Author's Note: Hey, everyone! This is some of the last content from April Camp Nano, reworked a little to be clean and fit in some plot points I'd forgotten about, lol. I hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Don't get paid for this work. Could frankly use the cash, but hobbies are important for self-care, darn it!

Chapter 28

An Academic Arms Race

Ed did not know quite what to think of his odd training session with Ginny and her boyfriend. What was his name? Something. Something? Whatever. He seemed like a sweet kid, but a little clueless. He also just wasn't, by nature, a fighter. He didn't mind physical exercise and took his treks around the castle well. But there was a light in Ginny's eyes as she fought that just wasn't present in her boyfriend's.

Derek? The kid wasn't in any of his classes – Ed didn't really need to know his name.

Ed decided that he liked Dylan-or-whatever, even if he was still trying to wrap his mind around Harry and Ginny not being a thing. It was none of his business. Ed nodded on that, deciding not to think too long or hard about his student's love lives. The only thing that mattered was teaching them, and if Ginny was serious about this boy, Ed hoped doubly hard that he could teach him enough to survive. That was all that mattered.

As he tucked himself under his blankets in his quarters, Ed looked up at the ceiling, briefly thought on how they'd been in this world for months and he still wasn't used to Al's armor not being in the room. It was well past curfew, so Ed assumed that his brother was probably in the fifth-year dorms in Ravenclaw tower. He wondered if Al had trouble sleeping since coming to Hogwarts – they'd shared a room ever since they arrived in this world. Lena and her partner had initially put them in separate rooms, but after Ed had spent a few nights pacing by Al's bedside, they sent him out for coffee. When he'd returned to the house, Al's room had two beds in it. 'Ed's Room' had been emptied.

Ed and Al's London apartment had only one bedroom to begin with. There just wasn't money to pay for more, even with the promise of a teacher's salary on the horizon. The Weasleys house, of course, was already packed to the bursting by the time he got there. Everyone was doubled up – Ginny and Hermione, Ron and Harry, Ed and Al.

Ed was almost seventeen years old – it was probably high time he got over it. He didn't need his little brother with him to have a solid night's sleep. He rolled from his side to his back, pulled his blankets further around his chin, and wondered if Al's cat was with him before succumbing himself to sleep.

At breakfast on Monday, Ed received an owl from Alphonse. It was written in their more secure code, on top of a layer of double speak. Ed could not quite help looking up at the Ravenclaw table where Al was sitting next to Luna and giving small table scraps to the cat. Damn cat. Alphonse was in a position where he could easily look at Ed if he wanted to, but Ed was sure that his brother's focused attention elsewhere was entirely intentional.

"How sweet," said Professor Sprout, who'd stood from her chair further down the table on the other side of Dumbledore to peer over his shoulder. "I didn't know you liked to cook, Professor Elric."

"Ed, please," Ed said, not looking up from Al's recipe for rhubarb pie.

"Though I must say I've never seen a rhubarb pie recipe call for that," said Sprout.

Ed winced. "Al likes to try unconventional sings," he said. "It keeps life interesting."

And that was true. Years spent in a suit of armor with no taste buds made Alphonse curious about every flavor under the sun. Curiosity sparked, Ed pulled his brain back from the coded message to look at the recipe it was disguised as.

Oh yuck. He'd have to remember to send a sarcastic thank you card to Dr. Marcoh for inspiring this code. That's an unholy thing to do to any pie. He folded up the letter, tucked it into his pocket. As well coded as it was, it probably wouldn't do to be seen painstakingly examining that recipe. Because really, who would?

"Very interesting," said Professor Sprout, "Ed. Call me Pomona."

Ed felt a deep flash of déjà vu. They'd had this conversation before, hadn't they? "Pomona," he said, trying to cement it into memory.

She beamed at him, walked back over to her own seat. Snape, who sat to Ed's left, had seemed like he was studiously ignoring the exchange, but now he sneered. "That recipe was an insult to the art of cooking."

Ed raised an eyebrow at him, remembering vaguely that this man had been the Potions professor before taking up Defense Against the Dark Arts. "Do you have any special regard for cooking? Because I was under zee impression zat you were happy to no longer be potions master."

Snape stiffened, returned his attention to his eggs. Ed flicked up his hair antenna and descended back upon his own food with a vengeance. He cleared the plate, refilled it, and deliberately took his time on the refill. He wanted to hurry, wanted to push himself to get back to his classroom in time to fully decipher the message before class.

And he would try. But Hughes's ghost would aggressively hug him if he left the room too hurriedly after a supposedly innocent message from his brother.

How cute you are, Edward. Making the first mistake in the intelligence book! Just like my little Elysia accidentally saying fuck while pointing at a duck! Although that one's probably your fault.

Ed was torn between being genuinely horrified by that imagining and feeling sad that it would never come to pass. Ed wouldn't do anything for Hughes to be alive to embarrass him. Not after the fact – he'd learned that lesson the hard way and, following his first trip to the Gate, forced himself to accept the cycle of life and death. But Hughes's loss still hurt like a bitch. Oh, how he wished that he could have done something to prevent his death.

