Chapter 21: Are We There Yet?

The next day found Sans being dragged reluctantly from his floor-mattress at what he considered to be a far too early hour: any time before noon. Sirius was doing the dragging, naturally.

"Hurry up!" he pestered, sitting the bedraggled skeleton at the dining table. Although, given his disguise was currently on, he looked like a drowsy kid instead; the glamour did a remarkable job simulating the disarray of just-woken-up hair. "Faster! We need to get going!"

"quit-it-tch," Sans said, managing a pun despite being only half awake. "i'm up, aren't i?"

Remus, who was sitting with one of the books from the library propped open on the table, teasingly asked, "Well, it's actually hard to tell. Are you?"

"arguably, yes." When he sat down, a plate of plain toast and three sausages appeared on the table. He muttered a quick thanks to Kreacher; the elf's opinion of him had taken a sharp turn after the Horcrux incident, and he had apparently decided that Sans was his responsibility.

Sirius, whose meal had been provided somewhat more grudgingly, was shoveling his own food into his face far faster than was recommended. Though he said nothing, Remus looked a peculiar mix of impressed and vaguely disgusted. And maybe a bit concerned that his friend would end up choking on something. He didn't choke, thankfully, but that meant he finished long before Sans had made his way through a single piece of toast.

He glanced up to the grandfather clock in the drawing room, just barely visible through the ceiling's gaping hole. "Oh pixie poop, it's already past ten?"

"it's only past ten?"

"That it is," Remus replied, shooting his antsy friend a look before calmly turning another page of his book. "And you should know the game doesn't actually start until much later. Even I know that."

Sirius seemed largely unconvinced, but he did take a breath and try to settle. Kind of. He wasn't very successful, but it's the thought that counts. "But what if something happens?"

"if something happens, something happens." Pushing the rest of his breakfast away—leaving two and a half sausages and most of his toast untouched—Sans shrugged. "we'll help when we get there and we'll get there soon enough. so don't get your dress in a twist."

"It's a robe, not a dress."

"i call 'em like i see 'em, paddy-paws."

Remus, who tended to favor more muggle fashion, snorted in amusement. Then, when Sirius shot him a vaguely annoyed glare, he simply turned the page and tried to appear nonchalant. Keyword there being 'tried', obviously.

With a disdainful sniff, doing his best to imitate a puffed-up pureblood, Sirius said, "Just because you never learned to appreciate the effort that goes into looking this good—"

"sirius." Sans shook his head slowly, then gestured to what the wizard was wearing. "in case you didn't notice, your pants are on the wrong way 'round."

He looked down at himself. "Oh, so they are."

The condition of his trousers was easily fixed right then and there with a quick flipping charm; it probably took more effort for Sans to resist the urge to pluck at the magic and make the flip vertical rather than horizontal, but he managed. After all, as hilarious as it might be to induce sudden head-pants… well actually, the more he thought about it the more it seemed like a lost opportunity.

Oh well.

Pants on correctly and food eaten, Sirius returned to pestering Sans to hurry up.

Currently being poked, the disguised skeleton sighed. "do you even know where we're going?"

"Yeah, duh." Sirius gave him a look that asked if he thought he was stupid or something. "The Quidditch World Cup, obviously. I've only been talking about it since you woke up."

"that… that wasn't helpful, paddy-paws."

"He's asking if you know where it is being held," Remus filled in, recognizing the communication disconnect.

Suddenly Sirius looked rather sheepish. "Ah. So you see, well, not exactly…"

"so you have no clue." Sans sighed. "great."

Their resident werewolf swept into the conversation once more by smacking Sirius over the head with a rolled up newspaper; he ignored the muffled complaints from enchanted ink and paper. The largest headline, with little stylized brooms swooping in and around the letters, quite clearly spelled out everything they needed to know.

"Ah-hah, see?" Sirius celebrated (quietly, by his standards). "Simple, we'll just ask this magic paper how to get there."

Sans snorted. "and by 'ask' he means 'just read that headline'."

