Chapter 62: Finally Awake

Having only been in this magical school for about three months—not even a single semester yet—Sans had visited the Hospital Wing an impressive number of times. Especially since none of those times had been because he himself had been hurt.

Given the frequency of his visits, he knew the route really well.

Sans wasn't in a rush, though—if he ever was, outside of times requiring immediate action. A few minutes ago, he had taken a peek though a shortcut and saw that Cassius had indeed been moved to the Hospital Wing. Now the Slytherin was simply resting in one of the beds: not yet awake, as far as he could tell.

As such, Sans just meandered through the halls, taking the chance to gather his thoughts before actually going to visit. He definitely wasn't procrastinating.

(Okay, so maybe he was.)

But again, no rush. Even Sirius was alright with taking a bit of a breather to simply mosey about. The dog didn't seem to mind (that much) when the disguised skeleton found a slightly-out-of-the-way section of wall to slump against. All he did was give a concerned sniff before settling next to him.

"Sans?"

That didn't take long, although the voice obviously wasn't the becoming-impatient bark he'd been expecting.

He blinked and glanced up. "hey, laura."

The Hufflepuff gave him an appraising look, one brow disappearing under her yellow and black hat. "Are you alright?"

"me? oh, i'm peachy." Sans shrugged. "absolutely grape."

"Mm-hmm." Her hum of agreement didn't actually sound all that convinced by his nonchalant attempt at deflection, which, unfortunately, means that she's learning.

"why're you in here, anyway?" he asked. "i thought everyone was out watching the tournament stuff."

Laura gave him a very pointed look. "Don't think you can side-track me that easily, bucko."

"who, me?"

Instead of bothering with an answer, she slung her bookbag off her shoulder and set it on the floor. She knelt and rummaged for a moment. When Laura finally settled against the wall next to him, she held out—forced at him, more like—something small and colorful.

A red lollipop on a green stick.

"Eat this," she insisted, when he didn't immediately take the offered candy. "One of the upperclassmen bought loads last weekend and was handing them out, said it's supposed to help with moods."

"you know you're not 'sposed to take candy from strangers, right?" Eyeing the lollipop skeptically, Sans added, "and knowing the sorts of wacky stuff wizards add to their sweets, i'm pretty sure they count."

"It's called 'Cheery Cherry', apparently."

Which wasn't an answer one way or the other about the strangeness of wizards and the trustworthiness of their sweets, but whatever.

"well, thanks. i guess." Still hesitant, he took the lollipop. He's not exactly equipped to taste things, but, to his atypical senses, it was sweet like sunshine and snow, smiles and easy laughter.

He wasn't sure he liked it.

Reaching into the bag to grab another candy for herself, Laura simply leaned back against the wall. "You're not off the hook, but, seeing as you did ask," she stated, a bit slurred around her mouthful of sugar, "I am 'in here' because of homework."

"a terrible curse," said Sans, solemnly.

"You have homework too, you slacker."

"a terrible curse, indeed."

As it turns out, Laura had elected to forgo the tournament entirely. There's no reason to invite trouble like that, after all—which, well… fair enough—so instead, she had spent the afternoon peacefully reading and working her way through an almost-late Charms essay.

"It was nice to basically have the library to myself." She hesitated for a moment, the stick of her lollipop flicking down with her frown, and then asked, "…Did something happen?"

"some stuff," he replied, pushing himself to his feet. Perhaps he should be getting a move on, no time like the present and all that.

Laura managed to snag him by the hood before he could slip away, which was pretty impressive. "Sans, what happened?"

He stopped, because that's what happens when one is grabbed by the robe, and turned to face her. "well, i…"

There were a lot of ways he could end that sentence, and none he could use. He'd let his guard down, he should have been faster, been better, done more—but he did, and he should have, and he did not.

He never did.

Ever.

Sirius—surprisingly quick on the uptake sometimes, and quite familiar with that particular brand of shame—decided to step in as a furry distraction. He batted at her shoes until she gave him her attention and then barked a few times, as if explaining things.

Bemused, Laura just shook her head—the fluffy ball on the top of her hat bobbled with the motion. "Sorry, Paddy. I don't speak dog, remember?"