Well. Ed was going to put that lovely bit of emotional damage back into the pit of things he tried not to explore! Still, he took Hughes's phantom advice anyway and ate his second plate slowly. Gave himself a third, took his time on that one too.

Pomona laughed at him when he portioned out that third refill. Professor McGonagall barely managed to contain a smile. Snape just sneered. Slughorn, thankfully, typically took breakfast in his quarters. Dumbledore, notably, was absent too.

Slughorn just liked his leisure. But the headmaster, Ed wondered just why the headmaster was missing so many meals. From what he was hearing bandied about the staff room, it was very unlike him. And if the Headmaster was losing it enough that his staff was worried about him, then the problem was most likely spiraling out of control.

He could see, almost plainly, worry etched in the line of Snape's face. It was different than the worry in the faces of Ed's other coworkers, and so Ed had the inescapable feeling that Snape knew more about what was going on than the others did.

More, and therefore knew definitively that it was serious.

He tried not to think about it – he didn't want to look pensive any more than he wanted to look rushed. He was halfway through a bite of toast when Professor Flitwick idly brought up something Ed had completely forgotten about. "Anyone have any thoughts on when we should do the professor's duel?"

Shit. "I haven't sought about it much," said Ed. "Wis getting settled into classes."

Professor McGonagall didn't snort, but Ed could sense that she felt like snorting.

"I'm quite interested to see how young Ed does against the rest of the staff," said Professor Sprout. "So young, and a muggle besides!" She didn't mean anything besides matronly concern by it, but Ed felt his hackles rise anyway.

"Saturday," he said. "Let's do it Saturday." There was a general consensus.

When Ed finally managed to escape the Great Hall, knowing that Hughes would approve of the amount of time Ed took to do it, he stole away to his classroom as quickly as an illusion of leisure would allow.

He pulled his brother's letter out of the inside pocket of his long red coat and allowed himself to look past its recipe-code once more. In his classroom, waiting for the children to arrive, he had time to read. As he read, a few things became clearer than Ed might have wanted to. He'd noticed the Old Man's shriveled and burnt hand before, but as an amputee himself, Ed didn't think much of a mostly missing hand beyond empathizing. Knowing that it was cursed, oxidizing away as though subjected to a very slow fire was a new level of horrifying.

Dumbledore could die from this curse, and Alphonse – precious Alphonse – had volunteered to try and save his life through the little Alkahestry he'd managed to learn from Mei. Ed's memory flashed to the moment when he'd successfully drawn on his own lifeforce as a philosopher's stone to heal himself. He knew, logically, that Alkahestry ran off something different. In fact, Alkahestrists tended to live well into old age when not assassinated.

Ed had to trust that Al's healing was not the one that Dr. Marcoh knew. That Mei had taught Al a sort of healing that Ed had never learned. That Alphonse wouldn't end up killing himself to heal an old man.

Ed could trust that. Ed trusted his brother. Even when he trusted nobody else, Ed trusted Al. It was written in the very story of who they were. Two brothers who traveled the tortured road together. It was the sort of story that was told time and time again, and Ed had followed the path exactingly. Hadn't he?

He carefully refolded Al's letter. There was no use questioning Al's chosen course of action. Not if Ed was going to trust him. Maybe Ed was the older brother, but Alphonse was as grown as Ed had ever been when he was trying to make difficult and impossible decisions.

Forcing his breathing to slow, Ed pulled up the various equations that applied to oxidation reactions. In his mind, he could see the equations glow up blue. The question, then, was how to reverse an oxidation reaction. He knew how to deprive one – he knew how to take the oxygen out of a space. That was a simple and surefire way to stop a fire. But would it mean anything in the case of a fire fueled primarily by magic? Or would it only stall an eventual explosion as the curse tried to continue its course?

Who knew shit about magical curses? Certainly not Ed. But Ed prided himself on his ability to turn to specialists when he did not know the answer to a question – a detrimental lack of humility had never been Ed's problem. Maybe he didn't know how to ask for help he hadn't earned, but at least he'd always been able to admit when he didn't know something.

Ed resolved to write every magical mind he knew – starting with the eccentric brilliance of Ollivander and ending with the practical common sense of Molly Weasley. Granger was somewhere in the middle of the list – she might only be a student, but she had a decent mind. And sometimes inexperience meant good and unexpected solutions. Somebody would know something about breaking a curse.

Time moved quickly after that. Between desperately trying to make coherent sense of Pandora Lovegood's journals and writing everyone and their mother about Dumbledore's condition (in general terms, Ed knew better than to tell everyone under the sun that the Headmaster of Hogwarts was dying in specific words. Again, Hughes would laugh at him for being that unsubtle).

For himself, he took his supposedly infinite knowledge of alchemy, began starting fires and putting them out. The first few times, he used the oxygen deprivation method. It was a classic – well-loved and easy to do.

