Live Journal FeedIn which Sauron hates water, a tree is set on fire, and Bill wonders how to explain a train.
After they had come back from Diagon Alley and Sauron had gotten ensnared in a particularly violent game of Wizard Chess with Ron, her father had taken her apart with a worried look in his eyes.
“Ginny… I want you to watch out for this guy. He is not who he seems.”
“How… how do you mean?”
“That wand. I don’t know much about Thestrals, but I know that they are dark creatures, harbingers of death. And Yew… they say You-Know-Who has a Yew wand. Not to mention 13 inches… You know the number 13.” Arthur gave his daughter a deeply concerned look. “I’m not a wandmaker, but any idiot can see that a wand such as that is dark. This Sauron is a dark wizard and I want you to watch out for him.”
“Dad, do you really think I have learned nothing from what happened in my first year?”
“We almost lost you back then. I won’t have that happen again. Be careful.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
“I always worry about you, Ginny dear…”
She hugged her father, but in mind she added another piece to the puzzle that was Sauron. He had been in a war. He had a very dark wand. He was a strategist. The odds were that he had killed many people in his home world, she decided. It was a frightening thought, but an sich it didn’t really change her opinion of him. Somewhere she had always known he was a dangerous and dark person… The thought of murder frightened her, but the thought of Sauron didn’t. Not more than it usually did, that is.
The day they would leave to Hogwarts was coming closer… and Sauron was finally starting to be a little excited about it. He had thought he wouldn’t, ever… but the experience with the strange wand had made him change his mind. This world was full of wonders, strange magic and flushable latrines, and a peek at the magic books they had bought had made him eager to begin studying this otherworldly sorcery. He had noticed however that no dark magic was taught at Hogwarts, only “defense against”. Irony strikes again, he thought with a hint of amusement…
Sitting on the couch in the still incredibly messy living room, Sauron mused about everything that had happened. Sometimes he still wondered if this world was an illusion, a creation of the Valar to punish him… Yet at the same time, he was starting to doubt it. He didn’t think they would have granted him an object of power if this was a punishment-illusion… but then, Eru’s ways were unfathomable and often treacherous… Sauron was just remembering one of his least favorite events in history when two unthinking redheads decided to do a small-scale reenactment of it, featuring a bucket of enchanted water and the famous hole in the ceiling.
“BOMBS AWAY!”
There is something very, very shocking about being lost in a memory of drowning, and then suddenly having a lot of water thrown over you for real, Sauron found. The scream escaped his mouth before he even realized what had happened. It was desperate and piercing and echoed through the whole house, carrying so much fear in it that made everyone shiver. Before anyone could do something, Sauron had stormed out of the house, yelling things in Black Speech that were too foul to repeat in any language. The silence after the door slammed close was awkward at best. Bill and Molly both looked pleading at Ginny, who had just come downstairs. She felt the urge to facepalm when she caught sight of the wet spot on the sofa and the guiltily grinning faces of her brothers through the hole. Did they really never learn? She caught the unspoken question in her parents’ eyes, and sighed.
“Fine, I’ll go check on him…”
She just got outside when lightning struck a tree close to the house and set it on fire. The sky was black and threatening, and Sauron stood on the lawn, yelling at it. Ginny didn’t understand much of it, but Mokat (to hate) and Ponîat (to loathe) were frequently used words. She observed the Maia’s anger for a little while, until the screaming ceased and he just stood there, muttering all kinds of curses. Then she approached him.
“So, you’ve set a tree on fire. Feeling better now?”
He didn’t answer her, but seemed to take notice of the fact he was completely soaked. Shivering, he muttered,
“Mok-izg nîn…”
Ginny translated the phrase, as “I hate water”. Which would indeed explain a bit of his sudden attack. She sighed.
“Mok dur zim…”
Which meant something like “you hate a lot of things.” Sauron turned and looked at her, apparently surprised to hear her speak his tongue. With a grim voice he replied,
“List nar akash…”
And that would mean something along the lines of “You don’t know half of it.” Ginny smiled and sat down, and as she had hoped the Maia soon followed her example. He broke the silence first.
“You pronounce the letter R wrongly. It should come from your throat, not the tip of your tongue.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. How much did you understand?”
“You hate water, and a pile of other things too. And you were yelling at the sky to answer you.”
Sauron pensively nodded and stared at the black clouds.