He just sniffed at that, nose primly in the air.

The diversion was long enough for Sans to rally from self-deprecating thoughts, shoving them away with a mental reprimand to stay focused. "at the task," he began, picking his words carefully more for his own sake than hers, "cass finished, it was over, but the dragon was still there, and…"

She gasped, more than capable of finishing that thought. "Is he alright? Will he be alright?"

"he's in the hospital wing, recovering."

Her grip on his robe loosened slightly, relieved even despite the fact that she didn't actually know Cassius—not personally, at least. Laura knew the older Slytherin through Sans, exclusively, and hadn't even really met him. Still, it's only natural to be worried for a friend, or even the friend of a friend.

"Are you heading to visit him now?" Then she blinked, her expression shifting to realization. "Are you… procrastinating?"

It's official—she has been learning.

"only a little bit, honest," he cut in with a wry grin, but it was a touch dark. At her small frown, Sans rolled his eyes. "i'm not the one in the hospital, laura. i'm fine."

Okay, so that might be a lie. Or at least, not entirely true: Sans could admit that much to himself. He was doing better lately, he had no doubt about that, but sometimes 'better' doesn't really mean 'fine'.

He's still working on that.

He'll be working on that, for a long time.

And that's alright.

But—stars, there's no way he'd dump his emotional baggage on an innocent kid. That'd just be… unfair, to her. Besides, he has a perfectly serviceable best friend dog-wizard able to help with that front. Sometimes.

(Other times, well, he could always spend a long sleepless night on the roof of the Astronomy Tower, just watching real stars turn through the heavens.)

She eyed him, chewing on her lip a little as she thought, then let go of his robe. "You are going to check on him, right?"

"that's the plan."

"Well, good." Laura nodded to herself, once, then made rather pointed shooing motions at him. "Now, get on with it!"

=X=X=X=

Sans had been tempted to walk to the hospital wing, to dodge the issue for just a bit longer. But he knew he was being ridiculous. For goodness sake, Cassius was still asleep—there's no point avoiding somebody who's not even conscious.

So instead, as soon as he was around the corner and out of sight, Sans made a shortcut. The "dog" and "human" stepped directly through.

He'd delayed long enough.

(And probably he had a few minutes before Cassius woke up, anyway.)

Sirius slipped under the metal frame of the hospital bed that the injured champion was lying in, curling up on the cold floor with just his nose stuck out from the shadow of sheets. Joining him by the bed—not under it, there was a convenient (uncomfortable) chair he took instead—Sans settled in to wait.

He was patient.

Stars, it was strange: the thought that here and now wouldn't pass him by again, and give him the chance to wipe clean his mistakes. Not that he had ever taken that option before, given… well, a whole host of reasons. Some of which he even agreed with, sometimes, even if he would never forgive himself for dusty snow.

Still.

He wasn't sure that the novel permanence of his new reality had really sunk in until he'd felt the dragon push through his blue magic. Sure, he'd known that there was no such thing as resets—there never had been, in this dimension.

But sometimes 'knowing' wasn't… knowing.

It was strange, how one can know something in their skull and have it still take ages for the SOUL to catch up.

Pulling his knees to his chin, Sans slumped down in the visitor's chair. He kept half an eye socket on Cassius—reassuring himself that the kid was still breathing.

And so he waited.

The seconds crawled.

Then minutes.

Then—

"…Sans…?"

One eye peered at him, not quite focused, and his hoarse voice was so soft it was hard to hear. Sans leaned forward immediately. Claws clattering, Sirius scrambled to stick his nose over the side of the bed; the dog would have put his paws up, but he didn't want to risk jarring anything.

"yeah, it's me."

"…Okay."

The eye closed and there was a long pause, stretching on and on. The Slytherin sounded absolutely exhausted and woozy—which is to be expected, given why he was in the Hospital Wing in the first place.

Sans sighed. "i shouldn't have let this happen."

"Unfortunately, 'should have' doesn't really help much now," came a rough mutter from the bed, after a careful breath. "What happened?"

"i— well…"

Cassius opened an eye again, squinting at the disguised first year in as threatening a manner as a bedridden teenager could manage. "Just… tell me what happened."

