Edward Elric had the shittiest goddamned luck in the world. No - in two worlds.

The week had started off alright. They - the school - had only a few days before eviction for the summer, and they weren't the worst. Sure, every small movement was agony. Sure, Harry was super fucking sad (everyone was). And sure, he was in a different dimension while his brother was missing. But you can't win 'em all. That was what he kept telling himself. Otherwise, he'd transmute himself again, just to see if it'd work (he knew it wouldn't, that was the problem). Mostly, it was alright because he had some form of clarity. Most of the day he was confined to the hospital ward, bedridden and bored as all hell, but on occasion he was allowed some fresh air (which wasn't fresh at all because it was the fucking corridors). And on even rarer occasion he was allowed entrance into the library. Pince gave him dirty looks which he enjoyed smiling back at. Old bitch could burn in hell...Maybe he was a little crabby. It was hard being by yourself in a place like this. And he could tell the other students weren't much better off.

Hermione came to him about once a day, bearing gifts of books when he couldn't make it down himself. What a godsend. She never stayed to chat anymore, though, just looked a little nervous, asked him how he was doing, and ran off. Probably confused after Harry's temper tantrum. He didn't blame her. Nor did he care that much (a lie) - he had places to be, things to do. Friends weren't a part of that, not here anyways.

No, things didn't get bad until it was time to go to the Burrow. It was on the train, really, that he noticed. The trio, however distant, had been nice enough to get him there. It was fucking embarrassing, having to use the wheelchair, and he made belligerent eye contact with anyone who threatened to pity him as Hermione carefully pushed him to the train platform. It was no small feat to actually get him in the damned thing, but that was a story for never.

He was just glad when they settled into a compartment and he could magic his chair away. He felt dizzy, sweaty. His head leaned back against the upright seats and despite himself, he grimaced.

"How did you do that?"

The voice was Hermione's. He opened his eyes and looked to his left at her awed face. The sunlight caught golden in wisps of her frizzy hair, bouncing all around the compartment's flat surfaces.

"Uh. Do what?"

Ron's finger pointed to where the chair had been. "The wheel chair, mate. You didn't…"

"You didn't use a spell," finished Harry. "Or a wand." There was that mounting suspicion again. God, what a pleasant guy.

He was getting really sweaty now, and he hoped they didn't think he was nervous. He wasn't. Really. It was just one million degrees in the cabin and his skin was stinging and also he was kind of dizzy, but it was fine. Probably nothing.

"I just mumbled it," he insisted weakly, brow furrowing and head hitting the back of the seat once more. It didn't feel like holding itself up anymore. Shit. How many times was he going to pass out this week? Fighting himself, he maintained a swimming consciousness.

The trio shot each other those stupid looks again - the 'you're really fucking suspicious but we think you don't know that.' Ugh, he was even crabbier than usual. He pinched the bridge of his nose with cold, cold automail, shrugging his glove off easily. It wasn't like him to show weakness like this. Something was wrong (clearly).

"Are you alright, Edward?" Hermione again. Did she ever shut up?

She helped keep you alive, he reminded himself. Don't be a dick.

Better to be honest than cause anymore confrontation. "Okay, don't freak out but my intestines may or may not be infected."

There was a sharp silence. He didn't know silence could be sharp but hey, there was a first time for everything. He would've loved to celebrate but just then a sharp pain unlike any other (actually, kind of like having his leg ripped off his body) racked through his side and he had to take a hissing breath, remember how to breathe at all. Things went white. They went black. He opened his eyes and gold spots filtered in. It was a goddamned rainbow. There were three very concerned faces looking upon him. He realized they'd been saying things when his hearing decided to pop back in, like resurfacing from water.

"This is worse than I thought," Hermione was saying.

"Maybe we should just get someone to apparate him to-"

"No, he'd split in half."

The second of the stabbing pains made itself known but he had a better handle on it this time.

"How long until you can get your parent's things?" Harry - it was Harry's voice.

"I can bring them back as soon as possible. It's the train ride I'm worried about."

