Chapter 8: Operation Infiltration

Sirius eagerly pulled a poorly disguised Sans by the elbow, all but dragging him along behind him. The man was too impatient to even let the skeleton check over his slight wardrobe change. Sans was still wearing his hoodie and shorts—hood pulled low over his face and hands stuffed deep in his pockets—so the only difference was his socks. More to the point: he had socks now. The wizard had lent him his knee socks: even if Sirius had pants to lend instead of his prison uniform, they would look ridiculously large on the small skeleton. So yes, Sans got his socks. Tugging them as far up as they could go had the socks covering all of his lower leg and half of his femur.

Sans knew being short had its advantages. This wasn't one he had considered.

As for Sirius, he had gone with a surprisingly effective garden-supplies make-over. Meaning he had soaked his hair in a convenient sprinkler, slicked it down, and tied it back with a strip of cloth he had had tucked away for some reason. Patting and shaking any obvious dirt from his clothes cleaned them up remarkably well, and even the tell-tale prison stripes were hard to notice when he buttoned up his long jacket all the way. Standing up straight and slapping a winning smile on his face had him looking completely different.

Still, the pair of them probably looked ridiculous.

"you think this place'll even let us in, lookin' like this?"

"Oh, sure. They take all sorts," Sirius chimed back, his reassurance doing pretty much the exact opposite.

"oh, good," said Sans, distinctly sarcastic. He had to trot to keep up with the human's longer strides, but he was sick of his elbow being used as a leash. "sounds real enticing."

An abrupt stop had the short skeleton tripping over his feet for a second, but he recovered quickly. Sirius was pointing across the street with a distinct 'ta-da' gesture and a pleased smile. "There it is! Just like I remember it."

The café didn't look very large from the outside, just a small door framed by two windows trimmed neatly in sky-blue paint. In front of each window stood a faded purple table with a few chairs, though at the moment nobody was sitting there. Various fliers and posters were hung up behind the glass. As they crossed the street, Sans became aware of a warm sugar smell; there, peeking out from behind the signage in the windows, were all sorts of baked goods on display.

A small bell chimed when Sirius pushed the door open. The wizard took a deep, satisfied breath—sniff, more like—and remarked, "You know, I literally have no idea when the last time I ate was."

"before, during, or after this time travel nonsense?"

"All of the above," he answered. "Though I suppose it doesn't matter now that I'm only minutes away from fresh bread and breakfast."

Despite his eager rush to get food, Sirius did spend a few minutes perusing the selections and figuring out what he could or couldn't afford with his meager sum of muggle money. He eventually settled on a simple breakfast of tea with a blueberry muffin and some fruits, even convincing Sans to choose a plain muffin for himself. While he didn't quite understand how a skeleton was able to eat, he did know that they could and, as such, probably should. There was a small seating area in the back, so they claimed a table in the corner and sat down.

Sirius wasted no time scarfing down a few strawberries, followed by taking a huge bite of his muffin. "Flavor, how I missed you." He wasn't drooling, but it was borderline. "If only I had enough to buy some sausage. Or steak."

Ah, there it goes. Sans passed him a napkin, careful to keep his boney hand mostly hidden in his jacket sleeve.

"Thanks, Rattles."

"no big," he replied with a shrug, nibbling on his food. "so how're we doing this? you just point me in the right direction or are you tagging along the whole way through?"

"I'm coming with you."

"sure that's a good idea?"

"No," was the immediate answer, followed by, "but I'm going all the same."

Clearly this was what Sans had expected, since he didn't even bother arguing further. "okay. just drive me close enough to find it and i know a couple shortcuts we can take."

"What are you…" Sirius began, confused for a moment. Then he realized what Sans was playing at: not saying anything straight-out just in case they were overheard. "Assuming the roads are still open, right?"

"i don't see why they wouldn't be."

The wizard couldn't help but chuckle. "True. They were open by the school, after all."

"really?" Inferring that Hogwarts apparently had magic set up to prevent such travel, Sans was a bit surprised. "there's usually obstructions or something, then? i didn't even notice."

Sirius, who had been shoving more fruit into his face with reckless abandon, almost choked on a laugh. "You didn't even—Merlin, the school has some of the strongest wards in the world and you just didn't notice." A few more hacking laugh-coughs and he sheepishly corrected, "And by 'strong wards' I meant 'terrible traffic'. Naturally."

