The night was dark and cool, quiet on the streets. What little noise, muffled chatter and footsteps, there was would slowly fade as the light snowfall coated the streets. Such a winter night would invite those out who enjoyed the cold or enjoyed drinking in the cold - or both.

Inside the tavern, the atmosphere was warm and boisterous. Laughing filled the air as a barrel-chested man slung an arm around his drinking companion, strong-arming him into a brutal headlock. The other residents sitting at the bar guffawed at such a merry sight, drunken as it may have been. Among these sitting at the bar was a stocky man, tall and broad of build, with bright flaxen hair and glasses perched upon his nose; his countenance was stern, as though he was upset over something vague, but the man sitting next to him knew better than to assume such rather than thinking that perhaps that was just... Hohenheim's face.

A long, thin scholar, the man's half-moon spectacles shifted down on his nose as he lowered his head to look at Hohenheim's expression over their rims. "It's been about fifty years now, hasn't it," the man said thoughtfully, long spindly fingers on his silver beard. "Well, a long time no see, Van Hohenheim." With a small grunt, Hohenheim turned to look, almost as if he had not noticed the man there before.

"So it has," he acknowledged, his voice an intimidating rumble in his chest. The harsh, gold overhead lighting lit up his hair and threw a glare over his glasses, making it impossible to see his expression. "I believe the last time we met was back in London." The bartender gave Hohenheim a strange look at the sound of a name he had never heard, but turned away, a dirty rag in his hand slowly staining the glass he was polishing rather than helping him clean it in any shape or form. He did not seem to notice. Hohenheim decided not to point it out.

There was a silence between the two men; they did not speak, and only listened to the sound of whooping as the men at the tables watched one of their own chug down a tankard of ale. Hohenheim grimaced.

"I heard you have two sons now," said the silver-haired man. "They would be around ten this year? I do wonder why you're here instead of back at your home with your wife." He raised an eyebrow, the action teasingly calculated and the thought reflected in dark eyes. Why did you leave them now?

Hohenheim grunted again, though his eyes softened, the lines around them crinkling in fondness. "I needed to look for something," he said after a moment. His eyes tracked the movement of the bartender's hand rubbing the dirty rag along the counter. "It was for Trisha and the children, since I can't do much else for them." He downed the drink in front of him, the ice clinking inside it as he set it back down. "She's probably taking better care of them than I ever could if I were there."

The bespectacled old man gave a noise of thoughtful consideration, and then spoke again. "With the talent you had, though, I wouldn't be surprised if I had to pay them a visit soon. Perhaps they have that prodigious magic inside them as well." His eyes twinkled. Hohenheim's hand found its way to his drink, swirling around the slowly-melting ice that was leaving drops on the table and a thin sheet of water at the bottom of the glass.

"I wouldn't, either," he said gloomily.

The man stood up, the movement drawing Hohenheim's eyes. As he turned, the old man's silver ponytail caught the light for a moment. Silver and gold, he thought, a far cry from the auburn hair he had possessed decades ago. "Leaving?" he said after a moment, his voice lower as he turned away from the bar.

"It's about time for me to," said the man, his eyes once more possessing that strange shimmer. "I must get back to the school, and Amestris is a ways away, as you know."

"I see," Hohenheim said. "Well. Safe travels, Albus Dumbledore."

Dumbledore's wizened face shifted into a warm smile. "I'll see you soon, Van Hohenheim."

Hohenheim watched as the door jingled open for a moment, letting a gust of chilly air into the room. Outside it was dark and quiet, lit only by the lamps on the streets; he caught a few words of chatter from a military shift shuffling their feet on the pavement outside. As his eyes lingered, a single streetlight at the end of the road went out.

"Ow, Granny! Stop! That hurts!"