"Bloody hell, look!"

Bloody hell indeed, thought Ed as he held a shaking hand over his mouth. It was the flesh one - easier to clean blood off of. He'd learned the hard way that it never really came out of all the nooks and crevices of the metal one. Old trophies ingrained into his body until Winry shrieked at him while cleaning them out, each droplet of crimson. He never had the heart to tell her that most of it was his own.

They'd probably name the compartment after him if he died in it. Then he'd really be a part of this world forever, assuming it didn't get destroyed, that is. No, he wouldn't die. He could still hear their frantic voices, faraway. But still. Not good, not good, not good. He focused hard, trying to bring them back, trying to fight out against infection which was impossible but somehow he would do it. He was the Fullmetal Alchemist for god's sake. That really meant nothing in the face of the god he knew.

He sucked in his first rattling breath and realized that it had been too long since the last. The vision was sharp, returning with clarity. Hearing still had a ways to go, but it was coming. The pain, for now, had dulled. And he soon realized why.

Hermione was white as a sheet. Ron and Harry were both standing. The compartment door was open and Neville had a gaping expression, some blonde haired girl not far behind him.

"I'd just wanted to ask whether you'd seen my wand…" said Neville, watching a panting Edward with the most distraught face he'd ever seen.

"...'Ione," said Ron, feebly. "What did you…"

Edward saw that she had her own wand raised in her hand, and was staring at him fixedly. Still pale. Still shaking.

"I vanished the blood from his throat," she said meekly.

The cabin fell silent again. Edward clutched his stomach and wondered just how bad it'd really gotten. If it'd hit his throat, then bad. Really fucking bad. He hadn't been able to eat in a while, either. He had two days like this at best. Two days.

"Neville," Harry said meaningfully, nodding his head towards the door with raised eyebrows.

"Oh," said Neville, realizing that this was a little private. "Sorry, I-I'll ask around elsewhere."

The door shut harshly. The four of them stared at each other. Ed was grinning but only a little and only because he was afraid. Really fucking afraid. He was really in motherfucking Magic Land - he was going to die here. No. No, he'd already established that he wouldn't. He just had an infection, that was all.

"As long as you can do that again, we should be able to make it to the Burrow just fine," croaked Edward.

Seconds passed.

"You've actually lost it," Ron breathed into the open air.

Edward had to disagree. He was still very much clinging to the sanity that he'd earned over the years. If seeing his mother's mutilated corpse - well, not his mother, he reminded himself - didn't do him in, then this couldn't even land a scratch. God, at least he'd had the good sense to seal his abdominal aorta - if not, then he'd most definitely have died in minutes. Of course that'd been right where the beam went through. He hadn't realized just how close he'd come to dying right then and there until now...it would have been seconds, actually. He hadn't just nicked, the aorta, he'd burst it. He was a goner. He should be dead. He grimaced. On the brightside, it was just a little leak now...He had time.

"Ed." Harry addressed him with a clear, sharp voice. They locked eyes. "What happened?"

Here's where it got tricky. He wasn't sure what parts of himself to reveal to this world. If he made as much of a public impact as he had in Amestris...then he'd never be forgotten. And that was bad, he thought. It meant there'd always be something of him lingering here and he didn't like that at all. So he had to try and be less dramatic. Of course, that was a little difficult right now. But maybe toning down the mystery would help. Yeah - he'd let them know how he'd gotten like this (very loosely), but he'd keep the military, alchemy, and trans-dimensional travelling on lock. He could say the same thing he told everyone else for the limbs: war.

"I was in an accident back home. Fell off a high place onto a stupid support beam."

Their collective winces didn't make him feel any better. He was going to lose clarity soon, he knew that much. His body had undergone too much trauma; it would be like when he'd undergone automail surgery - fervent pain and nightmares for weeks. Guilt. Searing heat, filthy skin. A feverish haze where he didn't know what was up and what was down. The looming idea filled his soul with a sense of terrible dread.

