Chapter 5: A Question of Morality
Authors note: so, I have two ideas on where I want to take this story; one where Sans is in Slytherin and sides with Voldemort, and one where he is in Gryffindor and goes along with Harry and CO's shenanigans. So, here's another chance for you to alter the story!
The two large doors swung open, bathing the first year students in golden torchlight. Professor McGonagall stepped out into the torchlight, nodding at Sans and the other monsters before turning to Hagrid.
"Do you know her?" Harry whispered to Sans surreptitiously,
"Met her once. Very stern, but seems nice"
McGonagall cleared her throat, looking pointedly at Sans and Harry, "Ah-hem. I will take you from here."
The large doors opened further, revealing an entry hall at least the size of the Grillz diner. Lit with torches, the ceiling was difficult to make out due to its immense height and dark shadows. A marble staircase was at the end of the hallway, leading to the upper floors of the castle.
The gaggle of first years followed Professor McGonagall down the hallway, hearing raised voices somewhere to their right. McGonagall led the group past the voices, and into aa small, dimly lit chamber at the end of the hallway. The new students crowded into the room, jostling each other due to the crampt space. McGonagall closed the door once every student was in, and spoke.
"Welcome to Hogwarts" she said in a well-practiced voice, "The start-of-term banquet..."
Sans decided to doze off at this point. Was listening about banquets really all that important? If he missed something, he'd just ask Undyne or Papyrus. Having mastered the ability to sleep anywhere at anytime, Sans slept with his eyes open, standing. Once McGonagall had left the room, the sound of the door closing woke the skeleton and he jolted up with a start.
"Wha-"
Undyne rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder, "I still don't know how you do that. Hell, sometimes I can't get to sleep for hours!"
"Lotsa hard work, yanno? Spent months training the art of laziness."
Undyne snorted, but clued Sans in on what McGonagall had said. Leaning over to their current source of wizard information, Sans asked Ron if he knew anything about the process.
"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking"
"You have a jokester in your family?"
"Two, Fred and George are twins. They're in Gryffindor, like the rest of my family."
Sans grinned, excited about meeting two potential new allies to help him with his pranks. That grin quickly vanished, however, when he fully realized Ron's words. A test? I don't know any human magic. I haven't even seen it other than that teleportation and cloaking spell! Damn it, I should have payed more attention to those. Sans was thinking about potential strategies. His magic capability and potential was immense, according to his Dad, but he was only really skilled in some blue magic and bone attacks. Healing magic was possible, as well as karmic magic but neither of those would be useful.
Sans was suddenly surprised out of his musings when multiple screams sounded behind him. Whirling around, he let his eye burn yellow as he searched for the source of the panic. The Eye of Truth, however, was not needed as he soon realized what had caused the disturbance. A group of twenty ghosts had flown through the floor, terrifying most of the first years.
According to Gaster, there were supposed to be no monsters left on the surface... so what were these things?
Burning his eye yellow once again, Sans sought out one of the ghosts, peering into it.
*ATK: NULL
*DEF: NULL
*HEALTH: NULL
*CHECK: NULL
These ghosts did not have a soul of any kind. Instead, they seemed to be like an afterimage, or a lost memory- Sans' Eye of Truth revealed that these ghosts did possess a magical core, but it looked nothing like a soul, instead it was a completely hollow circle with a mess of magical energy pumping inside of it. Sans made a mental note to inform his Dad about this.
Sans walked over to Papyrus, who seemed to be getting excited at what he thought were other monsters.
"Sans! Look! Dad was wrong, there are others at this school!"
"No, Papyrus- Papyrus, look at me. You cannot tell anyone about what Dad said, alright? The others can't know. These ghosts, they aren't monsters anyways. More of a... lost memory. A fragment of someone long gone." Sans gripped Papyrus' shoulders and looked at him intently, his ever-present smile gone, replaced with an expression of seriousness. Papyrus knew that Sans' meant business when this was his expression.
"I... Ok, brother- but only because you said so!"
Sans smiled, and rubbed Papyrus' skull- creating the illusion of his "hair" rustling.
A door opened to the group's right, causing the muffled sound of talking to increase in volume as McGonagall entered.
"Come along now, The Sorting Ceremony is about to start"
Apprehensively, Sans lead the way, following behind McGonagall as they stepped out into the Great Hall
Calling it a "Great Hall" is the Understatement of the millennium, at least according to Sans. From the outside, the castle had looked much larger than Asgore's- but this room alone looked like it was the size of the Underground King's palace! Lit with floating candles, and a ceiling that looked like the night sky, the room was absolutely ornate. There were four long benches in the room, where what Sans assumed to be the rest of the students sat, each table with students wearing different colored robes.