Of course, it turns out that the headline article was only sort of helpful, since Sirius didn't recognize any of the location names it had listed. He glared down at the newspaper, as if personally offended by its lack of convenient answers. Remus rolled his eyes and, apparently having predicted this exact scenario, he whacked Sirius over the head with yet another rolled up piece of paper: a map.

"You're a lifesaver," Sirius praised, though he did move his chair out of hitting range just in case. The map was marked with where the Quidditch stadium actually was, as well as a number of spots were Portkeys had apparently been set up earlier in the day to deliver people there.

Reading the map himself, Sans curiously asked, "what are 'portkeys'?"

"Items bespelled to warp whoever is touching it to somewhere else." With a shrug, Remus turned back to his book. "I never liked traveling by Portkey."

"So can you get us there, Rattles?" asked Sirius, looking to his conveniently-skilled friend.

Sans tapped the map at about where they were, then traced his finger over to the place marked as the stadium. "dunno, but probably not. i can only take shortcuts to places i've been before or places that i can figure out precisely where it is relative to me. the map's not got a legend, so it's no good."

"Augh, really?"

"yes, really."

Sirius flopped his head down onto his crossed arms in disappointment. "So now what?"

With a shrug, Sans replied, "you're the idea guy, aren't you?"

"You know," he said, shifting so that he could peek at the disguised skeleton despite still squishing his face onto his arms, "you have a remarkable amount of faith in my idea-making skills."

"it's got me this far."

The wizard stared down at the map for a few minutes, willing a solution to just come to him. No such luck, unfortunately. Even sitting up didn't seem to get his brain juices flowing any better.

"Merlin's beard, this is getting me nowhere," he complained, scrubbing one hand through his shaggy hair in distress.

"But you two need to get somewhere, Padfoot," Remus said, tone somewhat teasing. "Nowhere won't help here."

"and really," continued Sans, "there're heres and nowheres everywhere, so somewhere has to be where heres and nowheres aren't. easy."

Sirius shot them a tepid glare, but he must not have been bothered by their wordplay since he couldn't resist adding his spin. "Since this is getting me nowhere, let's go somewhere."

Sans asked, "where?"

Standing up, Sirius pointed to one of the marks on the map and replied, "There."

Just to finish it off, Remus asked for confirmation. "Here?"

"Yes, yes, that spot right there." Without checking to see if they followed him out, Sirius walked away. From the hallway, he called back, "Let's get going sometime this decade, please."

To Remus, Sans quietly rhymed, "that's fair, i'm aware… though i don't care."

The werewolf snorted in amusement before waving them off; he was quite content to remain cozy in the house with a book and a nice cup of tea, forgoing the Quidditch World Cup altogether. It wasn't that he disliked the peculiar flying sport, he just knew where his priorities lay: staying in and relaxing the day away.

Which made Sans a little jealous, to be honest. But never mind his personal laziness, he had a hard-headed wizard to keep out of trouble. So, waving his own goodbye, Sans followed Sirius.

As he walked out, Sirius made sure to grab the much-too-large pointed hat that was hung beside the door. He plopped it on his head and felt the wash of glamour magic sweep over him, changing his facial structure ever so slightly and dyeing his dark hair into light brown curls. A wave of his wand transfigured his robes to complete the look, meaning obnoxiously bright colors. It obviously was not as drastic a change as the one enchanted into Sans's silver bracelet, but it did the trick.

The pair walked down the front steps and beyond the boundary of the Fidelius, and then Sirius held out his hand. "I'll take us the rest of the way."

Sans eyed the hand skeptically. "using your 'apparate' thing?"

"Oh come on, Sans," Sirius said, tone teasing. "It's not like I'll splinch you."

That statement was not very reassuring. Not least of all because Sans didn't actually know what splinching even was, and, from context, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. At least not before taking the metaphorical leap. Still looking very unsure about this whole idea, he took Sirius's hand.

With a smile that was probably more scheme-y than intended, Sirius said, "Right, so you're going to feel an odd sort of squeezing sensation."

