The Unlikely Visitor

Chapter 8.
In which there is Doom, a third eye, and a prefect named Precious.

They had given him a room of his own, at least that much privacy was granted him. Sauron looked at the canopy bed with blue curtains and sighed deeply when sitting down. The Olórin-lookalike had given him a schedule and tried once again to invade his mind, more aggressively this time. Sauron knew his mental defenses were unlikely to break thanks to his Maiar heritage; he even knew that if he wanted to he could probably see into Dumbledore’s mind easily. He didn’t feel like it, however. He was suspicious enough just like this, there was no need to reveal his powers to anyone, let alone a potential enemy. Experience thought him that the best way to go about gaining power was being underestimated.
Trying to find a comfortable position on the bed, Sauron looked at his schedule. Charms, Transfiguration, Divination, Defense Against The Dark Arts, Potions, Astronomy… all the indicated “classes” were actually skill-tests. Until he his skills had been tested by all the teachers, he was free to follow any year’s classes in the meantime. Awkward as it might be to learn amongst children, Sauron could appreciate the freedom. He decided to study a bit for the tests first though, using the reading spell that Bill had given him very clear instructions for. He had just finished two chapters in the Charms textbook, making the basic Accio, Lumos and Locomotor spells work with ease, when there was a knock on his door.
“Yes?”
The door opened and showed a shapely young female of about 17 years old. She had brown hair, a wide laughing mouth and big brown eyes, and her uniform blouse was a little bit too tight to fit her rather large bosom.
“Hi there, are you Sauron Gorthaur?”
“Yes.”
“I know we haven’t met yet, but I’ve been assigned to show you around. The other prefects said you didn’t join the other first years for a tour, so here I am!”
She gave him a broad smile and beckoned him to follow her. Audibly sighing, Sauron did so. What he wouldn’t give to be free of this nonsense…
“My name is Precious Nibelungen. My family’s from Austria, but I have lived in England most of my life. Where are you from? Your name doesn’t sound familiar, are you from Scandinavia by any chance? They say Scandinavians are tall, and you are really tall too…”
“I have traveled a lot. I am from… A country across the ocean.”
The girl whipped her brown curls and laughed excitedly.
“Oh awesome, you mean you’re from the States? That’s just awesome! I mean, I have always wanted to go there, but my parents say I’m too young and international portkeys are too expensive at the moment. What’s it like there?”
Sauron felt slightly overwhelmed and increasingly irritated by the presence of Precious. She was entirely too friendly, entirely too exited, far too happy for his liking, and apparently completely insensitive to his glares. She dragged him through the common room, enthusiastically waving at her friends, and then showed him the rest of the castle at high speed, babbling through the process about her family, her house in Austria, her love of travelling, the Triwizard Tournament, a thing called Opera, and her pet armadillo Lorelei. Eventually she left Sauron alone in a state between anger and confusion to “tend to her other prefect duties”.
“You’ll find your way from here, won’t you? I have to go now! If you need me, just ask someone to fetch me, everyone knows me here!”
He watched her skip away, her heavy boobs and ass bouncing as she walked, and silently cursed her to Orodruin. He didn’t understand how one person could be so maddeningly excited, all the time. He had only known the young she-wizard for a couple moments, but he had already decided he liked the Weasley Twins better, which meant a great deal considering his hatred of those. Realizing he was standing in the middle of the corridor, glaring daggers at empty space, he looked around and tried to orientate. There was absolutely nothing familiar here… He walked a little further and came upon a great spiraling staircase. Not knowing what else to do, Sauron climbed and eventually ended up in front of a circular trapdoor. He knocked and entered, and doing so he intruded in what apparently was a class in progress. The room was filled with a sickeningly sweet sort of perfume that hit him like a fist in the face when he entered.
“Ah, I already Saw that you were still coming. Please, please… have a seat!”
The room made Sauron think of the Weasley’s living room, but with bad ventilation and more dusty pink chintz, and in the middle of it stood a woman who was practically buried under scarves and necklaces, with messy light-brown hair and a glass contraption on her face that made her eyes look enormous. He also took notice of the fact that everyone was looking at him.
