Chapter 5: Several Questions, Not Many Answers

Severus Snape was not happy. This is no surprise. But he was not mad. He was not angry. He was not raging. He was not seething, brooding, scheming, irritated, or even particularly annoyed.

This would surprise pretty much anyone.

In fact, Severus Snape was some combination of those that somehow added up to worried. Deeply worried.

Not that anyone would be able to tell. He wasn't a spy for nothing, after all.

He stepped over another gnarly tree root that seemed to be growing for the express purpose of trying to trip him up. It was hard to see anything with all the dense branches blocking out any light from the sky, but enough made its way through that he could spot most of the larger threats to his ankles: at least the full moon is good for that much. Normally he'd use a simple 'Lumos' spell and forgo complaints of filtered moonlight, but then normally he wouldn't be preoccupied levitating a stretcher bearing an unconscious, red-headed student.

"Weasleys," Snape scorned under his breath, before pausing and revising: "No… Gryffindors." He brushed away a grabby alder and made sure his cargo hadn't somehow fallen off in the last few seconds. "They're trouble even when asleep. Perhaps even more than usual."

But in the end they were still his students. Students who were now lost somewhere in this forest with a werewolf and a crazy escaped convict. It didn't matter that Sirius Black—he mentally cursed the man—was innocent and thus wrongly imprisoned. He had still been imprisoned: nobody could spend twelve years stuck in Azkaban and still be sane. Insane means dangerous and Harry Potter—Lily's son, for Merlin's sake—was out there in the thick of it. As usual.

Snape heard voices shouting desperately, faint but still clearly distressed, and hurried in their direction. He was close, but not close enough. Not with Granger and Potter (the voices were theirs, naturally) frantically repeating the incantation for the Patronus charm. Dementors were attacking and their defense wasn't enough.

Hermione Granger's voice fell silent.

The other voice, Harry's, grew weaker. Then it faded altogether.

The oft-unhappy professor would have cursed, but he'd rather save his breath.

He caught a glimpse of water through the trees, light filtering through branches and casting an eerie splattering of shadows on twisted roots. An uneasy feeling tugged at him, and while he couldn't hear any more spellcasting—which should, by all means, make him very concerned—Snape knew he was unsettled for some completely different reason. Something didn't add up. The moonlight in the lake's clearing outlined a few indistinct figures on the shore, but that feeling gave him pause. A quick scan of the area told him that it was only himself, his unconscious student, and what appeared to be the people he was looking for (also unconscious, probably) by the lake: there were no Dementors nearby, despite the unnatural chill hanging in the air.

So someone had managed to drive them off. Someone other than Potter, as his earlier panicked shouts certainly didn't indicate success.

Snape stuck to the trees, cautious, and made his way closer. He counted four figures—three lying on the ground and one just sitting there—which was an immediate cause for alarm. Especially since he had no clue who the extra was. The light wasn't good enough to see much beyond bare details and a hint of color, but whoever it was apparently wore muggle clothes: specifically a muggle hoodie that was some shade of blue. The hood was up, so Snape couldn't see much else about them. Wanting to free up his wand in case this stranger was dangerous, he carefully began to lower the gurney bearing Ron Weasley.

The stranger stood up suddenly, crouching and alert, and Snape froze. At first he thought he had given himself away somehow, but then he felt it: a wave of dread and an icy cold weight clawing at memories he kept firmly behind mental locked doors.

Dementors, he realized, and I'm stuck here with four unconscious people I need to protect and some wild card.

Before he could do anything but grimace, an ominous chime rang out and strange gold-blue light danced around the standing figure. Snape managed to process that the stranger was surprisingly short—only as tall as some first years—when thoughts of heights and chimes and lights were wiped out in favor of GREAT-MERLIN-ARE-THOSE-FLOATING-DRAGON-SKULLS-WHY-AND-HOW!?

Snape is a cunning and intelligent person, someone who has seen a lot of the world and it's shadows, someone who isn't easily shaken. He is an analytical planner and tactician, and a damn good wizard when it came down to spell casting. That said, it was embarrassing how completely his entire thought process ground to a halt.

