2,301Chapter 73: Back at it Again
As luck would have it, his near-jinx didn't seem to take. The rest of the day—and, following that, the rest of winter break—passed by with comfortable mundanity, by the standards of a magic school castle. Sans was able to bring everybody back in from Grimmauld place with no issue, and nobody even really asked where they'd been. Basically, they got away with it.
Mostly.
Sans still had those detentions, of course. But he had been correct, with that thought he hadn't let finish; the following sessions went a lot better than the one with Snape. In part because Professor Flitwick was just easier to deal with, but also because the charms professor wasn't using the time to try to suss out some extra crime-secret and didn't accidentally prompt Sans into blabbing any potentially timeline-shaking truths. Those last two points had really mucked everything up in that first detention.
Flitwick had mainly used the detentions as some extra lesson time, similar to those additional study sessions for trying to get a handle on wand magic. Which did mean that there were a few spell-overload mishaps, but nothing too bad. No more book-dents in the ceiling—Sans was just glad to be (mostly) past that at this point.
Which isn't to say that he's no longer launching objects with unnecessary force, alas, but is to say that the objects launched will now stop in the air before colliding with the ceiling. It's a lot more in-line with the expected behavior of the spell, technically, if much more rapid and much less floaty.
Over the past semester of school, the extracurricular practice sessions included practicing other spells as they were introduced in the regular class to… varied effect. But Sans could at least say he had a better handle on the whole wand-based magic thing than he'd had at the beginning of the school year.
With his own wand, at least.
With others, the bets are off.
He wasn't nearly ready to test his improved control by potentially exploding loaner wands. There had been a few close calls over the course of the semester: some well-intentioned offers to try out a different wand for comparison purposes—his wand wasn't exactly standard issue, of course—but he'd luckily been able to decline so far.
Luckier still was that, in contrast to the usual extra lessons, not all of the detentions-turned-bonus-class were actually spent with practical practice. Probably because Flitwick needed the time for lesson planning and, once classes started up again partway through Sans serving his two-week sentence, grading. Sans was assigned to read the book he'd been given for Christmas—which made him suspect that McGonagall and Flitwick had planned to make it part of the usual extra practice time anyway.
It was a pretty interesting read. Had some weird undertones though, as Professor McGonagall had warned; nothing stated outright, but the author clearly had opinions on societies that refused to be 'enlightened' by the usage of wands.
Given how monsterkind used magic, he couldn't help but feel a tad insulted.
So Sans had also spent a good chunk of his free time in the library—cutting into precious napping hours, even—looking for anything written by the people who actually lived in those wands-not-needed societies. Unsuccessfully. Either the Hogwarts library didn't have any, or he still wasn't sure about how the books were organized.
Maybe some combination of both.
Anyway, all told, the detentions were going alright. Aside from that first one.
Winter break passed by without further turmoil, and no other sneaking around goings-on were caught. The remaining Christmas gifts were finally gifted—covertly—while arranging the first tournament-strategy meeting of the new semester. Sans had recommended that the champions keep a Monster Candy with them during the remaining tasks, just in case, but was fairly sure Cassius was the only one of the three to take the suggestion seriously.
And their first meeting itself started with a splash.
Well, technically speaking, it started with a little bit of small talk. Then some transfiguring of the furniture. Then the splash, so it came in third.
"Alright." After the splash there'd been listening and riddle-unraveling, so now it was down to discussion. "How will we deal with this?"
Harry leaned back, legs stretched out in front of him on the floor, heedless of the various puddles. "Learn how to swim, I suppose."
"You don't know how to—" Cassius combed back his damp hair, sighing. "Okay, that's first on the list then."
They were all in the old classroom rather than some nook in the library, for several reasons. All of which were related to the large basin of water they'd transfigured from a few desks in order to mess with the four golden eggs. Three were drying off on a folded towel while the fourth was still under the water, just in case anyone wanted to listen to it again. They'd checked all of them, just to be safe, but all the eggs said the same thing.
They could technically have listened to the hint ages ago, but the end of the semester had brought with it the usual surge of deadlines closing out—not to mention the distraction of the looming Yule Ball. So, collectively, they had ended up putting it off.