"that sounds—"

But Sirius didn't give his reluctant friend enough time to finish what was sure to be a snarky reply. With a quick spin and a sharp snap, the pair vanished from the street.

A second later, Sans decided that Apparating is one of the absolute worst ways to travel.

The world shut into darkness, completely black nothingness tightening down on him from all sides. His magic was being pulled in to a single point, compressed to near vanishing, and that brought with it a strangled pain. It felt as if he was being ground to dust. He would have thought himself dying, if he hadn't been so intimately familiar with that sensation. All at once, the point his magic was collapsing into seemed to fold through itself.

In a rush, reality returned.

Legs buckling under him, Sans slumped down into damp grass. Or, more accurately, he mostly slumped down: Sirius still had a strong grip on his hand so he ended up dangling slightly by one arm. This was fixed with a click from his elbow as he disconnected, followed logically by him falling the rest of the way to the ground.

"we are never doing that again," Sans said with vehemence, "and i mean never."

Kneeling down beside his friend, Sirius regarded the arm in his hand. Separated from the rest of the disguise as it was, it had gone back to being bones. The rest of the glamour was still fine, if now missing one arm—at least the spell hadn't completely fallen apart after the loss of limb. Sirius prodded Sans with the skeleton's own arm a few times before the poking implement took matters into its own hand, so to speak, and smacked itself out of his grip.

"That bad?"

"worse," Sans confirmed, grabbing his arm from the ground and slipping it up his sleeve. It reattached with a satisfying pop, and he finally turned his attention to wherever it was that the horrible teleportation trip had deposited them.

It was an empty, altogether unremarkable park. The grass was wet, green, and filled with weeds. Nearly the entire field was weeds, actually, with yellow and puffed-up-white dandelions scattered quite thoroughly. But just slightly to their left, it looked as if all of the plants—weeds or grass or otherwise—had been completely squashed.

Having also given the area a quick once-over, Sirius then drew his wand and gave it a arching wave. When nothing happened, he joined his friend on the ground with a heavy sigh. "Don't really know why I thought this would be helpful," he moped.

Sans, who had been eyeing (in a sense) the squished plants, asked, "so… what did you just try and do, exactly? and why come here?"

"Portkey spot," he answered, as if that explained it all.

Which, in a sense, it did. The only problem was that, given that it was already approaching high noon, there were no Portkeys left here to hitch a ride with.

But that didn't mean there were no clues to follow, given Sans's feel for magical traces.

In fact, there was a curious magical tear in the middle of the patch of trodden grass; much like the uncomfortable inside-out folding of Apparition magic, the tear seemed to somehow rip through itself to somewhere else.

Sirius had taken to grumbling about Portkeys and activation timers and, with particular intensity, "Of course there wouldn't be any left by now, you nitwit!"

Ignoring the wizard entirely, Sans scooted his way through the weed-filled grass until he was sitting right at the edge of the optically invisible rift-to-elsewhere. It wasn't strong enough to carry him off, not by a long shot: obviously it was just leftover residue from the Portkey when it made the trip. As a test, he tentatively reached out toward the old trace of magical transportation with his own shortcut.

The end of the shortcut briefly vanished beyond his perception, but after a moment, like a lens coming into focus, he could begin to make out somewhere else. Another field, to be precise, though it looked to have far fewer weeds than the one they were sitting in currently.

"hey," he said, waving for Sirius to come closer. Once within grabbing range, Sans snagged Sirius's wrist and, streaming the images directly mind-to-mind, shared what he was seeing at the other end of the shortcut. "does that look right to you?"

It took Sirius a moment to reorient himself, given half of his vision had just been replaced with whatever was going on somewhere else. And, to his surprise (and happy relief), that somewhere else looked be be exactly where they wanted to be: he was sure that he could make out tents farther off past the trees. As if in response to that thought, the image blurred and zoomed to a new location amidst what was certainly a massive slew of magical campsites.

"Yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, that's definitely the right place!"

