knew from his past had been swallowed forever by the stone's use, but as confused and meshed as the souls were, it was impossible to confirm.

At this point, he didn't want to know.

"...She died." he said simply, in the same flat tone he had used to announce his class. Edward didn't bother to ask the student's name. "Any more hands in the air… yes, you!" He pointed at a redhead Gryffindor in the front, sitting next to Penelope.

"Percy Weasley, Professor. Why are you teaching alchemy when transfiguration exists? Isn't it the same thing?"

"Aha!" Edward grinned for the first time that day, bolstering himself with an artificial air of energy, "That's what I wanted to hear. The reason is because alchemy is not transfiguration. In fact, you could almost say it is the very opposite. Alchemy isn't even magic."

"How is it not magic?" The whole room looked confused.

"Allow me to demonstrate." Edward said with a hint of satisfaction. If nothing else about this awful day, he could at least set some wizards straight. "You!" He pointed at Penelope's friend who had finally stopped giggling, "Name?"

"Rosalyn Lestrade," she said, with a gleeful glance at Penelope.

"Alright Rosalyn," Edward said, a smug smile growing on his face, "Attack me."

"What?" Her smug demeanor fell immediately.

"You heard me. Attack me."

"Um, okay…" she reached tentatively for her wand looking nervous.

"Ah, ah!" Edward clapped his hands together. "No wands. You will never be using your wands in this class."

"But you said to-"

"Wizards." Edward hissed under his breath. Then louder, "You are a human being with limbs. You don't always have to rely on a stick."

"Oh…" hesitantly, Rosalyn started to stand while some of the class snickered. Edward gave the giggling kids a glare.

"Now," Edward smirked returning his attention and giving a cursory glance at the floor, "What if you were also stuck to your chair?" His hands hit the floor, and with a rumble and blue sparks, two arms of stone rose and wrapped around Rosalyn's ankles, trapping her to the legs of her chair. The students startled away with shocked yelps and Rosalyn screamed in surprise.

"What do you do now?" Edward asked, folding his hands neatly behind his back and strolling over, stopping just outside of her reach, "Can you attack me now? Can you free yourself?"

"No! Let me go!" Rosalyn struggled to free her legs whole every student watched the spectacle nervously.

"Certainly. Pay attention now," Lazily, Edward produced a piece of chalk, bending down to draw a neat, well-practiced circle. "This," he narrated aloud, "is a transmutation circle. The focal point for all alchemy. Different transmutation circles will manipulate different things. In this case, the formula is for stone." He finished his piece. "And then, once you have finished your circle, you can activate it."

Edward touched the edge of the circle with a fingertip, blue lightning arching around Rosalyn's legs once more to pull the stone back down into the floor. Rosalyn gave a gasp of relief, inspecting her unharmed legs and the floor around them.

"Wandless magic?" Agnes wondered aloud.

"Wrong!" Edward declared disapprovingly, "Did you not hear what I first said? Alchemy is no magic. Magic, when used without a focal point, which in your case is wands, is incredibly unpredictable. But you can still do it. Alchemy is impossible to perform without a transmutation circle. Cannot do it. And when you do use it, with very few exceptions, it is always extremely calculated and predictable."

"Wait, does that mean you can use magic with things other than wands?"

"Yes," Edward said slowly, "And without as well. What has professor Binns been teaching you?"

Blank faces stared up at him, while one daring kid in the back muttered, "not much…" while looking embarrassed.

"Aren't staves an option as well in some countries?" Percy Weasley asked.

"Correct!" Edward acknowledged, "Someone has been learning. Yes, staves used to be very popular before the wand was invented. Wands took over for being easier to point and carry, and are better at simple magic. But I daresay staves are much harder to break, and can direct more power, albeit a little less predictably. That makes them much more dangerous on a mass scale. Some countries, like Britain, have made staves illegal because of this.

"But putting that into perspective, almost anything, with varying degrees of success, can be a conduit for your magic provided it has the correct materials and is made in a conductive fashion. Swords, rings, umbrellas, pens, books, hell- I once knew a woman who used a frying pan! Said she liked the way it cooked her food too much. It was delicious… but the point I'm getting to here is that like magic, alchemy needs a focal point. But that is where any and all similarities end. You cannot ask a random wall, the ground, your desk, or your chair, to be a conduit for your magic. If you lose or break your wand, you're basically screwed. With alchemy, the only limit is your knowledge."

