The Unlikely Visitor

Chapter 18.
In which Sauron plays with fire and Moody is left hanging.

Once a spy, always a spy; despite everything Sauron couldn’t help but keenly observe people. More specifically, Mad-Eye Moody. The Third Task was drawing near, and he had noticed how the DADA professor’s behavior had grown from erratic to truly concerning. Also, he was convinced that it was Moody who had cheated with the Goblet of Fire, and that he had been cheating throughout the whole game. For a lunatic he was doing pretty well at that… Sauron didn’t understand it though; he didn’t understand why the man wanted Harry Potter to win so badly… yet that was his goal, of that the Maia was certain. It still amused him greatly to watch the crazy man’s exploits, but these days he also felt… some kind of concern. So much concern in fact, that he often felt annoyed by himself.
“Ginny.”
“Yes, Sauron?”
“I was wondering about your issue.”
The redhead smiled.
“Oh, everything’s going according to plan… He’s been hanging around me ever since the second task!” She grinned.” Your plan really worked.”
“Of course it did.”
Given his track record he didn’t think it was so certain that a plan of his would work, but then… he didn’t feel like saying that.
“Have you seen what they’re doing to the Quidditch pitch? I’ve heard that they’re making a maze, and they’ll fill it with dangerous creatures the champions have to defeat and pass.”
“Creatures like?”
Ginny shrugged.
“I don’t know. Probably evil monsters Hagrid has been breeding. He’s the nicest guy, but there’s really something wrong with his perception of “sweet and adorable”. In his vocabulary, those terms usually describe something with large teeth, flaming tails, deadly eyes or poisonous stingers.”
The tales of Hagrid and his love of murderous beasts were numerous; Sauron admitted he had chuckled when hearing that the groundskeeper had been expelled for keeping a giant carnivorous spider in his trunk… it reminded him a bit of his old “pet” Shelob, who had been killed by those wretched Hobbits. A growl escaped him under his breath.
“Sauron?”
He shot her a glare that was easily translated as, “I don’t want to talk about it”. Ginny knew by now that it was little use to pester him when he was like that, so she let it go. Ever since he was “together” with professor Sinistra, he had visibly been doing better, but the matter of his past was still a touchy subject. She had taken peace with it, telling herself that she probably didn’t want to know what he had done anyway. He hadn’t denied being a dark wizard who had done worse than You-Know-Who, after all…
“Is there anyone who wishes harm on your… issue?”
She chuckled.
“He has a name, you know.”
“A name I prefer not to use. Now answer the question.”
“Well, I suppose You-Know-Who wants him dead…”
“I thought this No-I-Don’t-Know-Who had been defeated by your issue when he was still a baby?”
Even in print they named the mysterious dark lord as “You-Know-Who” or “The One Who Should Not Be Named”. Sauron wondered what the man’s actual name was. It would be very ironic if his birth name were something totally mundane… Ginny shook her head, a little hesitant.
“He comes back. We don’t talk about it, but… Well, in my first year he was half of the DADA professor.”
Sauron raised his eyebrows and echoed disbelievingly.
“Half of the DADA professor?”
Ginny clarified,
“He sort of grew on the back of the guy’s head.”
Oh. Now that explains it. Sauron couldn’t help but smirk.
“Gives new meaning to the concept of two-faced, doesn’t it?”
Ginny had to snicker as well.
“If you look at it like that…”
“So, he came back after that?”
Ginny nodded. Her eyes got a bit of a worried glance. Sauron suddenly made the connection, hitting himself over the mental head for not seeing it before. He was so used to creatures being able to reincarnate after losing their hröa that he hadn’t realized how rare said feature was in this world… He knew what she was going to say before she even said it.
“In my first year… I found a diary. It was magical, and wrote back when I wrote in it. It also showed me visions, created a bit of a dream world for me, if you know what I mean. The diary took the form of a young man, and I fell in love with him the way little girls sometimes do.” She shrugged dismissively. “I don’t really want to talk about it. But he was the guy I told you about, the one with the basilisk. He tried to consume my soul to become corporeal again. And he was almost completely corporeal again, when Harry defeated him. I was an inch from death.”
