Chapter 15: Tea Time

Somehow Sans hadn't gotten any of the glitter on him. Any of it.

This somewhat miffed Sirius, since it meant he had missed half of his targets. Clearly his skeletal friend was a very sneaky little bugger. Sneaky and maybe a bit paranoid. It's not like Sans had been told there would be a magical glitter cannon in the front hall to welcome them back. It was supposed to be a surprise!

A fun, colorful, sparkly, difficult to clean surprise!

But alas, the snowy white hair of his disguise remained glitter-free. Another attempt, another failure (though funny), and Sans was still un-pranked.

For now.

Remus, however, had been hit. And while his long-time friend had managed to fling most of his welcoming surprise right back in the prankster's face, a sizable amount still hit home.

"I should have expected this," sighed Remus, but there was laughter in his voice.

Sirius trotted down the front stairs, completely ignoring both the rain and the glitter he was now soaked in. His smile was so wide it threatened to split his face it two. "Ah, but Moony— It wouldn't have been near as fun if you'd known!"

"A valid point." The werewolf uselessly brushed at his clothes: despite the puffs of sparkles coming off with each pat, the amount on him didn't actually change.

"hey, so, not to rain on your parade, but…" Sans waved broadly at the wet weather, artificially glittering puddles and all. "this puts a bit of a damp-er on things, don't it?"

Squinting up into the clouded gray sky, Sirius nodded. "So wet, dark, and dreary out here. At least it's dry inside!"

"most of the time."

It had been a spur-of-the-moment prank, launched when they were cleaning out the dusty bedrooms. There had been floating buckets, dancing mops, rainbow water, and a lot of, well, splash damage.

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "Most of the time."

Remus followed the pair inside, taking in the interior and deciding that, honestly, Sirius's two word description was all that was needed: dark and dreary, indeed. Although he would also add that it smelled like mildew and sadness. And maybe madness—the bad sort, in particular—but he wasn't quite sure what that smelled like.

Bitter and metallic, maybe. Unsettling.

As Remus walked down the hall, he became aware of an unfriendly gaze watching him—not threatening, really, but far from welcoming. The werewolf tried to subtly glance up the stairs, where the feeling seemed to be centered, and looked eye to bloodshot eye with a scrawny house-elf. A single burning glare, and then the creature simply vanished with a snap.

"I'm guessing that was Kreacher," he remarked, sounding a touch surprised. "From the horror stories you told in school, I would have thought our meeting wouldn't have gone so well."

Sirius cocked his head, looking pretty surprised himself, before glancing to the now-empty top of the stairs as well. "Honestly, I was expecting… I don't know. Shouting, at least." A shrug, and he added, "I mean… well, Merlin; the bugger yelled like crazy when he first met Sans. A repeat performance was expected, even if he's somehow getting more tolerable by the day."

"hey, he had an inexplicable grudge against me. can't say that about everyone."

With a look that suggested he very well thought he could, Sirius shepherded his two friends into the dining room. There, much to his surprise, he found a tray of biscuits, a steaming teapot, and three teacups. Kreacher had apparently decided to be a little more than just barely civil. Of course, the snacks were inconveniently set in the center of the broad table, but they were there.

Sans looked pretty smug.

"Maybe he poisoned them," Sirius mused, mostly kidding.

"don't worry, i'll eat some first."

Remus, not following how risking poisoning could help, asked as much. "How would that help?"

There was a glint in Sans's eyes, a sure sign of impending puns. "let's just say i have a gut feeling that i can in-test the food safely."

"'In-test'?"

"like 'ingest', but i'm testing the food," Sans explained. "i thought about going with 'in-test-ine', but it's like double the joke this way."

The disguised skeleton made a show of reaching across the table to grab the closest cookie, inspected it in a distinctly sarcastic way, then stuffed it in his face. He washed it down with some of the tea and remained completely un-poisoned.

Sirius still didn't look like he trusted the whole set-up, but Remus somewhat hesitantly poured a cup for himself and took a sip.

"this would be when i should fake passing out, maybe fake some painful groans…"

Remus, quietly smiling, shook his head. "No, no, no. Allow me." He cleared his throat once before, in the most disinterested tone possible, stating, "Arg, oh, the pain. Hnrg. Distress and other such complaints."

