Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter
Title: Endless Moment
Part: 10
Genre: General/Drama
Rating: PG
Warning: Crossover
Spoilers: All of FMA; All of HP
Summary: Sequel to 'Mr Elric'

Chapter 10: At the End of a Tunnel

Ed closed the door behind Harry Potter and ran his fingers through his hair before turning and sighing, almost disdainfully, at the mess he'd made. That would hold the Boy Who Lived at bay, even temporarily. Good to know that despite the legendary buzz, Harry Potter could still fall victim to his emotions.

He straightened his collar, jotted down a quick note for the house elves to burn every last scrap of paper, and strolled down a crowd-unfriendly path to have tea with Hagrid.

---

"All he said was that your 'trustworthiness' was important?" Hermione asked skeptically. "Sounds awfully basic."

Ron glanced at her in surprise. "I thought you were his biggest fan," he said, almost snidely.

Hermione's expression was acid. "I think you have me mistaken with the poor, simpering M.E.S.S.-ed girls who have all but given up on life after not seeing Mr. Elric for an entire week."

She made no effort to keep the volume of her voice low, and from across the room, Parvati and Lavender took a brief respite from their state of self-pity to flip a few birds in Hermione's direction.

Ron bristled and Hermione glared and Harry blinked.

"I can't believe you're still writing to him--"

"--I can't believe you still care about it!"

"Well, yeah, he's from Durmstrang isn't he?"

"Oh, not this again--I'm not getting into an argument with you over this again!!" Hermione all but shouted as she got to her feet. "I'm not going to defend myself in this inane and pointless...He's a friend, Ron!!"

Hermione stomped off to the girl's dormitory and Ron threw his back against the couch.

"Read one of her letters by accident," he mumbled, more to himself than to Harry, "thought maybe her mum sent her more clippings."

Harry patted Ron on the shoulder sympathetically, and refrained from questioning Ron's ability to distinguish the difference in bulk between a stack of newspapers and a sheet of parchment.

---

"Ye' don't look like you've been eatin' enough," Hagrid rumbled disapprovingly as shoveled food onto Ed's plate.

Ed smiled faintly. "I've been busy. No thanks," he added quickly when Hagrid tried to sneak some of his homemade Jelly Slugs in. In spite of the other man's insistence that his were 'just like the ones at Honeydukes', Ed could not foresee any outcome which did not have him in bodily pain.

...they were still twitching.

Hagrid gave him a look of dejection that would've been more effective if Al—…if he hadn't already developed an immunity to such an expression. From Alphonse. Both of them.

Sensing the subtle change in the atmosphere, Hagrid (Good ol' Hagrid) quickly busied himself with the kettle. "So…eh, how's yer researchin' an' all that comin' along?"

Ed glanced toward the fireplace. "I think I found the key."

"Tha's nice." Hagrid said conversationally. "Eat."

Obediently, Ed raised a fork to his mouth and for a few moments, there was silence.

"I've always wanted to know," he finally said, chewing thoughtfully, "what does the Hogwarts Gamekeeper do?"

"Oh…not that much, really," Hagrid said, swelling with pride despite his words. "The Forbidden Forest mostly keeps itself. It'sa beautiful place, y'know."

"The books say differently."

"The books say a lot'a things; I'm sure you've read 'em all, but jus' because it's written in a book, don't mean it's true."

Edward blinked.

"Take the forests for example," Hagrid continued. "M'sure every book says it's dangerous an' that there's loads'a wild animals runnin' around jus' waitin' to jump out at'cha, an' that it's an evil, terrible place. Well, me, I've lived right here all my life. Been in an' out of the forest a whole lot too. It's not harmless, but it's not a pit o' despair either. Jus' takes someone ta listen to it, y'know?"

It took Ed a moment to realize that his mouth was open.

"I've been hearin' a lot about yer from Harry and Ron and Hermione," Hagrid chuckled. "I listen to ye' talk about what you've read an' I don't think I've ever told ye' that I thought you were goin' about your fact-findin' the wrong way."