Harry fidgeted. "I'm only, uh, a little serious?"
The soft thump-thump of a fluffy tail wagging against the floor was a clear sign of his amusement, even if Sirius couldn't express it with a laugh or a follow-up joke at the moment. At least not in english, though Sans appreciated the quiet pun in doggish. Alas, it would be lost in translation.
"I don't think the tub in the dorms is enough to practice in," Ron mused, the essay he was supposed to be working on long forgotten. He pointed to the basin of water. "But we might be able to make a bigger one of those."
"I've swum in a pool before," defended Harry. "Though… mostly I just figured things out 'cause Dudley kept pushing me in."
The thwap of a wagging tail stopped, replaced by a low growl.
"easy, paddy," Sans murmured.
Viktor and Fleur were sitting with Hermione at one of the desks, going over the written copies they'd made of the golden eggs' poem. It was a seemingly straightforward outline of the second task, but given the circumstances, everyone wanted to be certain they were interpreting things correctly.
"Vee should consider also the other dangers in the lake," Viktor remarked, and he tapped one of the lines on the paper. "I do not like the time."
Fleur nodded. "To 'ave a full hour… ze time facing ze dragon was not nearly so long."
Slumping the rest of the way flat on the floor, Harry groaned. "How're we even meant to stay in the water that long? There's nothing to breathe, obviously, but just swimming that whole time is gonna be exhausting."
"Ze hour is a limit, 'opefully it won't take so long."
"Still, Viktor's right," Ron chimed in. "It might take a full hour to search the lake to find whatever it is that's taken—"
"Which is a question all its own," Cassius said, a quick aside.
"—but there's definitely more to this." His eyes squinted, hunting through memory. "There's the giant squid, for one thing. My brothers said the seaweed down there can hypnotize you if you stare too long… but knowing them, that might not actually be true. And there's the merpeople, of course."
Hermione frowned, reaching for a book. She'd made sure to bring a broad variety, just to cover their bases, and there was definitely at least one in there about magical creatures. "I've read that merpeople aren't typically aggressive."
"They are not." Viktor pushed the main stack closer, so she could find whichever reference she sought. "But maybe they vood… join in. If the professors asked?"
Drawing his wand, Cassius used it to click the button on one of the golden eggs. The one still in the basin, of course. As the thin panels began to unfold, and with his wand still dipped into the water, Cassius murmured, "Sonorus."
(A trick they'd thought of only after he'd dunked his head underwater once. Alas.)
Metallic petals bloomed fully open, revealing the soft bubble of light inside. A burbling voice sang out, spell-amplified so that everyone could hear without needing to get soaked:
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
Flicking the water off his fingertips, he remarked, "The language implies that the merpeople are the ones to take whatever it is that we will 'sorely miss', so I'd say it's likely that they will be involved during the task itself."
And given that—from what Sirius had recalled and relayed—the collateral taken would turn out to be friends or family, the second task was going to be more of an underwater hostage situation than anything else. They'd debated sharing that tidbit with the rest of the group, but ultimately decided against it. It's not as though time travel would be an accepted source, and agonizing over who-how-where wouldn't help in the meantime.
Sans wandered over to join the Slytherin beside the basin of water, kicking the side of transmuted wood-turned-stone and watching the ripples fan out over the egg. "i've only had a semester of this magic stuff, but can wizards do spells underwater?"
He assumed that casting spells while submerged would be naturally complicated by the fact that speaking isn't really possible without breathing (for humans). Spells didn't technically need their incantations—of course he knew that wizards could flick-poof magic wordlessly—but it still seemed worth asking.
His question was met with a thoughtful, uneasy pause.
"i take it that's a 'no'."
"It's a 'kind of', to be honest," Cassius replied. "Non-verbal spells are possible, but in sixth year we're just getting started at them. You only really start practicing it in your last year, here at Hogwarts."
"Durmstrang as well."
Fleur didn't say anything, but she did nod.