There had been no incantation. No wand motion. No motion at all, really: the stranger still had their hands in their pockets!

Wandless?!

When reviewing his memories of the event later with Dumbledore, he would take care to leave out just how openly shocked and scared he had been at that instant.

He had only just gathered himself again when the stranger spoke. His voice sounded smooth and perfectly calm, low and apparently relaxed, but Snape hadn't been in Slytherin for nothing. The voice carried a powerful, threatening undertone that sent fear—real fear—running along the spy master's nerves, and he only needed to utter a single sentence: "do you wanna have a bad time?"

The floating skulls, each as large and bone-white as an actual dragon's skull would be, loomed menacingly beside the stranger. It was enough to get him to take an instinctive step back, regardless of the fact that he wasn't the target, but of course the Dementors continued their single-minded advance. For a heartbeat Snape wondered what would happen next.

And then, white.

And pain and blindness, he couldn't see, everything was white. Even with his eyes closed, everything was white!

And the noise, the noise.

His world became nothing but sweeping, roaring sound and light. An onrush of power tore through him, around him, setting his senses on fire, and it was with shocked and disoriented awe that he realized what it was: magic.

Pure, overwhelming magic.

"that… might have been overkill," the stranger observed with a soft whistle. If Snape had more of his faculties under control he would have offered frank, whole-hearted agreement. Instead he all but fell forward with a groan, only remaining on his feet by sheer dumb luck.

Snape had to focus on staying upright, thoughts of the stranger and the flood of power momentarily replaced as his brain desperately tried to keep the still-white world from spinning. With a flick of his wand he lowered the gurney to the ground, trying to keep the student from being tossed around due to his unsteadiness. He rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to return his vision and, after several long blinks, finally began to see vague shapes and colors again. It was another minute or so before he could see clearly.

The stranger was gone.

It was natural that that was the first thing Snape noticed, since that was the first thing he looked for. The cautious, recently blinded professor examined the shoreline, but whoever it was had clearly left while he was blinded. And, it should be noted, there was absolutely no sign of the swarm of Dementors. The supposedly impossible-to-kill creatures had, so far as he could tell, been completely obliterated. Now he was alone by the lake with the unconscious people he had come to find, no mysterious figure to be seen. He slowly made his way forward, eyes glued to his surroundings even as he shifted his focus to his students and old nemesis.

His students, thank Merlin, seemed largely unharmed and were likely only suffering the after-effects of Dementor exposure. Sirius looked much the same as earlier except for… something. Something was different. He was still gaunt and pale and unhealthy and generally crazy looking, but something in his face was more… peaceful than it should have been. Snape brushed the nagging thought away and quickly set about conjuring three more stretchers.

And if he was a bit more rough with Sirius than his students, well. For all that the criminal wasn't actually guilty of his crime—a suspicion he'd held since that cursed night (he knew what it took to be a double agent and frankly never thought the straight-forward Sirius capable of it)—Snape wasn't just going to forgive the other man for everything else. Besides, he justified to himself as he bound the other man, he had an image to uphold.

Snape cast one last long look at the spot where the stranger had stood before, with a flick of his wand to lift the four gurneys, he finally turned back to the forest. Leaving the relative brightness of the lake-side clearing for the dark woods put the antsy professor even more on edge. He kept thinking he heard something or that he caught sight of an unnatural shadow slipping through the trees, but there was no way to tell if it was all in his head or not.

If there was someone or something following him, they didn't come forward. If it was the stranger, Snape wasn't sure he wanted him to.

It took some time and careful maneuvering to reach the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the trip made longer due to his frequent pauses to glance over his shoulder, but eventually he stepped out onto the green fields surrounding the castle proper. Hogwarts stood tall and proud, lights twinkling from windows and magic thick in the air. Snape took a deep breath and couldn't help but think back to the white blast that had all but suffocated him with its magical intensity. It had just been so…

He shook himself, refocusing on what he needed to do. Dumbledore no doubt already knew he was back on the grounds, and that meant soon he'd be met with a most un-welcome welcoming committee. Sure enough, he could already hear that idiotic so-called Minister of Magic's voice talking somewhere up ahead. It sounded significantly more unsteady than the last time he had heard it.

