The Unlikely Visitor

Chapter 13.
In which resistance is futile, and more than one thing gets cleared up for Sauron.

Ginny felt as if everyone stared at her when she entered the Great Hall. With the redesigned dress, sheer black stockings, a pair of borrowed shoes, and her red hair loosely over her shoulders she looked completely different from usual. Not to mention that she came in on Sauron’s arm; the Maia had a strange way of drawing attention by simply being present. It had probably something to do with him being tall and intimidating. He was impressed with the decorations, apparently.
“This is… very interesting. That is not real snow, is it?”
“Magical snow. It disappears before touching anything.”
“I see.”
Sauron’s eye passed over the people, and then, it fell on Professor Sinistra. She wore a golden-brown gown that shimmered a bit when she moved, and a hooded cape of the same fabric over it. Her sleeves were long, a simple golden belt accentuated her waist, and her hair was caught in a thick black braid that lay draped over her shoulder. With her dark skin and warm aura she seemed out of place in the winter landscape…
“Earth to Sauron, you’re staring.”
Disturbed, he looked at Ginny.
“What?”
“You were staring. At professor Sinistra.”
“I was not.”
“And denial is a river in Egypt…”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Inside joke for earthlings.”
“If you continue to annoy me I’ll be obliged to turn your dress purple with yellow polka dots. Or better, make it disappear.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Willing to bet?”
“Err… no, rather not.”
“Then don’t pester me. I wasn’t staring.”
He had been staring; he knew it well enough. There was something about Sinistra that made him lose coherence, and he didn’t know what it was. Sauron concentrated on Cedric and Cho instead, fighting the urge to follow the dark-skinned woman with his eyes.
“Do you want to dance?”
“Do I look like it?”
“No, not really.”
“Well then.”
“I’m going to say hi to Hermione and Harry, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
And so Ginny left Sauron alone to greet her friends. The moment she left, he realized he had no defense against Precious Nibelungen now… he hoped he was looking inconspicuous enough for her not to notice him. Admittedly, his chances were slight…

Hermione had come to the Ball with Victor Krum, whom Ginny admired greatly for his Quidditch talent. He turned out to be very friendly, and after she had congratulated him and wished him luck, he left them so she could talk with Hermione in private.
“Ginny, it’s been ages! I never see you anymore since you’re hanging around with that Sauron guy! You don’t have something with him, do you?”
“Don’t worry, we’re just friends… So, you and Krum?”
“Just friends too. He’s really sweet though.”
“He’s quite the catch…”
“At least someone thinks so, the boys are being completely irrational about it all.”
“Oh?”
“Well, Ron asked me as a second option, and I refused. Victor had already asked me, and I like being someone’s first option, you know? So now he’s all angry, you know him well enough.”
