Chapter 24: Attack and Counter

Sans stalked forward, left eye socket lit with enough supernatural energy to physically crackle through the air. The magic was distorting the glamour around his face, twisting and blurring, going all the way down his chest; even his hoodie, despite being real, looked as if it were warping as the illusion stretched around and through it.

Seeing—or, perhaps more importantly, feeling that angry energy roiling through the air, Sirius decided he and the rest of the group should make themselves scarce.

Clearly Sans had business to take care of.

"Harry!" he called, hurrying over to his godson (and everyone else). "We really ought to get moving. As in, right now."

At the very edge of his hearing, despite the frantic yells and general cacophony surrounding them, Sirius could have sworn he was hearing music.

"Do you… hear something?" Hermione asked.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Besides the screaming? No, not really."

The girl huffed, but said nothing more. Sirius was secretly glad he hadn't started hearing things that weren't there. Or, well, if he had gone mad, at least he hadn't gone mad alone.

Then he felt a heavy magical weight settle over him, and was promptly reminded that they really should get to running away. Setting one hand on Harry's shoulder, he pointed in the direction that looked to be the quickest and safest escape route and began ushering everyone away.

He managed to shepherd the trio of students a decent distance when Harry abruptly realized something. "Wait!" he demanded, trying to see back the way they had come. "Where's Sans?"

Hermione gasped, glancing around and clearly hoping to catch sight of white, blue, and pink. "Don't tell me he's still—!"

"He'll be fine, trust me on that one," Sirius cut in, glad that they were at least out of sight from whatever nonsense Sans was clearly getting up to.

"What do you mean 'he'll be fine'?!" Flinging a panicked hand in the direction they had fled from, Ron was having none of that. "Those are Death Eaters out there—"

There was a sudden sense of blue—though nothing around them really looked blue—and Sirius had the inexplicable feeling that he was standing near something massive. It was sort of like the sense of vertigo when looking over the side of an abrupt hundred meter drop, except in this case the hundred meter drop hadn't been there moments before.

Alright, so it was some pretty intense nonsense.

…He probably shouldn't call it nonsense.

Harry had gone still, and so had both of his friends. "Was that…?" he began, unsure how to string the right words together to ask what he wanted to ask.

When Sirius nodded, it was with a quietly smug satisfaction. "I told you," he said. "Sans can take care of himself."

"Okay," Ron allowed, swallowing his astonishment. "You… might have a point."

=X=X=X=

Sans hadn't been this angry in a very long time.

It was cold, but it burned.

He could feel it, settling deep in his bones with a grim certainty; a familiar SOUL shaking rage that he had sometimes thought he would—could never feel again. Resets had worn him down, until everything began to feel distant. Unimportant.

Because all he could do was watch.

Watch as everything crumbled to dust around him, time after time after time.

But it would seem that he was not so numb after all.

"hey," Sans greeted, tone deceptively calm even as his magic burned through the air. He kept his head down, face hidden by his twisted glamour and the shadow of his hood. A few of the masked freaks noticed him as he approached, and, while he could read confusion in the line of their shoulders, they didn't act very worried.

Yet.

"So it seems we have a would-be hero, gentlemen," came a smooth, confident voice from amidst the masked figures. One of them stepped forward, posture practically oozing pretentious prick.

Sans zeroed in on him with a sharp glare, both eyes dark with rage. He was rewarded when the man couldn't quite keep himself from flinching back.

"i'm no hero," he said, and there was a certain bitterness in his tone. "but then i don't need to be."

With an unseen sneer that Sans could nevertheless hear in his voice, the man asked, "Well then, little boy. Tell me, what do you need to be?"

Exactly what he was: a judge.

"i have a better question," Sans said instead, slipping into a familiar script. "do you wanna have a bad time?"

The man laughed.

The skeleton just smiled.

"seriously. if you don't stop this, well…" He shook his head slowly, pulling his hands from his pockets and readying his magic. "you won't like what happens next."

In answer, the figure swiftly raised his wand. "Avada Kedavra!"

It had a sickeningly green light, a color Sans recognized as a SOUL reaching beyond itself to act directly on another. But this spell aimed to rip a SOUL from its body and so tear life from whatever it touched, the color a cruel parody to the familiar shade of kindness. A rushing sound filled the air as the unblockable killing curse swept toward its intended victim.

Dead on target.

Until Sans simply tilted his head and, for the second time in as many minutes, deflected the spell harmlessly away into the sky.

"welp, can't say i didn't warn ya."

Then he slammed his power down on all the cloaked figures, staggering them under the sudden weight. With another thought, summoned bones burst through the ground to pin them in place. It wouldn't hold long, obviously—wizards could probably pull some magic trick to just vanish them away—but it didn't need to.

