Well, her's our first story.

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Chaper 1

A Transfer? Here?

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had just boarded the train for their fourth year at Hogwarts. As usual, the train was packed. It took a while, but the trio was able to find the available compartment. There was only one other person in the compartment. It was a sleeping boy, most likely a first year, who had spread himself along one side of the seats. He had long, golden hair that he wore in a braid. His clothing was odd, for a wizard or a muggle. He was wearing a long red coat that had what looked like a snake intertwined on a cross on the back of his coat. He had black leather pants the bottoms of which were tucked into black boots that were trimmed with red. On his hands were pure white gloves. This person looked less dangerous than the last person that the trio had shared a sleeping compartment with, but the trio still hoped that this ride would not end up like the last one.

"So Hermione," said Ron as the three sat down opposite of the sleeping boy, "do you know who he is?"

"Why would I?" she asked back.

"Well you knew last time, didn't you?"

"That was because Lupin had his name on his trunk. Do you see any trunks, besides ours, this time?"

"Yeah, I know." Ron laughed, "I bet he was too short to get one up there even if he tried!" While Ron was laughing about his joke, their companion's eyes shot open at the word, 'short.'

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BEAN SO TINY HE CAN'T LIFT A BUG BECAUSE IT'S BIGGER THAN HIM!?" their newly awakened companion yelled while brandishing his fists. The trio was shocked into silence. Meanwhile, the door to the compartment was flung open to reveal a boy with slicked back blond hair.

"Well well, Potter, I didn't know that you started making friends with midgets..." Draco started before the short boy punched him in the face. Draco fell into his two cronies while his nose started gushing blood. The golden haired boy slammed the door shut and sat down with a 'huff.'

"Man that guy seems likes a prat!" The boy turned his strange golden eyes onto the trio. They sat absorbed by the large pools of liquid gold that were staring at them. The silence that filled the compartment was tinged by awe. "So, who are you guys?" Harry was the first to speak.

"I'm Harry Potter and these are my friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. We're forth years. W-who are you?" He carefully measured each word so as to not upset the boy again.

"My names Edward, but you can call me Ed." Ed leaned back and put his hands behind his head. His sleeve slid down a little on his arms. The trio noticed a flash something metal showing from under his right sleeve.

"What's that?" asked Hermione, leaning forward as she did so. Ed shoved his hands into his lap, his sleeve falling forward again.

"It's nothing," Ed said so forcefully that the trio reflexively flinched away from him. Ed sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back until it hit the back of the seat.

"So, um, is it your first time at Hogwarts?" asked Ron carefully. He still felt as if Ed was going to attack him if he said one wrong word.

"Yeah," Edward replied, still not moving.

"So, are you a first year?" Hermione asked, carefully leaving out anything that had to do with stature. Ed's was quiet for a while as if analyzing the question for anything that could be considered offensive.

"Nope," was his only response. The trio exchanged curious glances. No one had ever joined the school in the middle of the years. Harry decided that they had to continue with the question asking, or they would get nowhere. After all, Ed was not going to just come right out and tell them what they wanted to know.

"So what year are you in?" Ed pulled a bundle of papers out of his pocket. He picked through it until he found a letter that the three recognized as a Hogwarts acceptance letter.

"Fourth," he said after look over of the letter. He put the bundle back into his pocket. The trio exchanged more glances, which did not go unnoticed by their companion. "What?" he asked, "Is there somthing wrong with that?"

"Well," Hermione took the initiative to answer Ed's question. "It's just that no one has ever done that before. Skip grades, I mean." A smirk grew on the blonde's face.

"Well I am good at doing what has never been done!" After a few seconds that the trio used to absorb the strange comment, Ron made a, what he thought, strange observation.

"Where's your trunk?" Ed shifted uncomfortably while grumbling something about a stupid colonel and him not having time to pack anything. Obviously uncomfortable, he reached into his other pocket and brought out a small, worn, leather notebook. He flipped to a random page and started reading.

They sat in a, more or less, peaceful silence until the door to the compartment was slammed open for the second time. Malfoy stood in the opening looking pissed off. He grabbed Ed's book and said, "You're reading?" His voice was more high pitched than the last time the group had heard him. Most likely due to the white bandage that was covering his nose. "We don't need another stuck up Granger, but you probably have less brains than Crabb." Malfoy's expression turned to one of pure rage. "What do you think you're trying to pull!" The angered teen threw the notebook onto the floor in desperation and anger. This action allowed those in the compartment a clear view of the strange circles and long lists that consisted of words, which made no sense to those looking at it, that the small book contained. Ed picked it up quickly, not before everyone got a good look at it, and elbowed Malfoy in the gut in order to make him recede from the compartment.