"naturally," Sans repeated, grin as snarky as ever even when shadowed by his hood.

Having both finished his muffin and eaten all the fruits, Sirius shut his eyes and sat back in his chair with a happy sigh. "Never before has such a simple breakfast tasted so good. Phew… we can set out after I'm done digesting."

"whenever. just don't go food-coma on me, 'k?"

The wizard pretended to fall asleep, fake snore and all, but had one eye cracked open and a goofy smile on his face. He went to relax again, but then he noticed that Sans had barely touched his own muffin. Rather than waste time wondering how Sans could eat food in the first place—having asked about it before and received absolutely unhelpful responses, as to be expected—Sirius instead said, "Are you not going to… oh wait, let me guess. 'You can't stomach it', right?"

With a shrug, Sans replied, "that was my gut response, honestly. what can i say, you just know me too well. do you want the rest of this?" He gestured to his muffin, basically untouched, and got a eager nod in response.

"Do I!" Sirius snatched up the pastry, but paused before gobbling it up. A touch concerned, he tore it in two and passed half back. "Eat the food, Sans."

"not 'rattles' this time?" At his friend's insistent expression, Sans sighed. "fine, fine, i got it."

After making sure the skeleton ate his half of the muffin, Sirius finished his portion and stood up. "Right. Time to get down to business."

"right."

It was a quick trip back to the Apparition point, uneventful if you didn't count Sirius's occasional quiet, eager, and just-this-side-of-maniacal chuckles, and once safely within its concealing wards the first thing Sans did was yank off the socks and chuck them back at Sirius. The wizard's attempt at catching them failed and they hit his chest with a disappointing paff sound.

"those were a pain to deal with. thanks an' all, but next time we need to sneak out in public let's be a bit better prepared."

Sirius stuffed the socks into one of his coat pockets with a shrug. "I thought it was clever."

"then please, you walk around in socks several sizes too large and then imagine doing that but also you have no skin and it's vital to keep them from slipping down."

"Ooh…"

"yeah. clever, not really fun."

There was a pause as Sirius thought to himself, and then he decided: "We're going to need to get you some pants. At least until I work out a seamless glamour for you."

"a what?" Sans asked, interested.

"A glamour, but that's Future-Sirius's problem." He smirked and grabbed Sans's shoulder, destination selected, and a shiver of foreign magic raced through his limb. "Current-Sirius has a ministry to invade!"

The skeleton rocked back on his feet, shooting his friend a grin of his own. "i think the word you're looking for is 'infiltrate'. you're not takin' us straight to center stage, are ya? that'd be a show stopper."

"For who?"

Sans's grin became a touch sharper. "depends how it plays out, don'tcha think?"

And silently, without flash or fanfare, Sans let the shortcut complete and the pair vanished.

=X=X=X=

Magic saturated the air.

To a degree, at least. There was certainly more magical energy drifting around here than at the café, though not as much as he had felt at the school the night before. Compared to the Underground, however… Sans wasn't overly impressed. He spread his senses, following to the higher concentrations of energy down past his feet, through the building they were standing on, and into the ground.

"rooftop, huh?"

"All the better to lurk from, Rattles."

Indeed, Sirius had led them to the rooftop of an old office building. Had they appeared a meter to the left they would have been stranded mid-air four stories above unforgiving ground. Sans peered over the edge, even as he kept scanning the area. It was a boring, empty street lined by off-white buildings, the occasional piece of stray garbage, and a few posters. Plus a single, glaringly red telephone booth right at the halfway point. Even without the magical bubble it sat in, it really stood out.

Of course he wasn't here to stare at telephone booths, no matter how red, so he again turned his attention to the mass of magic below. It was a confusing jumble of magical signatures: what it lacked in power it apparently made up for in sheer variety. Each witch, wizard, spell, and ward had subtle nuances that were blurring together. Trying to find just one in that mess was like trying to find a needle in a haystack when every straw in the pile had been painted shades of silver.

In other words, for Sans, not that difficult. He'd had plenty of practice detecting SOULs that basically didn't even exist while surrounded by much more potent magical energies, after all.

A few seconds later and he zeroed in on a faintly familiar signature. It had a ting of something distinctly Sirius, but otherwise reminded him a bit of the forested area around Snowdin: magic without direction. Which made sense, he supposed, given that a wand was a tool and wouldn't have any direction till somebody pointed it in one.