Right now, it just needed to distract them.

In the next moment, while the Death Eaters still couldn't react, he flung out a hand to capture the Roberts family in a comforting cocoon of blue magic. A careful wave brought them over, behind him, and there he set them gently down.

Mrs. Roberts immediately scrambled over to her sons, frantic to see that they were alright and still breathing and alive. "Oh god, oh god," she breathed, and there were tears in her eyes. "That green light, I thought— Will, my precious little boy—"

"Mum!" Will hugged her tight. Then, with a spike of horror, realized, "You're— you're bleeding!"

She ran her fingers through his hair, soothing even despite her slight tremor. "I'll be fine, dear."

"F-f-f-fine," Miles stuttered. He couldn't stop shaking, and his whole body was still reeling from an echo of pure unrelenting pain. "B-Better b-b-be."

The father pulled his son in close, careful to be as gentle as physically possible; Miles had been hit by a sickly yellow-green light, and it had… well, Mr. Roberts might not know exactly what it had done, but he would never forget the choked screams.

The family huddled together, holding each other tightly to remind themselves that they were alive.

"everyone okay back there?" Sans asked, though he kept his back turned so he could keep an eye on their attackers.

"Mostly," Will managed. "We'll live, at least. I think."

The pure relief Sans felt at that somewhat surprised him, but this was not the time nor place to pause for introspective contemplation. Case and point, it seems that the Death Eaters had finally regrouped. Sans ducked one spell, sent three others into the ground, and froze the last mid-air by grabbing it with blue magic. It fizzled out fairly quickly.

"that's good news."

Taking a moment to consider his next move, Sans risked a quick glance back at the family. He could teleport them away, but he couldn't take the time to scout a safe location while he had to deal with— a burst of spell fire was suffocated with a flick of his wrist.

That wasn't much of an option, then. He could wind up sending them back into danger.

So. He just needed to deal with the root of the problem.

Easy enough.

First, however, he would make sure they had a shield. Just in case. With a thought, an impossibly large flat bone rose vertically from the ground between himself and the family: a shoulder blade. It should serve well enough.

And then, Sans began to walk forward.

Ah, so now the cloaked baddies are starting to get worried. As well they should be.

With a twisting grab, he pulled all of their SOULs into the visible spectrum. The campsite, which had already been quite dark, might as well have faded away entirely, leaving the cloaked figures illuminated only by the light of their own corrupted hearts.

Stars, their collective level of violence made his metaphorical skin crawl. Some were worse than others, obviously, but, as he mentally ranked them, none registered under LV3.

Oddly enough, many of the SOULs were covered in fine hairline cracks; he could feel the slight texture against his blue magic. Some of them looked faded, shadowed, losing their color to black hatred. One—and only one—bore signs of direct manipulation, its color faded and laced through with immaterial puppet strings. He made a note to treat that one carefully, and his mind flickered through memories of a red wraith clinging to an innocent child.

It was a question, lined with disturbed shock, that pulled him from his musings.

"W-What is this?"

Taking an unnecessarily long pause gave him the time he needed to carefully seek out any oddly unfocused magic signatures matching the SOULs he could see, thereby locating every wand they had available: even any spares hidden away in their cloaks.

Nearly ten seconds after the question had been asked, he shrugged. "nothin' much."

Sans recognized the smug one from earlier, still standing at the front of the group. It was a little insulting to see that the man had a cyan SOUL, though cracked with lines of pitch black. At least he was looking significantly less confident now.

"Who— What are you?"

"just a guy from outa' town," came his glib reply.

With no further warning—he had never understood why monsters never seemed to take the initiative—blue magic lashed out to grab every wand he could identify and pulled. Some managed to keep their grip, but a little over half of them had their wands yanked from their hands.

While they were still staggered, Sans summoned bones at both sides of the group and fired. It was a bit tricky to be perfectly precise, given the hoods and masks, but most shots struck his intended target: the temple. Three of the those who kept hold of their wands—and were therefore more capable—managed to cast a shield in time. The rest did not.

Death Eaters dropped like stones, unconscious.

The smug one was one of those still standing, and, to his credit, he wasted no time returning fire. Too bad for him that Sans was also a master of the strongest defense: just don't be where the attack hits.

Stepping aside, the spell flew by and splashed harmlessly against the bone shield behind him. Then he had to duck, dodging under another beam of light.

When he straightened again, he swung his arm up level with his enemies. A twist, and their SOULs chimed dark blue. The last three Death Eaters had time to gasp, feeling an unexplainable weight that was both external and yet, in some way, fundamentally internal. Sans whipped his arm toward the sky, and they were bodily launched into the air.