With a slight grimace, Sans began again: "we— i knew dragons had a resistance to magic, but i still didn't use enough power to stop her. and… you got hit."

To be frank, Sans wasn't very good at apologies. Even before resets had played havoc with his sense of consequences, he hadn't had a lot of practice with it: he tended to talk around things anyway, which is decidedly not the best approach when trying to express genuine regret. So it was, with few exceptions, a fairly new experience.

He decided he didn't like it, for a lot of reasons.

Taking a deep breath, he said, "so, uh, i'm sorry."

"That's… that's not what I meant," Cassius said, his still-half-asleep voice made even softer with raspy confusion. "My memory is blurry, I wasn't sure what happened there at the end. I think there was a… skull?"

"oh. yeah, that—"

One hand twitched toward what, had he been uninjured, might have been a halting gesture. "No. No, wait a second." His puzzled expression had taken a step to the left, landing on something like not-yet-realized shock; he was definitely awake now. "I was hit, but not… the skull stopped it, I know that much. It worked. What are you talking about?"

"what?"

"What do you mean 'what'?"

Sans blinked, reviewing what he had said and lining it up with that question. It took a second to figure out: "oh, i'm… i was talking about the first attack. i tried to stop it before you were hit."

"You— How?"

Right, maybe he should explain that particular bit of magic first. "i used, uhm… ya know what, here."

Trying to explain it all in words would be a pain, so instead he went with a live demonstration. Sans stood, took that one step closer so he could actually reach, and then gently poked Cassius in the forearm, wrapping it in a visible band of blue magic as he did. The color should make it more obvious that he was actually doing something.

"this is what i tried to do."

The Slytherin frowned at his now-blue appendage, flexing his fingers to figure out what the magic was actually doing—or, more to the point, he tried to. He blinked in realization. "I can't move my hand. Or my arm"

"yep."

"So… you tried to freeze the dragon in place."

"yep."

"Which is something you can do, apparently." His still-a-bit-bleary gaze unfocused, looking through memory. "Right… you did that at— er, when we met."

"yep."

The blue tint around his arm faded away under his watchful stare, though Cassius was still caught and unable to move; from his raised brows, he'd plainly noticed. Then, to be clear about it, Sans tapped his arm again when he dropped the magic.

Experimentally wiggling his hand, the Slytherin concluded, "And it didn't work, because you—"

The currently-out-of-commission champion cut himself off mid-statement when the doors at the head of the hall suddenly swung open. Sirius froze in place, lest his claws make sounds against the hard floor. Sans carefully sat down on the ground by the bed, making himself smaller as he retreated a bit further behind the hospital's divider curtains.

All three of them listened to Madam Pomfrey quietly vent under her breath as she made her way to her office. It was hard to catch all the details, but given the angry growl from Sirius, who could hear what she was saying… well. It was easy to figure out what—or who, rather—had been annoying the nurse.

They let the silence linger for a minute or so after hearing the click of the office door shutting, waiting to see if Madam Pomfrey was going to come right back out or not. She didn't, luckily.

At a whisper, Cassius went ahead and finished his earlier thought: "Because you underestimated the dragon's magical resistance, the spell didn't hold."

"that's the gist of it," Sans replied, slumping against the bed frame. Then, with a sigh, he straightened out his posture again (mostly, at least). "i was an idiot."

Cassius bit back an exasperated grumble: whether to prevent the mediwitch from hearing or to keep his maybe-still-a-bit-broken ribs from aching was unclear. "I'd smack you, but I think it'd be a wasted effort overall."

A surprised blink: "you're not the first to come to that conclusion."

As a matter of fact, Sans could recall a very similar threat (if it counts as a threat) from just a few months ago. He had been too late then as well; obviously it would've been better if the Roberts had never been dragged into that mess in the first place. But at least everyone had made it out in one piece: still hurt, yes, but not nearly dying.

"i'm not wrong—i was an idiot. i should have realized." At the expressions leveled at him from snake and dog both, Sans tried instead: "uh, i… can be an idiot?"

"Better," the Slytherin allowed.

Sirius nodded in apparent agreement.