"What was… I do say, Dumbledore, what was that?"

"It was remarkable, to be sure." The headmaster's voice was calm as always, betraying nothing save mild curiosity. "I can't say I've ever seen such a thing before."

"I would imagine so," a third voice replied: that would be Minerva, naturally. Wonder and incredulity were clear in her tone, the combination making her distinct Scottish accent quite a bit more prominent than usual.

There was no doubt about what they were discussing. Perhaps he should have been shocked or impressed that the blast had had a tangible impact so far from the lakeside, but some part of Snape—basically all of his conscious and a good deal of his subconscious, to be honest—was still just struggling to convince himself that it had actually happened. It didn't matter at the moment anyway; he had been pushing through his confusion since the event itself, and he wasn't about to stop now.

He had a job to do.

A group of people were clustered around the wide-open great doors of Hogwarts: clearly anyone who would have been sleeping had been roused by the blast. Now that he was looking for it, the spy master spotted silhouettes of figures in many of the lit windows, all turned in the same direction. Even Dumbledore, Fudge, McGonagall, and the two unfamiliar people (Aurors, presumably) standing in the doorway couldn't help but stare at the Forbidden Forest. This had the convenient side effect of placing himself and his unconscious cargo along their line of sight. When none of them did anything as he drew closer, he realized that 'line of sight' wasn't enough to garner their attention.

"Could you stop staring dumbly into space and do something useful for once?" Snape called out, voice all but dripping with disdain. "Say, perhaps, assisting me in bringing three foolhardy students and one insane criminal to where they belong?"

That got their attention.

McGonagall swept down the path the meet him, already drawing her wand and taking command of two of the gurneys. "Severus! I'm glad you're alright. Are my students—?"

"Unconscious but otherwise fine, I assure you." She raised a questioning eyebrow, wanting more detail about what had happened out there. It didn't escape his notice how her eyes looked between himself, her students, and the dark woods they had just come from. Or, more to the point, the bit of sky directly above the forrest: Minerva was obviously wondering about more than Harry Potter's latest case of recklessness. "Dementors," he said, answering the far simpler question. "The encounter seems to have only knocked them unconscious, nothing worse."

The transfiguration professor looked as if she had more questions, but Dumbledore interrupted before she got the chance. "We'd best get them to the Hospital Wing regardless, Minerva."

"Of course!" She sounded mildly insulted that the headmaster had even felt the need to advise her of something so obvious. Another flick of her wand gave her control of all three students' gurneys and, with a brisk turn, she swept off.

Dumbledore's eyes laughed, twinkling in that infuriating I-know-something-you-don't kind of way that never failed to annoy Snape. Especially in this case when he was absolutely sure that the older wizard and himself were at least equally informed: that is to say, knew nothing. Technically it was Snape who knew more on the topic of the mysterious blast, having seen and heard first-hand the stranger who had cast it (not that knowing it had been a stranger was very helpful).

"It's good to see that you are safe, Severus." Dumbledore was still softly smiling, but something in the expression sharpened as his attention shifted focus. "After that wave of power filled the sky, I could do nothing but fear for the worst and hope for the best. You saw it, of course."

"Naturally. I nee—"

Before Snape could finish his statement, Cornelius Fudge, followed by his two Aurors, burst loudly onto the scene. "Don't be ridiculous, Dumbledore! There's no possible way anyone missed it. We'll need to save such talk for later, however, since we have larger issues to deal with now than mysterious light shows." He gestured to the last gurney, Sirius Black still out cold.

Snape gave a slight nod in response, internally resisting the urge to laugh in the minister's face. Black may be a supposed criminal wanted for killing twelve muggles and a wizard in a spell-caused explosion, but a magical surge capable of sending a shockwave across a large part of the already-magically-saturated forest and through Hogwarts itself seemed like a significant 'issue' that shouldn't be relegated to the same level as unexpected fireworks.

The headmaster's nod was more convincing, though he probably shared some of his potion master's misgivings. "Yes, true: for now we must secure Black. Perhaps locking him in a professor's office will suffice?"