“And the diary, that was the same guy as the professor’s second face?”
Ginny nodded.
“It was. I doubt he’s going to give up, and one of these days he’s going to get himself a body.”
“And then he’ll go after your object of affection.”
“Definitely.”

They were lying on a soft bed this time, in Sinistra’s quarters in the top of the Astronomy Tower. Sauron slowly stroked the back of his lover, fingertips barely gracing the dark skin. He couldn’t help himself; even after all they’d done already the need to touch her wasn’t sated. He didn’t understand it, like he didn’t understand a lot of things in this world, but he didn’t care. Her eyes were closed, and she looked peaceful, as if she were sleeping. Observing her, a word escaped his lips, a sigh almost.
“Maathûn…”
She smiled languidly and opened her eyes, showing that she hadn’t been asleep.
“What does that mean?”
Sauron felt a slight blush on his cheeks. It was a word in Black Speech that he honestly hadn’t thought anyone speaking Black Speech would ever need.
“Sweetheart.”
Her smile widened and she crawled up a bit, wiping her black tresses from her hair.
“That’s beautiful.”
He softly smiled at her, internally still surprised with the turn events had taken in his life. Although it sometimes seemed as if they spent all their time entangled in bliss, they did much more than just make love. Sauron didn’t think he had ever spoken so much and so honestly with anyone in his entire life. Things he couldn’t and wouldn’t ever tell anyone else seemed to leave his lips easily when he was with her, and he never feared that she wouldn’t understand. Somehow he just knew she understood.
When she had told him that it was her task, her “Calling”, to heal him, he hadn’t known what to think of it. But as time passed, he had come to see that healing him was exactly what she did, even though he didn’t understand how. The unstructured mess of anger and painful memories that he called his mind felt less chaotic after every time they met, be it in the flesh or just for astronomy and conversation. Whatever brought that on, he was grateful for it… It must be that he had looked distracted, because Sinistra remarked,
“Sometimes, it seems as if you sleep with your eyes open… Do you?”
Returning his thoughts to the here and now, he nodded.
“It’s a thing my species does. We only close our eyes to sleep when extremely exhausted.
With our eyes open we maintain a certain subconscious awareness, although we do dream.”
Sinistra laughed.
“Constant vigilance, then?”
And although said in innocence, it brought his mind back to the issue of Mad-Eye Moody. He frowned.
“I… I suppose.” He hesitated. “Sinistra… what do you think of your colleague, Moody?”
The astronomy professor softly shook her head and sighed.
“A lost soul, that one. I think he has used so many disguises over time that he has forgotten who he actually is.”
“So… you wouldn’t say he’s… dangerous?”
She looked at him, her obsidian orbs deeply sincere.
“Sauron, would you call yourself dangerous?”
Yes, very much so. But he wasn’t unhinged like that lunatic professor, now was he? He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Sinistra cocked her head to the side a bit.
“You know what I mean.”
Perhaps he did. If he had fallen back into Middle-Earth instead of this world… Now he thought about it, Sauron was happy he hadn’t. The strangeness of this new world had saved him from going on a quest for power that–in retrospect- probably would have been doomed to fail anyway. Not to mention that he had met Sinistra here. He smirked.
“Perhaps I do.”
“Why were you asking?”
Good question. Why had he asked? The disguise of Mad-Eye Moody had been egging him ever since he had discovered the man wasn’t only disguised but crazy as well. It was an issue he wanted to solve. Perhaps the fact that the professor appeared to threaten Ginny’s love interest had something to do with it as well. No matter the reasons, Sauron thought fast, an idea suddenly popping up in his mind.
“What if, hypothetically, I would ask to use your tower for a couple hours? Would you trust me?”
Sinistra’s eyes widened in surprise.
“My quarters?”
“No, just the part you use for classes, and the outside platform.”
She frowned.
“From your wording I take that you would not tell me what you need the location for.”