"You really should be more careful with things that don't belong to you." The blonde's voice was cold enough to petrify everyone within hearing distance. After shutting the door, Ed sat down with the petrifying anger slowly leaving his eyes. "Who was that git? He must have some of power to be that annoying."

"Draco Malfoy," replied Ron, Hermione, and Harry all at once. The tension in the room was lifted a little as the boy laughed.

"Who would actually name their kid that! I mean seriously, Draco? It can't even be shortened into something even close to normal." After his laughing subsided, he laid down on the seats so that he back in the position that the trio had found him in. "Wake me up when we get there."

The boy was asleep almost instantly. After those left awake in the compartment made sure that the boy was asleep, the trio began whispering about some events that had happened over the summer.

~~~~O~~~O~~~O~~~O~~~~

Once the train had pulled into the station at Hogsmead, Ron was left with the job of waking up Edward. The nervous boy started off by gently shaking him. When the only response that he got was a grumbled 'go away, Al' Ron decided to take a harsher approach. He took a deep breath then yelled, "GET UP NOW!" The next thing he knew, his feet were being knocked out from under him by Ed's quick foot. Ed slowly sat up, rubbing his head. He noticed Ron on the ground and gave him a confused look. Before the blonde could say anything, the redhead got up and said, "Shut it, mate! We're here. Harry's saving us a carriage, but he won't be able to keep it for long so let's go."

The two of them walked out of the almost empty train and into the mass of students. Ed stood out in the crowd like a ruby that fell into a coal train. "Um, Ed?" Ron asked as he noticed this.

"Yeah?" replied the blonde, while he looked around for the carriages that Ron mentioned.

"Why aren't you in the school uniform?" Ed shrugged his shoulders and said something about not having time, before he stopped dead in his tracks before a group of carriages that were pulled by creatures that looked like dead, black horses with wings. They reminded Ed, sickenly, of the failed chimera attempts he had seen. This thought led to others that he didn't welcome so he quickly followed Ron into a carriage. He was about to ask something about them, but seeing as everyone else ignored them he figured that they couldn't see them and he didn't exactly point them out. Instead choosing to answer Ron's question he said, "I arrived just in time to catch the train. I would have had more time if it weren't for a certain maniac who always messes up his paperwork." The other occupants of the carriage, a redheaded girl who resembled Ron and a worried boy who was holding a toad, looked at Ed strangely. Noticing this, Ed stared back with defiance.

"W-who's the sho-" Harry and Ron, who were closest to the boy who spoke, quickly covered the boy's, known as Neville, mouth before he was able to say the word that would set Ed off like a bomb. Hermione did the smartest thing to do in a situation like this.

"Ed, these are our friends Ginny and Neville. Ginny, Neville, this is our new friend Ed," Hermione introduced as Ron added, "Ginny's my sister. She's off limits." Ginny blushed at Ron's comment and Ed smiled.

"It's good to meet you two!" Edward carefully carried his gaze over each person in the carriage. "Now, who here knows how soon we can get some food?" Ed asked with a seriousness that startled the group then made them laugh. The blonde frowned. "I'm serious! I haven't eaten since before I left."

"Why didn't you eat before you left, or on the train?" asked Ginny.

"Well I didn't exactly know that I'd be taking this little trip, and Mustang didn't exactly give me any currency for these parts," Ed huffed. His comment made more than a few questions arise in the heads of his companions, but they didn't ask.

"Ohhh!" said Hermione, looking out the window. "You said that it's your first time here, didn't you Ed?"

"Yeah..."

"Quickly! Look out the window. It's a bit hard to see due to the rain, but you see Hogwarts!" Ed followed his orders. A look of shock covered his face.

"Is this really where you go to school?" he asked, shocked at the magnificent castle that he was able to make out through the heavy rain that had started. The others were enjoying the look of shock on the shorter boy's face.

Ed frowned as he exited the carriage as a thought came to front of his mind.

"Something wrong, Ed?" asked Ginny as she saw their new friend's face. Ed looked at her and a sad smile replaced the frown.

"Not really. I was just trying to remember what school was like."

"You don't know what school's like?" asked a nervous Neville. It was the first thing he had said to Ed other than a whispered 'hello.'