"What kind of accident?" Harry persisted. "They said it was dark magic."

Fuck. He'd forgotten about that. How had he forgotten about that? Well he'd never been a great liar, that much wasn't new. Avoidance was key.

He pretended to have another fit, doubling over just to induce pain. Hermione gasped, left a gentle hand on his shoulder. Ron had leaned forward, but Harry just watched him.

"Hnnng. Can we talk about this later?" he hissed through grit teeth.

He got his wish. They all tried to relax and at some point, he must have fallen asleep, because he woke with an uncomfortable wetness under his shirt and worried looks all around. They'd been talking about him. He couldn't say he was surprised.

He woke up in a bed. Not unusual. The crowd of people was.

Well, not so much a crowd - it was a party of four; Mrs. Weasley, that Lupin guy, some girl standing very closely to that Lupin guy, and, lastly, Mr. Weasley. God, he'd thought Mr. Weasley was so nice. It'd been a shock after the memories of Hohenheim - a ditzy, friendly dad. Imagine that. Edward sure couldn't.

His fingers tightened against the sheets.

"Ah, it's working," said Lupin.

So they'd woken him up somehow. Made sense. Blearily, he blinked, trying to ignore the quite overwhelming ache in his stomach and back, reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes. Ouch, goddamnit, he always forgot to lighten the pressure on his metal hand. He frowned aggressively.

"How long?"

Sighing, he moved his hands from his eyes. It was a simple room. Dusty. Familiar. It was the Burrow, for sure, he could tell that much. His stomach was pulsating and he felt that that was very bad. Very bad indeed. This sort of weakness had never overcome him before, in his whole life, but he knew what it was building to...He'd lost too much blood in the past week.

"What, dear?" said Mrs. Weasley. She looked relieved that he'd opened his eyes at all. Then again, it was hard to tell. Her face was mostly a blur no matter how hard he cleared his eyes. His breathing hurt...raspy, slow.

"How long was I…?" He had to wheeze now, and that scared him.

"You only got here an hour ago, I'd say," Arthur filled in. His hand was on his wife's back and his wife's hands were wringing themselves.

Edward blinked, slowly. Each instance it became harder and harder to open his eyes. He fought to remember where he was. What he needed so desperately here. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep again, until it was too late, until there was a screaming in his head, a soft whisper.

"Brother?"

It had been more difficult than she'd anticipated to secure the proper materials that Edward had requested. Even more so to remember what those had been. An IV she knew for sure, and a proper way to seal his wounds, and medical advice...Something to clean them with, a catheter she thought with a wince. It would be impossible for anyone to realistically treat him at the Burrow, and with the state that he was in, after the train…

She shook talking to her parents. They were understanding, her mother encompassing her in a soft hug, giving her that look that all mothers knew how to give. Love and worry and fear. But she had somewhere to be. Edward had collapsed when they tried to get him off the train, and he was bleeding. She'd done her best to extinguish whatever was choking him, but only a replenishing potion would restore his blood volume back to any kind of normal state, and she had no way of procuring that now. The more she explained to her parents, however, the more grim their expressions became.

They passed an expression of intense sadness between the two of them, and Hermione held her breath when it turned to her, too.

"You have to get him to a hospital now, dear."

Her father agreed, "We have some equipment at the office, but...from the way it sounds, he has maybe a day to live without extreme medical intervention."

Hermione, trying not to cry in frustration (they'd just gotten him back, and he'd been hard to forget), bit her lip and nodded.

"Is there some reason you haven't taken him yet?" her father wanted to know.

She took a shuddering breath. "He's got...prosthetics that are unlike anything I've ever seen, really." At her parents' confused expressions, she added, "They'd raise unanswerable questions. And besides, I don't know that he has any money. Or…or records...He's not even British. I don't know where he comes from."

At the placating hand on her shoulder she realized she'd been gesturing in panic. The pressure was closing in - if they couldn't save him then his life was on their hands. And yet she was realizing now how very, very little they knew about him at all. Realizing how much they needed to know.