"It was a valid concern!" Sirius objected.

"sure it was."

Sharing a laugh at Sirius's expense, Remus and Sans clinked their teacups together as a toast to messing with friends. It took a bit more pestering (and a few baked goodies thrown in his direction) before the paranoid prankster finally took a biscuit for himself, and they could settle in to snack time.

"So," Remus hesitantly began, once they were fed and watered. His voice was a bit unsteady, nervous, but he had decided it needed saying. "I'm… I'm sorry. It was my fault, and when I heard what had happened after I… uhm," he pointedly drifted off, shooting a look at Sans.

"He knows," said Sirius, answering the unasked question.

"He knows?!"

"about your furry problem?" Sans shrugged. "no big. i'm weird and my friends are weird, so what's one more?"

The tingles of betrayal that had curled around his heart fizzled as fast as they had begun, and Remus couldn't help but stare at the pale kid sitting beside him. "You— What? But I'm a—"

"—werewolf, right?"

Stunned, he just nodded. Sirius looked like it was all he could do not to burst into giggles.

Looking completely nonplused, as if befriending dangerous beasts that could tear him apart was something he just did on a daily basis, Sans said, "yeah, that's fine."

"'That's fine'?" Remus squeaked, voice momentarily too confused by that point to figure out how to sound normal.

Sirius couldn't help it. Really. He all but collapsed out of his seat, his laughter proving too much for his chair to handle. Even Sans chuckled a little bit, though more because of Sirius's antics than the confusion Remus still felt stuck in. At a loss for what to do, Remus just watched his friend—no, both of them: his friends—laugh and smile and, after a moment, he realized that he was smiling with them.

"hey, don't forget to breathe, paddy-paws."

"That's… still good… good advice." Gasping for breath—the laughing had petered off, but he was still grinning like a loon—Sirius pulled himself back upright and dusted himself off. "Don't worry, Moony. He's a good guy."

Still reeling, Remus nodded again. "I— Apparently. How did you even meet him?"

"Uhm." Sirius, not sure what else to say, took a drink from his teacup as he tried to figure out how to explain.

"it was a dark time in both of our lives," answered Sans. This caused a humored snort from Sirius to dissolve into coughing due to a rather unfortunately timed sip of tea.

"For Sirius, yes. I can believe that." Remus shot a look at his still-hacking friend as the man tried to regain control of his lungs. "But what about you?"

Sans nodded solemnly. "my life had become quite empty before he stumbled in. a real void, you could say."

At this point, Sirius decided to stop trying to not to laugh. It wasn't working anyway. Through his chuckles, he managed to say, "Well, I mean… That's one way to put it!"

"Alright, now I know I'm missing something here." Remus crossed his arms, adopting the expression Sirius had always called 'the disgruntled professor'.

"no, it was really nothing."

Regaining himself, Sirius nodded. Then, seeing his non-skeletal friend's pointed look, he decided he should probably clarify, at least a little. Despite the light tone Sans had taken, this was important. "The whole series of events is rather hard to explain. Besides—"

Something flickered in his periphery, distracting him for a moment. Both wizards glanced over, but it was just Sans grabbing another cookie from the plate. The disguised skeleton paused, suddenly the center of attention with food half way to his mouth, and then just waved for Sirius to continue.

"Er, anyway." He found his momentarily derailed train of thought. "The full story isn't mine to tell. And it's… well. It'd probably be best if you let Sans decide when to talk about it."

The mild-mannered werewolf was quiet for a moment, but in the end he agreed; he knew what it was like, before he'd had friends he could trust. "If that's—"

Another flicker and abruptly Sirius figured it out.

"Hey!"

Remus startled at the interruption—loud noises do not mix well with sensitive hearing—but it wasn't aimed at him.

"yeah?"

"You're not— The idea was to—" Sirius waved between Remus and Sans, paused, then sort of just waved randomly with greatly exaggerated distress. "The prank was for him! Not me, him!"

Sans cocked his head to the side, still grinning. "can't really aim it, ya know."

