Chapter 55: A New Kind of Wand Trouble
"Right." Sirius steepled his fingers. "So. You recall what I said before, about the plan and how long it might last?"
"yep. massive revisions."
"Well, maybe not massive, per se."
The kids were not participating in this particular scheming session. After the excitement of the evening, they deserved a bit of a break. But mainly the trio had been excluded because this conversation was a bit more open about the whole time-travel thing. That particular fact was staying on the down-low.
For now, at least.
"Basically," the wizard continued, "while we apparently have a different Hogwarts champion this time—and I'm blaming you for that, by the way—"
"fair enough."
"The important thing is that nobody has any reason to suspect… I guess 'enemy action' would be the appropriate phrase?" He paced back and forth in front of the blackboard, though he hadn't actually written anything down. "As such, our plan revisions should be relatively minor."
Sans raised a skeptical brow. "even though cass is somebody the evil guys think is on their side, or at least under their control?"
"…Good point."
They fell into an uncertain silence, both trying (and, generally, struggling) to come up with a suitable course of action. Sticking to the program, as it were, would be easiest, but could put them on worse ground if the baddies chose to significantly rework their schemes given a perceived advantage.
For example, it would not be good—for anyone really—if Fake-Eye tried to involve Cassius directly in his plans.
"so… should we just drag cass all the way in at this point?" Sans asked, not sure if he was actually advocating for that plan or not. "okay, well, maybe not all the way, but still…"
He drifted off, and the two of them once again descended into a quietly concerned 'what the heck do we do about this' brainstorming session.
Despite how relatively open they'd been with Cassius thus far, neither of them were very thrilled with the idea of bringing another student fully into the dangerous fold.
It was one thing for them to keep Harry—and by worrying-but-unavoidable extension, his friends—involved with the overall plan: whether or not he wanted to be, the boy was already tangled deep. As such, while Sans and Sirius would really rather the trio stay far away from crazy-evil wizard types, it just wasn't going to happen.
Cassius, unfortunately, might be in a very similar boat.
"Ugh," Sirius groaned, after a few more minutes fruitlessly trying to come up with a different idea. "I'm still not sure about it, but… what else can we do?"
With a frustrated frown, the wizard leaned against the blackboard. Or at least, he tried to: the blackboard just tipped back. And then kept tipping. Sirius stumbled forward before he could fall, but the blackboard wobbled for a second, tipped even more, then fell—which knocked over a few chairs in a very noisy process.
Good thing Sans had the room in a blue-magic-powered soundproof lockdown.
"…Oops."
"hey, making a mess of this room is my job."
That got a small chuckle out of them both, briefly lightening the mood, but it didn't last very long. This had to get worked out.
"Back to Cassius, though." Sirius carded a hand through his messy black hair. "I guess telling him would be for the best. Goodness knows that kid's stuck between a rock and a hard place at this point."
"cass could use a jackhammer or a prybar or something, that's for sure," Sans quipped. "we'll have to make do, i guess."
"I don't know what those are, but I think I get your point."
"what do we tell him?"
"Should be easy, right? I mean, we did already recruit him." The wizard gestured to the room, as if the space wasn't a complete mess at the moment. "Just get him in here, get him initiated, and get him informed."
"even though technically he never actually agreed to join?"
"Oh right."
"also, you didn't really answer the question." Sans snorted, amused, and added, "also also, we don't actually have an initiation ceremony."
"Why must you spoil my fun, Rattles?"
"somebody's gotta, you'd go off the rails otherwise."
"True. Okay, here's what we actually do," Sirius said, with a clap to emphasize how this plan was really the one they were going to use. "We bring him in, say 'hey, remember when we tried to recruit you?', make sure he's in, and then we tell him stuff."
Sirius still hadn't answered the question of what to tell him, but whatever.
"no mention of dimensional time travel, right?"
"Well, of course."
"okay, we'll get cass here… sometime soon. before the first task." With a gesture, Sans made sure the classroom was put back in order: no point in leaving behind a bunch of tipped over chairs and a toppled blackboard. "anything else we should keep an eye on?"