“The clouds remind me of Mordor…”
Ginny’s eyes widened. Sauron was talking about his home world, without being prodded and pestered endlessly? She had the slight feeling this was going to be a good story…
So it had happened again. He had gone through another nervous-breakdown-induced burst of accidental magic. Sauron decided that this time it was more justified than the first time. After all, reliving a drowning was something everyone would panic over. Except perhaps Námo, but then, he would have seen it coming all along, the prescient bastard. Sauron was almost certain now that this whole experience was some “just punishment” the Lord of Mandos had dished out. He eyed the girl next to him. Ginny Weasley. It had been odd to hear the Black Speech out of her mouth, odd but strangely comforting. He hadn’t realized before how much comfort there was in little things, tiny pieces of familiarity in a sea of unknown things… When he stared at the clouds, he was reminded of the permanently dark sky over Mordor. It was only when he caught Ginny’s surprised look that he realized he must have said that out loud. Ah well.
“The skies are always dark in Mordor… I didn’t realize I missed it.”
“We always appreciate home most when we’re not there, I guess.”
He had been away from Mordor, from Barad-dûr, for years already. He was pretty sure he had spent at least a century in the Void and he hadn’t missed his citadel much in those years. But now, here… he did. And the sense of loss brought back memories of a time that he had missed another place. A place he had willingly given up and would never return to… Sauron tried to repress the memories of Valinor, but found that he couldn’t. The burning tree… it was ironic in far more ways than one. To distract his mind, he decided to tell the young she-wizard about what had unsettled him so.
“In my world, there was once a kingdom called Númenor. It was an island, and it was considered very beautiful. Grassy plains, blue skies, large beaches, white cities… You get the idea. Its people were skilled in the forging of weapons and armor, and they bred horses that were renowned throughout Middle-Earth. Their greatest power was in their fleet however; the Númenoreans were skilled sailors and they built out a maritime empire that never saw its equal. Their power and richness was large…”
He remembered the island like it was just yesterday… Of all his memories, the great wave coming at him and Tar-Míriel was one of his most prominent ones. Somehow the drowning of Númenor was the one event that kept returning to the forefront of his mind time after time again...
“What happened to it?”
“The people were vain, they started taking their richness for granted and became arrogant. They were already called Kings Among Men, but they still wanted more. Gods Among Men, that’s what they wanted to be. In pursuit of immortality they crossed the Creator of Arda… and enraged, he drowned Númenor and all its inhabitants in an enormous deluge. Only a handful escaped. The island disappeared under the waves forever, and the shape of the world was altered drastically.”
He couldn’t tell her that it was he who had manipulated and bent the minds of the Númenoreans until they believed they should be immortal. He couldn’t tell her that it was his fault that the island had been destroyed. Ginny looked at him with big eyes.
“In your world… you have beings capable of doing that? Making a whole country disappear into the ocean?”
“Yes. Only one being, though.”
Ginny looked at him with keen eyes, and suddenly it dawned on her.
“You… you were there, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
The silence after that was tangible…
Ginny didn’t know what to say. He had seen how a whole country disappeared in the ocean… no wonder he disliked water, she thought. Judging from the way he had screamed when the contents of that bucket hit him, he was afraid of it as well. However, she felt there was more to the story than what he told her. Something about it had felt manipulative, almost. Not entirely heartfelt… It made her think of someone.
“You know, you make me think of someone I have known.”
It was out before she could stop herself, and Sauron appeared rather surprised.
“Oh?”
“He was… well, in many ways he was very different from you… But he did that same thing you just did, when he told me something. I can’t really define it. Not lying, but… hiding the truth, somehow.”
Sauron blinked, and Ginny swallowed, realizing she walked a thin line…
“You think I hide the truth?”
“I don’t know; I have no way to check.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter much anyway, I guess.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not as if I’ll ever see your world. And the person in question is dead. At least, I hope so. He has the tendency to die and come back again.”
Now that, Sauron decided, was very ironic. Irony ruled this realm, it seemed.
“I didn’t realize your species was capable of this.”
“Normally we aren’t. I certainly can’t do it. He used a lot of dark magic to get it done, I suppose.”
“This person you speak of… he returned from the dead more than once?”
Ginny smiled bitterly.
“I think this is the moment where I should say I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you do. Want to talk about it, I mean.”
“Not exactly. We didn’t part on amicable terms. If I would ever see him again, all I want to tell him is that paashat htol-ta.”
Sauron couldn’t help it; a smirk appeared on his face when he heard the girl curse in Black Speech. He had been surrounded by Orcs, back in Mordor so it was far from the worst expletive he’d ever heard, but coming from Ginny it was… strange. He pondered for a moment over what she had told him. Perhaps this girl wasn’t as innocent as she seemed… He briefly wondered whether she had killed this man she spoke of. Then he realized she was eyeing him, and he decided to express his amusement at her cursing.
“Za kulat uk?”