Sans nodded, glad to hear that, and then shifted the far end of the shortcut again to find a more discrete entry point. "have all your pieces in order?"

Sirius snorted, his good humor well and truly returned now that the plan was back on track. "You're the one always falling apart, Rattles."

"good point." Pretending to take that joking remark under careful consideration, Sans made a show of double checking that he did, indeed, have all of his fingers, toes, and limbs.

And, with no further discussion, Sans whisked them away.

=X=X=X=

The next order of business, Sirius knew, was to find Harry.

Given the huge crowd of wizards and witches hanging about their tents in what was, as far as he was concerned, a near infinite expanse of campsites… finding one boy could be a bit of an issue.

Then again, he did have something that should be useful.

As Sans curiously scanned the milling magicals—either impressed by the numbers or maybe just uncomfortable, it was sometimes hard to tell with him—Sirius pulled out a mirror from one of his pockets. It warmed in his hand as he attempted to open the connection with the other mirror.

It took a moment, but then the glass rippled and his reflection was replaced by someone else.

"Hello, Harry!" he happily greeted.

The boy looked at him, expression confused and increasingly concerned. "Uhm, w-who are you?"

Sirius adjusted his floppy hat and smiled as if he had just received a fantastic compliment. "Yes, my disguise is quite fabulous, isn't it?"

Harry's eyes grew wide with understanding. "…Wait— you're Sirius?!"

Another voice on the other side of the mirror—it was probably Ron—asked, "Serious about what, Harry?"

Unintentional or not, that pun could never get old.

"Serious about him being Sirius!" This, naturally, cleared nothing up. In another accidentally unhelpful attempt to explain, Harry added, "He's Sirius!"

A voice that he recognized as belonging to Hermione called halt to the ridiculous confusion. "Seriously, you two!"

"no, no," Sans spoke up, staying out of sight on the mirror but unable to resist word play. "only one person here gets to be sirius, and he's pretty much the least serious man i've ever met."

"Thank you, I do try."

Harry seemed to finally gather his wits. "But, well… is it really you?"

Before he could get an answer, it seemed that Hermione and Ron had sorted out their end of the confusion. They peered in from the edge of the frame, and Harry readjusted so that they would be included better. When they saw what Sirius now looked like—not only not the frazzled, near-mad man from the end of last school year, but looking like someone else altogether—they were positively gobsmacked.

Sirius was quite disappointed that nobody had a camera on hand: those expressions were hilarious. "And hello to you two as well, Hermione, Ron."

"Bloody hell," said Ron, suitably impressed. "How'd you manage that?"

Hermione waved the question away before he could get a reply. "He's just going to say something like 'with magic, naturally', thereby leaving us curious but answerless."

"with magic as an option, would anyone ever get a response other than that?" Sans asked.

"Anyway…" Somebody had to bring the conversation back around, and frankly Sirius was surprised that it was him. "Do you know where you are?"

Harry looked around himself, then said, "I've no clue. I know how to get back to camp, but other than that…"

"Our camp's at the north edge of the field," Hermione provided, her answer being significantly more useful. "Near the woods."

Sans got a distant look in his eyes, one that meant he was looking out elsewhere through a shortcut.

Since that probably wouldn't be enough to find their campsite, Harry added, "We have two tents, and they look completely ordinary on the outside—a sort of off-white canvas…" He paused, sighed. "But I suppose most of the tents around are like that so that probably doesn't help."

"We'll head that way, and hopefully it'll all work out." With a smile and a quick goodbye, Sirius cut off the mirror call. He turned to Sans and was about to say something, but was cut off when the world shifted around him: a shortcut with no warning given.

"this should be the north edge, i think."

And that was all the explanation Sans gave for the sudden location change.

An unexpected shortcut was infinitely better than unexpected Apparition (given Sirius didn't feel like barfing out all of his insides), but that doesn't mean he wasn't disoriented. Actually, he was very disoriented: it took him a moment to regroup. "Give me some warning next time, Rattles."

Picking a direction to start walking, Sans just shrugged. "no promises."