Naturally, he caught them before they could crash back down and end up dead. Even without that final impact, however, the sheer shock (and fear, most likely) had been enough to knock them out.

With no more conscious threats, it was simple enough to just sweep the whole contingent of Death Eaters behind a cage of bones and bundle up all the wands well out of their reach.

It was done.

Sort of. He still had one last thing to do.

Sans walked over to the downed attackers, or rather, to one specific attacker: the only one he hadn't shunted behind bone bars. Up close, he recognized slight traits on the glowing heart that told him that, despite his physical size, this person was still just a kid: definitely no older than twenty. Their SOUL was green, underneath all the compulsions. The puppet strings of another wizard's influence wrapped around it so tightly that it was closer to a vacant, washed out gray.

With a flick, casting a color he was not used to using, the strings snapped. A glow of magic that shimmered ever-so-slightly red played over the damaged area, strengthening and supporting, giving this person back their willpower.

Determination: powerful stuff, to be sure.

Finding the correct one from the bundle of confiscated wands took a minute, given how bleached of character the SOUL had become, but he was decently sure of his choice.

"wakey wakey," he said, gently smacking the previously-mind-controlled human. "you probably wanna get going before the wizard equivalent of the cops finally show up."

A groan, and the young wizard slowly raised a hand to his head. When his hand met the cool silver of the mask, he jerked upright. "What the—?!"

Sans leaned back to avoid being hit by the startled teen. "cool your jets, kiddo. you may need to take off, but no need to launch directly into my face."

He imagined that the expression under the mask was a hilarious mix of sheer confusion and… well, confusion probably just about covers it. Unless disorientation can count as a separate emotion. Either way, the teen was now glancing around with a clear lack of comprehension.

With the situation being what it was, the first thing the teen focused on was probably not the thing he should be giving priority to. "I'm older than you."

Without magic warping his glamour out of shape and rather effectively hiding his appearance, he was back to looking like a regular (though pale) eleven-year-old kid.

"But— But you're younger than me!" he continued; clearly his mind was trying desperately to catch up with the events of the past few minutes.

Rather than answer, Sans just shrugged. But the teen had already moved on to more pressing observations.

"How did you…? W-What did I do? What's going on? Who— Where—" His next partially-formed question was interrupted when he noticed the small glowing heart floating in front of his chest. "What is that?"

"that's your SOUL, but that's not important right now."

"My WHAT?!"

"like i said while you were still snoozing," Sans continued, as if that incredulous outburst hadn't even happened, "it'd be best if you got a move on."

"I'm sorry," the teen said, tone dripping with sarcasm, "Forgive me if I seem caught up on the fact that, apparently, that thing is my soul!"

Holding out his best guess for which wand was his, Sans pressed on. "this is yours, probably. now—"

The teen had a rather sudden realization. "What's it doing outside of me?!"

Really, it was as if the two of them were having two completely separate conversations. With a sigh, the disguised skeleton mimed pinching the bridge of his nose: not actually having a physical nose there made it trickier, but he was confident in his acting skills. He snapped his fingers and all the still-visible SOULs faded away.

"better?"

"Presumably," he answered, rubbing at his chest under the black cloak. "Alright then. Next question: who are you?"

Sans grinned. "i'll answer if you do."

There was a long pause, then the teen reached up and took off the mask. His young face was pulled down in a frown, but Sans was reasonably sure that was just his default expression. He pushed back his hood as well, revealing dusty blond hair in a fancy formal cut.

"Cassius," he said at last. "Cassius Warrington."

"nice to meet ya, cass." Sans enjoyed the slight consternation the swiftly-chosen nickname caused. "the name's sans. maybe i'll see ya at school later."

"School? I doubt they'll let me go back, after finding out I'm a—"

Waggling the teen's wand in his face, Sans interrupted him. "like i said, you need to skedaddle. besides, we both know you were here for, shall we say, somebody else's reasons."

Looking quite shocked—a typical response to being exposed to Sans—Cassius carefully reclaimed his wand. "How do you know…" His confusion abruptly hardened into suspicion. "What do you want?"

"do i need a reason?"

The flat look that got in response was all the answer needed.

"okay, sheesh. how about this: i don't tell on you," he waved over to the indisposed Death Eaters, "you don't tell on me. deal?"

Cassius glanced upwards, thinking it over and likely trying to figure out if there were any secret strings attached. At long last, he cautiously nodded and was about to say something… but then the words died away in his throat. Eyes wide, he stared into the sky. Sans followed his gaze.

Overhead, a terrifying image began to form: green lights and dark clouds swirling into existence, shaping themselves into an enormous skull whose jaw opened to release an equally huge snake. The mark loomed overhead, casting fear into the hearts of those who witnessed it.

It was all very impressive.

