The Unlikely Visitor

Chapter 19.
In which there is no plan, Sauron gets a sword, and accidental teleportation occurs.

She had not expected it, at all. Although, she should have known that rarely anything good came from Sauron grabbing her shoulder in a public place and saying her name on that doom-unto-you tone.
“Ginny.”
“Oh, Sauron, there you are! You’re late, they’ve already departed into the…”
He rudely interrupted her.
“I know I’m late. Skaat-izisha rad.”
She frowned.
“Huh?”
“Ask questions later. Now come with me.”
“But…”
“If you care about your “issue” then you come with me. Now.”
Ginny saw Sauron’s eyes, and knew there was no arguing with him now. Grumbling, she followed him. It was surprising how little attention people paid to them… She wondered what could be important enough for him to drag her away from the tournament like that…
“Your DADA professor is a death eater. The Triwizard cup is tampered with, it will portkey your love interest not back to the school but to a place names Little Hangleton, where You-Know-Whoever-It-Is is waiting for him.”
Now that was fairly important indeed. Ginny paled.
“W-what?”
Sauron glared impatiently.
“Does your school have an armory of some sort?”
“What?”
“Don’t repeat yourself.”
“W-we have to tell Dumbledore! A-And how do you know this anyway?”
Ginny seriously considered the possibility that Sauron had lost it after all. The Maia frowned deeply and explained annoyed.
“I know, because your DADA teacher is currently hanging from the Astronomy Tower balcony with another leg less and a couple nice new burn marks. Which brings me to the reason we can’t tell Dumbledore; my methods of gathering information are slightly unorthodox, and I don’t feel like being arrested. We have to stop him from taking the cup ourselves. So I ask you again, does your school have any weapons?”
Ginny blinked a couple times. Still in shock, she asked.
“D-Don’t you have your wand?”
He rolled his flaming eyes –quite a sight- and uttered.
“I meant real weapons. Swords, maces, daggers, spears, things like that.”
“Err… There is always the Sword of Godric Gryffindor… That’s what Harry used to slay the basilisk.”
Ginny didn’t know why she told him, when he had just told her he had all but tortured a professor to death, but she did.
“Where is it?”
“In the headmaster’s office…”
A little later, they were standing in front of the Griffin who supposedly guarded the door. Ginny hesitantly said,
“The password is always some kind of candy…”
“Acid Pops.”
Sauron said, without thinking. To Ginny’s surprise, the Griffin moved aside and showed the stairs to the headmaster’s office.
“How… How did you know that?”
“Your dear professor Moody had it all but written on a note in his pocket. Now where is that sword?”
Ginny had thought the sword had been put on display in the office after Harry using it, but she didn’t see it anywhere. Where could it be? After Harry had pulled it from the Hat... Right. The Hat.
“Where is it?”
Sauron repeated his question, which was never a good sign.
“I… I think it’s in the Hat.”

