Chapter 16: Information Sharing

"a horcrux?" Lured in by the promise of an explanation for the creepy undead jewelry, Sans had actually entered the drawing room and joined Remus beside the small glass case.

A slow nod: the once-professor's expression was a mixture of grim disgust and horror.

With a curse (of the non-magical variety), Sirius immediately abandoned his comfortable seat on the couch, stepping between his friends and the dark artifact. It hadn't done anything yet, insofar as he could tell, but he wasn't about to let them stand so close to something—someone—with so much darkness. He had been raised as the heir to the Black family name, after all, and that meant he knew just what sort of dark magic had been cast on the ornate pendant.

Startled by the abrupt motion, Sans very nearly summoned a bone to instinctively whack Sirius's face. It was only luck and reflexes born of long, repeating fights that kept him in check. But he was unsettled: twitchy and too wound up by the dark SOUL shard, its corrupted magic hovering right at the edge of his senses in a discomfortingly familiar manner.

To be honest, when he looked at the locket… he almost expected it to be a small blood red heart.

Sirius and Remus had been going back and forth with ideas of how to deal with it, which gave the skeleton a chance to mentally pull himself back to the present, refocusing very deliberately on the immediate now.

"Unfortunately I don't have a basilisk just slithering around somewhere," Sirius was saying. Then he paused, thinking back on Harry's stories of a certain secret chamber. "None that I know of, anyway."

"right, uhm…" Sans shifted from one foot to the other, still antsy but at least no longer so close to straight-up skewering someone with bones. "quick question: what's a 'horcrux'?"

Apparently having forgotten just how out of the loop Sans could be sometimes—not to mention the fact the knowing about Horcruxes was rare enough among wizards anyway—Sirius took a moment to figure out how to phrase his reply.

Remus beat him to the punch, replying, "Dark magic, that's what it is. A Horcrux is half of a soul, split and bound by murder in pursuit of immortality. I found a reference to them when trying to find information about werew… about dark creatures. Didn't like what I found."

Unable to come up with a better description, Sirius just nodded.

Knowing what he knew about SOULs and the detection thereof, Sans frowned slightly. Then, cautiously reaching out with his magic, he tried to gauge how large the piece stuck to the necklace actually was. It definitely didn't feel like a full half-SOUL: closer to a sixth of the average, maybe. A quick mental calculation told him it was actually an eighth, given fifty percent splits.

Now in lecture-mode, Remus continued, "There aren't many ways known to be effective at destroying them, since there haven't been many wizards willing to make one."

"Thank Merlin," Sirius interjected.

Remus nodded. "Quite. However, most methods that can destroy a Horcrux do so by damaging the container so utterly that it simply cannot be repaired, by magical means or otherwise. This is understandably difficult."

"does the amount of SOUL in the thing matter with that?" Sans asked, an almost morbid curiosity spurring him to look more closely at the dark item. Despite its small size, it was very securely bound to the necklace. But then again, since he had been able to split Frisk from Chara—a significantly-larger-than-half SOUL strong enough to shape timelines—it probably still wouldn't be that hard to break off.

Remus gave him a rather confused look. "I don't quite get what you mean. I'd imagine that a more powerful wizard would leave behind a more powerful Horcrux, but what do you mean by 'amount'?"

"ya know, since it's an even split each time." In a pseudo demonstration of the division, Sans held up eight fingers, four on each hand. Next he took away four, then two, then one, which left him with just one still pointing up. "would the first one be harder to destroy than the rest, do ya reckon? i mean, it does have more SOUL in it…" He drifted off when he noticed the expression on Remus's face.

"First one?" The wizard's voice shook with unease and a certain horrified disbelief.

Sirius looked very much like he wanted to echo that sentiment, but couldn't even find the words to properly declare just how wrong the existence of even a single Horcrux was… and here the skeleton was suggesting there might be multiple!? He was left silently staring at Sans in shock.

Sans, for one, decided to just plow on and explain himself. "well, yeah. that thing's only got an eighth of a SOUL in it."

Following the line of reasoning, Remus finished, "And if the ritual splits a soul in half each time… Beside this one, there must be at least two other Horcruxes out there."

"And if there's already three," Sirius added, disgusted by the thought he was about to put into words, "then why not even more than that?"

"Merlin." It came out almost as a whisper, as if Remus could barely consider the possibility—didn't even want to consider it.

There was a sort of stunned-and-disgusted moment, the three of them just staring at the offending jewelry, before Sans finally ventured, "so… can i destroy it or…?"