"And a writing utensil?" Percy challenged.

"In a sense." Edward acknowledged, unperturbed, "While alchemists usually always have a pack of chalk on them, you don't have to use a piece of chalk or a pen. Anything goes; carving a knife into a piece of wood, your finger in the dirt, a rock scraped against stone, a screw on a piece of metal, and in extreme cases, you can use your own blood. As long as you can make that circle, it doesn't matter."

"...Have you used your own blood, professor?" Rosalyn asked.

"Yes," Edward answered honestly, taking a small twinge of satisfaction as their faces paled. His voice grew very serious. "Which segways into my next point; alchemy can be very, very dangerous. It is a science, full of calculations and geometry and critical thinking. And with that science, one mistake can cost you your life. You do not play games with it. In fact, it's so dangerous, that if I catch you using it outside of my direct supervision, I will personally see you expelled. Is that clear?"

Pale faces nodded silently.

"Good." He gave an extra hard glare for emphasis, "If you don't think you can handle and respect the responsibility and consequences of alchemy, then you may get out, now." He gave every student a personal stare. Some gazed defiantly back, while others shrank in their seats. Not one stood up to leave.

"Now," giving them one more long moment of silence to digest, Edward swiped his foot through the chalk circle on the ground before turning on his heel and walking up to the chalkboard. He began to write.

"Equivalent exchange. The first and most important law of alchemy. You cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. And until all of you fully understand this, we will learn nothing further." He spun around from the writing on the board, meeting each and every student in the eye, one by one. To Edward's satisfaction, a nervous air filled the room. Many broke away from his gaze.

"Many of you are wondering what's so different about alchemy from transfiguration. I mentioned that they may as well be opposites. The first law is exactly why.

"Transfiguration allows you to change objects without consequence. Take this pencil, for instance." Truthfully, Edward wasn't sure if the wizards even knew what a pencil was, stuck in their traditionalist ways as they were. But he wasn't going to let a bunch of big-headed, artistically unenclined adolescents try creating any sort of circle without an eraser. He had a whole stash of them in his desk. If the class even made it that far.

"It's components are wood, graphite, paint, rubber, and a little bit of metal. Now, if you were going to transfigure this, what could you change it into?"

"A mouse?" Cooper Pelton asked.

"I would make it a mirror." Penelope said.

"Or a sock," another student snickered.

"The correct answer is anything, provided it is somewhat relative in size," Edward stated. "But what happens if you leave the object, particularly if it's a weak spell?"

"It turns back?" A Ravenclaw said.

"Yes. Although I'm sure that Professor McGonagall has already taught you, transfiguration spells are not permanent. The stronger they are, the longer they may last- up for years, even- but the spell will eventually weaken and wear off. Say you turned this pencil into a mouse, it is not truly alive. It may seem like it, but it is merely artificial.

"On the other hand, and why you must be aware, alchemy is permanent. Once your transmutation has been done, it cannot be undone by anything else but another direct transmutation. Had I chosen to walk away from Miss Rosalyn during my example earlier, she may as well have been bound to that chair forever." The girl in question paled, and everyone looked nervous all over again.

"I do not say this lightly. This is not something you use as a joke." Edward glared everyone down again, "And also because alchemy is very very permanent, you should never, ever attempt to transmute yourself or another living being. And you should absolutely never try to bring anything to life, not even a mouse. Trust me when I say I have seen the results with my own eyes and it is something so horrible that you will never want to even imagine. It creates nothing but tragedy, and nothing- nobody, can fully pay the cost of another life. Am I very clear?"

Edward scowled and waited to continue until the entire student body nodded. He felt sick. "Take that as your next rule." He scrawled it onto the chalkboard, trusting his hand not to shake. Whispers from the Stone filled his ears so loud he could barely hear the chalk scraping across the board.

"Now, let's return to the pencil." Edward returned to his desk, holding up the writing utensil. "Now we know what transfiguration could turn this into. But what can alchemy do? Let's revisit the first law. What is it?"

"Equivalent exchange," the class said.

"Correct. Any guesses on how it applies to this pencil?"

The class remained in nervous silence. Edward clicked his tongue.

