HELLO EVERYONE! WELL ITS BEEN QUITE A LONG TIME HASNT IT OOPS!
I PROMISE I WILL NOT LET UPLOADING GET THIS OUT OF HAND AGAIN OH MY GOD. I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP ON THIS FIC, ITS MY PRIDE AND JOY. ENJOY THE 8TH CHAPTER!
The next day was dreary and cold, which rather suited the prospect of a Wednesday in Roy's opinion. There were deep bruise-colored clouds looming off in the distance, bordering the grey and white slat of sky over the old stone school that was tinted dark by the last night's rain. Looking out a window on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, Roy noted the growing presence of brown and orange leaves in relation to the green leaves that valiantly attempted to dominate the Dark Forest.
Contrary to the weather outside, Roy felt good- well, at least much better than he had the day before. Taking the rest of yesterday off had ended up a great idea, as Roy hadn't realized quite how much sleep he'd been losing whilst both grading homework assignments and trying to get any kind of a new lead. He didn't even know if Ed had any leads, as they hadn't been able to so much as discreetly pass out notes (in the form of Ed's homework) in so much as a week.
His 'episode' the day before hadn't been bad- relatively speaking- and he'd been able to regain his bearings after a short while, but Madame Pomfrey had insisted upon keeping him in the Hospital Wing for much longer than he felt necessary.
Roy put away his thoughts as he entered the Great Hall, all too ready to eat some breakfast and get on with the day.
However, just as he sat down in his usual seat on the end of the teachers' table, Roy heard the telltale 'ehem!' of Dolores Umbridge approaching him. Attempting to hide his annoyance, Roy turned to the woman who sat down to his left, as he couldn't properly see her given his lack of a left eye.
"Good Morning, Dolores." He managed in a near-monotone.
"Good Morning Roy, are you feeling any better today?" She asked, her concern sounding more clinical than sincere.
Roy nodded without looking farther than the edge of his plate, "Yes, as a matter of fact." He spooned various foods onto his plate and poured some coffee into his cup in the small slot of silence that Umbridge allotted before she dove in with her first question, clipboard readily beside her plate.
With carefully chosen words, Umbridge asked, "Now, Mustang, it has come to my attention that, against the ministry's regulated emergency protocol, you put a student in charge of your class instead of allowing a teacher to watch them in your absence. Do you have anything to say on the matter?"
Inwardly, Roy cringed. Looking through Dolores' eyes, he really did understand why she was suspicious of him.
"I wasn't thinking in the clearest, and at the time I saw no other option than to let Mr. Elric handle his classmates. He acts very maturely in my class, so I wasn't afraid of him causing a ruckus, and the option of asking a teacher for assistance was not prevalent in my mind at the moment." Roy replied, with practiced military formality, "If you will kindly excuse me, Dolores, I think I will go ahead to my classroom. I have a day's worth of work to make up with my students."
Ed watched with the corner of his eye Roy's short conversation with Umbridge, noting how Roy quickly stood, leaving the stout woman and his breakfast.
"Good Morning, Edward." Ed heard, turning his attention to his left side. Hermione sat beside him, Harry and Ron across from them.
"Hey," Ed said back, stuffing some of his breakfast in his mouth right after. Hermione looked positively scheming and he wasn't quite in the mood for that in the moment.
Hermione was about to reply when Ed felt something light bump him in the back of his head. He reached back, feeling nothing, when something hit the back of his hand. He noticed Hermione looking curiously behind him, so Ed indulged his own confusion, turning to see what was going on. Directly behind him, Trisha sat at the Hufflepuff table with a handful of small paper wads in her hand.
"What're you doing?" He asked her.
"Getting your attention." She replied blandly. Ed noted her quickly slipping the paper wads onto her plate.
"Trisha, you're like five feet away from me; you could have just tapped me or something." Ed told her, bending back to pick up the two paper wads that had landed behind him.
Trisha shrugged, "This way's more fun." She transitioned into Amestrian, "Anyways, do you know how Papa's doing?"
Ed shook his head, "I'm going to check up on him during lunch, but before he left the Great Hall, he looked okay."
Trisha nodded, "Okay, I was worried when he wasn't in class, and nobody's been able to give me a solid answer to what was wrong. I ended up going and asking Madame Pomfrey myself."
"Why didn't you ask me? You could have raised suspicion!" Ed asked.
Trisha looked slightly affronted, "Well, Edward, I couldn't exactly hunt you down in your common room or anything. You would've gone down there if you were in my shoes."
Ed sighed, not in the mood to bicker with his fiery daughter, "Just… try to find me out if something like this happens again, okay?"