“What?”
Another voice than Ginny’s answered him.
“I think she was talking about me, Mr Gorthaur.”
They both looked up, and saw the Sorting Hat, sitting on a shelf. The thing looked smug. Sauron clenched his fists.
“How can any decent sword be in that hat?!”
He had no idea why he had decided to get involved in this whole debacle. He could have just waited it out and watched what would happen. Why had he decided torturing that crazy professor had been a good idea? Now he couldn’t turn back and…
“You want the sword, no?”
Ginny took the hat from the shelf and politely asked.
“Mr. Hat, can I please have the sword?”
Sauron rolled his eyes again.
“Don’t even try. The thing hates me.”
“No, miss Weasley, I will not give you the sword. You are a true and very worthy Gryffindor my dear, but the sword must be pulled out of me by the one who will wield it.”
Sauron growled.
“Well, will you give it to me then?”
“Magic word, Mr. Gorthaur?”
Ginny decided that the Hat was either very courageous, or very stupid. Given that it had belonged to Gryffindor himself, it could be both.
“Can I “please” have the damn sword, or do I have to set you on fire for it?”
“You do like setting things on fire, don’t you?”
“Answer the htolűrz question, Hat.”
Sauron hissed between his teeth in anger and annoyance.
“Well, I would have to see for that…”
“See what?”
“Only a true Gryffindor can pull the sword out of me. So, I have to see if you have miraculously changed from a reluctant Ravenclaw into a true Gryffindor.”
Ginny honestly thought Sauron would incinerate the Hat right then and there. He didn’t however; he grabbed the thing and put it on his head with a resolute movement.
“Go ahead.”
It was probably the grimmest voice Ginny had ever heard him use. And that meant a lot, because he practically always sounded grim. While she was looking around in the office, eyeing the sleeping paintings and wondering how long it would take before they would get expelled, Sauron was having a conversation with the Hat.
“Well Mairon, you’ve come a long way I see. I am surprised.”
“Give me the fucking sword, Hat.”
“No really, I am positively baffled. You are actually risking your own safety for someone else, someone you don’t like, simply because he’s the love interest of your little sister?”
“She is NOT my little sister. I am a Maia, I don’t have any sisters or brothers.”
“You’re treating her like one.”
“Hat…”
His thoughts held a warning tone, but the garment was entirely insensitive to it.
“What? I’m telling you the truth, which you already know by the way. You care about the girl. And that’s why you’re doing this.”
“Why I’m doing this is entirely unimportant. And if you don’t give me the sword, it won’t matter anyway.”
“Fine, fine, always impatient aren’t you? You’re brash, pigheaded and bizarrely brave enough all of a sudden to pass for a Gryffindor… if I squint a bit. Take me off and you’ll have your sword.”
And indeed, when Sauron took off the hat and stuck his hand in it, he suddenly felt the hilt of a sword. In one movement he pulled it out, dropping the hat to the floor and causing Ginny to gasp.
“You did it!”
He raised an eyebrow, with a smug look that would have made Fëanor jealous.
“Of course I did. Now are we going to waste more time?”
They left, leaving the Hat on the floor to lament its unfavorable position…

It was not a well thought out plan. It wasn’t. In all honesty, you couldn’t even call it a plan in the first place. Ginny had nicked a spear from one of the suits of armor (causing great indignation from the thing) and Sauron had his sword, and apparently their plan for getting into the maze was chopping their way through the greenery. Sauron really wondered what had possessed him to start this doomed quest… The sword the Hat had given him was lightweight, but well made and with a good balance. Not really what he was used to but then, when was anything in this world, ever? He hoped the thing would serve its purpose. When they had gotten into the maze, Ginny exclaimed.
“Do you even know the way?! This place is full of monsters!”
“You have a weapon and a wand. You can defend yourself.”
“I’m a third year!”
“Don’t. Nag.” He reached into his coat pocket and found one of the possessions he had confiscated from Moody. The magical eye.
“What is that?”
“An eye. It will help us find the way.”
There was –as usual- a strange and not entirely unamusing irony in the situation. As it was however, he wasn’t in the mood to even smirk about it. He put the eye on, wincing at the unpleasant sensation of the device pressing against his actual eyeball. The thing obviously wasn’t made to be worn by a person still possessing two eyes, and the perception through it was odd and rather nauseating.
“Htol-za…”
“Do you see anything?”
“I see a lot. That’s the problem.”
It took him a while to get used to the eye, and the way it apparently responded to his mind. As soon as he discerned what was left, right, up and down though, they could go. Thanks to the eye they could see through the greenery, which was rather useful as long as he kept track of what was path and what was greenery, and not –as he had done at first- directed a course straight through the bushes.
Sauron thought back to the origins of his “plan”. He had been lying naked in Sinistra’s bed, mind slightly dazed from their previous activities, when he had decided that torturing the information out of Mad-Eye Moody was a good idea. When was anything decided right after sex a good idea? When had he become infected with stupidity? This was complete madness…