“I think I am in the wrong place… I just…”
“The Eye is never wrong! Have a seat so we can continue the class!”
Sauron spotted Ginny at a table with Luna, and made his way over to her. Perhaps she could shed some clarity on this… When he sat down, Ginny grinned.
“You were lost? Really?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. What is this class?”
“Divination. It’s total bogus, but it can be funny. That’s Trelawney, the professor. She’s not really right in the head and drinks too much sherry, so you don’t have to worry about her.”
“What is this subject about, exactly?”
Ginny shrugged.
“It’s supposedly about foretelling the future, but… well yeah, it mostly comes down to her picking out a student and raining down promises of doom and demise on them. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her foretell anything happy.”
Luna joined the conversation, giving Sauron a knowing look.
“You could say she is the doomsayer of Hogwarts. Do you have something like that in your world too?”
Sauron almost chuckled at the thought of Námo in the professor’s outfit. Almost.
“Yes. There are prescient individuals in my world.”
He then noticed the crystal ball on the table. It reminded him suspiciously much of a palantìr.
“What is that?”
Ginny rolled her eyes when he pointed at the thing.
“It’s a crystal ball. You look in it, and supposedly your third eye or whatever can see images of the future in it.”
“Your… third… eye?”
Sauron was quite convinced these creatures had only two eyes, and he did wonder where this third one might be situated. Ginny snickered when she caught his look.
“The third eye is your ‘inner eye’, or something like that. It’s not really an eye, more something like a mental insight, I think. Whatever, it’s bogus anyway. All I see in this thing is dust.”
Ginny might dismiss the crystal ball and the teachings of Trelawney, but Sauron couldn’t help but peer at the thing, focusing his mind on it as if it were a palantìr. Suddenly he saw something that made him gasp, a flash of something familiar. At the same moment, Trelawney’s high voice broke in the middle of an explanation that no one was following.
“Aaaargh!”
Everyone looked up to see the professor stand over her crystal ball, eerily pale and with her eyes wide open behind her glasses.
“Skies ever dark lit up with the fires of doom, and the dark tower breaks down… People great and small released of the golden shackles at last, and the eye closes! The dead light of the sorcerer’s tower faded to the moon and the last ones sailed from the lands of men!”
She stared into the distance, her lips parted as if she was seeing things she couldn’t describe.
“Doom…”
Sauron sat straight in his chair, knowing exactly what it was she spoke off. Trelawney set her wide eyes on him and spoke with an ominous voice,
“His spirit travels and the eye has opened again… The mirror will be the answer, the enemy, the gate. The daybreak of darkness will arrive, and when he embraces it he will know the truth of the Void…”
After that the professor gasped for breath and collapsed on the floor, leaving the class in confusion. Sauron was in shock, and Ginny noticed it.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He slowly shook his head. The prophecy had been about him, of that he was certain… It was a warning from that bastard Námo that if he would continue his old ways that he would be thrown back into the Void. Once again he was bitterly reminded of the falsehood of this world. It just had to be illusory; there was no other way. As the lesson was cut short, Luna volunteered to bring Sauron back to the Ravenclaw commons. He didn’t have the energy to protest, so he followed the young blonde. She didn’t chatter like Precious Nibelungen, but her presence was no less unnerving. Thoughts rambled through his head, and he had no will or desire to sort them out for the moment.
“Don’t fear the prophecies. Not everything is always what it seems.”
They arrived at the Ravenclaw tower, and the doorknocker asked them a question.
“What can be broken but not touched, and kept only after it was given?”
Luna smiled.
“My word.”
“Concise but correct.”
The door swung open, and they got into the Ravenclaw common room. Most people were studying, and Sauron just wanted to retreat to his own room to think about doom and his hatred of people who announced it. He left Luna without a word and slammed his chamber door close behind him.

After the debacle in Divination class, Ginny was confused, again. Judging from the way Trelawney had stared at Sauron, and his reaction to her words, the prophecy had been about him. She tried to recall the words. Something about skies ever dark, which made her think of Mordor, and towers that fell, and something about an eye too, and then a mirror… Ginny didn’t remember exactly anymore, but it had been a doom-speech like even Trelawney didn’t often give them. No wonder Sauron had been shocked... She wondered if he knew what it was all about.

