Chapter 31: Midnight

Alright, that was a lie: Sans didn't actually go to sleep.

Though he would never admit it to anybody, he knew that there were actually a few things more important than sleep, and setting up some baseline plans with his partner-in-maybe-crime for the upcoming school year happened to be one of those things.

So at midnight Sans snuck past his new roommates—all snoozing peacefully—and out of the dorm. He had made sure that the curtains on his fourposter bed were drawn shut, to keep anyone from noticing his absence; plus it offered an easy entry point if he needed to pop back in for any reason.

He could probably have just popped out, actually, and taken a direct shortcut from his bed to some empty classroom where he and his friend could talk undisturbed. That would have been a good idea, save for the fact that, to be honest, he was feeling perhaps a little bit antsy after such a busy day. Sans, as he had learned ages ago, didn't do well amongst crowds of strangers; especially young human strangers.

Which might be a tad species-ist, but he thought he deserved at least some paranoia at this point.

Besides, castles were pretty cool at night.

Peaceful and dark, with only silver moonlight from the windows to light his path.

The quiet clatter of doggy paws on the stone floor told him that Sirius had followed him out. Continuing past the common area, Sans ducked out of the riddle door and into the school beyond. Sirius—still a golden retriever, of course—trotted after him with a quietly affronted bark; apparently he had only just barely got his tail clear before it shut behind them.

Together they set off down the staircase.

"alright, fuzz-butt," he said, listening to the magic in the air for any sign of patrolling faculty, "you got any idea for a safe space to chat?"

Whether as a human or as a dog, Sirius was always pretty easy to read: for example, at the moment, his expression was quite clearly the canine equivalent of 'what do you take me for, of course I do'. At the next juncture of hallways, he chose to turn left and trotted off.

Given every wall had living portraits that could probably snitch on sneaking students, it was unexpectedly easy to get around without being spotted. Mostly because those portraits, for some reason, apparently slept at night. Only once did Sans have to grab Sirius by the tail and pull him back into a niche to hide, as ahead of them a pearlescent ghost drifted through the stone.

They had waited for a long moment, just in case, then continued on their way. Another left and a right later, and Sans realized just where the dog had led him.

"really?" he asked, stepping past to get a look at the room. "back to your one-time temporary prison cell?"

The empty classroom Sirius had been stuck in back when they had first arrived was, perhaps, a little bit dustier than he remembered. Otherwise, it looked quite the same.

There was a ripple of magic as the Animagus switched back to being human, the full rainbow array of colors swirling through Sans's sixth sense like light through a soap bubble… which wasn't quite right. The disguised skeleton tilted his head to the side, feeling the unusual hiccup in the flow of energy for the transformation. It felt almost like it had snagged slightly on the thread of another spell.

Sans turned, a question on the tip of his metaphorical tongue, and saw—

Oh. Well, that would explain it.

Don't laugh.

"sirius?"

The wizard was stretching, appreciating being bipedal again. "What is it?"

Sans was desperately holding back giggles, but it was difficult. He cleared his throat, tried to keep most of the laughter out of his voice, and stated, "frankly, this is pure gold."

Sirius squinted at his friend, trying to figure out what the joke was—because there clearly was a joke in there somewhere. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Cutting straight to the point this time, Sans asked, "have you shifted with the glamour on before?"

Frowning slightly—probably confused by the apparent non sequitur—Sirius shook his head. And froze, as hair that should be black swung by his eyes gold. He smacked a hand to his head, as if he could somehow feel that the color had been changed.

"Oh sweet Merlin, I've gone blond."

Which was the last straw, really, and Sans burst into laughter. "more than that, paddy-paws!" he gasped between giggles. "you really need a mirror."

With a swirl of his wand, Sirius went ahead and conjured one up. Looked at his reflection, and promptly choked: for indeed, his hair was not the only change.

"What's happened to my ears?!"

Flopping down at the sides of his head, peaking out through and matching the unusual blond color of hair, were ears of a distinctly canine nature.

Sans shrugged, still trying not to laugh. "fido-n't know for sure, pup i'd say your disguise mutt be sticking around."

"Now is not the time for puns." He whipped out his wand, trying to figure out how to disable the charm on the collar when the collar was currently mixed up with his Animagus form and, therefore, immaterial. Human clothes vanish when changing, Sirius couldn't believe he hadn't considered what would happen going the other way.

"fool," Sans said, grinning, "for it is always time for puns."

Sirius worked out the proper counter spell fairly quickly, and soon enough he was looking properly himself again. Which was a real shame, Sans thought; his friend had looked ridiculous, and he had had no camera with which to document the event.

But they had snuck out on business, and so business must be done.

Pulling himself onto one of the long bench desks, Sans sat and propped his chin up on one fist. "so. what's the plan, man?"

"Not sure, but…" Sirius paused. "Here, let me try that again." He cleared his throat, then said, "No plans, Sans."

"nicely handled."

"Thanks."

Hands in his pockets, Sans leaned back and raised a brow. "rhyming aside, that doesn't help the situation. we need to make some choices."

"I know, it's the worst." Sirius walked up to a chalkboard that, in all honesty, he couldn't recall having been there the last time he'd seen this room. Although to be fair, he had been a bit distracted at the time. Grabbing a nub of chalk, he began scribbling notes.

They had a few major options and a functionally infinite number of small ones; even the choice of what to eat might have unforeseen consequences, after all. Still, Sans mused to himself as he watched his friend write, they didn't need to sweat the small stuff. He was fairly sure that the main points of interest were the dangers of the Tournament itself and dealing with the confirmed-to-be-fake Mad-Eye. Not to mention the return of Dark Lord Voldie come the end of the school year.