Such a shout would not be expected in such a tranquil scene. The rolling green hills of Resembool were lit up in the sunlight of the day, bright and calming. The few trees across the hill cast verdant green shade, as did the house: well-maintained despite its age, painted in light colors with a sign out front reading Rockbell Automail. The cloudless sky was a deep azure, but all the tranquility of the moment was shattered as the sounds of something quite like a tantrum sounded inside the Rockbell house.

The source was evident.

A blond-haired boy sat, basically screaming, on the floor as his shoulders were pushed down in a stretch. "I'm not flexible enough for this! Ow, stop!" His face drawn in a grimace, he valiantly tried to straighten his back, but despite his efforts his fingertips touched the floor between his toes as an old woman kept at it.

"Hold that for five seconds, Ed."

"Don't want to!"

"You don't have a choice," came a young and feminine voice from the corner of the sunlit room. "You have to stretch to exercise the tendons near the automail ports." Smiling brightly (if a little cheekily), the younger Rockbell pulled back Ed's shirt collar to check the shoulder port. A little red, but that was to be expected; the leg port looked much the same. Her face became quizzical, a little surprised. "These are healing a lot faster than we expected, Grandma," she said, looking up (but barely) at her grandmother. Pinako grunted.

"With how Ed has been clamoring about, it'll have to have healed fast to take that kind of movement. That said," she added, shooting a look at Ed - now on the floor clutching the backs of his thighs and groaning - "You need to lighten up on the activity. It's not been very long since your recovery, so you shouldn't move too much."

"If I'm not supposed to be moving, why am I doing these horrible stretches?" Ed shot back, pouting much like the child he was. Winry put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth to speak, but she was greeted with another voice before she could.

"You can't skip out on those, brother!"

There was a clang from the stairs. A small voice said, "Oops." Alphonse's metal head made noises all the way down the stairs as he turned around to look, his arms close to his body. His voice was flustered as he followed up. "Um, well, ignoring that! You can't slack off on your exercises!" Winry slipped by him to pick up the metal head where it had rolled to the bottom of the stairs; she handed it to Al, brushing off the sleek plume.

Pinako nodded sagely in perfect sync with Winry. Rolling his eyes, Ed reluctantly situated himself on the floor so it looked less like he was dying in the fetal position and more like he was doing stretches. He forced his torso forward, grimacing; they could say he had to do it all he wanted, but that didn't stop it from hurting. Though he supposed he was lucky it was still warm outside. He'd heard from Winry and Granny that cold weather wreaked havoc on the automail ports, and it already hurt when it rained; he didn't think he wanted it to get cold quite that quickly. He had his head bowed and heard Winry and Granny walking down the stairs, raising an eyebrow at the movement. Al hadn't moved, though; Ed could still feel his soulfire eyes looking watchfully as he went through the motions of stretching. Not for the first time, he felt a little twinge of guilt but smothered it. He had to get well in order to help his brother; that was the truth and that was what he told himself. "Hey, Al."

Al's eyes would have widened had he had any. Ed felt his surprise in his voice. "What is it, brother?" He sat down cross-legged so it wouldn't be awkward talking, especially with Ed's face as close to the ground as it was as he stretched. Ed changed sides, arms reaching for his right leg and exposing his face as he tilted his torso. He grimaced, not because of an ache in his shoulder; it was that he didn't know what to make conversation about now that he'd gotten Al's attention. He decided on the failsafe. "What did you think of that alchemy book that Granny got us from town a couple of days ago? You finished that last night, right?"

Al's eyes lit up. "Brother, it was so interesting! I don't think there were too many concepts we hadn't seen before, but the way the author talked about them was like magic!"

Ed nodded sagely, a knowing grin on his face as he sat up. "How about that part about alkahestry? I thought that was pretty cool, y'know." Al nodded right along with him, the armor clanking slightly as the helmet jostled against the neck guard. Noticing the hollow sound, Ed looked up at it, his brow furrowing slightly in a frown.

"Well, anyway," he said roughly, shaking his head and abruptly changing the subject before he could lose what was left of his nerve. "How are you feeling, Al?"

