Ed's POV

"Alright," I said, clapping my hands together to gain the attention of the rowdy class from where I sat on my desk, my legs crossed at my ankles. For some reason, every class was rowdy today. There were whispers of Defense Against the Dark Arts and of Professor Moody. Something had never sat right with me about that man, but unless he actually posed a threat, there was nothing I could do about it. Clearly, Dumbledore had a deep respect for the man; they even seemed to be close friends. I would just have to trust Dumbledore until Moody proved himself unworthy of my trust.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I called. "Please take your seats. I don't want to have to start dolling out detentions," I called. "Well, any more detentions," I muttered under my breath, thinking of the Weasley twins. Detention for two weeks from the first day; definitely not a good first impression. Truth have mercy on their mother.

My threat seemed to get their attention, but I could see they were still tense, itching to get back to their conversations. "What's up with you guys?" I asked, interested now. Suddenly, the room was even tenser than before. I furrowed my brows and leaned forward. "Spill it. What's going on?" I asked, slightly worried. I could see Hermione's hand twitch like she wanted to raise her hand, but she stayed silent. Finally, after realizing no one else was going to answer my question, Ron raised his hand shakily. I nodded for him to speak.

"Professor Moody demonstrated the three unforgivable curses in class today," he said. I didn't like the sound of that. I gestured for him to continue, wanting to know if I was going to have to talk to Dumbledore. "H-he said we should know what they are so we know what to expect," he explained.

"And what are these curses, Mr. Weasly?" I asked lowly.

"C-cruciatus curse which causes pain, the imperious curse which allows the user to control the person they're using it on, and the killing curse," he explained shakily. I could feel my entire body tense up.

"And he demonstrated all three of these in front of the class?" I asked, my voice nearly a growl.

"Just on a spider, but-" Ron started to start off.

"It's absolutely barbaric," Hermione said, cutting her friend off. I could hear the pain in her voice. The class was quiet for a moment as I struggled to keep my anger in check.

"Thank you for telling me," I said. "I'll talk to Dumbledore about it. I can't say I particularly approve of Professor Moody's methods. Now," I said, "on that happy note, we do need to get started today. We're going to start with some notes," I said as I shoved myself off my desk so I could start writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room. I suppressed a groan as pain flared through my leg.

"We will be talking about the three main components of alchemy," I said as I started to write on the board. "First, there is comprehension, then deconstruction which is followed by reconstruction," I explained as I wrote the three across the top of the board so I could write my notes in columns.

"Professor Elric?" I heard a voice ask, and I turned to see Neville raising his hand slightly.

"Yes, Mr. Longbottom?" I said, gesturing for the boy to speak.

"Well, I know that not all of us will continue on in this class, but can we at least see some alchemy?" he asked shyly as if he was afraid to ask. "Just so we have an idea of what we're going to be learning and see how it works in the real world," he said. The longer the boy spoke, the more confident he became. I couldn't help but smile. He reminded me a lot of Al.

"Of course. You make an excellent point Neville. And maybe this demonstration will help you guys figure out the riddle." I hadn't realized until now that they had never seen alchemy and probably didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Al and I had the advantage of at least knowing what the science was before we were assigned the riddle. "Give me one moment," I said as I grabbed a new box of chalk, knowing I was going to need quite a bit of chalk for this specific transmutation. I knew I could simply clap my hands and complete the transmutation but after having Granger finding out about human transmutation, I didn't want to risk any more questions.

As I started drawing on the floor between my desk and the students' desks, a few students stood from their chairs to come and get a closer look. I could hear them talking amongst themselves as I drew the circle and all of the symbols onto the stone floor, but I couldn't listen, too worried about getting the symbols perfect. One mistake and we could have a rebound on our hands. I shuddered at the thought before shaking myself and focusing on the task at hand.

When I was done, I rocked back onto my heels, still crouching beside the circle. "You can come closer, but don't step on the chalk lines; the circle needs to be perfect. Make sure everyone can see." I gave the students a few moments to gather around the circle on the floor so they could all witness the demonstration. "The circle," I said, motioning with my hands at the outer ring of the circle, "is the matrix that the alchemic power flows through. All of these symbols," I said, gestured again, "have to do with all of the chemical makeup of the stone flooring. I lowered myself to my knees as I prepared for the transmutation, wincing as a sharp pain spiked up my leg and into my hip. I took a deep breath before continuing. "So, when you focus," I explained, trailing off as I put my fingers on the edge of the circle.

Blue sparks started to crackle, and even as I focused on what I wanted to create, I knew some of the students were backing away. I wasn't surprised. This wasn't the magic they knew. When I was finished, there was a perfect to-scale replica of Alphone's armor. The class made sounds of awe while others even began clapping.

"See this crater in the floor now?" I asked, gestured to the aforementioned crater. The class nodded collectively. "Well, that is there because of the Law of Equivalent Exchange; in order to create something, something of equal value must be given. The stone wasn't created, it was simply reformed; the crater is evidence of that," I explained. "I'd write that down if I were you," I said, and everyone scrambled back to their seats to jot down the notes.

With a deep sigh, I pushed myself from my spot on the floor, figuring I could fix the floor later. Albeit a little pain, I was able to get myself back on my feet, but as soon as I took one step on my automail leg, my vision was going white with pain. When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at the floor. My hands were planted on the cold stone floor, keeping me from smashing my face on the ground while my flesh leg was helping me keep weight off the automail one. I didn't even want to talk about my automail leg right now; I was in too much pain.

