Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, or the Harry Potter series.

Chapter Five: Castle tours, chapter names, and 'honeybunch'

It was agony – pure agony. That was all that he could feel right now. An itching, writhing, squirming irritation from head to toe that was driving him insane. When was this torture going to end and let him be at peace again? When would he be able to unbunch his fingers from the fists they had been forced into? When would these flipping idiots listen to what he was saying?

"No, no, no! You do not walk up to a woman and ask if she wants a tour of the castle. It doesn't matter how big you say the towers are, that's still one of the worst pick up lines you could try," Flame raged.

He had been listening to these numbskulls all afternoon, trying to remedy their woeful ways with women. All it seemed that he had accomplished so far was convincing them that hair was a part of the issue, which from Dumbledore's "ahh, just as I thought," they seemed to have already known, but had been wilfully ignoring it. So now, if they wanted contact of any kind with a female, Dumbledore was to shorten his beard so that he at least wouldn't trip on it, Snape was to wash his hair at least once a month – the concept of twice a week had been enough for him to take a swipe at Flame's face – Hagrid needed to take a pair of hedge-clippers to his head and get rid of the stuff, and the others . . . well, who cared about the others, really? Dumbledore, Snape and Hagrid were the only ones who could and in some cases would make the remainder of Flame's week at Hogwarts a living hell.

"How about telling us some lines we can use, then?" Daumbledore pleaded from behind his desk.

They were in an unused classroom, and by this time most students were in their common rooms, so they had very little chance of being interrupted. Each of the desperate professors had taken a seat, and a few were scribbling notes. Flame even had a piece of chalk in his hand, and every now and then when he said something note-worthy, he'd quickly write it up on the board, so that the more studious ones could get it written down.

Flame thought. Some of his more popular lines were his most simple. "If you go for cheesy, they just look at you strange, tell you they're not interested and walk away," he admitted – his personal experience in that area had been limited to one unfortunate case, but he had cackled many a time when Jean had come into work with his woebegone expression and told the others of his foolish exploits that weekend.

"Comment on how nice she looks," he mused onwards, " – not the 'is it me or are you hot in here?' sort of thing, but tell her that she's so beautiful you noticed her from across the room, or say something about her hair. Girls always like compliments on their hair. Most of the time," he amended quickly. Some liked, some didn't care, but he was yet to find one who absolutely hated it.

"You could tell her that you like her dress, or shirt or whatever, but make sure that you only do so if it's not a revealing one, or otherwise she'll think you're just perverted." His eyes fell on the vertically challenged Professor Flitwick – on first seeing the man he had had the epiphany that this must have been Ed's father or uncle. "And just in your case, Flitwick, don't tell any woman that you like her skirt unless the hem reaches to the floor."

"For the past hour," Snape interrupted, "you have lectured us about physical appearance, clothing and 'pick-up lines', but other than the claim that this all works, we have seen absolutely no proof."

Flame rolled his eyes. Other than the reluctant admittance that he needed to wash his hair more, Snape had made very little progress. At least the others were eager to learn – he seemed to just be here to boo and hiss at Flame's every attempt.

"Well then," Flame said, sarcasm entering into his tone. "If you want proof, then why don't I just trundle down to Hogsmeade and show you that I can do it?"

"No," came the quick answer, the one word delivered as finally as any sentence passed by judge or jury.

That was not what Flame had unexpected. "A what?"

"No," Snape repeated. "We know that you can get a woman. I'd like to see your methods work for me," he said, looking levelly at the man standing in front of the class. "Is it possible?"

Well, he had been conducting the class for their benefit, not for his own, so he supposed that it was the logical thing to do. But how likely was it that anyone would want to go out with this greasy, grimy, Potion-obsessive professor when a clean, good-looking alchemist – and war-hero to boot – was standing right across the room? If there was some way of first changing the man into less of a freak, and then of watching him without being visible, then maybe he could give that a try.

"Maybe," Flame said after a long pause. "We could give it a shot and see what we can do. But you'd have to listen to absolutely everything I tell you to do," he said severely. This wouldn't work if the man tried it his own way.

Which is why later that night, when he got back from the lessons to his room, Flame found himself on his knees, staring puppy-eyed at the face of one blonde Lieutenant.

"Pleeease?" he begged, hands out in front of him. "If you just go out with him this one time, then he'll get off my back, and it won't matter whether or not it works normally."

"Roy," Riza told him, absolutely gob-smacked, "he's disgusting. I am not touching that thing just so that you don't get fired before you're finished. We only have tomorrow left in this castle before we've got to move on to our next job. Just tell him it'll take one more day to reform him, and that you'll supervise him picking up some wench at the village tomorrow night."

Flame paused. That could work. That might work. In fact, it probably would work. And it would mean that he wouldn't have to watch the snaky-Snape-man try to hit on his girlfriend. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Maybe because the writer needed to fill in some more words so that this chapter would be an acceptable length.

. . . Flame looked around. That was one eerie thought. Did some voice in his mind like to categorise sections of his life into chapters? Or was that just some crazy gene coming through? If so, it came from his father's side of the family. Whatever the problem was, he still wondered what this chapter would be called. Maybe 'Hot women have good ideas,' or 'Flame gets out of one of the worst predicaments of his life,' or – and this was the one he was hoping for – 'Flame doesn't spend the night alone'.