Ceasing his comedic flailing, the prankster slapped palm to forehead with a groan. "I… didn't think that through. Ignore me, Moony, for I am but a fool!" He added a few more dramatic flourishes for the sake of having a few more dramatic flourishes.

"Oh, Sirius. Padfoot." Remus rested a conciliatory hand on his friend's shoulder and slowly shook his head. "I already knew that."

"You wound me!"

Stuffing the cookie he had taken earlier into his face, Sans spoke through a mouthful of crumbs. The food, remarkably, didn't seem to effect his enunciation. "you set yourself up for that."

It was true, so Sirius just sighed. "Enough poking fun at me, you two. Let's move on to something more interesting."

There was a pause as everyone waited for somebody else to provide a topic, but Sans was still too interested in the cookies—or at least pretending to be too interested in the cookies—to initiate new conversation and Sirius was clearly drawing a complete blank. Remus realized it was up to him. Besides, he had plenty of questions.

"What happened to you after I was…" Hesitating slightly, searching for an appropriate word, he finished, "Incapacitated…?"

"I was incapacitated for a bit in there, too," Sirius began. "Basically I ran into the woods to distract you, Dementors showed up, and I passed out. Woke up locked in one of the empty classrooms. Not the greatest situation for an escapee."

"no worries, i helped."

"Yeah. Sans—" He suddenly started cracking up at his own as-of-yet unspoken joke, needing to take a second to refocus. Clearing his throat, Sirius tried again. "Sans is really good at popping in and out of places he shouldn't be."

Remus watched perplexed as the two of them shared a look. While it was almost all Sirius could do to try and hold back the giggles—key word there being 'try'—Sans had a remarkable pokerface. His broad grin made it difficult to tell what he was thinking, but even then there was a light in the his eyes that definitely meant mental laughter.

The werewolf blinked. Looked again.

It almost seemed like… there was real light in Sans's eyes.

Then the disguised skeleton yawned, eyes squinting shut and somewhat blearily back open, and it was gone.

"yep." Sans continued the story by one sentence, adding, "harry and co. had already freed buckbeak; two birds, one stone. kinda ironic when i put it that way. whatever, then we just flew outta there."

"Just… 'flew outta there'?"

Sirius nodded, then very-much-on-purpose dropped a rather dramatic remark as nonchalantly as he could: "The next thing we had to do was, of course, to break into the Ministry."

"You had to WHAT!?"

=X=X=X=

After Remus's ability to understand what had happened took that sudden nosedive into sheer confounded disbelief, it was decided that, for the sake of sanity, they would temporarily move on to other things. Which was why they were now moseying through the dusty hallway toward the stairs. Sirius was apparently doing a repeat of the tour he had given Sans, but mostly he was just chatting with Remus and only occasionally pointing things out.

"Careful," warned Sirius in a loud whisper, giving a large covered painting as much of a berth as he could manage in the small hallway. "That would be Mother's portrait. It's… Merlin, calling her 'insane' isn't nearly enough."

Sans took a wide step to the side as he passed, shaking his head slowly. "screamed a lot when we first got here. i mean really, what a poor-trait to have."

Remus snorted at the pun and followed their lead, not wanting to deal with screeching artwork. If that woman's painting was anything like the horrible mother—horrible person, really—that Sirius had described to him during their school days, they would need to figure out how to be rid of it. Permanently.

"Only stopped because Sans could probably rip her enchantment to pieces."

Which, Remus mused to himself, didn't really make much sense at all; moving portraits were a complex bit of magic. He wasn't even sure where to begin to go about undoing spellwork like that. Actually, after a brief moment's thought, he wasn't sure it could be done at all. Though from what he'd seen, impossible seemed rather par for the course now. Still, he had to know: "How would he do that? I doubt he's even gotten his Hogwarts letter yet."

Pausing partway up the stairs, Sirius considered. "Good point. I need to figure out what to do about that."

That earned the prankster a look from Sans, as well as a pointed, "oh?"

"Plans, Rattles." Sirius tapped his forehead twice, smiling mischievously. "I've had time."
Sans skeptically raised one pale eyebrow. Remus, knowing that his long-time friend's idea of a plan was far closer to just flying by the hem of his robes than anything else, mirrored the expression.