"Fine." She replied, standing, "I'm going to the library."
Ed watched her pick up her things and an extra two pieces of toast before walking out of the large hall. She stopped to greet a few kids in her year at the door, quickly sliding out of sight soon after.
Ed turned back to his plate, taking a large bite of his own jammed toast. He took note of the suspicious glances he received as a small pang of guilt hit him.
In his periphery, Ed heard Hermione talking to Ron.
He tuned into the conversation as Ron stated, "I imagine I'm staying here this time around."
"What time around?" Ed asked.
"We're talking about our plans for the Winter Holidays." Harry explained, "What about you, Ed, are you going back to Amestris for the break?"
Ed shook his head, "No, I'm staying here. I imagine nobody back there is too incredibly strung up about me being away."
Harry laughed slightly, "That's us as well, although I think Hermione's parents will try to convince her to come home a few more times before they relent."
Hermione shook her head indignantly, "They know I'll use my holidays to study for OWLS. It's much better if I have as many resources as I can for that."
"Sounds like fun." Ron muttered sarcastically, Harry nodding in agreement.
Hermione ignored them after an eye-roll, "Don't you have a brother, Edward? I'm sure he'd want to see you."
Ed thought for a second before responding, "…Amestrian schools don't let out during the winter, so I wouldn't be able to see him anyways."
Ron raised his eyebrows, "Really? I thought everywhere let out for winter."
Ed shook his head, "There's no major holiday in the winter in Amestris."
"Hm." Ron replied with mild interest, "I'd lose my mind if I didn't have a winter break."
Ed shrugged in response, not mentioning that he hadn't attended a formal school since he was like seven, "It never bothered me much. Either way, the break isn't for another, what, month?"
"Month and a week, technically." Hermione stated. She leaned in conspiratorially, "Just enough time to really get into our 'defensive studies'."
Harry leaned in as well, "About that, when should we plan to meet next?"
"I plan on arranging the next meeting to be Friday evening; at least one meeting per week should be the goal." Hermione explained around a bite of food.
Harry nodded, then asked Ed, "Will you be ready by Friday?"
Ed nodded. Ron looked at Harry confusedly, "What's he got to be ready for?"
"Harry's letting me do a sort of 'intro to combat' lesson just to shake things up a little bit." Ed explained. Ron's interest piqued.
"Wicked!" He quietly exclaimed.
Hermione rolled her eyes slightly, albeit with a friendly smile, and stood with her bag "I'm going to go ahead and make my way towards Trelawney's classroom- Merlin knows how long it takes to get there."
Ed stood as well, trying as much as possible not to wince when his automail stuck at a joint and pinched a nerve in his leg, "I guess I'll go to Alchemy and get some extra shut-eye before class."
Harry gave a slightly sarcastic, "Sleep Well," along with a wave as he and Ron followed Hermione out of the Great Hall. Ed followed laggingly behind the trio until the endless hallway of paintings and windows branched upwards to the right and kept on stretching itself off to the left. The fifth years went up, Ed veered leftwards with a side-glance out a large window.
Outside the lake was dark, reflecting the voluminous and equally dark clouds above it, and the forest along the lake's edge quaked and churned in the frigid wind. Ed was drawn to the sight, but desire to reach his husband's classroom overpowered any idleness in his spirit.
Roy's door stood in between an old column and an oil portrait of an old, haggard man whose head and chest were draped with pristinely white bandages. The painting barely spared Edward a second glance as the blonde strode past its golden frame and opened Roy's door.
"Mustang?" Ed called into the classroom when he found it empty.
After a second, Roy's muffled voice called, "Office!" in a tone that was far too 'sing-song' for the time of day. Ed made his way up the small flight of stairs that sat behind the teacher's desk and opened the heavy wooden door that guarded the entrance of Mustang's office. Roy sat on the outside edge of his desk, nonchalantly skimming a sheet of a student's homework. Ed gladly noted no rosy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, nor any other person besides them two.
"How are you feeling?" Ed asked
Roy smiled at him, "Better."
Better didn't mean 'good', per say, but Ed would take that for now. He nodded, moving through the open door to sit beside Roy atop his desk. He leaned against his husband's arm, letting Roy's hand travel up to play with his ponytail absentmindedly. They stayed like that for a while, Ed almost actually dozing off before he remembered something he'd wanted to tell Roy.
"Oh!" He said, making Roy jump a bit, having become used to the silence, "Meet me outside your classroom tonight at around ten, 'kay? I have a place where we can meet." Ed realized after he said this that he hadn't switched out of English, but couldn't really find it in him to care.
"Perfect! Now, as much as I love your company, I would suggest you go ahead and find your seat before the classroom fills up." Roy said, ruffling Ed's hair a bit.