Ed looked down into his lap where his hands rested: one flesh and bone, one metallic and cold. He clenched them. To put heart and soul out in the open and experience things in first-person rather than from behind the safety of aged sheets of parchment was a risk he didn't think he could take again.

He had been frightened after the Gate had deposited him in a war-torn Germany with no lifeline but an estranged father. He'd been cautious. The last time he chanced everything and put his life on the line…was when he offered his soul for Alphonse's.

Ed inhaled sharply.

"I think I get it," he said, rising. "Thanks for the meal."

"Yer welcome," Hagrid said, grinning broadly. "Ye' come back here anytime the house elves aren't feedin' ye'."

Edward gave him a half grin and took a step out the door. But he didn't leave. There was something else. "Hagrid…" he began slowly. "Why—"

"Dumbledore told me I could trust ye'," Hagrid interrupted. "Tha's all I need ta know."

---

"He's back!!"

The words were vocalized with a mindful consideration for their professor's temper and an unmistakable amount of glee. Hermione, being the naturally responsive type, snapped her head in the direction of the voices and unfortunately the speed of her turn was detected by Ron, who looked pointedly in the other direction.

"You're both being idiots," Harry said under his breath as McGonagall rapped her desk for attention.

"You can tell Ron," Hermione said, looking determinedly forward, "that all Viktor did was send a Valentine, it didn't mean anything and that if only he could get over his inferiority complex—"

"And you can tell Hermione," Ron retorted without missing a beat, "that the whole world would be better off if she stopped making eyes at every hunk of meat that comes along—"

"I don't make eyes at anyone!!"

"Well, you certainly don't make them at me!"

Hermione's jaw dropped, Harry's eyebrows jumped into his hairline, and a moment later, Ron realized what he'd said and turned the color of his hair.

McGonagall prattled on in the front of the classroom, absentmindedly turning a frog into a rat, into a spider (Ron flinched), and back to a frog. All the while, Ron looked to the door, Hermione at the window, and Harry at the ceiling, wishing he wasn't sitting where he was.

---

"I'm surprised to see you in my classroom, Edward," McGonagall said, almost effortless in her sweeping presence. "How is everything?"

Ed contemplated his answer carefully before he spoke. "I know what I need to do," he said slowly. "I don't know if I can."

McGonagall squeezed his shoulder understandingly. "You'll find a way."

It was difficult, Ed reflected as he exited the classroom, transforming from an observer into a participant. In a classroom setting, he was in no position to speak. In a social setting, he was in no position to interact with anyone. As he walked down the corridors of Hogwarts, he couldn't help but feel extremely out of place.

His home, the last world he'd been thrown into, and Hogwarts were never supposed to mix in this way.

His feet came to a stop in front of a stone gargoyle. He straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath.

"Why Edward, what a surprise," Dumbledore said jovially as the door closed from behind him. "I certainly wasn't expecting you just now. Have a seat. What can I do for you?"

"I need to speak with you," he replied. "I know you've taken a few liberties with my pensieve; that's no longer a concern of mine. You have a reputation for wisdom, and I would like some perspective."

"Firstly, I beg your pardon for my intrusion," Dumbledore said pleasantly with a twinkle in his eye. "I fault my uncontainable curiosity. Secondly, any inquiry you have I shall answer the best my—as you say it—wisdom can offer."

Ed nodded his thanks. "I'm from a universe unparallel with Hogwarts and the muggle world," he began. "In my world, alchemists are not powerful sorcerers. We are scientists who operate under a law of equivalent exchange. I broke that law and the consequences were severe. I spent all my life searching for a way to rectify that mistake and it led me into places and situations I couldn't ever have imagined.

At one point, I was willing to trade my existence for someone else's. At the end of that, somehow, I appeared in Munich, Germany, in the year of 1921. My theory was that, since I fell from the heavens the first time I came to this world, that somewhere beyond the sky was a portal to my world. I joined a program researching rockets so I could build one that would take me back to my world."