After a pause to consider, Sirius derisively remarked, "Reporters."
"ooh, that could be a problem."
"They'll be sniffing around during the coming year," he stated, clearly not pleased with the idea, "though hopefully we won't run into them much."
"even though we're basically friends with three outa the four champions?"
Sirius stopped short—plainly he hadn't considered that angle—then slapped a hand to his forehead. "Stop pointing out how wrong I probably am, Rattles," he groused. "Let me have some hope for this year."
=X=X=X=
Sans hadn't had much hope for this year—something was a guaranteed to go sideways at some point—but he had thought that, after the initial excitement of the Goblet of Fire spitting out too many names, things would calm down until the beginning of the first task. At the very least, he hadn't been planning on being directly involved with anything related to the tournament for almost a full month; his little speech in the Great Hall had been exhausting, and he wasn't keen on a repeat.
Alas, not even a week later—just a few days, really—and he was in a room with basically all the big-wigs involved.
Along with one person he had very much not expected, to the point that the old wandmaker hadn't even been on his radar for potential wrenches just waiting to be thrown in the works.
"well, crap," he muttered to himself.
Sirius—fluffy ears folded back, annoyed—huffed in agreement.
"What's all this then?" asked one of the tournament show-runners, sitting at a separate table from the champions.
Professor McGonagall gave them a polite nod. "My student has had some difficulties with casting spells. I thought it prudent to capitalize on this chance, and have his wand checked by an expert."
"great news," Sans muttered under his breath.
"Mr. Ollivander is a highly skilled wandmaker," she continued, now speaking just to her student and not the room at large. "If there is anything wrong with your wand, I am sure he will be able to assist."
"uh, yeah." He bit back a grimace. "thanks."
Ollivander was watching him—curious in that sharp-eyed way older people perfect over the course of their life—which was probably not a good sign.
The headmaster of Durmstrang sneered at Professor McGonagall, though he had probably been aiming for an expression that was more offended than offensive. Too bad he missed by a mile.
"I hope that you are not intending to waste all of our time with this… unnecessary digression?"
Professor McGonagall bristled.
Unfortunately, Dumbledore stepped in before she could reply: very diplomatic of him, but Sans had kind of wanted to see his professor take the guest headmaster to task for his rudeness.
"I can assure you, Mr. Skelton will only have his wand weighed after the champions. He won't delay us at all." Dumbledore paused briefly, glancing around. "On that note," he continued, "where is our fourth champion?"
"Shall I fetch him?" asked one of the other men at the table. "Rita Skeeter—the reporter for the Daily Prophet, you know. Well, she asked for a chance to interview him. I believe they're just outside."
Sirius had gone very still at the name, a near-silent growl in the back of his throat, and even Dumbledore frowned slightly.
Not good, then.
Setting a hand right on his fluffy friend's head, Sans offered, "i'll go get him." He turned before anyone could say anything, already heading out the door. "brb."
Behind him, somebody quietly asked, "What is a 'bee-are-bee'?"
It was easy to find the right closet: it wasn't far, and he could already hear what was being said on the opposite side of the door.
And what he heard, he didn't particularly like.
"Ignore the quill, Harry." It was an unfamiliar voice: a woman, and probably not a trustworthy one given the deceptive-silky edge to her tone. "Now, then. Why did you decide to enter the tournament?"
"I didn't enter," came Harry's muffled reply. "I don't know how my name got in the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there."
"Come now, Harry, there's no need to lie—"
With a frown, Sans knocked twice on the closet door. Loudly.
The woman replied first: "Just a moment more, if you could—"
"What is it?" Harry cut in, sounding downright desperate for an excuse to bail.
"no, no, guys, you both got it wrong." He pulled open the door, with just a touch of blue magic to unlatch the lock. "that's not how knock-knock jokes go at all."
While Harry was giving him a look that was so obviously 'please get me out of here', in distinct contrast, the woman gave off strong 'get out of here' vibes.
Sans immediately disliked her.
"I'm Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," she said, trying to hide her peeved expression behind a prim smile. "Why are you interrupting my interview?"