"Yeah, yeah," Ed replied, leaving the office with a smirk. In the classroom, he was surprised to find Hermione hunched over a bag in the middle of the room. "Hermione?"
She shot up, "I left my ink in here yesterday, I was just getting that. See you!" She said quickly, flashing up a jar of ink before trotting out of the room. Confusedly, Ed found his desk and laid his head down, ready to get another hour of sleep.
Even after half an hour, Hermione found herself struggling to concentrate in Divination (despite her firm disbelief in the subject, she still tried to keep up her notes), as her mind kept floating back to her various questions that she couldn't answer regarding her Amestrian friend. She plucked at the ornate red tablecloth that decorated hers and Ron's circular table as she thought.
Firstly, she was upset with herself for not being able to properly ask Edward about his relation to this ancient 'Hohenheim Elric'. She knew that Ed wasn't an incredibly forwardly emotional person, but she figured a simple question about ancestry was no cause for suspicion on her part.
If he was indeed related to Hohenheim, Hermione could kind of understand Ed's unwillingness to talk about his family. Philosopher's stones had always been extremely taboo, even in countries that commonly practiced alchemy, and as an alchemist, Ed would likely not want that kind of reputation linked to his own endeavors.
But to act so extremely secretive in a country that barely knew anything about alchemical history and its taboos? Hermione simply found it odd, considering how forward Ed had been when he had talked about his parents' deaths. Edward had to be hiding more, and Hermione felt that figuring out how Hohenheim fit in might just be the key to uncovering it.
At any rate, she knew one thing- Ed was going to be sneaking around that night She might as well take her curiosity into her own hands for once.
At around ten o'clock, Hermione heard the distinctive sound of footfall on the Common Room's dormitory staircase. Under the guise of Harry's invisibility cloak, she did not need to duck away, so she easily noticed the strange happiness Edward Elric held himself with. He strode lightly in a dark sweater and pair of slacks, only taking a precursory glance behind him before creaking open the Common Room's door.
With a final jolt of doubt in her stomach, Hermione quickly shuffled to the door, catching it right before it closed, and slipped silently through after her friend. No more turning back.
On her sock-clad tiptoes, she followed Edward down many a changing staircase, and into the hallway that led directly to Professor Mustang's room.
Had she not been curious before, Hermione definitely was now. She continued onwards. Waiting directly in front of Mustang's door was a figure shrouded in night shadows that sent a tiny shiver of uncertainty down Hermione's spine. Once Edward's lamp neared the figure, Hermione realized it was her alchemy professor, donning an uncharacteristically happy expression very similar to Ed's. This calmed her nerves mildly, but not enough to assuage the pit in her stomach that would have persuaded her to turn back, were her curiosity not more strong-willed.
They talked very briefly in Amestrian mumbles before, Ed taking lead, filed out of the hall and back to the revolving stairs. Hermione crept silently behind the Amestrian duo, not able to pick up on their hushed words (which she suspected to be in their native tongue anyways). A few paintings complained about the lantern-light as they passed, but fell silent soon afterwards in favor of sleeping.
Hermione, despite how well versed she had become in sneaking around the ancient school, found herself jumpy and nervous with every step. Usually, she had Ron or Harry to sleuth around with, and acting alone heightened how 'against the rules' the act was. As well, Edward was her friend, and Professor Mustang a teacher Hermione kept in high regards- she was wary to find out that perhaps the two had been less worthy of her trust this whole time.
They surely seemed very apt in the art of sleuthing. Before every corridor entrance, either Mustang or Edward would take a precursory peek around the corner to make sure nobody else was present (little did they know, however, of the fifteen-year-old mere meters away from them). Hermione was once again pulled by her curiosity to follow.
It wasn't until they were directly in front of the expansive gap in paintings that Hermione realized the duo's destination- The Room of Requirements.
Thinking ahead, Hermione stood directly in front of the entryway as Ed gestured for the Professor to stand back. With a concentrated look on his face, Ed paced back and forth a few times before regular-sized, oak door formed before the three of them. Tailing closely between the two Amestrians, Hermione entered the room with them. She immediately felt as if she had stepped into some inevitable doom, for once the doors closed there would be no way for Hermione to leave without alerting the other two of her presence.
Deciding that it was too late for regrets, Hermione let the door click shut as she looked around the room. It seemed to be a large office room with white walls and dark brown paneling. Desks of the same wood lined either side of the room, with one large desk standing at the very end of the room. This desk held numerous unorganized papers and an old-fashioned telephone. Artificial daylight streamed into the room, reflecting against millions of dust particles that drifted timelessly in the air. With a shifting sound, the door disappeared.