“Yeah, that sounds like my brother.”
“And then you, Gin, you’ve caused quite some trouble with Harry too! There were all those rumors about you and Cedric Diggory having an affair under Cho’s nose, and suddenly it was all Ginny this, Ginny that, have you seen Ginny, what is Ginny doing… By the way, is there anything between you and Diggory?”
“No, it’s complete nonsense. But don’t tell anyone I told you, I think it’s rather amusing.”
“Ginny!”
“He’s such a goody-two-shoes, you should have seen him when Cho gave him a tongue lashing! Hi-la-ri-ous!”
“That’s cruel, Gin!”
“It was funny, can I help it? It’s Sauron’s sense of humor rubbing off on me.”
“About him. Are you sure it’s smart to hang with him? He’s really a whole lot older…”
You have no idea how much exactly, Ginny thought.
“As I said, I’m not in love with him or anything, we’re just friends.”
“Good, because I think Harry has a thing for you. He was really down after you rejected him. And he kept going on about Sauron being a dark wizard, practically more than Ron ranted about Krum!”
“I like being second choice as much as you.”
“And you’re right. We deserve being first choice.”
Meanwhile, Sauron had caught sight of Precious Nibelungen in a dress with lots of little golden mirrors on it, and he was desperately looking for someone to hide behind. It was ridiculous, but that girl brought up his most childish behavior… When a familiar blonde passed him, he swallowed his pride and he grabbed her shoulder, right when Precious apparently caught sight of him. Urgently he pleaded,
“Luna! Please dance with me. Quickly.”
Obediently the girl smiled and pulled him to the dance floor.
“Running from an admirer, Sauron?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Something like it. Just so you know, I know nothing of your world’s dances.”
“Improvise, you’ll be okay.”
And they improvised. Sauron felt more awkward than ever, managing to avoid stepping on feet but still moving very rigidly. They had been at it for only a couple minutes, when Luna casually remarked,
“You shouldn’t dance with me.”
“What?”
“It’s almost completely dark outside now. Perfect for stargazing.”
And unexpectedly, she pushed Sauron away. He lost his balance and stumbled against… Professor Sinistra, of all people. The woman looked at him with those obsidian eyes, and smiled. He apologized.
“Excuse me, Professor Sinistra.”
“Just Sinistra will do, Sauron. No need to be so formal.”
He couldn’t find his words. He, the great deceiver, couldn’t find his words.
“Err…”
She gently took his hand.
“Let us dance.”
And they danced. As awkward as he had felt pulling and pushing Luna Lovegood over the dancefloor, so natural came dancing with Sinistra. She smiled and he was helpless. The simple touch of her hands stopped the ceaseless running in circles that his thoughts usually performed, and it was as if he knew the steps he had to take without thinking about it. They danced, and everything just felt like… like it was as it should be.