But, to be honest, Sans was in no mood to appreciate the subtle craft and power that had gone into creating that spellwork.

All he cared about was that it was making people scared.

And that, he would not let stand.

"hold that thought, cass."

He held his hands outstretched toward it, gathering focus and magic in his fingertips as he reached for the spell's structure. It was as complex as he had suspected, all twisting together as the image moved and changed. But, since he wasn't going to try and alter the spell, its complexity didn't really matter all that much. In fact, it might be a bonus: knock out the linchpin and it should all unravel.

Cracks of white began racing across the surface of the mark as Sans none-too-gently shoved his magic deeper into the construct. All the way to its core.

It was disgusting.

Of course Sans couldn't see it, given he was still standing on the ground underneath it, but the impression he got from its energy was more than enough.

"What are you doing?"

"getting rid of it."

He summoned a Gaster Blaster there, far overhead and hidden right at the center of the image; it was barely within his range, but he managed. The white breaks on the dark image widened, forced open by the new magic in its midst. Focusing on his distant summon—it was surprisingly high up there—he charged its attack.

But Sans kept its jaws closed.

Then, after another moment to build power, he detonated the blaster.

The cracks of white bloomed into true destruction with an almost victorious boom. Shattering like glass, the dark mark was torn to pieces that disintegrated as they fell from the sky.

"Gah?!"

It would seem he had confused poor Cassius, who at this point had probably experienced more emotional twists than is recommended for a span of time under ten minutes.

Sans stretched, satisfied, before returning his attention to the not-willingly-a-Death-Eater. "so do we have a deal?"

Mutely, Cassius nodded.

"cool beans."

Then, with virtually no warning at all, he opened a shortcut directly underneath the teen's feet. He fell, naturally, and vanished from the campgrounds. Addressing what now looked like just empty air (but was, in fact, empty air still connected to somewhere else entirely), Sans wished him good luck. And ignored the disoriented mess of expletives he heard in return.

Now that the excitement was over with—for reals this time, seriously—Sans realized there was yet another problem looming.

He turned to the bone shield, mostly forgotten, and dismissed it with a flick of his wrist. The family that had been huddling behind it startled, drawing closer together before recognizing him and relaxing once more.

Something very much like guilt—and he was intimately, exhaustedly familiar with that feeling—wrapped itself around his ribcage.

"…i'm so sorry," he said, after what felt to him to be a long moment. He swallowed nothing but air, but it felt heavy in his jaw. "i should have… should have…"

Mrs. Roberts shushed him. "Don't. You saved us, young man. No wondering about— about what-ifs or anything."

"but—"

"I'd s-smack you r-r-right now, if I c-could." It looked as if Miles might have tried to menacingly shake a fist at him, but given he didn't have the strength to clench his fingers together he ended up just floppily waving his hand in the air.

Will nodded, clearly understanding in some way, and asked, "Should I hit him for you?"

Sans found himself taken aback, unsure what to say.

"Look," Mr. Roberts began, drawing his two sons even closer as a fond reprimand. "What my sons are trying to say is, well… Thank you."

"i… don't know what that has to do with smacking me," he said, hesitantly.

"Boys," murmured Mrs. Roberts, quietly. Her tone was fond and tolerant, if perhaps a bit judgmental. "They're just saying the same thing I did, though less directly." She looked Sans square in the eye. "Don't blame yourself."

He almost tried to protest, but wisely stopped before the words could get past his jaw. Blaming himself came so easily, and nobody had ever… had ever known to tell him not to, because all of his failures lay in countless forgotten pasts.

Sans nodded, and that seemed to be enough.

Looking around their little group—peaceful and calm in contrast to the still-burning campgrounds—Will couldn't help but wonder, "So, what now?"

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Just imagine Megalovania playing at the barest edge of your hearing during all of this fighting. Or look up one of those 20 minute long arrangements of the song on YouTube and listen while you read. I had it playing in the background while I wrote sometimes, that's for darn sure.
In keeping with my tendency to take characters that show up for a grand total of maybe three sentences, meet Cassius. Yes, he is in the books. I think he's even on the Slytherin Quidditch team, for what that's worth. He will return when the crew gets to Hogwarts, and, given he knows at least a little bit of the great Sans Mystery™, he will definitely seek him out and attempt to get answers. Good luck, Cass. You'll need it.

Updates on the first of the month. University has been kicking my butt this semester, so the next few chapters may be a bit one the short side. We'll just have to see.
Thanks to everyone who reads and enjoys this story! Special extra thanks to people who take the time to write a review or follow for future updates! You guys are the best.

EmPro8: Sans has been dealing with his homesickness the same way he deals with a lot of pesky emotions. You know, by ignoring them. That always works.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!