Cassius glanced away, and in doing so spotted the golden egg that had been left on the nightstand. He scowled at it. "Can't believe I nearly died for that." Then, as a thought occurred, he turned a considering eye to the doors. "Well, perhaps it was worth it. If I hadn't been in here, then…"

True, that's a decent silver lining: at the very least his parents couldn't easily get to him when he was under Madam Pomfrey's determined protection.

However—

"look, cass," Sans started, one hand raised to the bridge of his nonexistent nose. "this might be kinda hypocritical for me to say, but you really need to think better of yourself."

With a snort, the golden retriever set a baleful paw right smack on the middle of the disguised skeleton's forehead.

"okay, so no 'might' about it. the point still stands."

Cassius tried for a shrug, but, with a slight wince, couldn't quite manage it.

It was hard to see much with a furry paw in his face, so Sans pushed it away. Though his vantage point from the floor didn't afford him a very good view of the golden egg anyway. Seeing as just craning his neck around wasn't helping very much, he decided to just stand back up.

"hey look, a button."

The egg unfolded into gold petals with a soft, unassuming click.

And then—

Cacophony.

The noise was horrendous.

Sirius immediately pinned his head under his paws, trying his darnedest to block out the wailing shrieks. However, he very quickly decided that was insufficient and tried to find another way to dampen the horrible noise: namely, by bodily shoving himself under the bed pillows.

Sans, for one, was very glad to technically not have ears.

Even so, he hurriedly tried to get the egg to shut up. After a second of fumbling around, Sans found the catch that had the golden petals pull closed again.

"What in Merlin's name—!"

Two pairs of eyes turned to look at the new voice (it would have been three, but Sirius was still stuck under the pillows). Madam Pomfrey had just burst out of her small office, wand raised and ready to deal with whatever had caused the terrible racket. She spotted them immediately, of course.

"uh… it was the egg, ma'am," Sans defended, "i swear."

After a moment to simply consider the unexpected guests in her infirmary, the mediwitch tucked away her wand and strode over to them with measured steps: everything about her bearing was calm and collected, save for the unspoken threat of detention in her gaze.

"Mr. Skelton," she greeted, though she didn't sound all that welcoming, "…and Paddy Paws, I see."

That would explain the tone, then; she had specifically said the dog wasn't invited, but, well, too late now.

"he followed me home. can i keep 'em?"

Madam Pomfrey took off her spectacles, taking a second to clean them with a small cloth; she was probably just distracting herself from the urge to kick them out or jinx them or something. She shook her head, plainly deciding that she had more important things to worry about for the moment.

"Anyway, as I noted before, it is about time to refill your medicine tin, Mr. Skelton," she said, already turning away again. "And now that you are finally awake, Mr. Warrington, I'll prepare another round of potions."

As she walked back to her office, Sans was having a minor… well, he wouldn't call it a 'breakdown', not by a long shot—but, to borrow a wizard phrase, it was still in the same Quidditch pitch.

"oh no, the tin."

"What?"

Sans had long since stopped carrying it around with him; if asked, it was just easier to claim he'd already taken his pill—well, 'dealt with it', as he'd say. There was no need for the thing to rattle about in his pockets all the time.

But as for where he'd left it… no clue.

Still, there couldn't be that many places: the main contenders being either his bed in Ravenclaw tower or his mattress in Grimmauld Place. He immediately extended a shortcut to his four poster bed, very quickly scanned through the area, found nothing, and then reached farther afield.

He was beginning to regret how messy he'd left his little closet-bedroom back at base, with all the socks and wadded up sheets and pillows—

The pillow!

Holding out his hand, Sans caught the (admittedly kind of ratty looking) pillow as it fell through a shortcut. Cassius—who had, up to this point, been content to simply watch in amusement—startled a bit when it popped in.

There was a lot of stuff in the pillow case, and honestly Sans wasn't fully sure where it had all come from. But indeed, the small tin was among the eclectic assortment. He let the pillow fall off his lap and through another shortcut, never actually hitting the castle floor.

"okay, crisis aver…"

The tin made a rattling noise as he lifted it, and he had another realization.

There were still pills in there. Almost all of them, as a matter of fact.