Viktor and Fleur might have some tips, as they were in their final year of schooling—it's so weird that, as far as Sans could tell, there's no proper university-level school system in this backwards wizard society. But the lack of college education is beside the point; Harry, as a fourth year, probably had yet to learn anything about non-verbal spells.
"how does that work, anyway?" asked Sans, genuinely curious.
He knew how magic worked for him—for monsters in general, and he'd studied the theories for some of the other magic-types he'd seen—but the technique of wizardly-magic here had quirks he was still mulling over. Paint and light, mixing and coming into focus, with the wand and words both complications.
"I suppose, in simple terms, it's a matter of intent." A shrug, and Cassius continued, "My understanding is that the incantation helps to focus intent—streamlining it, in a way. If you drop that, you have to compensate."
Hermione, seemingly sharing Sans's curiosity, scrambled for a blank parchment and her quill to take notes.
"Some spells, oui, it is simple." Fleur picked up her delicate wand, focused for a moment, then gave it a silent swish-flick. A paper in front of her floated gently into the air (Sans wasn't jealous, nope), followed the motion she conducted, then slid back down. "For others… it is not so."
Viktor nodded, worrying with his own wand. From his expression, he'd had some trouble with magic sans-incantation.
Hah, 'sans'.
Actually, Sans might be able to help a little with this. By some miracle, the fact that he could do wandless magic had stayed largely under wraps; Professor McGonagall had sussed that out in basically their first extra practice session. Or implied she suspected that he could, at least—her exact words were something like 'less accidental', but the point stands.
More importantly, as a result of that suspicion, they had talked about the roles of the verbal and movement components in spell casting. And while he hadn't fessed up to any wandless magic, wordless was something they'd tried out a few times.
It was a rare skill for a (supposedly) young wizard to have, not impossible.
Which meant he could help with that, if he wanted, without it being too unbelievable.
…Well, he'd give it a bit more time, see how they do practicing on their own first. It was only the start of January, and the second task wasn't until late February.
Apparently also considering the timing, Fleur shivered. "We will 'ave to practice warming charms, certainly. Spells for breathing, and for not freezing."
Hermione nodded, scooted her chair closer to the other girl, and the two of them seemed to begin brainstorming a list of options.
"What else is down there, anyway?" Harry asked, with a glance over to Ron. "Besides the squid and the merpeople, I mean."
"There might really be hypnotic seaweed, for all I know." Cassius shook his head. "Herbology isn't my strongest subject."
A thought struck, and Sans smiled. "if you need a plant consultant, i know just the guy to pick."
It couldn't hurt to ask him, anyway—he could be trusted not to spread any rumors about the champion team-up. He hadn't so far, after all, and having direct confirmation wasn't usually a deciding factor when it comes to spreading tall tales.
"You mean Neville?" Harry pushed himself back up into a proper sitting position, instead of staying sprawled out.
"he knows his stuff," Sans said, shrugging. "i'm sure he can help with any plan…t."
Cassius groaned, but Sans was well aware that the Slytherin was a fan of puns despite the dramatics.
"Other dangers aside, I think the lake itself will be the biggest issue," Hermione said, scanning the short list they'd made, "We need to address being underwater, first and foremost."
And so discussion commenced.
At the core of the problem were four points: breathing, staying warm, moving, and actually completing the task. Ranked in order of importance, of course, because not dying out there was paramount.
The most straightforward option was something called a 'bubble-head charm', which basically does what one would expect by making a pocket of air around the head. That would resolve the breathing issue, if not any water traversal ones. Plus, presumably, it would mean one could speak spells underwater just fine; that, in turn, simplified the movement and freezing issues to just using the right charms.
A strong contender.
And, after a long discussion, virtually the only one that addressed all the main issues. Other charms just didn't cover the bases.
"We can't all do the same thing, can we?"
"Technically—"
"Non!"
"I don't think it's against the rules of the tournament," Cassius defended, crossing his arms. Then, deliberately, uncrossing them—he didn't want to come off as aggressive. "If needs must, we should be able to fall back on that."
With a gusty sigh, Fleur conceded that point. "We should still find our own solutions. I do not want… complaints."