“Is that Sauron dancing with Professor Sinistra?”
“I knew it! He was already staring at her when we entered!”
“But she’s a professor!”
“Sauron isn’t exactly your ordinary student, is he?”
“True… but still.”
Ginny chuckled.
“I think it’s cute. He said he would never fall in love… I am so never going to let him live this down…”
“You think he’s in love with her?”
“Just see how he looks at her. I didn’t think he was even capable of looking like that… Totally mellowed out, really.”
Hermione and Ginny watched how Sauron danced with Sinistra, and they had to admit they made an elegant pair. Sauron with his long black hair and dark outfit, and Sinistra in her golden dress… Suddenly they noticed the pair left the dance floor and in hand, and snuck out of the Great Hall. Ginny raised eyebrows.
“Now he doesn’t waste time, does he?”
“You don’t actually think they’re going to snog in a cupboard, do you?”
“No. It’s Sauron, not Lavender Brown. Whatever he does, it won’t be what you expect.”
“Right...”

They were standing on the platform outside the Astronomy Tower again, and Sauron wondered what was happening to him. Behind him, the clear voice of Sinistra resounded.
“Am I not a discordant note in the celestial symphony, thanks to voracious Irony, who shakes and bites me at the throat?”
With a shock he turned.
“What?”
“Baudelaire, a Muggle poet. Last time we saw each other, you spoke of music creating the universe, and it reminded me of one of his poems.”
Sauron recalled the line she had read.
“It is… strangely accurate.”
“Poetry has that potential, sometimes.”
They sat down on the platform, and Sinistra looked at the stars. Sauron did so too, and saw that her eyes rested on Valacirca, or Ursa Major as it was called here. Without turning her gaze away she softly asked, no, commanded almost.
“Tell me of your world.”
“Once I lived in a tower far higher than this one… yet I could never see the stars.”
“That’s a shame. The view must have been amazing though.”
“It was.” Sauron remembered his period as a giant lidless eye, and realized that in all the time he had looked out over everything, not once had he appreciated the view. But now he remembered it… well, it had indeed been rather magnificent.
“I never appreciated it much when I still lived there…”
“What did your lands look like?”
Sauron sought a suitable term to describe Mordor, one that wouldn’t sound too ominous or frightening. He didn’t find one… and for some reason he felt inclined to tell the truth.
“They are dark. There are many mountain ranges, and mines full of valuable ores and precious gems. The soil is black as your skin, Sinistra, and underneath it flows liquid fire, magma that once heated my forges. The sky is always clouded, and volcanic activity has covered the ground in ashes and polluted the rivers. Mordor, my land… is the darkest place of Arda.”
Sinistra didn’t seem taken aback, not even the slightest. She cocked her head to the side and said.
“Your land was never appreciated much, was it?”
He didn’t know what to say. True, Mordor was no one’s idea of a holiday destination, but the foremost reason for people to dislike it had been he himself. He couldn’t really blame anyone for not appreciating the tortures and horrors hidden behind his Black Gate. He would have worried if people appreciated those, actually.
“Not really, no.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“You worry.”
“This world confuses me. Its people confuse me. I dislike being confused.”
Sinistra took his hand, and Sauron pulled it back, frowning.
“Don’t touch me. I don’t wish to be subject to your spells.”
“I have put no spell on you, and neither do I wish to.”
His frown deepened.
“Then what is it you do, Sinistra? Explain me.”
She smiled.
“I will tell you. It is a rather long story, so bear with me.”
And she started her tale.
“I was born in Africa, the only child of a Sangoma and an English Wizard. My father, Richard Sinistra, fell ill while traversing my mother’s village. She was the Healer, so they brought him to her and she cared for him. During that time, they fell in love. My mother didn’t want to leave her village, so my father stayed with her, never returning to his homeland. A year later, they had me.”
She softly shook her head at the memory.
“When I was fifteen, the Thwasa came to me. The Calling. It is a period of fever and insanity that every future Sangoma goes through. For days I was ill, and the Ancestors spoke to me in my dreams. A foreign spirit in need of healing would see me out, but I would have to go where it could find me. They woke my powers and told me to travel over the sea. When I woke up and told my parents, they allowed me to leave, to follow my Thwasa. I did, all the way to England, where my father still had family… and for years I waited.”
Sauron didn’t understand it still… Sinistra touched his face, and immediately the strange shock was there again, that sense of unexplainable calm flooding his mind.
“You are the foreign spirit I have waited for, Sauron.”
What she had told him… made sense, in a way. It was an explanation at least for the sensation. His mind felt crystal clear and comfortably clouded at the same time. Part of him wanted to pull away, but the feeling was so pleasurable that he found he couldn’t bring himself to it. Yet he said, in another bout of honesty,
“There is no healing or redemption for me, Sinistra. You have no idea who I am or what I have done.”
“The Thwasa doesn’t lie. It never does.”
Her hand stroked through his hair, and Sauron couldn’t help but lean into her touch.
“Then what does it tell you to do?”
“Close your eyes.”
He did, and she sang, not stopping her soft caress. He felt the magic of her song settle around him, and to the cadence of her voice he slowly drifted to sleep. Suddenly panicking, he tried to fight it, tried to stay awake… He couldn’t just let this strange sorceress work her magic on him, who knows what she might…
“Don’t struggle. Sleep. Let me heal you.”
He heard her voice in his mind, soft but firm, and gave up the fight almost immediately, surrendering to sleep…