Al was surprised again. The armor was metal, and for it to show emotion on its face was scientifically impossible, given the material, but Ed could have sworn that the helmet's features softened to give allusion to his younger brother's. "I'm doing fine. You should focus on getting better!" Before Ed could reprimand him for that, Al was standing up again. "Ah! We got distracted, brother! You have to do your stretches, and I promised I would help Winry go oil all her works-in-progress." He offered Ed a large hand and Ed took it, hauling himself up.

"All right then, I'll see you at lunch," he said with a beaming grin. "I might ask Granny if we can go to the town library later… though we've probably read all the good books in there by now."

"Don't be like that, I'm sure there are some we haven't seen! Maybe!" Al's voice receded as he clomped down the stairs, giving a little wave as he disappeared. Ed backed up to his bed and sat down, sighing and pushing his hair back.

He was glad Al seemed to be doing okay, but was he really all right? Looking beyond the obvious, it must be painful for him to be reminded of the fact that he didn't have a body any more every time he looked in a mirror, or talked, or saw someone look up to make eye contact, or even every time that Ed mentioned food. With a groan, Ed flopped backward. He raised both of his hands toward the ceiling, gloomily taking in the automail and flesh hands next to each other. It'd been tough to get the surgery, but he was coping just fine with having an arm and a leg replaced with automail. How did one even cope with having their entire body taken away? Grinding his palm into the sheets and giving up on the thought, Ed distracted himself by easing his body down into another stretch. He groaned. "Aw, hell. Still hurts."

After lunch, Ed found himself with Al on the front porch, enjoying the pleasantly temperate weather that Resembool was having. They sprawled out on the wooden planks, each holding a stack of books for light reading. Some of them were tall tales, some alchemy, some biology or geography; it was never good just to stick to one thing rather than broaden horizons, was the Elrics' way of thinking. The breeze rustled the grass along the winding pathway, riffling through Ed's gold hair and the long silver plume on Al's helmet. Though he couldn't feel the wind, Al gave a contented sigh. "What good weather."

"You can say that again," Ed agreed, propping himself up on his flesh elbow while he absentmindedly closed and opened the fingers of the automail hand. "It's nice." Al hummed as he returned his eyes to the pages in front of him.

A companionable silence lapsed through the minutes, broken only by the distant rustling of foliage and the sounds of turning pages as the boys read. The lull was almost hypnotic; the tranquility was infectious, and it felt almost as if the birds quieted to enjoy the afternoon. Even the grass blades seemed to move slower under the light wind.

It seemed that that type of silence existed to be broken.

A screech seemed to come starting from a long way away, but by the time Ed looked up to see what the keening was, it was near and coming… nearer… by the second. Alphonse propped himself up just in time to come face-to-face with the loudest shrieking sound he had heard in his life and feel his head fly off as he was beaned in the face by some fluffy projectile.

"Al?" Ed demanded, shocked.

"I'm - I'm okay, brother! Um, what's on my faaaaaa…" Al's hands had come up to the thing nestling in his neck guard and felt carefully around the shape, noting the give when he patted it. "Fluffy…" His euphoria was dreamlike. Whatever animal it was, it was soft. Very soft and he loved it.

"It's an… uh, it's an owl."

Al gasped, his voice excited. "An owl! That's amazing!" He poked at it gently, and it bit his finger. He loved it so much.

"Wait, hold on, Al," Ed said, his mind opting to suspend his disbelief so that he could observe the situation. "It's got something on its leg." He reached out while the owl was too busy nipping at Al's fingers, and deftly untied the knot binding it with his left hand. It was a bundle of letters on thick parchment, slightly yellowed, but what interested him the most was the emerald-shaded ink, still gleaming on the paper despite the letter feeling dry. With a bit of trepidation, he peeled off the first from the envelope.

Its green script, twinkling up at him from the paper, read Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.