Half-leaning on the open door, Sans regarded the woman with lazy interest that nonetheless gave off a distinctly unimpressed air. He noticed that she had laid out a roll of parchment with an animated quill balanced on its nib, seemingly writing things down all on its own. From what he could read, it seemed to be exaggerating events to soap opera levels of emotional tear-jerking.
No wonder the kid looked ready to jump at any chance to escape.
"geeze, lady," Sans remarked, after scanning just a few more lines of her so-called notes, "are you writing an article or a crappy straight-to-tv drama?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Sans held up her parchment, poison-green quill now caught between the pages and his hand. The reporter did an impressive double take between it and the space it had been occupying just a moment prior: a quick shortcut just far enough to be a tad spooky without quite raising suspicions.
"who even talks like this?" he asked, somewhat rhetorically. "i mean, with how this reads, it's almost like you're just making it all up."
For a long moment, she didn't reply; from her expression, she was still trying to figure out how and when her notes had been grabbed. When Skeeter finally processed what he had said, she puffed up indignantly. "Are you implying—"
Sirius decided to step in at that point, cutting her off by simply trotting forward and pawing quite insistently at the hem of Harry's robe. He even threw in a little whine, just for good measure.
"oh, right, we're here to get harry," Sans said, catching the shift well enough. "sorry to break in, but we gotta kidnap him right now."
He offered Harry a hand to help him to his feet—grip reinforced with blue magic, of course—and turned without giving the woman so much as a second glance.
"Thanks," Harry whispered.
Sirius barked, tail wagging in a full-body smile.
When they got back to the room where the wand weighing would occur, Harry had to quickly take the last chair beside his fellow champions. Sans and Sirius were left by the wall, standing next to Professor McGonagall. The golden retriever growled softly at the reporter lady, who settled herself in a corner with her poison-green quill once more at the ready.
All five judges—the headmasters and the two guys who'd had some hand in setting up the tournament—were seated behind the fancy velvet-covered table. Or rather, the desks that had been pushed together into a makeshift table and then covered with a fancy velvet cloth.
"Allow me to introduce Mr. Ollivander," said Dumbledore, standing to better address the champions. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament."
As the headmaster sat back down, Ollivander stepped to the center of the room.
"Mademoiselle Delacour," the old wandmaker said, "could we have you first, please?"
As the wandmaker went to work checking over the contestants' wands, Sans was left with nothing to do but worry.
Or try to distract himself, which he began immediately.
Subject chosen for mental diversion: wands, and why the heck they exploded.
A few weeks ago, Sans had decided that his issue with wands—or rather, their issue with him—was not because his magic was any different from wizard magic. At least, not on a fundamental level.
His initial thought, back when the first wand he'd waved had burst, was that his magic had treated the wand like a SOUL and damaged it to the breaking point. It was a fair guess, given what he had known at the time, but still incorrect.
"Mr. Krum, you next."
Viktor handed off his wand. Made with hornbeam and dragon heartstring, Sans heard, before resuming his worry-delaying train of thought.
It would have been much harder to notice his misconception if, back in that Ministry closet, he had summoned a bone or cast some other attack magic. But blue magic does not harm its target.
(Unless used to launch them into walls at high speed, of course.)
And that raises questions on why the wand had blown up.
Now, after all his struggles to get wand magic under control, he was quite certain that it had been less a matter of his type of magic, and more a problem with quantity.
"Mr. Potter, if you please."
A third wand traded hands.
Sans tried not to listen, tried not to think about his own wand, and quickly returned to his magi-technical musings.
It takes a lot of energy to bust apart physics: no matter how nonsensical magic may seem, it still operates in the same fundamental reality. Spells channeled through a wand are naturally enhanced by the magical tool, and any increase in efficiency is useful for those magic users who aren't literally made of the stuff.
And monster magic is potent.
Just picture shining different lights through a magnifying lens: a lamp might become comparable to a spotlight, but the sun is liable to set something on fire.
So if he wanted to use a wand without blowing it up, he'd need to—
"And lastly, Mr. Warrington," the wandmaker said, and Sans abruptly realized there was only one wand left to weigh.
