Chapter 2: Stuck in the Middle with You

To be perfectly honest, Sirius was more than a little surprised. He spun around so fast he ended up tripping over his own feet and landing on his bum. From his new position on the void's pseudo-ground, he found himself staring eye-to-eye-socket with the grinning face of a friendly-looking skeleton. An apparently very short friendly-looking skeleton. In a blue muggle hoodie. And black shorts. Shorts with a white stripe down the front of each leg. And pink slippers.

Pink slippers!?

Sirius was perfectly aware that he was gaping at his new acquaintance like a particularly astonished fish, but really there wasn't anything he could do about it. One of the skeleton's boney brows rose fractionally and his smile grew a little wider. He questioned how a skull could be so expressive before realizing that the better question was how a skeleton could be alive to express anything in the first place. The white lights in the skeleton's eye sockets gave a distinctly sassy eye roll as the wizard took another minute in an attempt to collect himself.

"gee, man. didn't mean to rattle you so badly." Sans stuffed one hand in a pocket and, pointing to Sirius's chest with the other, advised, "don't forget to breathe."

Sirius took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Okay, calm down. I mean, I did just die so what's so weird about meeting a living skeleton? Does that mean you're Death?"

"i'm sans, as previously stated. who knows though, i might be death in some alternate universe." He chuckled to himself at some joke Sirius didn't understand.

The pair stared at each other for a moment, both thinking indecipherable thoughts, before Sirius finally regained enough sense to recall, "You didn't answer my question. Where is this?"

"oh right. welcome, sirius, to the void between timelines."

He considered that answer and gave the infinitely black, empty space a considering glance. "Not a very cheery place, is it?"

Sans nodded. "yeah. usually it's pretty boring too, but now you've shown up so… who knows."

"Don't get visitors often?"

"i haven't seen anyone else since i followed a murderous wraith and a child to get in. hopefully they can't come back."

There was definitely a story there, but Sirius elected to ignore it for the moment. "So I'm guessing you can't just die to end up here."

"so far as i know."

"Then," Sirius frowned, "how'd I get here?"

The skeleton plopped himself down, crossing his legs and propping his skull up on one hand. "i dunno. you must've not 'just died'."

"But I did! I was fighting—" Sans tensed, but Sirius paid him no mind, "—in the DoM, Bellatrix got a lucky shot in and pow! I'm dead."

When Sans spoke again, his still-calm voice had taken on a dangerous quality that immediately pulled Sirius from his musings. The white eye-lights were gone and a foreboding faint blue glow drifted around his left eye socket as he asked, "'Fighting'? Who were you fighting and why?"

Sirius tried not shudder as a sudden cold swept down on him. "Voldemort and his Death Eater goons." When Sans gave him a blank, decidedly not-amused look, he clarified: "A crazy power-hungry wizard who cheated death for a second chance at taking over the world and killing off all muggles and—"

Sans signaled him to stop, looking a bit more at ease than just a second earlier. "this vuldy-whatsit sounds like bad news."

He blinked at Sans in astonishment, then collapsed in nearly-crazed giggles. "Merlin's beard! You're giving me emotional whiplash, Sans! On that note… You can be really terrifying, did you know that?"

"why, did you feel a chill in your bones?"

"Most decidedly. You really got under my skin!"

They shared a laugh and any remaining tension between them relaxed. "so… what's this 'DoM' place? it seems pretty important. you could say that…"

"Are you actually—"

"…it's probably a DoM-inant point of interest."

Sirius laughed again, shrugging in a helpless way. He was quickly realizing that puns were something of a speciality of the short skeleton. "It stands for 'Department of Mysteries'."

"how mysterious."

"Wizards have peculiar naming sense. Anyway, we were fighting in the room with… with the Veil…" he drifted off, jaw dropping as he made the connection. "I died as I fell through the Veil. That's why I'm here!" At Sans's confused expression, Sirius tried to explain. "The Veil of Death! It connects the land of the living with the land of the dead! I must have ended up in this limbo place since I died as I fell through."

Sans closed his eye sockets—Sirius wondered how that even worked before mentally writing it off as magic skeleton logic—and gave the theory some consideration before nodding slowly. "that unveils quite a bit… but then that reminds me…"

"What?"

The skeleton gave a distinct what-even-is-this gesture and simply asked, "wizards?"

There was a another moment where they just stared at each other. "We have much to discuss."