"Well it's been, what... six years or so since I last went to a real school." This shocked the group into stopping right in the entrance to the castle, making them perfect targets for one of Peeve's water balloons. Everyone in the group was now freshly soaked, except for Ed who had dogged the balloon, with a fresh wave of cold water. It didn't bother them too much since they were already wet because of the rain. The six fished their trek into the Great Hall and to the Gryffindor table in silence. Whispers followed the group like a magnet. Most of the whispers were from girls who were attracted to the boy due to more than his strange attire.

Edward's looks had not gone unnoticed to the group. Hermione and Ginny had both been surprised by the blush that had nearly risen on their cheeks the moment they laid eyes on him. The boys, on the other hand, were of varying degrees of jealousness for aspects so the boy's looks. For example, how the boy managed to pull off the whole long hair thing without looking like a rich prat.

As the group sat down at the Gryffindor table they were joined by two red haired twins. "Who's your friend?" asked one of the newcomers.

"Yeah, he sticks out more than Hagrid does," commented the other twin.

"The name's Ed. And you would be?"

"What!" The twins looked shocked and hurt. "You mean little Rony-kins over here didn't tell you about his loving older brothers?" The twins started pretending to cry while reaching for their younger brother. Ron did not look pleased.

"Shove off!" Ron pushed their hands away in a huff. Judging by the way that people were reacting, these two usually acted like this. They were the so called, 'class clowns.'

"Back to the question at hand," Ed reminded them.

"Weeeell," they said in usion, "one of us is Fred and the other is George. Good luck telling us apart mate!"

"You're Fred," Ed pointed to the one on the right, "and you're George." He pointed to the other twin.

"Bloody hell, mate!" said George with a surprised look on his face.

"How could you tell?" asked the other. The blonde smirked and leaned back in his seat, careful to not fall off the bench.

"Easy. The way you reacted when you said each other's names. A person would tend to say a loved brother's name more fondly than their own. Also, Fred's eyes have a little more greenish tint to them then George's."

"Wow!" said Ron in awe. "Not even mum can tell the two of them apart!"

"I'm just observant," Ed brushed off the praise. Their conversation was cut short with the doors at the end of the hall opening. An old lady wearing the silly robes walked into the room while leading a group of nervous looking first years. One of the first years was soaking wet and wearing an overly large moleskin coat.

Ed started to get a little more intrigued as the lady put a three legged stool at the front of the room and placed a ragged hat on top of it. Seeing their new friend's confusion, Hermione leaned closer to explain. "Their going to sort the new students into their houses which will be where they are staying for the next seven years." Ed nodded and looked back up at the old hat expectantly. He knew that it would do something, but with magic, he had no idea what it would do or how. When a rip opened at the bottom of the hat and it started singing, Ed had a pretty good idea how the hat was able to do what it had done. After all, he had done the same thing.

"Don't worry, Ed." Hermione felt like she should console their companion since some people didn't take a singing hat too well. "This is normal here."

"I'm not worried. Just intrigued. I didn't know that wizard knew something as complex as a blood seal..." Hermione was confused at the boy's words, but didn't push her luck. After all, she had the whole year to dig some good information out of this new source. It was obvious that he knew many, many facts that she was sure would intrigue her.

What Hermione didn't notice was the hate that the short boy had unconshusly seep into his voice. It was hate towards the thing that made a hat sing and the thing that had caused his brother so much anguish. Hate towards himself at the fact that he was the one who had administered the accursed alchemy that caused his brother so much pain. He hated himself for having to go on this mission as a dog of the military while the Homunculi were still at large and while he still hadn't found a way to get his brother's body back that they both wouldn't regret.

Ed was snapped out of his thoughts to a great applause. The hat had finished it's song. The old woman, now holding a scroll stepped forward and started speaking. "When I call your name come up and sit on the stool. When the hat announces your house, you will sit at the appropriate table. Before we start with the sorting of the first years, we have a special guest who needs sorting. This year we will be having a transfer student in the fourth year. He is here to establish a bond between his country and the wizarding world. Due to some... domestic issues the name and location of his country will not be revealed. I hope and expect you all to treat him with the appropriate hospitality. Edward Elric, please come up to be sorted."

Well, that dose it!

Sorry if we don't update for a while. We're not too fast at writing. Also, there are sooooo many good stories to read on this site!

It's not like we don't have a life you know!

Umm, Ica...

We don't have a life.