She caught his smirk when he almost playfully asked if telling the man to screw himself was all she would do… and she answered determinedly.
“Akub-izg hosh-tab agh ghru-tab.”
Sauron shook his head, really amused now.
“Fukaush…I should not learn you all those curses…”
“Too late for that now!”
“So it seems…”
And so they sat there, under the slowly dissolving back deck of clouds, in relative silence. Sauron’s drenched clothes were starting to dry, and the fire in the tree had gone out. Yet they sat there until patches of blue sky became visible again, each lost in their own thoughts. Sauron thought about Númenor, about Mordor, about dark magic, and about the Valar and their punishments. Ginny thought about Tom Riddle, and about how she had almost died at 11. She peeked at Sauron and wondered about that. He really reminded her of the boy in the diary, and at the same time he didn’t. Ginny didn’t understand it, and she wondered if she ever would. Their musings were broken by Bill, who came out of the house and yelled,
“Hey, we’re having dinner! Are you two coming inside?”
They got up and went back inside, where two embarrassed redheads were forced to apologize for their enchanted water bucket attack. Sauron was also warned not to magically dry his clothes now, as they would turn pink if he did that. Not angry anymore, but definitely annoyed, Sauron decided that if those two had been his servants he would have had them whipped until they bled and possibly prepared as Balrog food after that. Of course, that he didn’t say aloud.
“I have to warn you. To catch the train we’ll have to pass through Muggle London. It’s not exactly Ottery-Saint-Catchpole, just so you know.”
Bill’s well-meant advice made Sauron frown. He had been playing chess with Ron and didn’t like being disturbed. Bill’s remark made him wonder though.
“What is a train?”
Bill, and Ron both eyed Sauron suspiciously.
“What transport exists in your world?”
“Horses and carriages?”
He had thought that in this world, Floos and Brooms were the principal means of transport… apparently not though. Ron smirked.
“You are in for a shock in London!”
“I just require to know what a train is!”
“Well…” Bill sought a way to explain it. “You could see it as a whole trail of carriages linked together, but instead of being pulled by horses, it’s pulled by a machine.”
Now that was interesting.
“Your world has industry?”
“Well… the muggle world does. People who don’t have magic build machines for everything.” Bill looked questioning at Sauron. “Does your world have industry?”
“Yes.” War industry, mostly. Although he could imagine how a machine-pulled trail of carriages could be useful… if he ever got back to Middle-Earth, perhaps he should look into that.
“But you have horses and carriages still?”
“Our industry is not focused on transportation.”
“Oh. Right. Anyway, so we’ll go to Hogwarts by train. You’ll see what it’s like soon enough.”
And seeing he did. London was a city like he’d never seen one. There was nothing like it on Arda, nothing that could compare even the least. Astonishment and complete incomprehension were fighting for dominance in his mind. How had they built something like this? What materials were those, what were all those machines for, how did they fuel everything? Thousands of questions piled up and he didn’t know what to ask first. When they eventually entered King’s Cross Station, his amazement doubled, not so much because of the décor but because they expected him to go straight through a wall.
“Ginny, you’ll help Sauron to the Platform, okay?”
“Sure mom.” She smiled at him. “It’s just an illusion to keep Muggles away from the train. Don’t worry about it!”
And with that, she sort of pushed him through the wall. Despite what she had said, he had been expecting to hit cold bricks… That didn’t happen, however. He blinked a couple times, trying to take in what he saw. The other Weasleys came immediately after him. Arthur announced cheerily,
“Welcome to Platform 9¾!”
Sauron was speechless, completely and utterly speechless. He felt Ginny next to him.
“Impressive huh?”
He could only hum in agreement…
(Author's Apologies)
On the topic of Black Speech:
I am fascinated with it, so it will show up quite often in the story. The variety used is the Land Of Shadow Dialect, developed by Scatha and based on the work of Tolkien. It's an awesome invention for which I take no credit whatsoever. I am learning it together with Ginny, so to say. It's not that hard -if only French was this easy... *sigh*- and thus not impossible to learn. In case you didn't know, the whole language is really devoid of the letter E, and features a very guttural letter R. It's impossible not to sound threatening while practicing pronunciation (as my family has found out lately) xD
Translations will be provided at the bottom of the chapter.
TRANSLATIONS
“Mok-izg nîn…” (I hate water)
“Mok dur zim…” (You hate a lot - literally "a great amount"
“List nar akash…” (You know not half)
"Paashat htol-ta.” (He can fuck himself)
“Za kulat uk?” (Is that all?)
“Akub-izg hosh-tab agh ghru-tab.” (I will disembowel him and cut his penis)
"Fukaush..." (Feisty)