"I think," said her mother, "that you have no other choice if you want him to live."

She was right. Hermione closed her eyes, breathed heavily again. And opened them with a nod of determination.

Their goodbye had been regretfully quick. Another hug. Wiped eyes from Hermione. A proud smile from the both of them, and then she was gone.

Soon enough, the Burrow was in sight, leaning and tall and comforting to the sight for all its horrible ugliness. Much of the wizarding world was like that. Homely and displeasing to the eye all the same, but that was what made it so charming. The front door opened before she'd even made it to the front step, Mrs. Weasley behind it and looking like she was losing her own child. A pang of guilt filtered through Hermione's heart. If she'd insisted earlier...No, there was no time for that. She smiled at Mrs. Weasley and set her things down, ushered along with, "Come along, dear, come along."

Hermione finally got to get a good look at her in the low light of the Burrow. It wasn't great; the wrinkles in her face were more pronounced, the ruddiness flushed, her eyes downcast and sagging with the weight of the world. Filtering light from the window passed with a cloud, taking with it her view and just as suddenly Mrs. Weasley turned to head up the stairs.

"It's not good," she told her on the way, Hermione keeping up two steps at a time.

"Not good how?" She was afraid to ask.

"He…" Abruptly, the woman stopped on the stairs and the younger girl had to keep herself from running into her. "He's gone delirious I think."

Hermione braced herself. It was good, in a way, all that they'd been through - it had taught her how to square her shoulders and prepare for the roughest moments. Like Dumbledore...and losing a faraway friend. She brushed past Mrs. Weasley, nearly running, to stop at the first open door, cries clearly emanating from the room.

It had gotten worse, somehow. Brow furrowed, she made it to his bedside, past the few adults, clearly in a heated discussion. It had ceased as soon as she'd entered, but she didn't really care at this point. She pressed the back of her hand to his head lightly.

"Oh no," came her whimpered mutter. It was searing hot.

"What'd they say, Hermione?" asked Lupin, carefully.

She turned to him. Hesitated. "That he'll...die," she swallowed, "if we don't get him to a proper muggle hospital before tomorrow."

The whole room had stiffened. Molly choked a little, Arthur comforting her all the more tightly. Tonks and Lupin looked sympathetic, but they hadn't been around when Edward was. It was understandable of them to be distant. Her gaze turned back to Edward.

He was white as a sheet, and quite frankly, it was terrifying to look at. The black circles beneath his eyes stood out, as even his lips were pale and devoid of all color. Sweat traced down the alabaster, dirtying his already mussed hair. Every so often his mouth would twitch, muttering something without any noise at all, and she knew that he was caught deep within the depths of a nasty fever. The cries had stopped for now.

Into the silence she spoke, "I know none of us can stay with him, what with Harry arriving in just a few days."

And then she turned with pleading eyes. "But is there anyone else? Just for when Harry comes?"

Ginny stuck her head into the doorway, grinning. "I can take care of him."

"So," said Remus, sipping his tea. "Who...is he?" He sounded almost afraid to ask, but Hermione understood that. The past few days had been a rollercoaster even without Ed, but when he was added to the mix...It was almost too much.

She leaned back in her chair. Molly and Ginny were still shouting in the other room, Arthur a witness, but she was confident in Ginny's ability to win. Tonks, too, seemed interested in what Hermione had to say next.

"He attended Hogwarts first year. Lived with Molly and Arthur." One hand scratched at the back of her neck. The reflection that rippled through her tea looked worn and tired. "But he vanished at the end of the year."

"Vanished?" asked Tonks.

"He told us - when he came back, that is - that his father had found him, finally." At their inquisitive looks, she clarified, "He'd thought he was an orphan. Didn't have any memory or family, didn't even know what a wizard was."

"...I see."

"I know how it sounds, and that it's been almost six years, but he was important to us, at the time. I mean, he still is, but-"

Remus held up a placating hand, very weakly smiling. "You don't have to justify us helping him. None of us want to see any child hurt, mystifying or not."