Sans frowned at that thought.

"Now see," Sirius remarked, finishing his quick writing and tapping one of the items, "I think this is the most important thing to consider."

"that just says 'harry', circled thrice."

"Precisely."

Sans read the rest of the board. "all of them say 'harry', they're just each circled a different number of times."

"What, did I stutter or something?" Sirius asked, adding another circle.

"not sayin' he isn't important," Sans shrugged, "he is. but we shouldn't build plans around him. not without tellin' him, anyway."

And maybe that was a little—a lot—hypocritical of him to say, but at least this kid seemed to have all his wits about him and acted under his own control without, say, the influence of a murderous ghost child puppeteering from the shadows. Plus there was no reset loop crap to take into account, or anything they might scheme that the kid necessarily shouldn't know about.

Still, though, perhaps he should double check that whole possession thing. Just to be safe.

The wizard flicked a dismissive hand to clear the blackboard with a bit of wandless magic. "Alright, true. What do you think should be first priority?"

"well…"

Sans actually hesitated to finish his thought. He'd had this realization a few weeks ago, and had spent a good deal of time trying to weasel a different conclusion out of reality with no success. He scowled, distinctly displeased.

Of course Sirius noticed and, concerned, asked, "What is it?"

"…we have to let him come back."

"We have to… What?" Sirius must have thought that he had misheard, clearly convinced that he had gotten something wrong. "What do you mean by that?"

Still frowning, Sans said, "just think about it. why can voldie even come back this time?"

Sirius considered the question carefully, as if he was expecting there to be some sort of twist answer. "The Horcrux."

"horcruxes," Sans corrected with emphasis. "there's at least three, so far as we know."

Then the point seemed to click, and Sirius, eyes wide, echoed what he had said months before: "And if there's already three…" He drifted off, horrified. "Merlin's pants, there could be loads."

"we have no clue how many horcrux things this psycho actually made," Sans confirmed. "so long as there's even one left out there… he's not gone."

Sirius folded to the ground, like his strings had been cut, and put his head in his hands. For a long moment, there was only silence. Scrubbing his face, the wizard finally looked up to regard his friend and face that most unfavorable of truths.

"I suppose you have a plan for that, then?"

"more of an idea."

Sitting with his legs now stretched out over the floor, Sirius waved him on.

Sans gestured one hand, and the chalk floated up and drew a large circle on the blackboard. "the hor-crux of the matter is that, once voldie is back, we'll be able to tell how many bits of SOUL he's got squirreled away." As he spoke, he directed the chalk to split the circle in half, then split one of the halves in half, and so on until the chalk wasn't precise enough to do so anymore.

There is some merit to arguments claiming an upper limit on how much strain a SOUL could take before simply shattering, a point where it is unable to be divided further. Or at least, a point where dividing again would begin to tear away at what makes a person able to function on the most basic of levels. Say a single drop of water represents the entire life force of a monster, containing everything that makes that monster a sentient being. Following this metaphor, a human SOUL would be several liters worth of water. Dividing that in half again and again would reach the scale of a single drop after maybe twelve splits, and through that Sans had a rough estimate for the maximum number of Horcruxes there could be.

But then again, it is still possible that there may be no real upper limit: this is dealing with exponential decay, after all, and can never actually reach zero. It's all guess work, really.

Sirius eyed the chalk circle for a long minute, frowning at the plan it represented. "I get it. I don't like it, but I get it." He sighed. "And I guess that means the best course of action is to just… let things go like they did the first time."

"mostly," Sans agreed with an almost apologetic shrug, before adding, "but if it makes ya feel better, i sorta doubt things will go the same way."

"Right, that butterfly paradox thing you mentioned." The wizard sounded like he was coming to terms with that idea, and rightly so; his only experience with time-travel had to do with contained loops that, by the standards of resets, weren't really time-travel at all.

When Sans had first been told about Time-Turners, he had been naturally a little (a lot) concerned. But a few questions into how they worked, and it turns out that they're really not much more than a glorified cloning device. The past remains unchanged, and the only difference is a new perspective for the traveler.

Which kind of calls things like, say, the entire concept of free will into question.

But that's all beside the point.

"heck, who knows if the baddie's plan even involves the tournament anymore." Sans shrugged. "we can't even say for sure that harry'll end up as a champion this time."

"Oh, he will." Sirius sounded somewhere between proud, worried, and just plain amused. "It'll be a big, dangerous mess; of course he'll be in it."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

First of all, I'm so sorry that this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. I have a massively important midterm in PDEs this evening, another midterm later this week, and a big coding project needs to be done by Thursday. Suffice to say this past weekend did not give me as much writing time as I would have liked.
Anyway, I really need to get back to studying.

Updates are on the first of the month.
Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! I hope you continue to enjoy (even if this chapter is shorter than usual).

Guest: Holy geeze, for some reason the idea of Sans forgetting that his gold coins are not the right sort of gold coins for this dimension never even occurred to me! I had considered the coins for a different plot point that I won't reveal here, but that idea is too funny not to use. If I have a chance, I will definitely put that in! Thanks!

Heart: Thanks for all the reviews! Glad you've been enjoying this story so much.

Basket in a Nutcase: I honest-to-goodness laughed out loud when I read that. Who knows how he wrote anything on his skeletal hand, but if anyone could it'd be him.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!