"i think i found your magic stick," said Sans, ignoring his friend's huffed complaint about terminology. With a thought he cast out a shortcut, locking on to the signature, and took a sneak-peek at the area on the other end. "they must've chucked it in an old closet or something, since the room doesn't look like it gets all that much use."

"How do you know that?"

"checking through a shortcut, duh."

Sirius may or may not have immediately begun considering the benefits of long-distance scouting when laying traps and pranks. "So then… is the coast clear?"

Sans refocused his attention on the distant storage room and, after a moment's consideration, nodded. "seems so, though…" he paused and double checked, "i think there might be a dormant detection thingamajig somewhere in there."

"A 'thingamajig', Rattles?"

"hey, it's a perfectly cromulent word." It looked like the wizard was going to remark further on his choice of words, so Sans added, "oh, and there's magical doohickey on whatever it's in."

"Well, I've never really been much for planning—"

"i can tell."

He continued on as if Sans hadn't said anything: "—so lets get in there and play by ear."

With a shrug, the short skeleton grabbed his foolhardy friend's elbow. "alright, but i don't have ears."

Their surroundings changed instantly, abruptly flicking from one to the next, and Sirius promptly fell flat on his face. Doing so was a feat in and of itself, given that the storage closet was just barely large enough to pull it off. It was dark and chock full of crooked shelves, dusty crates, and precariously stacked boxes. Sans, not at all bothered by the dark given that he never really had eyes to begin with, found the bin in question: turns out it was a small chest with an arched lid, looking for all the world like a miniature treasure chest. He gave it an experimental shake. It certainly sounded like it was full of sticks, so that's a good sign. Sirius groaned, sat up, and delicately pinched at his nose.

"I was not prepared for that." His voice was distinctly more nasal than usual as he continued nursing his injured schnoz. "Ooh, this stings."

"bee reasonable, sirius. does it really bug you that much?"

That earned a snort and a rapid topic change. "Have you found it yet?"

Sans gave the chest another shake for emphasis and replied, "yep, think so. see the doohickey i mentioned?" He pointed out the rather large engraved blob of silver covering where the latch would be.

"It's dark. I see an indistinct rectangle where I assume your hands are." Mostly blind, Sirius reached forward and slapped his hand into the box with more force than intended, smacking it out of Sans's hands. It hit the ground with a distinctly anticlimactic thud. It was, however, enough to spook his disoriented friend. The skeleton watched a now startled and blind Sirius jerk back into a shelf, setting of an impromptu chain reaction of chaos so hilariously perfect he had to wonder if it was all set up.

When Sirius knocked into the first shelf, it dislodged a box from the top that dropped onto one end of a long wrapped-up something. The wrapped-up something then catapulted a bundle of scrolls over their heads which smashed through some stacked crates on the other side. Of course as the crates fell they pulled down a long wire strung up between the rest of the shelves; he wasn't sure what the wire would have been for if not collapsing all the shelves, which it did tidily. The bottom of the shelves hit any boxes that had been stored on the ground around them, crushing and scattering whatever they had held.

So finally, once the dust settled and Sans (taking pity on his friend) summoned a ball of blue-white magic bright enough to see by, the shelves and crates and boxes were strewn about on the floor in a rough loop. There was way more crap now, though that was probably because it had lost any semblance of order it ha— wait… yes, he counted the shelves again and found that there were definitely more than there had been. Interesting.

"why spawn in another shelf? is it purely to mess with us?" Sans mused, also spotting several new boxes.

It was then he noticed that, well, a lot of things had been added. From just a quick glance, new additions included confetti, a large wheel of cheese, flying origami dragons, more confetti, a wardrobe, several decorated eggs of various sizes, brightly colored streamers, and what sounded like a particularly insistent duck. Plus pretty much everything on one half had been splattered with technicolor paint. Running a quick scan to find the chest with Sirius's wand again—under a fresh pile of snow—he noticed that the detection thingamajig from earlier had been activated. And, apparently, it had something to do with the duck. Weird, but still not a good sign.

Sitting down on the chest, Sans blinked at the now completely spastic closet space. He broadly gestured at it with both arms, expression openly incredulous as he turned to his friend. "what even are wizards, sirius."