Hermione situated herself atop one of the desks close to the main desk, where Ed and Mustang were. Almost as soon as she had situated herself, Hermione was met with three consecutive shocking revelations.
Covering her mouth to muffle a startled yelp, Hermione watched as Edward pulled his professor rather roughly by the collar into a furious kiss, which the black-haired alchemist heartily reciprocated.
Hermione covered her eyes with her fingers and tried to block out the noises of her teacher and housemate swapping spit, internally fuming 'That can't be all, I haven't gone this far from the rules for something so… anticlimactic!' Hermione had tried to imagine all of her suspicions surrounding the duo (undercover ministry plot, Death Eater spies, and the like), and never in her mind had a student/teacher relationship been the root of Ed's secretiveness. His hesitance towards talking about Mustang made more sense, perhaps, but not his blatant refusal to be open about his life in Amestris, as well as his explanations towards how he knew such complex alchemy- not to mention why he was one of two Amestrians allowed to attend Hogwarts.
The fifth-year peeked between her fingers, finding the duo- well, couple- still snogging. Now Ed was shed of his sweater and gloves, clad in a t-shirt he had apparently worn under the woolen garment. Hermione was met with her second revelation; the arm currently entwined in Professor Mustang's hair was made completely out of silver metal, save for a golden loop around his ring finger.
'No. Blasted. Way.' She shouldn't even have been surprised at that point, but nonetheless, the matching gold ring on Mustang's hand confirmed Hermione of their supposed matrimony. 'So there's no way Ed's seventeen years old. Then why in Merlin's name is he at a magic high school?'
Still trying to ignore the passionate kissing mere meters away from her, Hermione stood to stealth her way around the room. There was no way to escape until Ed and Mustang left (which was likely not soon), so the Gryffindor decided to at least gage her surroundings. The Room of Requirements had never previously conjured up such a… non-medieval-style… type of room such as a plaster-walled office, so it must have been a room existing somewhere in Edward's memory. Each desk lining the walls of the room held little nameplates. The one for the desk Hermione had been sitting atop read 'Col. Hawkeye', and the next one over read '1st Lt. Havoc'.
'The Military?' Hermione thought. She tiptoed as quietly as possible around each desk. 'Maj. Fuery'. '2nd Lt. Breda'. 'W.O. Falman'.
Each of these desks was fairly neat and non-descript, only a few differentiating items on each (an ashtray on 'Havoc' and a bowl of dog treats on 'Hawkeye', for example), but the last desk (that is, the desk across from 'Hawkeye' and to the left of the one on which the couple was currently making out) was simply a mess of papers, metal mathematical tools, and books. Hermione nearly jammed her toe on a heap of old tomes that appeared to have fallen unceremoniously from the tabletop, and she could feel crumpled paper beneath her bare feet as she leaned in as close as she quietly could to read the nameplate from under the mess: 'B. Gen. Elric'.
Enter Shocking Revelation number four.
'Edward's in the military?' She thought to herself. She suddenly had an idea of whose name the middle desk would hold. Steeling herself, Hermione silently circumvented the couple in front of the desk to peer at the contents atop it from behind.
Sure enough, Hermione didn't even need to see the nametag to know the desk belonged to Professor Mustang. There was a pile of documents that seemed fairly nondescript, but the tabletop was littered with picture frames. Most of them depicted him and Edward, along with a little girl Hermione was fairly sure was Trisha ('shocking revelation no. 5'!), both men were, for most of the pictures, dressed in strange blue uniforms that looked vaguely like muggle military suits. There were also photos of, Hermione guessed, the entire team, featuring a blonde woman, Ed, Mustang, two redheaded men, a greying man, and a young dark- haired man. Another frame held a picture of just Roy and a different dark-haired man with glasses and slight facial hair.
Finally looking at the nametag, Hermione found the inscription 'Fürher Mustang'. Admittedly, Hermione was not an expert on Amestrian military titles, but she was pretty sure the Fürher was the head of the entire military.
She had no further time to speculate, as when she looked up from the desks, she realized that the couple was in the process of disrobing each other.
Hastily, Hermione tiptoed to a desk at the far corner of the room and ducked under it, knowing fully well what was to come. She covered her ears, focused on a random thought in her head (rune charts, perfect!), and hoped to Merlin that Ed and Mustang weren't one of those couples that could go at it all night long. After all, she needed to be awake enough to coherently tell Harry and Ron everything she had learned in the past fifteen minutes.
(A/N) I'm currently working on the RoyEd Week prompts, but I will continue to plug through this sucker once those are done. ciao!~