Of Alchemists and Wizards

Complications

Ed's POV

"Alright," I said, clapping my hands together to gain the attention of the rowdy class from where I sat on my desk, my legs crossed at my ankles. For some reason, every class was rowdy today. There were whispers of Defense Against the Dark Arts and of Professor Moody. Something had never sat right with me about that man, but unless he actually posed a threat, there was nothing I could do about it. Clearly, Dumbledore had a deep respect for the man; they even seemed to be close friends. I would just have to trust Dumbledore until Moody proved himself unworthy of my trust.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I called. "Please take your seats. I don't want to have to start dolling out detentions," I called. "Well, any more detentions," I muttered under my breath, thinking of the Weasley twins. Detention for two weeks from the first day; definitely not a good first impression. Truth have mercy on their mother.

My threat seemed to get their attention, but I could see they were still tense, itching to get back to their conversations. "What's up with you guys?" I asked, interested now. Suddenly, the room was even tenser than before. I furrowed my brows and leaned forward. "Spill it. What's going on?" I asked, slightly worried. I could see Hermione's hand twitch like she wanted to raise her hand, but she stayed silent. Finally, after realizing no one else was going to answer my question, Ron raised his hand shakily. I nodded for him to speak.

"Professor Moody demonstrated the three unforgivable curses in class today," he said. I didn't like the sound of that. I gestured for him to continue, wanting to know if I was going to have to talk to Dumbledore. "H-he said we should know what they are so we know what to expect," he explained.

"And what are these curses, Mr. Weasly?" I asked lowly.

"C-cruciatus curse which causes pain, the imperious curse which allows the user to control the person they're using it on, and the killing curse," he explained shakily. I could feel my entire body tense up.

"And he demonstrated all three of these in front of the class?" I asked, my voice nearly a growl.

"Just on a spider, but-" Ron started to start off.

"It's absolutely barbaric," Hermione said, cutting her friend off. I could hear the pain in her voice. The class was quiet for a moment as I struggled to keep my anger in check.

"Thank you for telling me," I said. "I'll talk to Dumbledore about it. I can't say I particularly approve of Professor Moody's methods. Now," I said, "on that happy note, we do need to get started today. We're going to start with some notes," I said as I shoved myself off my desk so I could start writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room. I suppressed a groan as pain flared through my leg.

"We will be talking about the three main components of alchemy," I said as I started to write on the board. "First, there is comprehension, then deconstruction which is followed by reconstruction," I explained as I wrote the three across the top of the board so I could write my notes in columns.

"Professor Elric?" I heard a voice ask, and I turned to see Neville raising his hand slightly.

"Yes, Mr. Longbottom?" I said, gesturing for the boy to speak.

"Well, I know that not all of us will continue on in this class, but can we at least see some alchemy?" he asked shyly as if he was afraid to ask. "Just so we have an idea of what we're going to be learning and see how it works in the real world," he said. The longer the boy spoke, the more confident he became. I couldn't help but smile. He reminded me a lot of Al.

"Of course. You make an excellent point Neville. And maybe this demonstration will help you guys figure out the riddle." I hadn't realized until now that they had never seen alchemy and probably didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Al and I had the advantage of at least knowing what the science was before we were assigned the riddle. "Give me one moment," I said as I grabbed a new box of chalk, knowing I was going to need quite a bit of chalk for this specific transmutation. I knew I could simply clap my hands and complete the transmutation but after having Granger finding out about human transmutation, I didn't want to risk any more questions.