"this whole thing is supposed to foster inter-school relations, so…"
Viktor snorted. "So they have said. But I do not think my headmaster would be much pleased, all the same."
"I do not think Madam Maxime would mind," Fleur hedged, "except zat, zis time…" Her gaze slipped over to Harry, somewhat apologetically.
Cassius nodded, following her train of thought. "With two Hogwarts champions, she might find any cooperation to be less fair than it would have been with just one from each school. Like we might be ganging up on you."
"Oui, even if zat is not ze case."
"i've heard variety is the spice of life," Sans remarked, pithily. "or is it the herbs of life…? eh, no big dill, we have thyme to oregano-ze some options." He paused. "…paprika."
Some of them caught the puns, but not all: Sans could forgive the foreign language students for missing them. They'll get there eventually. But Hermione, who has spoken english her entire life and yet looked like she was more interested in correcting his pronunciation, might just be a lost cause.
There was a bit more discussion, a few more last-minute spitballed options; Viktor brought up transfiguration, but, given the dangers involved, it would definitely need more consideration than they had time left in this particular meeting. So mostly it was just background noise while people packed up.
Sans, frankly, wasn't much help at this stage of preparation. After all, the sum-total of his knowledge on human spells was just one introductory semester of magic school and a summer reading random tomes at Grimmauld.
He tended to help in other ways, mainly by making sure everyone stayed on-track (or by making sure things go off-track, if the kids really needed more time to focus on being kids). Observing from the sidelines and stealthily helping things along was more his style, anyway.
Even if his stealth had been a little lacking lately.
Maybe he could try something more direct for the next meeting.
Cassius saw the look on his face—or on his illusion of a face, the finer controls of which the disguised skeleton had yet to master—and quirked a brow.
But Sans ignored the unspoken question, simply grinning as he waved goodbye and dropped the blue magic securing the room before anyone tried the door. He wasn't planning anything the team needed to be (too) worried about. The more the merrier, as they say.
Ah, well…
Perhaps he won't be more direct, in a sense, but he knows how to delegate.
=X=X=X=
"Er, Sans?"
One week later, in the same room, same group, with the same looming problems… but now plus one new person.
"yeah?"
Neville, who had followed him into the classroom under the assumption that he was going to help him with some Herbology homework, had immediately frozen when he spotted who else was inside. Then unfroze, twitching forward as the door swung shut and bumped him from behind. "I think this room is taken…?"
"i told you i needed plant help, right?"
That got a hesitant nod, but he seemed unable to articulate how that request didn't quite line up with what he was seeing right now.
Sans just grinned at the ever-nervous Gryffindor, encouraging. "well, we wanted to go over the dangers in the black lake," he continued, ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting from all sides, "an' i figured, who best to ask about the underwater plants than you?"
Forgoing the stare-at-in-disbelief method so that he could put his head in his hands, Cassius sighed. "I knew you weren't joking last week, Sans, but I didn't think you'd just… just bring him here." He let his hands fall. "Longbottom, right?"
Neville nodded, a little shaky, as if he expected that the Slytherin was going to bite him. Actually, odds are good he did expect that—being told that somebody's alright doesn't necessarily mean all preconceptions are set aside.
"Right." Cassius narrowed his eyes at him, then looked over the rest of the room. "You can probably guess what's going on here."
All four champions, plus Harry's friends, plus Sans and his dog: some of those are less tied to the main point, but having all the competitors cordially discussing strategy together really does only lead to one conclusion.
"Uh, I-I guess?" A nervous gulp, and Neville hesitantly offered, "You guys are… all working together?"
"Vee are not sure it is allowed," said Viktor. "But it is not against the written rules."
"unwritten is something of a debate." Last week hadn't been the first time the topic came up, and no doubt this week wouldn't be the last.
Neville glanced to Sans, briefly, then nodded. "I won't tell anyone, if you're worried. Though it'd be pretty odd if a tournament that's supposed to bring our schools together got snippy when it actually happens."
"One would think so." Cassius shook his head. "One would really think so."
Folding up his half-finished essay to focus on the much more interesting things going on, Ron snorted. "Wouldn't be the first time that kinda stuff doesn't make sense."