Cassius handed over his magical stick with some trepidation.
"Ah, yes, yes… I certainly remember this wand," Ollivander murmured, brow crinkling into a slight frown. "Dragon heartstring and hawthorn… An unusual choice of wood… not often suited for young wizards. It can be… temperamental." As he continued to look it over, his expression lightened into a smile. "It was a good match, though."
"Thank you," Cassius replied, still looking a bit antsy and plainly unsure if that was an appropriate response.
With a softly spoken spell and a gesture that shimmered yellow to a certain skeleton's debatably-existent eyes, the old wandmaker summoned a wreath of golden vines with the Slytherin's wand. The magical construct only lasted a few seconds before twisting into mist.
With all of the champions' wands now checked over and found to be in good order, Ollivander stepped to the side with a small nod to the headmasters.
Professor Dumbledore stood up, smiling in his twinkly way. "Thank you," he said. "You may all return to your lessons now, though, as the period is nearly over, it may be quicker to simply go down to dinner—"
"Photos, Dumbledore," one of the other people at the table cut in excitedly. "Photos of all the judges and champions!"
"Ah yes, of course."
As the tournament people claimed half of the room for their photo shoot, the old wandmaker turned his attention to Sans. Naturally, the disguised skeleton just grinned and shoved his concerns away to be ignored (at least temporarily).
At the moment, he was very much regretting that he hadn't just used a plain stick from the start. Sure, there would have been trouble figuring out how to consistently fake casting through mundane material, since he'd never done it before. But apparently it would have been an easier plan long-term.
After all, if he hadn't been determined to figure out how to get his bone wand under control, he probably wouldn't be in this situation.
Hoisted by his own petard, gosh darn it.
"Mr. Skelton," Professor McGonagall said, giving him a verbal nudge.
With a suppressed sigh, he drew his wand from his robes. Well, actually he pulled it through a shortcut from where it was usually kept: stuffed in his pillowcase back at Grimmauld. At around twelve inches long, carrying the bone-wand around on his person got annoying pretty quickly, and leaving it laying around the dorm or something was not a good plan.
Not that it mattered now.
Sans handed it over.
Ollivander's eyes widened, taking the magical bone with something almost like reverence. "My goodness," he murmured. "How curious, such a wand as this… I have not seen one in many years."
"huh?" Sans blinked, sharing a surprised glance with his currently-canine friend. "so, wait… it's not that weird?"
"By some considerations, no," the wandmaker almost chuckled, "but it's true that bone wands are vanishingly rare these days. They're some of the oldest magical augments ever made, and quite fascinating…"
Well, at least it wasn't something completely unheard of, by some obscenely lucky twist of history and fate.
As the old wizard gently turned the wand over in his hands, he echoed, "Yes… Quite fascinating, indeed… and… oh my, how curious. Tell me, what core was used in this wand?"
Magical bone marrow, obviously.
"uhh…"
"Please, Mr. Ollivander, focus," said Professor McGonagall, stepping in before the man could become too preoccupied.
Sans didn't breath a sigh of relief, but he kind of wanted to.
"Does the wand seem… unbalanced?" she continued. "As I mentioned, Mr. Skelton has had difficulty casting spells in class without overpowering the effect."
"Unbalanced? No, not at all." He shook his head slowly, considering. "However…" With a smooth arching gesture, he flicked the bone wand, "Eritarcus!"
Suddenly the room was awash with near-blinding rainbow colors. Everybody (who had actual physical eyes) had to blink away spots as the lights faded. A vibrant glow lingered in the air, though Sans wasn't sure what visible spectrum most of it was on: magic or mundane.
The photographer—along with the two guest headmasters—sent them an annoyed glare, but otherwise said nothing about the interruption.
The old wandmaker had a funny sort of smile on his face. "Ah, yes… this wand is in perfect condition. Eager to cast, and enough power to do so easily." He flipped the wand around, offering it back to Sans handle-first. "Though I'd wager young Mr. Skelton here would have gotten a much more impressive result, hmm?"