“I...” He sighed. “I would probably tell you if you asked, but in this hypothetical situation it might be better for you if you didn’t ask.”
Sinistra’s lips quirked into a half-smile.
“Well… I would not ask you specifically what you want to do, in this “hypothetical” situation… but I do think I would want to know what the ultimate purpose of your actions is.”
“What if it were to help someone, perhaps even protect someone?”
She nodded pensively.
“I could hardly say no to that.” She sent him a knowing but not unkind glance. “Some ends, after all, justify the means, don’t they?”
“I believe they do, indeed.”
Sauron thought the conversation over for now, but then Sinistra turned around in bed, stretched, and remarked.
“Professor Dumbledore invited me on a staff brunch tomorrow, to celebrate the third task and almost-ending of the tournament. I won’t be here from ten until the start of the task…” She smiled conspiratorially. “I just thought to let you know, so you don’t climb all the way up here for nothing.”
Never mind that he never came here in the morning, unless he had stayed the night. Sauron’s respect for Sinistra got upped a couple notches right then and there.
“Thank you, for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome…”
Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he shivered, both from the touch itself and the anticipation. There was no stopping it, he knew, the urge was too strong. Fighting against the longing of his fëa was a losing battle… it was probably also the only battle he didn’t mind losing. Just a little later he was utterly defeated, and perfectly content with that state of affairs…

It had been simple, childishly simple actually. A note was all it took, a note and some simple transfigurations. Sauron was positively giddy as he stood in the empty Astronomy Tower, overviewing his “trap”. Using the fire irons from the Ravenclaw Commonroom he had transfigured the necessary equipment. The final product wasn’t really to the liking of his inner smith, but… it would do. The note had been simple blackmail, stating that someone had seen through Moody’s disguise and knew who he really was, and wanted money to keep it secret. The Astronomy Tower had been named as meeting place. A sane or undisguised person would discard it as a bad joke, but Sauron knew that Moody was paranoid, and had enough to hide to take it seriously. He would most likely come to the tower with the intent of killing the suspected extortionist... The soft scratching of a peg leg on the stairs told him that his guess had been correct. Quickly, the Maia hid himself in the shadow…
When the door opened the trap was activated, and all Sauron had to do was watch. Transfigured chains magically wrapped themselves around the entering person, who squeaked in surprise and indignation. So much for constant vigilance…
“Expelliarmus!”
In the moment of surprise that came with the chaining and consequent lifting from the floor, Sauron easily disarmed the professor. The man now dangled from the ceiling, wrapped in a thin but strong metal chain. He wrestled, and Sauron was quite certain he was already trying to cut or file through the deceptively meager bindings… but it would be to no avail. After all, if there was one thing Sauron was good at, it was putting intent and magic in metal contraptions. These chains weren’t exactly Angainor, but they would do just fine. Moody’s magical eye saw him before he stepped into the light.
“You! I should have known!”
Sauron smirked.
“Yes, you should have. Constant vigilance and all that.”
“What do you want?!”
“Information.”
The man in the chains laughed insanely.
“What for? Do you think you can still do anything about it? What is done is done! It is done! My master will rise again!”
The man still believed that he knew who he really was, Sauron realized, and therefor he didn’t even try to hide his true intent. Well, that would come in handy.
“Let’s see what you have to hide in your pockets. Accio pocket content.”
A load of things flew at Sauron. As he had suspected, a magical pocket knife, a whole lot of tiny things he had no idea what they were for, a piece of candy he recognized as an Acid Pop, and a pocket flask with an unidentified liquid. Sauron was still a complete disaster at potions, so he had no idea what the substance was or did. A drop on the floor showed at least that it wasn’t corrosive. A couple spells later, he had rid Moody of his magical eye, his peg leg, and his arm prosthesis.
“I must say, it’s a marvelous disguise.”
“What do you WANT?!”
“Don’t yell at me. Do you realize that I could “accio” your other eye as well?”
“Your threats are nothing to the torture I have gone through to serve my master. They are naught next to his impending victory! My plan will succeed!”