"So…" Neville hesitantly joined them at the makeshift table of gathered desks, ending up next to Harry at one end. "Underwater plants in the lake?"
"Yeah, like hypnotizing seaweed or whatever."
"Well, there is a dangerous kind of kelp…" There was a surprised 'wait, really?' from Ron, before Neville continued, "But it's not, uhm, mesmeric."
"What's that mean?"
Moving a small rattly box from the table to under her chair, Hermione rolled her eyes. "It means it doesn't hypnotize people."
"Oh." Ron huffed. "Figures that they were lying."
"Yeah, Kelpie's Snare. It's actually a variety of Devil's Snare that grows in dark water, deep or murky enough that sunlight can't ever reach it. Like its land-based relative, it is fiercely carnivorous and will eat basically anything it catches in its coils!" He smiled, which was an odd contrast to those disturbing details. "It's wicked fast in comparison, too, since it can float to help move. So it's a bit more of a predator, rather than just waiting for food to fall on it."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all shared a grimace.
Apparently noticing that nobody else was particularly enthused to learn about flesh-eating plants, Neville remembered that these people were probably curious about the dangers of the Black Lake because they'd be facing them. "Er… Oh! Since it's a type of Devil's Snare, it has the same weaknesses!" He paused, then reconsidered. "Well, it's weak to light and heat in the same way. If you end up caught in Devil's Snare, you're supposed to relax or at least move really slowly so it won't constrict as fast. But with Kelpie's Snare, it's a bigger priority to disengage as soon as possible so it can't wrap you up with more stipes."
And so began the briefing on the various types of submerged flora in the Black Lake—of which, thankfully, not all were as… actively threatening as the Kelpie's Snare. As a bonus, Neville knew of quite a few creatures that were down there, too, since many of them linked up on the food chain with the dangerous plants.
After a while, however, Neville slowed to a stop. He'd just finished explaining a bit about grindylows: sharp-toothed water demons that could be found in the dense beds of weeds at the bottom of the lake.
"Are you…" he swallowed. "Are you expecting to have to go down there?"
Harry, who was looking fairly pale himself, nodded. "From what we can tell, yeah."
"Is it… do you have to get something again?" His eyes darted over to Cassius, but quickly away again. Still nervous, then. "Like with the dragon?"
"Hopefully not," Cassius deadpanned, both hands on the table held carefully still. "But given the golden eggs' riddle—"
"Riddle?"
"We'll have an hour to explore the bottom of the lake and find something the merpeople will have taken from us."
"And I'm not even good at swimming!" Harry lamented,
"Well, you could— oh, drat." His worried expression, after momentarily brightening, dropped straight back down. Neville shook his head apologetically. "The batch Professor Sprout had me help with in the Greenhouses is already gone."
Hermione asked, "What were you growing?"
"Gillyweed." He sighed. "It's a kind of water grass, and a potent transfigurative—when eaten, you basically become a pseudo-merperson until it wears off."
That got everyone's attention.
"Gillyweed, you said?"
"Yeah. We were growing it for potions ingredients, so I assume, uhm…"
"Snape has them." It's funny how Harry can say that professor's name as if it were a death sentence. "Do you think it's in the classroom store-cupboard, or—"
"bad idea, gang," Sans cut in. "snape's watching his stock like a hawk—" fitting comparison, with his beak-like nose to match. "i don't think you'd have as much luck yoinking stuff this time."
"'This time'?" Cassius shook his head, "No, nevermind that. Can't we just ask him?"
"Just ask him? What, like he'd just let us have… oh." Harry squinted at him from behind his round lenses. "Right, you are a Slytherin."
The aforementioned Slytherin didn't look particularly impressed with that obvious observation, but didn't bother quipping about it. This time.
"Alright, gillyweed." Cassius sighed, tapping his quill against the parchment. "That's two down, now, two more to go." Then he smiled wryly, gesturing between himself and the two foreign students. "Assuming we don't just go three-ways on the bubble-head charm."
Ron, who had been stuffing his incomplete essay away in his bookbag so it wouldn't get mixed up with any of Hermione's note-taking, paused and looked back up. "…What?"