The disguised skeleton took back his wand—if somewhat hesitantly—and he pointedly did not think about the matrix of colors that had been used in that spell. No point risking his wand getting any ideas, after all.
"heh, uh… maybe?"
"Almost certainly," Professor McGonagall amended, with a sigh that landed somewhere between irked and quietly impressed. She smiled, just a bit. "Having him in my classroom has been an… interesting experience."
"i choose to take that as a compliment."
"It was intended as such."
Sans paused, then shot her a questioning glance. "wait, really?"
"Although you have added many dents to my ceiling, Mr. Skelton," the professor stated, matter-of-fact, "you have tremendous potential."
Despite himself—despite his embarrassment that he was struggling so much with basic wand-cast magics—getting a complement like that filled his non-existent gut with one of those warm-and-fuzzy type feelings.
Still massively mortifying, in a way, but… nice.
"so… is that everything?"
"Yes, that will be all." Professor McGonagall shook her head slowly: somewhat resigned, but with a slight smile. "For now, at least."
He pointedly ignored the expression that flashed across the old wandmaker's face, no doubt disappointed to miss a chance to ask more about the bone wand. To bad for him, Sans wanted out.
"I have a few more topics to discuss with Mr. Ollivander," she continued. "We will speak more in our private lesson next week."
Oh, joy.
Sans held back a relieved sigh until he got out of the room: that whole experience had been fairly nerve wracking. He turned to finally head back to Charms—the class he had been called out from for all of this—but paused before he even reached the corner of the hall. Seeing as class was nearly over by now, there wasn't really any point in hurrying back.
Activating his puppy-dog eyes, Sirius looked up at him with a quiet woof.
"yeah, i guess we can wait for him," Sans replied, stepping into a small niche in the wall and slumping down to sit on the floor. "but they might be a while, taking all those photos."
Indeed, the photography session did take a very long time to finish; the champions didn't get to leave for nearly an hour. Sans was on the edge of dozing off by the time the group started filtering out of that room.
And there was the kid they'd been waiting for.
"heya, harry."
Harry twitched, badly startled, and had started reaching for his wand before a paw thumped onto his forearm to stop him. Tail wagging, Sirius gave him an apologetic bark as Sans pushed to his feet.
"sorry 'bout the spook."
"Oh, uhm, no problem. Hi, Si…ans," he quickly corrected, "and Paddy."
"how's it going?"
After a hesitant pause, Harry said, "I… met Cassius."
Not fully sure how he was meant to respond to that, Sans just replied, "…uh, yeah? all things considered, it'd be weirder if you hadn't."
"No, I mean…" Harry paused. "He… offered to work together. All the champions, really, but Fleur didn't want to for some reason. But Cassius said that, uhm, since things have already gone wrong, it's probably only going to get worse."
"good call."
"And that's alright?"
"…yes?"
"Won't that, I don't know…" Harry chewed at his lip a little, slightly nervous, and whispered, "It won't mess up the plan?"
Sirius snorted in amusement, no doubt thinking about how the plan had already been plenty messed up: things had long-since gone in unexpected directions.
Taking a second to rim the air near them with blue magic—basically putting their conversation on mute, just in case anyone was trying to eavesdrop—Sans gave him a good-natured shrug. "no big deal, the best plans are never set in stone."
Honestly, having the champions team up seemed like great news. It should make it a lot easier to keep the tasks under control, at the very least.
Seeing that his godson was still looking unconvinced, Sirius gave him a reassuring bark and wagged his tail again.
"to translate," said Sans, "it'll be fine, harry. what's the worst that can happen?"
Author's Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.
In this chapter, Sans and his weird wand get really lucky.
We're in the final month of 2020! It's the final stretch, guys!
Until we start into 2021, of course. I wonder what'll be in store for us next year? This year was certainly… unexpected, in many ways.
Updates on the first of the month. I swear.
(I know it says December 2nd, but, uh, ignore that. It's just a sticker.)
Thanks for all the favorites, follows, and reviews! And thanks for letting me take a break during November, I really needed that. You guys are great!
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Stay safe, and see ya on the flipside, everyone!