"Probably," answered one of the Aurors as their companion summoned manacles onto the still-unconscious criminal's wrists, despite the fact that he was already bound and gagged. "We only need to restrain him until the Dementors arrive."

I doubt that they will. Snape shot Dumbledore a look and pushed the thought to the forefront of his mind, hoping the older man's almost constant low-key use of Legilimency would pick it up. It was the best he could do while keeping his expression the same mask of disdainful disinterest as before, and by the way Dumbledore's eyebrows rose slightly, it seemed the message got through.

"In fact," Dumbledore continued, nobody else the wiser to their silent transaction, "I believe there is an empty classroom we could re-purpose to suit our needs. It's only been used for storage lately, since Hogwarts stopped offering Advanced Spell-Crafting several years ago, but the walls are still warded against magic damage; it should serve well."

Snape relinquished control of the last gurney as Dumbledore gestured for the Aurors to follow him, leading the way back inside. But he lingered for a moment, unable to stop himself from casting one last, searching look toward the shadowy Forbidden Forest.

He didn't notice the pair of glowing white lights staring back.

=X=X=X=

Sirius woke to an unfamiliar ceiling in an empty room, wrists bound by heavy shackles, and with no idea where he was.

His mind felt like every nerve had been scorched, boiled, and torn to shreds before immediately being patched back together. And he didn't think it had been patched back together terribly well, at that. Memories seemed to start and stop at strange places, a good two years seemed to be completely disjointed, and quite a bit seemed to be nothing but empty blackness. Just a void… of…

"The void!" He sat up suddenly, wildly looking around at the rest of the empty room and taking in the fact that, save for a few boxes and some old tarps, it was, well, an empty room. A gloriously non-void-blackness empty room. Though his hands were bound—he had no clue why—he couldn't resist reaching out to trail his fingers along the rough stone of the walls. It was solid. It was real.

He almost wanted to cry right then and there.

Of course, there was still the matter of apparently being imprisoned. His best bet was that they had been caught immediately after appearing, and that he was being held in the Ministry somewhere. Which meant his next cour—

Wait, 'they'? So… 'we'…?

He almost choked when he realized, by what he realized: "Sans!?"

But Sirius was alone. He shouldn't be alone. In fact, he was fairly certain that he couldn't be; there's no way he was the only one who came through. However, since Sans wasn't here trapped with him—a small mercy—then Sans must be somewhere else. And while not being imprisoned with Sirius was by no means a bad thing, it didn't mean that Sans wasn't being held elsewhere: wasn't caught or trapped or kil—trapped.

It was at this point that Sirius's frantic observations of his current prison caught up with his runaway train of thought, and the first thing those observations told him made no sense at all.

He was in a Hogwarts office. Granted it was an empty office clearly being used for spare storage, but he had done enough sneaking around the castle as a student to recognize it for what it was. What he really wanted to know was why he was at Hogwarts in the first place. And how he had gotten here. The last thing Sirius could remember was Sans preparing to teleport them out of the void—and he knew that was the memory that happened most recently, despite the jumbled mess his brain was currently—but they should have arrived together at the Ministry of Magic in the room with the Veil. That's where he had been aiming, after all.

So.

"What is going on here?"

"oh good. you have no idea either."

Sirius will forever deny the spluttered sound of shock he made at that moment.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Here we see that Snape doesn't really know what's going on. Dumbledore's pretty confused as well. The minister likes to pretend, but let's be honest: he's clueless. Plus Sirius has just woken up to find himself imprisoned, not sure how he got there. And well, I mean Sans is literally in a whole new world, so...

We haven't seen much of Sans lately, have we? Next month, guys. Next month. Good stuff.
Anyway, about his super overkill blast: that was a bit of an accident. There's a lot of magic in the air, he's perhaps a little unsteady due to dimensional travel and Dementor-induced flashbacks, and he hasn't napped in, like, half an hour: dude's gotta adjust.

And so we return to our regularly scheduled updates on the first of each month. I hope you all had a great Halloween! If you have questions, remarks, or critiques, please leave a review.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!