Dumbledore's eyes were steely.

"I spent years in that program," Ed said quietly. "We were halted by economic turmoil, political strife, and war. I was an old man by the time everything came into fruition."

Dumbledore lurched forward in his seat. "Then what?" he pressed. "What happened?"

"...I don't remember," Ed finally admitted. "There was a rocket. Something happened with it. And the next thing I know, I'm a teenager again and I have no knowledge of the specifics of the rocket program or what happened in the years in between, only that I felt like I'd just woken up from a deep sleep."

"And then you came to Hogwarts," Dumbledore finished, reclining once again. "Extraordinary, Edward. Truly extraordinary."

"I have a theory," Ed said, bringing his hands together. "The gate demands a little part of you every time you pass through it—a toll charge, you see. The first time, the cost was split, so there was less effect. The second time, I gave up my knowledge of science and physics, but it wasn't enough to send me home, but not too little for nothing to happen. That's why it sent me here. I can get something from Hogwarts valued high enough to pay the cost to go home. Whatever it is, it cannot be attained from books."

"It is always challenging when the question itself is not straightforward," Dumbledore looked over the edge of his half-moon spectacles. "You think it has something to do with Harry Potter."

Ed did not break eye contact. "All signs point to yes."

The headmaster sighed and suddenly looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

"I won't interfere," he said at long last. "But I will ask you if there's anything I can do."

Ed pondered the offer carefully before shaking his head, no. "I thank you for you offer," he said, "but there is something else, a feeling I cannot shake...Instinct, Headmaster, tells me that I shouldn't be here. I don't belong in this timeline, and by being here, I'm interfering with the natural events that are supposed to occur."

"Ah, the age-old debate between free will and fate. I prefer to think that we are in charge of our own destiny, Edward."

"I used to think that way too, Headmaster," Ed replied. "Now I know better. I will take opportunities if they arise, but only if opportunities arise."

"Very well," Dumbledore said. From behind him a deformed bird poked its head out from a pile of ashes. "If you do require assistance, all you need do is ask, and I will try to help you while I still can."

By the time Ed understood the odd phrasing of Dumbledore's statement, it was too late.

---

"Oh, Harry, give it a rest," Hermione said as they raced up the stairwell to the Gryffindor Tower.

"She's right, mate," Ron echoed cheerily, clapping Harry on the back. "No sense in dwelling over words; just take life as it comes, right?"

The two of them had made up in spectacular fashion sometime in between Potions and dinner. Harry had no idea how, but he suspected it had something to do with the fact that they hadn't been all that mad at each other to begin with.

"I just want some answers," Harry grumbled as they neared the Fat Lady. "Is that so much to ask—?"

"Oh, Harry! Harry Potter!!"

No, he mouthed in chagrin to Ron and Hermione, who sniggered at Harry's expense.

"What is it?" he asked irritably as Colin Creevey dashed up to him, breathless in excitement.

"I just came from Professor Dumbledore's office," Colin said, blissfully ignorant of Harry's exasperation. "He asked me to give you this."

"Oh, well—thanks, Colin," Harry said, thoroughly taken aback as Colin pushed the slip of parchment into his hand, beamed, and disappeared through the portrait hole ("Garden Gnome!").

"What's it say?" Ron asked peering over Harry's shoulder.

"It says I should go see him whenever I'm available," Harry read. "Well, I've got two hours until Filch starts prowling around. Guess I'll go see him right now."

"No, Harry, what about your Potions essay?" Hermione asked reproachfully. "You've only got five centimeters on it so far; you need twelve!"

"I'll write it when I get back," Harry promised, already starting back down the stairs. "Besides, this is way more important."

He ran the entire way to Dumbledore's office, nearly tripping over his own two feet in his excitement. It'd been a while since their last session. The gargoyle wasn't in its perch so he just walked on in.

"Good evening, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said warmly, "I have something to show you."

T . B . C

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