They made their way through the crowded tents, scanning the people nearby for any familiar faces. Sans was also scanning in a more magical sense: he might not be familiar enough with the kids to be able to pick out their signature out from far off, but within a certain distance it would be no problem.

Though that range turned out to be unnecessary.

Apparently their chosen direction had been a lucky guess, since it wasn't too long before Sirius caught sight of somebody he recognized.

"Arthur!" he called, speeding up and waving for the attention of a redheaded wizard who seemed to be attempting to light a fire. He was holding the match the wrong way. "It's been ages!"

The wizard, Arthur, glanced up in confusion and blinked at the stranger with the colorful robes and floppy hat. "Uh, hello?"

Sirius barreled on with a smile. "Hello, indeed! Last I saw you, you were covered in glitter and paint. Hope it wasn't too difficult to clean out."

It seemed that Arthur just became more and more confused with every passing moment; he looked quite discombobulated by the whole thing. "Er, glitter and paint?"

Taking pity on the poor man, Sans provided, "back at the start of the summer."

That seemed to be enough for him to make the connection. "Oh, yes. That. It worked itself out after an hour or so."

"Good to hear, I—"

"Now wait a minute!" Arthur interrupted, before he could be conversationally swept away. "I don't mean to be rude, but… who are you?"

"Patrick Pawdy, at your service," Sirius introduced himself. "But you can call me Paddy."

Sans, who hadn't known about this fantastically named alter-ego, tried not to laugh.

By now, Arthur Weasley was very confused indeed. But before he could ask further questions, he was interrupted by a happy shout and a trio of curious children. Harry was grinning like a loon.

"You're actually here," said Harry, tone somewhere between plain joy and disbelief.

"Are you really—" Hermione began to ask, before realizing it might not be a good idea to blurt out that someone who was officially a wanted man was right there. So she stuttered to a stop mid-sentence.

It was Ron who picked it back up, taking advantage of the same word play that had thrown them all off earlier to ask for confirmation without giving anything away. "I can't believe you Sirius-ly did that."

"oh, you know what they say," Sans spoke up, signature grin in place. He gestured to the outfit of crazily clashing colors Sirius was wearing. "colorful is the new black."

Harry, having apparently not even noticed he was there, blinked at him. Then he blurted out, "You're even shorter in person!"

"hey, good things come in small packages."

Thinking back to some of the letters she had gotten as she looked between Harry and the kid with snow-white hair, Hermione connected the dots. "You're Rattles?"

"Him?" Ron sounded very much like he couldn't believe it. "You mean he's the one who… You know…"

With a cheeky grin, Sans nodded. "the name's sans. rattles is just a nickname."

Shame that his glamour was still insubstantial, otherwise he'd offer for a handshake; the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick is always funny.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Happy New Year! May 2018 be better than 2017 has been. And also better than 2016 was. Actually, let's just hope it will be a good year, and ignore, for the moment, the years that came before. As a new start, ya know?

Thanks to everyone for enjoying this story! I love reading all the reviews, or even just seeing the alert that somebody favorited or followed. It's good to know what people think of my writing.

GuestWho: Snape's a smart guy, and definitely more observant than is likely helpful for sneaky skeletons. But then again, Sans is coming in as a first year. We all know what he thinks of his students' capabilities.

Myth: So, Time-Turners. They won't really come up in this story, but they are kinda interesting when it comes to paradoxes. Sans can feel if one is activated (or had been, once the person arrives in the 'past') and thus knows the duration of the Time-Turned… uh, time. But I don't think Time-Turners actually change the timeline, not like RESETs. It's a closed loop: the person traveled back, so there was never a timeline where the person didn't travel back.
And the CHECKs that Sans have been using are, in my mind, a simpler version. It just looks at the SOUL for qualitative data rather than the quantitative stats (that's the HP, LV, AT, and DF stuff). Quantitative is used more in fights.

Jyx The Berserk: I admit, I don't really know what you mean by 'operation Quidditch Clutch'. But ideas are always good!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!