It was a very informative few some-amounts-of-time for Sans as Sirius filled him in on the basics of magical society and current events. He covered anything from wizarding law to Quidditch, jumping from subject to subject as his audience of one asked questions. Concepts like wands and incantations fascinated the short skeleton, so naturally Sirius had to spend ages explaining what little he knew about them. Humans approached magic in an entirely different way compared to monsters, but mostly Sans was surprised that this other world had enough magical humans to form an entire community.

"a society of magical humans. weird."

"And you're a living skeleton," Sirius deadpanned.

"last i checked, yes."

"…And that's normal where you're from."

Sans nodded. "normal enough. there's lotsa types of monsters, but i never really saw any other skeletons in the underground except my…" his voice abruptly went soft, "…my bro."

Sirius leaned forward, eager for more info on Sans, and prompted, "'The Underground'?"

His interest was rewarded with an eye roll and a brief explanation. "ages ago there was this war between humans and monsters. the humans won and they sealed us underground."

"Just like that?"

"yep."

"Huh." Guessing that he wasn't going to get much more out of that topic, Sirius switched to the other point that had caught his interest. "So you have a brother?"

For a while he thought he might not get an answer, until finally: "papyrus." Sans sighed, shoulders drooping and his expression changing into a painful mixture of exhaustion and wistfulness. "stars, i hope he's okay without me. and frisk—" He cut himself off.

"Who's—?"

"welp, not that this isn't fun," Sans blatantly interrupted, "but i'm bone tired from all this excitement. i'm gonna' take a nap." He rolled over onto his chest, pillowing his skull on his arms, and fell asleep in record time.

Sirius was half tempted to wake the skeleton back up, but he had the sneaking suspicion that that wouldn't be appreciated, especially since they barely knew each other. With a sigh, he decided he'd just have to get revenge for the rude cut-off at some later date. Maybe after a nap. And especially after getting to know Sans well enough that his prank wouldn't land himself in deep trouble.

Of course, getting to know Sans proved to be surprisingly difficult. It took careful observation and attention over the course of several more conversations for Sirius to uncover even a little bit about the past of his skeletal companion. Add to that the fact that most of what was learned had more to do with the people around Sans than Sans himself and it became pretty clear that he's one cagey skeleton. Sirius complained as much, but Sans just grinned his hard-to-read grin and remarked that it's natural for a skeleton to be rib cage-y. Thus Sirius amended his conclusion: Sans is extremely cagey and highly skilled at brushing off concern through puns and jokes.

Really, the only thing Sans seemed to honestly enjoy talking about was his brother. And even then he was prone to lapsing into unexplained silences or random topic changes. Sirius had learned, however, that 'The Great Papyrus' loved puzzles, was more than a little bit obsessed with spaghetti, and in training to be a guard.

And that was something else he had learned: Sans and his brother both worked as sentries. Yes, the lazy skeleton who seemed to spend most of his time sleeping actually had a job—several, apparently. It took quite some finagling to get that info out of him, and quite a bit more to learn that sentries were supposed to keep watch for any humans that might show up in the Underground.

That subject had been particularly difficult to get him to talk about, but Sirius was nothing if not bullheadedly stubborn. They had been sitting together chatting about Snowdin, the town where Sans had lived, when the wizard broached the topic with all the conversational grace of a sledgehammer.

"Did you ever find any humans?" Sirius blurted out, deciding that blunt and to the point was the best way to go. He'd never been one for subtlety anyway, too much of a Gryffindor for that.

"i… yeah. one fell down every few decades or so." Sans paused, thinking back. "but there was a weirdly long gap before… no wait. that was…" He drifted off abruptly and his eye sockets briefly went dark. It passed so quickly that if Sirius hadn't gotten better at reading the skeleton he would have thought he was seeing things.

"There was a weird gap? What happened?"

Sans shook his head. "technically there… ah… there wasn't actually a gap."

In all the time-not-time that Sirius had known him, it was rare for Sans to have such a lost, tired expression. He usually got that look when 'Frisk', whoever that was, inadvertently cropped up in their conversation. The wizard did not like seeing his new friend so despondent and he decided it was high time he do something about it. "Explain."

"i don't really—"

"Explain." The skeleton gave him a petulant look, but Sirius just stared back adamantly. "You listened to me ramble about Azkaban and my problems. Whatever this is, it really bothers you. Explain."

Sans shifted uneasily and couldn't look Sirius in the eye. "i'm fine, really." His smile didn't ring true as he joked, "gee, you really remind me of paps sometimes. a bit more sirius though."

"Don't deflect, answer the question."

"just don't worry about it. it's in the past." Sirius said nothing but he raised an eyebrow in a distinct we-both-know-that's-bullshit gesture and Sans huffed, "how long are ya gonna look at me like that?"