Cassius blinked at him, puzzled. "What?"
"I mean, you're the only one with a plan so far, Warrington."
Now the puzzlement was leaning toward proper confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"The gillyweed?"
"…For Harry?"
"Yes, the gillywe— wait, no, 'for Harry'?"
"Yes? It's only logical." He nodded toward Neville. "From what he said, it sounds like eating gillyweed will let you breathe and swim like a mer. No offense Harry, but you're the weakest swimmer here. That seems to be the best option."
Harry looked as bewildered as Ron—surprised, in a 'fool me twice' kind of way—but couldn't fault that reasoning. He just hadn't expected it from a Slytherin, even one with whom he was willing to work.
On the subject of Slytherins, Sans couldn't help but check: "and snape?"
"He'll know that Harry got the gillyweed from me." Leaning back, Cassius shrugged. "Professor Snape might not like it, but as long as he has reason to think I wanted Harry to have it, I don't think he'll say anything."
Makes sense: it is wise to stay well clear of any potential plotting.
"And of course, there's no need to be specific." The Slytherin gave them a scheming smile. "If he wants to think I'm only doing it to keep a fellow Hogwarts champion from embarrassing our school, all the better."
"clever."
That said, it's pretty likely that Snape was already at least suspicious that a behind-the-scenes collaboration was going on—they were being careful, but a keen-eyed observer could probably pick up little things and string together some theories. But even so, plausible deniability was a wonderful thing to have.
"Gillyweed… really helps with swimming?" asked Harry, just in case.
Their resident plant expert nodded. "Gills, webbing, and the instinct to know how to use them. Though you need to be careful about that; there are accounts of wizards that became so enamored by the freedom of movement, they lost track of time. They swam really deep, and when the effect wore off…"
"it's always something with these magic plants, i swear."
Given that it might trick him into a watery grave, Harry wanted to be very sure how to handle the effect of gillyweed. The trio commandeered Neville's attention for basically the rest of the meeting, grilling him on what he knew and how he knew it. Hermione got a list of references from him, and would probably get them all sequestered away in the library checking out books until they were as certain as they could get.
Meanwhile, the rest of the champions were still at the brainstorming stage. The option of partial transfiguration did have promise, so Cassius was helping Viktor figure out how to practice that kind of spell without drowning on dry land. Fleur was looking into locator spells: checking each spell for whether or not the target can be unknown, the duration, if it's useable underwater, that sort of thing.
Very productive, all in all.
Alas, all good things must come to an end eventually. In this case, the end came because people were getting hungry and none were keen to cut into dinner time. They'd already sacrificed a cold day in Hogsmeade for this, after all.
Departures were staggered, just in case. No point risking somebody noticing all four champions suspiciously leaving the same general area at the same time.
"Sans?"
He paused, turning back to see that Hermione had waved her friends on. The rattly box she'd brought had reappeared from under the chair, one of her hands lightly tapping at it in a nervous tick; it had made a few appearances since the first time he'd seen it several months ago, and it sounds like it's still full of pins. Though Sans had kind of expected her to offer one to everyone in their group before they all left.
Which she hadn't done.
"what's up?"
Hermione took a breath, then picked up her box. "Are you free right now? I was hoping you could… help me with something."
Author's Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.
And so the new year begins, with a new task calling for new plans to be pulled together.
Missed August by just a touch; I blame my dog, who, just as I was settling down to do a final read-through, jumped onto my lap and promptly fell asleep. Foiled by cute dog! And by my slow writing speed, but let's just ignore that for the moment…
Actually, since the first chapter was posted in August 2016, it's been eight years now! (Picture, if you will, that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the man rapidly ages into dust.)
I am excited for the schemes to come in this story, we'll see how cooperative they are at actually getting onto the page!
The next story due for a chapter is The Undesired Second Chance, which has been struggling against me lately. I would very much like to post another chapter for either fanfic in the beginning of October, so that's what I'll aim for!
…Even if my aim is terrible, haha!
Thank you all so very much for the favorites, follows, and reviews!
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Stay safe, and see ya on the flipside, everyone!