Sirius, stuck back on the ground, was distracted by a paper dragon currently attempting to maul his knee. "This looks like something we…" He paused and poked it thoughtfully. "You know what, actually… Did they store my wand in with old Marauder things?! How the did they even get some of this stuff?"

"so this is your fault, then. the marauders were your little school prankster gang right?" He looked around at the chaotic mess in new light, appreciating the prank potential of most of what he saw (though the cheese still confused him). "you've mentioned them before."

"Perpetrators of some of the best wizarding nonsense, yes," Sirius replied, smiling fondly as he thought back to some of his favorite years. "James and I brought our pranks with us when we became Aurors, of course. To be honest, I'm just surprised they ended up in storage and not the rubbish bin."

Before the skeleton could ask anything else or return attention to the still-closed chest, the door burst open, spilling a rather sizable pile of glitter into the hallway. Standing framed in the warmer light from outside was an elderly wizard with fluffy white hair. He wore a well-worn gray suit and a bow tie patterned with planets: an interesting choice that Sans couldn't help but like and Sirius completely missed. They stared at each other, a silent standoff, and it really wasn't clear who was more surprised: finder or findees.

After a moment, a voice down the hall called, "So what was it?"

Sans was a split second from getting them the heck out of dodge.

But then the old man calmly turned away and answered whoever it was with a smooth, bold-faced lie. "Nothing. One of the higher shelves broke and spilled a slew of marbles."

"Oh Merlin, seriously?"

(Sans couldn't help but snort.)

"Yes. It looks like they triggered quite a few other old spells when they fell." He crossed his arms and regarded the escaped convict and skeleton curiously, though his voice retained the vaguely disgruntled tone he had adopted for his fib. "It might take me a while to tidy up."

"Well, nothing for it, I suppose," the voice said, and the subject was dropped.

They continued to stare at each other. Then the old man stepped inside the closet, letting the door click shut behind him. Sirius wasn't doing much besides looking confused and, in fact, couldn't figure out how to react. Since everyone but him seemed content to just size each other up, Sans took it upon himself to figure out what was going on.

"who're you?"

The older wizard ignored him for a moment in favor of finding a decently large crate to sit on. He carefully lowered himself onto it, one wrinkled hand pressing on his aching lower back as he settled himself. A relaxed smile creased laugh lines around his eyes and he lightly quipped, "It is polite to introduce yourself before asking another's name, is it not? Mine happens to be Mark Perkins."

"i'm sans." He had tossed a mental coin and decided to see how it all plays out. "sans the skeleton."

"A pleasure to meet you then, Sans. I can't say I've met a skeleton before; Inferi tend not to be much for speaking, obviously."

"…'inferi'?"

"Re-animated corpses," Perkins supplied with a dismissive shrug, "but clearly you're not some mindless zombie. And we're getting off topic regardless."

"Alright, I'm pretty darn confused right now. Are you confused?" Sirius addressed Sans, seemingly having finally regained his ability to speak. "I'm a supposed criminal wanted for murder and treachery, and you're literally nothing but bones… And he's just going to sit there?"

Perkins sat back slightly, amused. "Indeed I shall. You don't work in the government for over seventy years and not figure out how bloody backwards it all is: especially if you survived two Wizarding and World Wars."

"But—"

"I'm an old man, Sirius Black," he cut in, voice soft but determined. "I'd like to think I can tell an honest man from a liar."

Sirius looked pretty unconvinced, crossing his arms defensively and shifting around on the floor enough to put himself slightly between Perkins and Sans. He wanted to believe the elderly wizard, but given the circumstances…

"well hey," said Sans with a shrug, "he has a cool bow tie. can't go wrong using that as a basis for trust."

And, I mean, can't really argue with that.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

In case you're curious, Perkins is actually in Harry Potter. He works under Arthur Weasley in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic. Plus he's the guy who gave the Weasleys their bigger-on-the-inside tent, so I figure he must be a pretty cool guy.
Anyway, despite an unexpected encounter, it seems their visit is going pretty well. In fact, that unexpected encounter could prove pretty helpful later on.
Also, bow ties are completely trustworthy trustworthiness indicators. Trust me.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! You all are freakin' awesome. It's a fact.
Don't forget that this fanfiction updates on the first of every month, so no worries!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!