He couldn't help but smile a bit, but he didn't let up. "As long as I need to."

The stare-off lasted for a good long while before Sans sighed. "fine. but i'm warning you… it's a long story."

"We have nothing but time, Sans. Get talking."

"…there was a flower."

It wasn't how the wizard had expected the tale to begin, but he didn't remark on it.

"flowey had this… skill… that let him reset the timeline. pull everything back, undo everything, do different things. i was the only one who remembered and nobody else ever even noticed. he… reset a lot. did a lot of… stuff. technically only the last of those resets actually happened but sometimes i forget that. it… feels like longer."

Sirius was stunned. More than just stunned, but he couldn't come up with a better word. Something like resets—completely wiping out and rewriting events and possibly changing everything—was impossible, even with magic. Just trying to think of the repercussions of living through something like that left the wizard reeling. When the skeleton fell quiet, Sirius prompted, "So the reset-thing stopped eventually?"

Sans's expression became unreadable. "yeah, the flower stopped resetting."

Sirius immediately caught on to the skeleton's ploy. "The flower stopped. So were there still resets?" Another long silence. "Well?"

"…yes. look, can we just—"

"No. You need to get this off your chest and by Merlin you're damn-well goi—"

"they died. everyone in the underground. more times than i care to count."

That struck the wizard silent and for a moment he couldn't get himself to do anything but stare. Eventually he hesitantly reached out a hand in an attempt to do something, anything to help his friend—but what could he do? Sirius knew all too well the pain of losing those closest to him; his years in Azkaban had played that nightmare over and over in his memories enough that he doubted he'd ever stop hurting. Those memories were horrible enough by themselves. Actually living through that night again… that would be hell. Sans was staring into space, sockets empty and even darker than the surrounding void. Letting his hand drop, Sirius choose instead to scooch around so that they were sitting back-to-back.

The skeleton wasn't crying, but he could feel him shaking slightly. When Sans began speaking again, it was like he couldn't stop himself: didn't want to stop himself.

The flower-murder-freak-thing, apparently named Flowey, had, over the course of who-knows how many resets, managed to kill pretty much everyone in the Undergound several times in various ways. Some resets it would only be a single monster killed, or just a couple. Others would see him getting close to killing everyone in one go. He tried to kill Sans a few times, quickly learning that messing with the short skeleton was pretty much a guaranteed death. Sirius wanted to know more about that, but restrained himself when he saw that Sans was more in the past than the present at the moment. Plus, even though Sans was finally telling him some of his history, he was still being frustratingly vague and Sirius didn't want to risk him closing up again.

Eventually, and Sans wasn't sure how, the flower lost his power over the timeline. Unfortunately that wasn't even close to being the end.

If anything, that was just the beginning.

Sans told Sirius about Frisk: the last fallen human. The last SOUL the monsters would need to break the barrier and escape belonged to an adorable little child only slightly shorter than Sans himself. Yet despite the antagonism they faced, this child had gone through the entire Underground without killing anyone, making friends all along the way, with Sans following and helping unobtrusively where he could. Even when Frisk faced the king, they still chose mercy in the end. After that there was… something that the skeleton didn't seem keen on explaining. Too hard to sum up, he claimed. Suffice to say there was a fight of some sort that ended with the barrier shattered.

Freedom. It was more than he had ever dreamed.

"that got old fast," Sans bitterly observed. "what's the point if it just resets in the end? what's a few days on the surface if nobody else even remembers?"

Frisk had moved into an apartment with a monster who had basically become an adoptive parent, someone named Toriel, and pretty much all of their closest monster friends got set up in the same building. Sans saw the kiddo everyday and, after watching them throughout their journey, he basically took them under his metaphorical wing as another younger sibling. Everything was beginning to look up at long last, even if no one else knew just how long it really was.

And then it all just… reset.

He hadn't even known that could still happen. Only a few months after escaping he just woke up back in Snowdin—no explanation whatsoever.

It wasn't until he saw the kiddo again that he realized it was them. They had caused the reset, though something in their eyes told him it wasn't necessarily Frisk who had done it. And Sirius got the impression that the 'something' wasn't just part of the expression.

Frisk worked toward the same happy ending so many times, following events like some kind of script, but it would always reset within a year of reaching the surface. Every time.

"after i realized that, getting to the surface didn't really appeal anymore." His expression abruptly darkened and he cursed, "shi—stars! even now i still follow script sometimes."