Faced with such disbelief, Sirius sheepishly amended, "…Just not quite enough to iron out all the details."

"i'd say he has maybe, oh, 5% of a plan, optimistically speaking." Sans turned to Remus and asked, "you?"

"Well, it depends on the size of the undertaking." The once-professor pretended to tally up some numbers on his fingers—counting up to three, down two, up to six, and then just abruptly landing at zero. "He seems invested in this 'plan', so we can be pretty sure he's at least named it by now."

"Hey, I'll have you know I even have a vague outline!"

Sans and Remus shared a laugh at their mutual friend's lukewarm rebuttal.

The kid had a peculiar laugh, Remus noticed. It was unexpectedly low, very much like his voice, and had an almost clattering quality on the edges. The clatter—or rattle, he supposed, given Sans's nickname—was somewhat muffled, but it very much sounded like Sans had a bag of wooden blocks and just gave it a shake with each chuckle.

At the top of the stairs, Sirius decided to simply ignore the snickers and resumed his role as tour guide. Rapid fire, he pointed out three rooms of interest.

"Bathroom there, if you need it. Next is an empty bedroom, which, like all the other unused bedrooms…" he paused, giving Remus a significant look, "…is completely available. Oh yeah, and the drawing room. Sans doesn't go in there."

"it's haunted," Sans explained, stating it like the most natural thing in the world.

"But ghosts—"

"not ghosts."

Remus, adding another mental tally to the 'Sans is a weird kid' counter, pushed open the door and glanced inside. The drawing room might once have been elegant, and he could almost see the echo of what it had once been in the dusty space. But then, there was something unsettling about it—something eerie and other and dark—that put Remus's hackles on edge. Waiting a moment longer in the doorway, he finally stepped inside, looking around the supposedly haunted space with cautious interest. Sans remained firmly rooted by the door, though Sirius, for one, didn't seem to notice any undue creepiness and just sort of plopped down on one of the couches

Still looking about, trying to pinpoint what was making him so uneasy, Remus asked, "Then what do you mean by 'haunted'?"

"well, it's not the room as a whole. more like just a small piece." Sans then pointed out a small glass case on the other side of the room. "to be specific, that small piece right there."

It was an ornate locket, resting innocently on a velvet cushion in the glass case. The poisonously green gemstones decorating the golden pendant glinted with a light all their own, like eyes staring back at him. Remus, technically a creature of the dark arts himself, could tell that the locket was positively drenched in dark magic. "Sirius, why haven't you gotten rid of this… thing? Curses are not to be taken lightly."

"It's a nasty curse, and I don't even really know what it is." Sirius explained with a shrug, peering over from his slouched position on the sofa. "I wasn't too keen on—"

Sans interrupted him. "it's not a curse."

Taken aback by the quick correction, both wizards simultaneously asked: "Wait, it isn't?"

"nope."

Staring closely at the necklace with even more trepidation that before, Remus tried to think of what else it could be to give off such an aura of dark magic. Nothing good, obviously.

"Well?" Sirius, after waiting for Sans to clarify and getting only silence, prompted, "What is it, then?"

After trying to find the proper words for a moment longer, Sans finally decided to just plow on. "it's, uh, it's like… a SOUL. or i guess maybe a soul? basically the same thing, but either way it's stuck itself to the pendant."

Silence.

"Merlin's beard, that's… If that's true…" Very slowly, Remus stepped back from the glass case.

"it is."

Growing increasingly concerned, Sirius glanced back and forth between his two friends.

"Sirius," Remus said, "I think you've got a Horcrux in your living room."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

I'll be brief, given it's already late where I am and I've been traveling all day. This chapter was written before my trip began, hence it is the usual length. Next month's chapter is, unfortunately, only half-size. The one after that will probably be on the short side as well.
Just a heads up!

Also, just noticed it's been a full year since chapter one went up, so… Happy Birthday, Under the Veil!

Updates on the first of every month.

Thanks to everyone whose taken the time to read and review or favorite or follow or… well, reading is the important one. I hope you've enjoyed it so far and continue to as it continues!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!