She nodded, smiled back. "Thanks, really."

"Right. Then it appears the shouting has stopped, perhaps we should get to moving him."

He was correct - Ginny and Mrs. Weasley's thunderous voices had ceased and, right on time, Ginny stalked into the kitchen with a weary but triumphant look, hands on her hips. At Hermione's inquisitive gaze, she simply nodded. The room sank with relief. Here came the hard part.

When they reconvened in Edward's room, he already looked worse. The muttering had raised in volume, but still lacked coherency. No… There were some words that she could pick out, but she didn't like them at all.

"Alphonse...Don't take him...Please - he's all I have left…"

He'd seemed so confident, so unbeatable at Hogwarts, solid even as his eyes twitched with pain and his body deteriorated before them. Now those shields were down and she much preferred them up.

They all shared one long look, her and Remus and Tonks and Ginny. Then they turned to the task at hand.

"We'll have to remove his limbs," she said.

Which meant taking off his clothes. Sighing, she moved to strip his shoes, pulling off the rubber-soled boots with much difficulty. The rest of the room took the cue and shrugged off his thick jacket, then there was hesitancy. It just felt so invasive to remove his last guards. But it was something they had to do. She watched as Remus lifted his shirt, fabric sticking. And tried very hard to not gag.

It was very very bad. She wasn't sure how he was still alive. His stitches had, predictably split, and blood, pus, and what she really really really hoped wasn't intestinal lining had spilled forth from the massive wound. The skin around it was dying and pale colored. Bruises lay in places bruises shouldn't, remnants of trapped blood. His figure, which would have otherwise been suspiciously impressive, was probably the only reason he was alive - thick muscle tissue. They all swallowed their disgust and kept moving, stripping his pants last and finally getting a good look at the two appendages.

"Merlin," said Ginny. "It looks like they were ripped off, judging by the scars."

Astute. And terrible. The jagged lines of white tissue were jarring, but she mustered courage and moved to feel around the base of his arm. Enough fiddling revealed a latch at its base and experimentally, she pressed down.

Despite herself, she gave a yelp as it popped clean off and into her arms, heavy as a small child. The worst part was Edward's reaction - even through the fever haze, he tensed and grunted, thrashing for a bit in a way that couldn't be good for the wound before settling.

"D'you think that hurt?" asked Tonks. Hermione just started flatly.

"Alright, uh...Remus," she said, embarrassed. "Could you get the leg? It's in a bit of an...awkward position."

They couldn't see the top of it with his boxers on.

He breathed. Smiled very tensely. "Why don't you three step out of the room?"

They all willingly complied. Eventually, they had both limbs safely away, but there were still a few problems. Namely, it looked like he'd been tortured in some way - jagged bits of metal stuck out of the base of his arm and leg, swollen flesh having moved to grow around them. And the scars were horrendous. And how were they to explain the stab wound? There might be fair bit of obliviating at the end of it all, she feared, though it would be difficult to truly get him out.

"We can drop him off at the hospital, but we have to leave soon after, I'm afraid," said Lupin.

"That's great," she breathed. "The rest of us can take shifts until we go to get Harry, then Ginny…" She gave the girl a glance and earned a nod in return, which soothed her nerves.

"Great," she repeated. "Where's Ron?"

"He couldn't stand the blood," said Ginny. "Probably in his room. An oblivious git, he is."

Rolling her eyes, Hermione looked towards the door. It was an interesting process to watch them levitate him all the way outside without injury. She watched from the front step then as they all gave one last smile and apparated outside the wards, exhausted and worried. Yes, things would have been much easier without all of this. At least Mad-eye hadn't caught word of him (yet).

As she turned back into the kitchen, she saw Ron coming down the stairs, scratching underneath his shirt. His head tilted in confusion.

"Where'd they all go?"

Might seem boring, but I figure with how much Ed aged in between Baschool and the Promised Day, it took a long fucking time to recover. Which makes sense. I've got something planned, though, so expect updates much sooner.