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the Astronomy Tower anymore. He was sitting in a grass field… And when he looked around he realized that was a very familiar grass field and the recognition caused a sudden jolt of panic. Poppies, silver willows, glowworms and fairy lights… The Gardens of Lòrien.
“Well, well… you must be the very last person I’d expected to see here. Apart from your master, that is.”
Sauron turned, and sat face-to-face with Irmo, Master of Desire, Dreams and Illusions, and brother to that bastard Námo. The moment he thought that, the Vala frowned.
“Sure, he’s a little coldhearted, but he’s still my brother you know.”
Right. Valar could read his mind.
“Good that you remember.”
Sauron frowned and drew his knees to his chest, feeling panicked, confused and uncomfortably scrutinized. Bitterly he remarked,
“So, have you had your fun with me? I knew you and your brother had something to do with it. I knew it wasn’t real.”
Irmo raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t know what you think –well, I do, but that’s not the point- but I meant what I said. I wasn’t expecting you to turn up in my garden. In fact, I was pretty sure you were still in the Void.”
Sauron scowled.
“Really now.”
“Yeah, really.”
“Then what am I doing here?”
Irmo shrugged, with a half smile.
“Who knows? I had nothing to do with it, and neither does my brother. I mean, you know him; he tends to be vocal about doomy things. There is no way he could have gotten you out of the Void and not told the whole of Valinor about it.”
In another situation, Irmo’s comments would probably have made him laugh. He had always liked the Master of Dreams, who seemed to have all the sense of humor his brother lacked… But right now, there was something more urgent on his mind.
“So, you’re just going to throw back into the Void?”
“I can’t. You’re not really here, only your mind is. You have followed the Path of Dreams, somehow.”
The Path of Dreams… He had never found it before, not once. He had physically visited the Gardens back in Valinor, but never before in his dreams. How strange…
“Yes, it’s strange. But explainable, for you see, the Gardens are a place of healing for the damaged and weary.”
“So?”
“Well, from what I can tell you are both damaged and weary.”
Sauron thought something in Black Speech that made Irmo frown.
“Don’t use that language here. It’s ugly.”
He had made that language! Wasn’t that like calling someone’s baby ugly?
“I call babies ugly when they are. Your mind is a serious mess, Sauron, just so you know. It’s bad enough in Quenya, you don’t need to add those horrendous guttural syllables to it.”
“If my mind is so horrendous, could you please stop reading it?”
“Stop thinking loudly and I’ll try.”
For a while Sauron tried not to think too much, until Irmo snorted.
“You’re hopeless. Anyway, I won’t tell Námo that you’re here, so you can relax.”
“What about the others?”
Irmo rolled his eyes.
“I thought you knew me better than that. Your secret is safe with me.”
Instinctually, Sauron knew the Vala of Dreams wasn’t lying, and… it made him feel strangely at ease suddenly. Irmo smiled and remarked.
“I have things to do so I can’t really keep an eye on you…”
He waited a moment and looked expectantly at Sauron, who frowned.
“That was lame, Irmo. Even for you.”
“If you think that’s lame, you should hear Vairë’s eye jokes. Seriously, we’re going to make fun of that until Dagor Dagorath.”
Sauron facepalmed.
“Great. And you really have nothing better to do.”
Irmo chuckled and disappeared, leaving Sauron on his own. Finally alone, Sauron took a deep breath and attempted to calm himself. It didn’t work too well… The Gardens were certainly beautiful, and the soft music that resounded from birds and singing people in the distance could be considered relaxing too… but for Sauron anything related to the Valar had always meant doom and trouble so it was no surprise that he continued to feel on edge.
“Always being a difficult patient, no?”
The voice of Irmo sounded next to him, but the Vala was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly Sauron just couldn’t keep his eyes focused any longer, unexpected exhaustion coming over him. Dizzily he uttered,
“W-What…”
“Shush now.”
Resistance was futile again, and a moment later Sauron slept, deep and dreamlessly.
The next morning he woke up incredibly well rested outside the Astronomy tower, covered with Sinistra’s golden cape and not the slightest bit cold. A warming charm, he suspected. The sun was up already and the professor was nowhere to be seen… Sauron shook his head. What in Eru’s name had happened last night? He remembered Sinistra singing for him, and being in the Gardens of Lòrien, but it all had a bit of a surreal hue in his mind. How much had he dreamed and how much had actually happened? Slightly confused he got up and got inside. He had no idea what to think of it all…

(Author's Apologies)
On the topic of Baudelaire
I take, obviously, no credit for Charles Baudelaire's poetry. The poem from which the quote comes is called "The Man Who Tortures Himself" and it is surprisingly applicable to Sauron's situation. Also, I urge everyone to read Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs Du Mal" ("The Flowers of Evil" ) from which this poem comes, because it is an amazing work of poetry, one of my favorites. If you're interested, you can find it at: http://fleursdumal.org