With as much elegance as he could muster, Flame climbed off his knees and brushed off the patches of dirt now on his uniform. If he wanted a chapter heading to go a certain way, he'd have to make sure he behaved appropriately. Having cleaned his uniform, he looked Riza in the face and smirked. "Yu have great ideas. I knew that I was in love with you for a reason."

She giggled and put her arms around his neck. "And so you should be."

The next day, Flame walked as he mused over the fact that he didn't really care what the chapter heading was, just as long as the content of the chapter was pleasing. For all he knew, the chapter was over already, and the author was ready to stop discussing what the chapter heading might be. Which, despite the chapter not being over yet, she is. Ahem.

So, the next day, Flame announced to his colleagues what the plan was.

"This evening, when all of the classes have ended, I will instruct Severus for half an hour, reminding him of what needs to be done before he is ready. After that, he will wash and dress appropriately, then I will brief him on what sort of conversations to hold, and what sort of conversations not to hold with a woman, and then we'll head to Hogsmeade. I will be waiting outside the Three Broomsticks forty-five minutes after he goes in, so he has that much time to try to talk to as many women as he wants. I'll wait there for half an hour, and if he leaves within that appointed time, then I'll see whether he succeeded or failed in picking up some woman. You lot can go in, if you want – I'm sure that you won't be too much of a distraction for the ladies, as you are – but it's my fate to wait outside."

"But won't you get bored, if you waiting there for half an hour?" Flitwick piped up.

"Oh no," Flame assured them all. "I'll bring Riza with me. We can . . . erm . . . talk until Snape comes out."

The sage heads nodded. It seemed that the plan was set up ready. Flame smiled, and went to teach his first class for the day.

After teaching third years and seventh years – then breaking for lunch – and first years, sixth years and fourth years, Flame could say that he wasn't happier to see the backs of these kids. His week of teaching was up, and he'd be leaving Hogwarts in only a few hours after he finished his last task. But his main glee in seeing the students go was that this time he wouldn't have to mark their homework, and even Riza couldn't find a way around it – it wasn't like he could mail their marks back when he had finished, so all the work had to be left behind for the next person who took up the job.

His last class trickled out of the room, the looks on their faces saying that they were eager to be anywhere but inside the classroom. Flame couldn't blame them, really. He thought it must have had something to do with the fact that Riza shot at him every time that he spoke to one of the female students, and that spooked them. Riza also noticed the students' willingness to leave the room, and put it down to the fact that Flame had been flirting with every female student in the class, which would have scared the young girls. The students themselves had also noticed their own desire to evacuate the room, and they had a much firmer idea of why they wanted to get out of there – they didn't want to still be there when their professor and his aide jumped each other, in any sense of the phrase.

Flame looked to Riza with a smile on his face as she walked over to him, hips swaying. "Time to go get your 'pupil' ready for his big date, Roy," she said with a smirk before walking out of the room, too. Flame watched after her for a moment before jumping up and went off to find Snape.

So in one and a half hours' time, Flame let a confused and disoriented – and clean – Snape stumble into the Hogsmeade bar.

"Well, my work here is done," Flame said, brushing his hands together. He had just completed one of the hardest tasks of his life – getting Severus Snape to look like a real human being, rather than some creature that just rose up out of a lagoon and chose to walk on land for a few millennia.

"Roy?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Aren't you going to wait and see if he can actually get someone?" Riza asked him.

Flame screwed up his nose. That would mean waiting around the village for ages. He didn't want to do that. "Well, we have to be leaving pretty soon, honeybunch. We're going to have to pack our bags and make sure that we don't miss our ride to our next job. He's not going to be coming out for another forty-five minutes, so we may as well use that time to get ready. Then, if we happen to be ready before the time is up, we'll just have to leave then."

"Oh, okay," Riza said, blushing. He had never called her that in public before, and even though there was currently no one else waiting outside the doors of the Three Broomsticks, she was still very conscious of the times he usually did call her that.

The two of them trundled back towards the castle and wandered into their rooms to gather up all the luggage they had brought with them. When ten minutes later – they hadn't brought much with them – they were stopped as they went past the staff room, they made a very suspicious scene, suitcases and all.

"Professor Mustang, we've just had a report that You-Know-Who has somehow gotten into Hogwarts! All the teachers need to rally up and fight him while the students evacuate!" McGonagall cried. Then, spotting the suitcases she had formerly neglected to see, her expression dropped. "What are . . . Are you leaving?"

Flame gave a spectacular bow. "I apologise for the inconvenience. I had heard nothing of this predicament. Allow me only to go and fetch Professor Snape from Hogsmeade, and then I assure you I will return and help you to vanquish the evil in these castle walls."

Somewhat dazed by the flowery speech, McGonagall stuttered a "Y-y-yes, certainly. I-I apologise for- for having doubted you," and let Flame and Riza hurry off.

"Roy," Riza asked when they rounded the corner, "are you sure you want to fight that man? You could get hurt!"

"Pff!" Flame said, hurrying down a staircase. "I'm not hanging around to get killed – we're going home!"

-Dai