"oh snap! uh, quick—" The words came out in a rush, his plan very much half-baked and no doubt riddled with holes. Sans poured out a generous handful of dull-but-colorful pills into Cassius's hands. "i need ya to hide these."

"What—?!"

One such hole immediately became apparent: he could have just dropped the supplements through a shortcut, much as he had just done for the pillow.

He still could, probably.

(But this was kinda funny…)

Though he had fumbled a bit in his surprise, Cassius did put in a good effort to hide away the pills. Not very quickly, however—he moved with a deliberate slowness, looking more than a bit stiff. He ended up sweeping the medicine to one side and covering them with a corner of his sheet.

Just in time, too, as Madam Pomfrey returned with a small box in her hands and three potion vials gently floating at her shoulder. She set the box on the chair while the glasses settled on the nightstand in a neat row.

"Your tin, please," she said.

Sans handed it over. The nurse took it, flipped the lid on the box with one hand, popped the tin open with the other, and then… paused. As she looked over the remaining supplements in the tin, her expression fell toward disapproval.

Sans did not break into a cold sweat, but only because he didn't even have the required physical traits to do so—determination overcharge notwithstanding.

Whatever she had noticed, however, she decided to simply ignore it for now. She filled the small tin with more pills.

"Take one before lunch and dinner," the nurse prescribed again—or pointedly reminded, more like.

He just nodded, not wanting to push his luck.

"Now, Mr. Warrington," she said, shifting focus to more important things, "while the damage wasn't caused by a curse or dark magic, it will still take time to properly heal. Given the extent of your injuries… a week, at minimum, and more likely two."

"What about class?"

"Your professors and I will arrange a plan to accommodate your needs." Madam Pomfrey paused, her expression souring. "On a related note, your parents have expressed interest in having your recovery take place at home."

The Slytherin's expression didn't change—it might as well have been carved from solid ice—but the color drained from his face. Not that there had been much color to lose, the blood loss had left him almost as pale as a ghost.

Madam Pomfrey was, naturally, sharp enough to catch that chill shift.

"Of course," she began again, her tone barely slanting from complete confidence to something more testing, "it is my opinion that you would be better served recovering here, under my care." The nurse turned a slow glance to Sans. "The Hospital Wing is a peaceful, quiet place to rest, after all."

"uh, yeah, i can just leave."

"Excuse me?" Cassius aimed for a scowl, but it landed closer to a smirk. "You're really going to just leave me here?"

"i assumed you'd want to be rid of me, cass," He shrugged. "but, eh, guess you'll be stuck with me."

The Slytherin seemed to almost settle, then. Though no doubt too proud to actually acknowledge it, the surety that he wouldn't be forced back home—and, in at least some small part, the fact that he wouldn't be left alone either—was plainly a relief.

"Well." Madam Pomfrey crossed her arms and regarded the two of them sternly. "If I so much as hear a voice raised above a whisper back here," her tone settled somewhere between threat and promise, "I will not hesitate to boot you out, young man."

Sans just nodded, and his respect for the stern woman rose several notches.

"yeah. that's fair."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Cass is alive, mostly! And awake!
(And confused, but that's just an occupational risk of associating with Sans.)

It's October!
Wait, how is it October already?!

I like rambling a bit in these notes, but, seeing as it's just passed midnight and I'm slowly going insane, I'll try to be brief right now. And yeah, it's only just barely past midnight—I'm still awake, this totally still counts as the first of the month.

On that point, I'm actually going to adjust my update "schedule". And I know I'm being generous with that description, given I've definitely missed more than hit those dates this past year (or two years, crap).
Anyway, the new plan is to do one chapter a month, alternating between my two stories. Honestly, with the delays I kept having to do, that was kind of what it had been for a while now anyway. It sucks that it'll be longer between updates, but at least it will be a planned longer-between-updates. With any luck I'll be able to post more reliably given a full month for each chapter (instead of both chapters having to share).

As always, thank you so much for all the reviews, follows, and favorites!

NOTE:
On Dec. 15th 2021, the latest chapter was re-positioned to become Chapter 58. Check that out if you missed it!

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Stay safe out there! See ya on the flipside, everyone!