Now the silence was certainly more stunned than anything else. Although Sirius just looked like he was mentally reminding himself not to have expectations about what Sans could or couldn't do.

Then there was a snapping pop and a new voice, rough with age and edged with deep distrust, joined the conversation.

"…Destroy?"

Sans took the abrupt arrival of the resident maybe-crazy house-elf in stride, covering his twitch of surprise—he still wasn't used to others being able to teleport—with a lazy yawn. The two wizards, however, very nearly jumped out of their skin. Though of course, Sans thought to himself, it's not as if he had skin to jump out of in the first place.

Kreacher, very hesitantly and still with that edge of dislike, repeated his question. "Mr. Sans thinks he can… destroy it?"

"i know i can destroy it, actually."

At this point, Remus seemed to realize just how much of this situation wasn't adding up with what he understood as 'normal'. "Okay, wait. You think you can… Actually, how'd you know it was a Horcrux in the first place?"

A long, considering blink, and Sans replied, "as ya do, ya know."

"No, actually. I don't know." Remus crossed his arms, temporarily ignoring the dark artifact, his friend, and the house-elf in favor of this new question. "Care to explain?"

"…no?"

"Classic Sans," Sirius half-joked, half-grumbled. "Explanations aren't his strong suit."

"i'll have you know i don't own a suit." With a twitch of a finger, Sans slowly lifted the Horcrux and its case into the air. It left behind the outline of a perfect square in the dust on the table. "and i never will, thank you very much. too formal."

At first Remus didn't notice the odd wandless magic going on behind him, since he was too focused on the odd person in front of him. Persons, really: Sirius shouldn't be excluded. Remus was busy working himself into a curiosity knot, with every question leading around to more and more. "And that remark about the Ministry…" He turned to Sirius. "Or scaring your mother's portrait… or— Or how you're even here?"

"There's a perfectly illogical answer to all of—"

And finally, from the corner of his eye, Remus noticed the floating case.

Sans continued his unobtrusive CHECK, thoughtfully spinning the Horcrux with a circular gesture and completely oblivious to the increasing shock he was causing by doing so. The once-professor slowly looked from the white-haired boy's waving hand to the case that followed the same motions. With no incantation. Wandless.

He took a steadying breath, and the werewolf in him once again noticed the supernatural scent. Indoors, without the rain or steaming tea to distract his nose, it was all the more noticeable: Sans simply didn't smell human.

"Who are you?" Remus asked, incredulous and reeling at the thought of inhuman. Reeling, but not scared or even really worried: mostly he was just confused and very, very curious. "Or, well, if it's not rude to ask… What are you?"

Sirius groaned. "He's on to us, Rattles. It'll be twice as hard getting a prank about you past him now. Not that it really worked in the first place, so…"

But the prankster didn't have a chance to continue moaning about lost prank potential.

"QUIET! QUIET, QUIET, QUIET!" Kreacher shrieked, his small frame shaking with a tumult of emotions.

All eyes (though one pair weren't quite as real as the other two) turned to the elderly house-elf. The wizards had forgotten he was still there and the disguised skeleton had been otherwise occupied.

Kreacher wasn't angry. He wasn't shouting hateful words or spitting curses: he wasn't even thinking them. This was too important for trivial things like that. Too important for blood superiority or creature bigotry to get in the way.

Because it was a chance to finish what Master Regulus had asked of him.

"Mr. Sans." The house-elf's voice was steady, even if his large, bloodshot eyes glistened with barely constrained tears. "You says you can destroy it."

"yes?"

Large eyes blinked shut, and quietly Kreacher pleaded, "Please. For Master Regulus."

Sirius was… well, there wasn't any other word for it but 'stunned', but that didn't seem quite strong enough. He was completely flabbergasted, shocked into disbelief; the house-elf that had always been such a nuisance, so rude and sharp-tongued in that original timeline, had just nicely asked—nicely!—for a favor. And it was certainly a favor, though Sirius wasn't sure how his brother fit in to the whole thing.

"What in Merlin's name does Reggie—" Sirius stopped, voice unexpectedly unsteady as the familiar nickname pulled at heartstrings he had thought long-since withered away, fifteen years and a timeline ago. "What did he have to do with this?"

Kreacher looked to him, eyes wide and voice hoarse as he answered, "Everything."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Super short chapter, sorry, but on the upside next month's will be much closer to the usual length. University has begun, but that shouldn't affect chapter length too much.

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