When I could finally focus on something other than the flaring pain in my leg, I could hear that the students behind me were in panic. Many were shouting, some trying to gain my attention. I hissed as I slid my left back, trying to move to a position that was less painful.

"Professor Elric!" someone called, a female student by the sound of it, but I couldn't really tell who it was at the moment. I just wanted to get onto my back so I could give my leg a break. "What's wrong?" the voice asked again. "What can we do to help?"

"J-just get the nurse," I muttered. Well, I think I muttered. I couldn't really tell if I had actually spoken or if I had thought it. I let out a sigh of relief when I heard someone mention Madam Pomfrey's name, thankful I wouldn't have to interact with the frightened students anymore. Or so I thought.

"Professor Elric?" the same female voice asked, and I finally brought myself to look up, finding Miss Granger kneeling in front of me. Her hands were out in front of her as if she wanted to reach out and help me but didn't want to cause further pain. "Professor, what can I do to help?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"I don't-shit," I growled when I shifted my leg again. "Fuck," I bit out. "Just get the damn nurse."

"She's on her way, sir, and Harry went to get Professor McGonagall," she said. I nodded before taking a deep breath and swinging my right leg around, the force of the movement forcing me onto my back. I clenched my teeth together as my left leg slightly bumped against the ground. I was slowly gaining more control of the pain, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt like a bitch.

After I had finally gotten myself into a more comfortable position, I could now see my class. Some were still sitting at their desks, staring at me, obviously not sure what to do. They looked frozen in fear. They probably weren't used to seeing their teachers collapsing in pain. Well, I guess there was a first time for everything. The other half of the class was gone, surely to get Madam Pompfrey and Professor McGonagall according to Hermione.

"Professor Elric!" someone gasped, and I opened my eyes - when had I closed them? - to find the transfiguration professor in the doorway to my classroom, her face pale and eyes wide. "Are you alright?" she asked quickly as she began to shoo the remaining students out the door.

"Edward, are you alright?" Minerva repeated as she knelt beside me. "All Mr. Potter said was that you fell and seemed to be in an immense amount of pain," she explained. I nodded, my teeth still gritted.

"Yeah, just some pain in my left leg," I grunted.

"Just some pain, Mr. Elric?" she asked, clearly not impressed. "Well, Madam Pomfrey will be here soon to escort you to the medical wing. Do you think you can walk?" she asked. I let out a sigh as well as my pride.

"Not a chance," I admitted. "And I need Dumbledore," I said, looking up at the older woman. "Uh, I have a...complication," I explained, stretching the back of my head anxiously. I honestly hadn't gotten this far and wasn't sure how I was supposed to explain my automail leg. Thankfully, the woman didn't question. Instead, she stood and went to the door; I heard her ask a student to retrieve Dumbeldore and meet us in the medical wing.

Soon enough, Madam Pomfrey entered the room, and she immediately got down to business. She asked me where the pain was and how bad it was on a scale from one to ten. I rolled my eyes at that, thinking about all of the shit I had been through before quickly picking an 7; nothing had been worse than pulling that damn beam out of my side. Once she realized I couldn't walk, she summoned a stretcher, and I was quickly carted down to the medical wing, Minvera following closely behind. Thankfully they had the decency to clear the hallways as they carried me down to save me some of the embarrassment.

"Alright, Edward let's take a look at that leg of yours," she said. I was hesitant to do so, not sure how I could explain what was going on. Thankfully, Dumbledore chose that moment to enter the medical wing and make his way over to where I was sitting on one of the beds.

"What seems to be the problem, my boy?" the headmaster asked.

"My leg's bothering me," I explained. "I think it's a port infection," I admitted.

"Ah, well if that is the case, we could have some trouble on our hands. If you would, please allow Poppy to look you over," he said, and I knew I wasn't getting out of this now. Much to my embarrassment, Madam Pomfrey helped me shuck my pants off slowly. When the blank material made their way past my port, I heard both women gasp. I rolled my eyes and kept pulling the material down until my entire automail leg was revealed.

"Edward, what happened?" Poppy gasped.

"Old accident," I muttered. "My hometown was caught up in a bloody civil war; a bomb went off," I said easily, used to the cover story. "Automail is something we have in my country; it's a prosthetic. My mechanic installed it, but the port," I said, pointing to the port itself, "can get infected. That's what this looks like," I explained as I looked down at the red, irritated flesh.

Poppy visible shook herself before she set to work. After waving her wand around for a few minutes, she determined that there was no infection, and the pain was easily explained by the enchantments on the castle. Even though the headmaster had cast his spells, we had no idea how the automail would react. Apparently, it was pretty poor. Dumbledore waved his wand a few more times, and there was immediate relief. I sighed and leaned back into the pillow behind me.

"This is unfortunately only temporary, so I will have Severus deliver a potion to you monthly that should help with both the enchantments and pain," he promised. "He'll probably have something ready by this evening or tomorrow morning," he assured me. "Until then, I think you should stay here; your morning classes will be canceled." I gave the man a thumbs up, already feeling exhausted.

That evening, I wrote a letter to Winry, debriefing her on everything that had happened today, and Poppy promised me she would have it sent out tomorrow. She got me dinner from the great hall, telling me she wanted to keep me off my feet. As much as I didn't like this arrangement, the nurse was almost as frightening as Teacher. That evening, I fell asleep without pain which felt like the first time in a long time.