"One cannot gain something without first giving something in return," he recited casually, pacing to the front of his desk and leaning against it, "What did I do with the floor? I pulled stone up and molded it into a new shape- did you see the dent in the floor it made? But I did not create material out of nothing. It is the same with this. Anything I turn this pencil into must hold the same materials as the pencil. Now let's try again. What could I make with this pencil?"

Blank, nervous faces stared back at him.

"You," he selected a kid at random, landing on a scared Gryffindor. "What's your guess?"

"Um… a pen?" They asked hesitantly, as if he was going to snap their head off.

"Right range, but wrong concept." Edward said with a frown. "I could make it look like a pen, but I cannot turn graphite into ink. If I tried to make this a working pen, the transmutation would fail as it is not the correct materials. An ink pot though? That could easily become a glass pen. You. What do you think?" He selected another student.

"...A log?" They answered slightly more confidently than the first.

Edward nodded slowly, drawing a circle on the desk as he spoke. "Correct. I could separate the materials and turn the wood into a log. Though, I would call it more of a twig. Let's try it." He set the pencil inside and touched the edge of the circle. One spark of blue light later and the utensil sat in five neat pieces. "These are all the components of the pencil." He held up the pieces one at a time, "Perhaps it is easier to visualize this way. Every object is made up of raw materials. When you look at transmuting an object, these are the materials you want to calculate. In fact, the first thing you should always ask before commencing a transmutation; what is the object made of?" Edward held up the five pieces to show them off, all small, neat cylinders of wood, graphite, metal, rubber, and dried paint.

"The next question: What can I do with these materials?" He drew three more quick circles, raising an eyebrow at the students for more suggestions, but the class was silent, watching him draw designs they could not see. Edward was painfully reminded that these kids were indeed wizards not prodigies. "Could it be a pin?" The first circle flashed and a gilded cloak pin was left behind. He showed it briefly. "How about a mirror?" Nodding at Penelope, he let another round of blue sparks fly, leaving behind a small, palm-sized mirror with a wooden backing. "Or perhaps, a decoration." With the final circle, he left behind a small, beautifully detailed figure of a tree, golden strips of bark reaching up into green-tinted graphite leaves detailed down to the vein. The room full of teenagers stared at the display in some awe, and Edward was torn violently between hoping they were gaining a spark of understanding and hoping they were learning nothing at all.

"All of these things were created using only the materials of the pencil. No more, no less. Does that help your understanding?"

Many students nodded mutely, some seeming more sure than others.

"Good," Edward frowned disappointedly, "Now let's try again." He reached across his desk, selecting a jar out of a small pile of practice materials. He poured it out on the desk. "Sand." He announced, setting the jar aside, "Now who can tell me what can be made with this?"

Edward yawned tiredly as he limped his way down to dinner, voices rambling nervously in his chest. Truthfully, his nerves were so fried from the three lessons he'd held that day that he'd rather have skipped the crowds altogether and gone straight to bed, but the crawling in his stomach dragged him out of the quiet, guilt-ridden safety of his office and towards the great hall. Skirting the main doors, he elected to enter through the much smaller staff entrance placed by the head table, hoping to avoid attention.

Of course, Truth was never on his side.

"Professor Elric!" A no-nonsense, sharply polite voice called. Edward sighed.

"Professor Elric, why don't you come sit next to me?" Minerva McGonagall's tone, deceptively polite, left no room for suggestion.

Edward took a long look at the open seat next to her, the stone's anxious ramblings growing thicker and thicker. Then glanced at his usual seat by Severus, suddenly feeling as old as he was.

He didn't want to think anymore. The knowledge of where he was and what he was doing and the reminders at every turn were suffocating. He could hardly breathe.

"Not today, Professor McGonagall. Thank you," he forced a smile and waved his hand dismissively, pointedly ignoring the many stunned stares his way as he stopped at his usual seat just long enough to fill his plate with food, and backed away from the table altogether. "Evening, Severus." He thickly acknowledged the pale teacher when he opened his mouth to speak. Then, he promptly left the great hall, dinner in tow and the overwhelming weight of guilt choking his throat.

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A/N: Does this count as a lighter chapter? I don't know. Eheh. But I swear this fic writes itself. This chapter didn't want to end, and I thought I was going to be at start of school time at least three chapters ago! XD

As always, thank you so so much for reading and/or reviewing. I love you all 3