And then he started trying to reverse equations. That was harder, because matter didn't naturally want to unburn itself. Alchemy was always easiest when applied as an accelerant. It was at its most difficult when used to thwart natural processes. Ed decided that was the strong suit of the curse that had been placed on Dumbledore's hand – it went seamlessly with nature. Burning was a thing that happened whenever there was a trigger and energy and oxygen to spare. (Well. Tell that to paper, it was slowly burning all the time with hardly any trigger at all.)

Turning that back on itself, perhaps even reversing it if they wanted to give Dumbledore as complete a hand as possible, was going to be a real feat of alchemical and alkahestral skill.

Granger responded first, unsurprising given both her cocky attitude and proximity. Ed was pleasantly surprised to find that she'd included several disclaimers and encouraged him to seek out actual experts. That was surprisingly humble of her. Ed took her proposed solutions seriously and incorporated them into his math. It didn't equate as neatly as he'd like, but there was a certain logical symmetry to her solutions that he enjoyed.

Ollivander responded next – he was surprisingly irate about the whole thing. And yes, maybe Ed should have tried to write him personally at his safehouse before immediately asking for help. But Ed knew that if he were in Ollivander's situation, he'd be scratching at the walls for something intellectually stimulating to do. If anything, coming to the old wandmaker with a serious question for pondering was thoughtful and considerate!

Even so, Ollivander's response contained a few playfully backhanded comments and his analysis of the situation was laced with mild vexation at both Ed and Dumbledore.

Young Alphonse thought to write me, Edward. But you only contact me for the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Typical. He likes to put me on impossible tasks, too.

Ed didn't want to accept that Ollivander's complaint was valid, so he looked past the bitter commentary to the meat of the message. Ollivander's thoughts on the subject were probably some of the better thoughts that Ed was going to get. He made a note to send his friend a few complicated and utterly unrelated alchemical problems as a thank you. He was sure it would be appreciated.

Even despite Ollivander's elegant solutions, Ed waited on more responses before having an official conference with Al about his findings. While being brothers gave them the perfect cover story for conspiracy, they were both supposed to be utterly consumed by other projects. Assimilation. Homework. Grading. And so on. Ed really wasn't giving enough attention to his alchemy students, his "Gym Club" felt neglected too.

Ginny was the only student seriously pushing for instruction in the later, and Ed would argue to his grave that offering one session of optional office hours a week was enough for his alchemy students to come seek him if they wanted to.

But they mostly didn't want to. He got the occasional visit from Malfoy, asking about whatever chemistry concept he was hopelessly behind on. He got the occasional visit from Granger, who would want to know about certain compounds and their runic equivalents. A few of the steadier Hufflepuffs came in with questions about anything and everything. He saw neither hide nor hair of a Ravenclaw, and he had a funny feeling that he wouldn't. Not until exam time, when they would come en masse to argue about their grades.

Ed knew that both Alphonse and that weird Luna girl were Ravenclaws, but he'd developed the impression that many Ravenclaws valued the appearance of being smart over the knowledge itself. He thought they'd probably argue with that assessment, but honestly how many of them worked at furthering their knowledge? How many of them trained their bodies to support their minds?

Just Al and Luna, probably. He wanted to see some drive from the house of wisdom, damn it!

The final letter he received was from Molly Weasley, and he was shocked to find that it had the most practical solution of all:

Dear Ed,

I believe you met my eldest, Bill, over summer. He's a very talented curse breaker, been sent all over the world for his job with Gringotts. He's working at the London branch for the moment – if you address an owl to Bill Weasley, I think you'll be able to reach him.

Love,

Molly Weasley

P.S. Thank you for being vague about what you're up to – I think I might worry, otherwise.

Ed ignored the passive-aggressive postscript. She had sent him the name of an actual professional in the field! He was angry with the Weasley matron for all sorts of reasons, but just for this? She'd redeemed herself more than a little. He sent a letter to Bill Weasley that very afternoon.

September was truly almost over – only the teacher tournament left in the month. But he was close to having a working equation. After getting input from this child-of-the-red-hair, Ed would be able to take his work to Al. They'd compare notes and synthesize. That was the greatest point to working separately and then coming together. They had the space they needed to get wacky and creative before falling back on the steadiness of their combined genius.

Word Count: 2898

Did I drag Ravenclaws? A little. Am I also a Ravenclaw? Yes. Do I agree with Ed's assessment? No. But Ravenclaws don't necessarily value hard work, and I also think they aren't all super invested in doing well in class. To Ed, who's worked hard even despite unnatural brilliance and has a heavy helping of bias ingrained in him from Teacher, that doesn't look so good (not the class thing, he doesn't do well in school settings either, but he resents their lack of interest in alchemy).

(Would I sort Ed into Hufflepuff? Almost, but I think Gryffindor wins by a good margin.)

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed Ed's take on Alphonse's conversation with Dumbledore, and how it has spurred him into certain action. Tell me what you think by dropping a review! Thank you!

Posted: 7/13/2020