Sans went really quiet after that. When Sirius glanced at him over his shoulder, he saw that Sans was gripping his head in his hands. There was some kind of eerie blue light flickering near his left eye socket, and the skeleton didn't speak until it had completely faded.

"it didn't last—the repetitive looping of the same story. but i mean, at least that was peaceful. not like after…" he took a steadying breath that didn't seem to help all that much. "when the kiddo accidentally hurt one of the monsters they met… that's when that other started to—" Sans cut himself off, too angry or too sad or too everything to stay put and keep going with the story. He vanished.

Sirius got no warning that Sans was too antsy to remain seated. The skeleton's departure was so abrupt that Sirius was actually sent sprawling backwards, hitting his head on the existent-yet-not-existent floor of the void. Sans reappeared from his sudden teleport just a short distance away, mid-stride and already walking back to where they had been sitting together.

"eh… sorry, sirius. didn't mean to pop out on ya like that, i just… i don't think…"

Sirius waved a dismissive hand from his new position on the floor. "No, I understand. Sometimes it takes a while to be abl—WOAH WAIT BACK UP." He tried to scramble to his feet but failed the first few attempts, flailing around on the sorta-ground until he put his limbs to rights again. The look he sent Sans was pure and blatant shock. "You can TELEPORT?!"

"uhm," Sans quirked a brow at the subject change and simply answered, "yeah?"

For a moment, it seemed like Sirius didn't know what to do with that information. His mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to figure out what to say in response but coming up with a resounding zero. Before he had discovered that he wasn't completely alone in the black void, Sirius had attempted to cast a variety of spells in an effort to entertain himself. None of them worked. Now he whipped out his wand again, holding it with purpose, and spun sharply on his heel.

Nothing happened—well, except perhaps confusing Sans, who, after a moment's thought, commented, "nice of you to put a good spin on things."

Sirius harrumphed, ignoring the pun. "Well, there goes that idea. I can't Apparate."

"am i supposed to know what that is or…?"

"Apparating," Sirius explained, tucking his wand away again, "is a form of magical transportation where you disappear from one place and reappear at another."

"neato. do you always do that spin thing?"

"Not always, but it helps. And that's beside the point because," the wizard pointed to Sans with significantly more energy than the motion really needed, "you can teleport. Why are you even still here?"

Sans shrugged and, with a nonchalance that didn't quite ring true, answered, "i'm still here because leaving would force my universe back into a timeline-reset-loop, obviously."

"Am I going to need to harass you into explaining further?" When Sans didn't meet his eyes, Sirius crossed his arms and gave him the same stare he had used earlier. "Well?"

While clearly reluctant, Sans still relented. "fine, fine, no need to get your pants in a twist. i mentioned how i got here, right?"

Sirius thought back to the first conversation he had had with the skeleton and nodded. "Something about following a kid and a murderer or something."

"close enough. i'm not going to go into much detail, but the murderer was possessing the kiddo." At Sirius's questioning look, Sans frowned slightly and preemptively answered, "yes, i'm talking about frisk. the murderer, Chara," he spat out the name, "was forcing them to reset. i followed them here, trapped the murderer, sent the kiddo back, and made it so nobody could reset."

After another moment reviewing what he knew, Sirius ventured, "Destination, determination, and deliberation: those are the three base steps for Apparition. After you destroyed whatever made resets possible, that must have changed something else as well, right?"

Sans nodded. "in your terms, i messed with the destination. everywhere, or everywhen, i can teleport to would be when resets were possible."

"Hmm…" Sirius hummed to himself, still thinking. "But you technically could teleport out of here, right?"

"as far as i know, yeah."

He began pacing restlessly, only looking over at Sans occasionally. "Can you teleport with other people?"

"sure." Sans cocked his head to the side, as if doing so could help him figure out what the suddenly-excited wizard was getting at. "look, we can't get out of here that way. it's not worth it."

That did nothing to derail Sirius's train of thought. "This could work…" he mumbled to himself before turning to Sans with a huge grin. "This could actually work!"

Sans rolled his eyes (or eye-lights, as it were) and asked, "what 'could work'?"

"What if you don't teleport back?"

"what?"

"What if I provide the destination instead?"

"allow me to rephrase: what?"

"You provide the means but I provide the destination: we teleport to my world."

Authors Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

I hope you like this update. If you spot a mistake, go ahead and tell me and I'll fix it as soon as I can. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! I can't even begin to articulate how happy I am seeing that you all like what I'm putting out there.
In other news, I just moved to Munich from Denver so a lot has changed (and so there might be more mistakes, I didn't have time to check closely). I'm just glad I could get my internet figured out in time to post!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!