The group of first years had walked in on a raised platform that held what looked like the seats of the teachers, all of them sitting at a rather ornate looking long table, reminiscent of images Sans had seen of the Last Supper during his religious studies. Scanning the table, Sans immediately searched for his father but he was nowhere to be seen.
In the middle of this raised platform was a simple looking stool, with a raggedy old pointed hat sitting on top of it. McGonagall led the group to it, and stood primly, taking out a sheet of parchment. The rest of the hall quieted down as she spoke, her voice magically amplified so all could hear.
"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted."
Next to Sans, Harry gave a sigh of relief, clearly pleased that there would not be a difficult test involved with the process of selection.
Professor McGonagall then read from a long scroll she had taken out of the contours of her robes.
"Abbott, Hannah!"
A girl with blonde pigtails cautiously made her way forwards from where she was standing, sat down on the stool and placed the hat on top of her head.
A moment's pause, then...
"Hufflepuff!"
A gruff voice sounded out from the hat, and Sans immediately began paying more attention to the procedure. The hat... was talking!?
Shaking himself out of his reverie, Sans cast a CHECK over the hat.
*ATK: NULL
*DEF: NULL
*HP: NULL
*The sorting hat. A magical hat that will understand you implicitly.
Once again, Sans' check was extremely vague. Does everything in the wizarding world have to be a riddle? Well, it doesn't have a soul at least. He thought, but made a mental note about the sorting hat immediately. I've already made quite a few of those, my skull may be empty but it's getting quite full.
Soon, it was Undyne's turn. The raggedy hat had scarcely touched her head when it shouted out, "Gryffindor!"
The table at the far right to Sans clapped boisterously, as Undyne ran down to them. She sat herself at a more empty section of the table, and raised an eyebrow at Sans, as if to say "You better be sorted here"
As the names seemed to be going by faster and faster, Sans began to panic. What house would he be sorted into anyways? And... what house did Sans want to be in?
The panicking skeleton was snapped out of his thoughts as a name was called out.
"Gaster, Papyrus!"
A few small whispers were heard at the table on the far left, the one adorned in greens and silvers. Papyrus walked up to the stool merrily, and placed it on his head, a goofy grin on his face as he tapped his shoes against the stool's legs.
The hat was taking its time with Papyrus, thinking about possibilities. Sans, who had inched closer to the hat and its occupant, overheard it talking to Papyrus about Hufflepuff, which caused Sans to have a slight panic attack- what if I had to choose between his brother and my best friend? Before the hat called out "Gryffindor!"
The table at the far right cheered, and Undyne jumped onto the table, pumping her fist up and down and shouting at Papyrus, "KNEW YOU'D GET PUT WITH ME, PUNK!"
Now, as the voices quieted down, Professor McGonagall called another name.
"Gaster, Sans!"
The silence of the hall seemed stifling, as Sans walked toward the hat. Normally an excellent crowd pleaser, he was extremely nervous and worried about what was about to happen. This school lasts seven years- what would happen if I am separated from Undyne and Papyrus? Could I even be happy without them? What's gonna happen?
Sans shakily put on the hat, and within seconds his skull was filled with the gruff sound of the Sorting Hat's voice.
"Oh... another one of these monsters, eh?"
Sans panicked, but remembered the check he had done. "A magical hat that understands you implicitly"
"-what? How do you know about that?"
Aaand it can read my thoughts. Spectacular.
"Well, of course I can. How else would I be able to sort you all so accurately?" The hat paused, before continuing thoughtfully, "but... now that I get to it, what house to put you in? Hm.... Definitely not Hufflepuff, I'll give you that. A keen mind as well, you could do great in Ravenclaw. But..."
Sans felt a probing sensation on his soul, and he immediately cast his blue magic to surround it.
"What's this? Are- are you trying to keep me out of your head? And... it's working!?" the hat's voice became sharp suddenly, "Let me in. Otherwise you'll be put somewhere you are not meant to be."
Sans carefully relaxed his defenses, but remained wary of the sensation on his soul.
"Hm... ah. No, no you wouldn't be a good Ravenclaw. You have the mind for it, but not the temperament... no... you- you have a strong sense of justice, I see. You just want what is best for your friends and your people- how selfless. You'd make a fine Gryf-" the hat paused, and Sans felt the probing sensation grow stronger, "oh.... How interesting. No, you are quite lazy. But when pushed... you would do ANYTHING for your loved ones, and your people. Hm... Slytherin could help you with that. Nothing would stand in your way, would it?"
The hat drew a deep breath (Sans, being a living skeleton and all, didn't question how that was possible), and said: "Well, guess it would have to be..."
Author's note: sorry about the short chapter! I couldn't think of a concise way to put Sans' first day at school AND the sorting ceremony together. Anyways, its another chance for you to decide what house he should be in!
Word count: 1947
______