Sauron felt a familiar surge of adrenaline, the one he always got when entering the torture chambers of Angband. He smiled viciously.
“Yes, about that… I am quite interested in the details of your plan…”
“I will not betray my master! I rather die!”
“Oh, I am quite certain you’ll wish for death in a couple moments…”
“Your threats are empty!”
Sauron’s eyes glowed dangerously orange, not with anger but with excitement.
“I know quite a few people who would disagree. First, let’s see if I can bring your teachings into practice… Crucio!”
Gleefully, he watched how the man screamed in agony. This spell was more fun than he had thought it would be, and far less of a mess than his usual techniques… The man continued defying him though, so after a while there was no other way than to resort to the messy stuff. Usually he took his time to break his victims, but in this “session” he was pressed for time.
“You know, I like fire. According to your school’s textbooks, controlling magical fire is very hard… I don’t seem to have any problem with it though.”
“I… I will not… not speak! The Dark Lord will prevail!”
Sauron chuckled.
“That he will indeed. Fiendfyre!”
Of all spells he had learned so far, Fiendfyre was Sauron’s favorite spell. Fire was his element after all, and he had found that he had virtually complete control over the flames when cast. Smiling, he watched how fire started to devour Moody’s remaining leg, making the man wail again. The scent of burnt flesh started to fill the Astronomy tower… There was something beautiful about fire, Sauron mused. Burning wasn’t only painful, it also activated a primal survival instinct in mortal creatures, probably more than the cruciatus curse did. As he observed Moody, he saw that the chains he was wrapped in were starting to become hotter and hotter, heat from his burning leg travelling through the metal. Great. It wouldn’t take long now.
“Please, PLEASE! AAARGH! Make it STOP! MAKE IT STOOOP!”
There you had it.
“Will you talk?!”
“PLEASE, AAAAARGH! AAAAH! I… I WILL! AAAH!”
Sauron waved his wand, uttering the counterspell to “kill” the demonic flames… and rubbed his hands.
“Go on.”
“It’s all done already… You can’t do anything about it anymore…”
“I decided for myself what I can and cannot do. Now tell me about your plan. Or do you really feel you have no need for arms either?”
And Moody spilled his secrets. Most of the time he had found, in Angband, that the “spilling of the secrets” was a little anticlimactic. Now however, he listened with great interest. And interesting it was… When the man was done, he pondered over what to do with him. He could just let him hang there… but what would be the fun in that? He looked at the platform outside, and suddenly came up with a marvelous idea. With a wave of his wand he detached the chains from their anchor-point on the ceiling, and floated outside with him. Moody was obviously worried. As he should be, Sauron thought with a grin.
“W-what… what are you going to do to me?!”
“Well, I think I’m going to revisit a fond memory.”
He floated Moody over the edge of the platform, and attached the end of the chain firmly around the balustrade. It wasn’t exactly Thangorodrim, but –as everything in this situation- it would do. Sauron snickered.
“You don’t happen to have a cousin, do you?”
Without waiting for answer, he released the spell that kept the man floating. He didn’t think anyone would hear him –he also didn’t think the guy would remain conscious much longer- but just to be safe he also cast a silencing spell on his dangling victim. Gleefully he exclaimed,
“I’m off now, feel free to hang around!”
Eru, he was making Irmo’s eye jokes seem funny by comparison… Standing on the platform, he could see that the tournament had started already. Damn. He took a quick look as to where the Gryffindor’s were sitting, and then rushed out of the Astronomy tower. He had to find Ginny…

(Author's Apologies)
For once and for all is proven: Sauron did not go soft because of Sinistra. I think it's not so strange that he would have very good control of fiendfyre, after all fire is his element, and he IS a Maia.
Also, Angband jokes. They're probably Irmo's influence xD Sauron will soon know the power of PUNS xD

TRANSLATIONS:
Maathûn-izub = my sweetheart, my beloved.
Yes, you can actually say that in Black Speech. It's basically a combination of "maath" (sweet) and "hûn" (heart).