They had been going for a while, when suddenly…
“What… is that?”
It looked like a giant, slimy crab. With a scorpion tail. Sauron pulled off the Eye and looked at the creature with his normal eyesight. He couldn’t help but slightly admire the beast. It was ferocious and disgusting… Why hadn’t he had things like these back in the War? They would have taught those Hobbits a lesson… Peaking around a green wall of shrubbery, they watched the animal. Ginny swallowed audibly.
“Oh no. Blast-Ended Screwts.” She whispered next to him. “The fourth years were talking about them; they’re a combination of Manticores and Fire Crabs. Fucking lethal! Poisonous, and they also throw fire, apparently. And most spells deflect from their shells.”
Sauron grinned.
“I can handle fire. Weak spots?”
“Err…” Ginny looked at him. “I didn’t have those classes, you know! I’m a third year!”
He gave her a pointed look, and flexed his sword arm.
“Then we’ll have to improvise.”
“Can’t we just… go around it?”
“No.”
Ginny tightly grasped both the spear and her wand. There was no way this could possibly end well… She bit her lip, and uttered surprisingly combative.
“Fine then. Bring it on.”
If she were going to die by Blast-Ended Screwt, she would at least die a worthy Gryffindor, like the Hat had called her. Together, they went around the bush, immediately attracting the attention of the creature. With a fiery blast from its backside, the thing practically catapulted itself at them. Ginny had no time to even scream when the beast came at her, it’s stinger ready for attack. She held her spear in front of her and braced herself for what she believed would be a world of agony… that never came. She opened her eyes again and saw to her great surprise that the Screwt was dead. By some expected miracle her spear had stopped the beast’s stinger from reaching her, and that delay had given Sauron the time to drop himself on the ground and jab his sword in the creature’s belly. Ginny was in shock. Again.
“H-How…”
“The belly is the weak spot of crabs. It’s also the weak spot of dragons. Actually, it’s a weak spot in general.”
Sauron didn’t sound too coherent when he crawled up from under the dead beast, his robes stained with Screwt-blood. He did sound, Ginny noted, rather excited.
“Grab your spear, I foresee more monsters…”
Was it her imagination, or did that sound a tit bit gleeful? Ginny dearly hoped she was mistaken…

Sauron couldn’t help it: he was having fun. It had been far too long since he last had last wielded a sword… They continued their trip through the forest, when they heard screaming. Either a monster had caught someone, or another contestant had decided to eliminate the competition. Either way, good for them. He pulled Ginny with him, who looked worried in the direction of the sound.
“Whatever that is, we don’t need to know. This way.”
They went on, encountering a bunch of ugly, beardless dwarves with red hats and unusually long nails, who readily attacked them. Redcaps. Ginny decapitated one with a cutting hex, Sauron staked one on his sword, another one got –literally- stuck on Ginny’s spear until Sauron killed it, and then the rest of the hoard took a run for it.
“Weak foes…”
“At least something to be glad for.”
Ginny was starting to understand the fun in these things; the adrenaline, fear and worry were making her feel slightly lightheaded. She shared a wicked grin with Sauron, who pulled her spear from a dead Redcap and handed it back to her. Then their journey continued… She didn’t notice Sauron’s eyes on her. The Maia felt slightly proud of the girl the Hat had dubbed his “little sister”. For one with only fourteen years of age and no fighting experience she was holding herself remarkably well… With her red hair, bloodstained clothes and fierce expression, he noted to his amusement that she reminded him of someone, despite the lack of actual physical resemblance. It must be her character… maybe a feisty temperament was a general side effect of having a lot of brothers…
He was broken from his musings by the sight of a big, dead spider. Sauron pulled off the Eye.
“Someone was here before us… I don’t think we’re far anymore.”
They weren’t far anymore indeed, but the cup was nowhere to be seen in the circular central space of the maze. Ginny suddenly seemed dejected, and tears appeared in her eyes as she dropped to her knees.
“Oh no… He already got the cup…”
Sauron rolled his eyes. Fine, it was an annoying situation, especially after all their effort, but there was still a chance that another contestant had gotten the cup first.
“Don’t wail.”
“You-Know-Who will kill him!”
“You don’t know that. Either way, you can’t really do anything about it anyway, unless you know a way to get to Little Hangleton, wherever or whatever that may be. If you happen to know a way to just wish us there, feel free.”
Ginny sighed.
“Oh, if only you had your apparating license already…”
“My what?”
She blinked.
“Apparition is instantaneous transportation to any place you want. My brothers practiced in the garden when they had their license exam coming up…” Suddenly she grinned. “It works with the Three D’s.”
Sauron gave her a puzzled look.
“What?”
“Destination, Determination, Deliberation.” She frowned. “I think. You concentrate on where you want to go, and apparently you just go, then. But you’ve never gotten your license it can be very da…”
Ginny didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence, because a loud bang resounded, and Sauron had disappeared. She bit her lip.
“Oh snap…”

TRANSLATIONS:
(by now you should know the basic curses in Black Speech, because here they are again)
Htol-za = fuck this
Htolűrz = fucking