The words of the prophecy rang through his head and he couldn’t stop them. Trelawney, Luna… Why did this world have so many seer-ish people who all felt they had to predict his failures? He cursed at the Valar’s Doomsman and dearly hoped the bastard could hear him. Images of the fall of Barad-dûr haunted him, the Void haunted him like it had never done while he was still in it, and in general he felt horrible. His mind was jumbled again like it had been when he first arrived at the Weasleys…
He didn’t know why he took up his notebook and drawing tools and started drawing his dark Citadel. The building plans he had designed himself were still in his mind, and in no time the rough likeness of the tower was set on paper. He didn’t stop there though; he drew details and shadows until no more light entered through the windows and he realized he must have missed dinner. The drawing of Barad-dûr was finished, and Sauron found that his mind had cleared up a great deal. Remembering Luna’s advice on the train, he scowled. For some reason that child’s mysterious advices always seemed to be correct…
Again, there was a knock on the door. And then another one, and another one. This time, Sauron decided to play dead and hope that the person on the other side would give up. That didn’t happen, however.
“Sauron, îst-izg kul atîg!”
Ginny Weasley had found his room. And, judging from what she said, she knew he was in it. Sighing, he got up from the bed and opened the door.
“Mal latum.”
The redhead smiled hesitatingly.
“Just came to see how you were doing.”
He gave her an eyebrows-raised-really-now look, but still stepped aside so she could enter.
“How did you get in here?”
Ginny shrugged.
“The Ravenclaw commons are not just for Ravenclaws, they are for everyone pursuing knowledge. That’s why everyone is allowed to solve the doorknocker’s riddle. Of course, it’s not encouraged to hang in other commonrooms than your own, but it’s not forbidden either.”
“I see.”
Ginny looked around in the room.
“So, single bedroom!”
“I could hardly be expected to share with those of your age. I have no desire to hear them engage in nightly activities.”
Ginny gave him a questioning and slightly comical glance.
“Nightly activities?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Err…No I don’t.”
Sauron pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Snoring, wanking, copulating, coughing, moaning, sleep-talking, and whatever else your species engages in at night.”
“Oh.”
One of the things Ginny liked the most about Sauron was his ability to be dry and pragmatic about everything. Harsh and somewhat rude as it would seem to others, she liked the honesty. She noticed the notebook on the bed, and her eyes widened.
“Did… did you draw that?”
Sauron quickly closed the book.
“Yes.”
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He contemplated just saying “because I said so.” But he feared that would cause a childish discussion he didn’t feel like engaging in. He glared at her.
“Because it is private.”
“I just wanted to see the drawing. It looked beautiful.”
So, Black Speech was interesting, his name was wholly unimpressive, and now Barad-dûr was beautiful? He softly shook his head, but still handed Ginny the book, folding it open on the correct page. He could hardly believe it himself, where was the time he would have killed for such a bold proposal? She stared at the drawing with big eyes, finger carefully tracing the lines.
“Was this your home?”
“It was. Barad-dûr, the highest building of Middle-Earth. Lugbûrz, in Black Speech.”
Ginny looked up.
“Lug-Bûrz. Dark Tower. Is this the dark tower from the prophecy?”
That girl was far too inquisitive for her own good… But, Sauron had to admit it; he had walked open-eyed in this one. He wanted to get angry, he really wanted to, but somehow couldn’t muster it. This world was wearing him down with the overload of new things he had to understand… Instead of lashing out at her, he softly said.
“Yes. It wasn’t really a prophecy anyway, more like a reminder. A history lesson.”
“Huh?”
“My tower has fallen already. My home exists no more, even if I were to return to my world I would have nowhere to go.”
Ginny stared at the drawing. The tower didn’t look like the most hospitable place… but it fitted Sauron perfectly, it was exactly the kind of place she imagined he would want to live. She wondered about the rest of the prophecy, but it felt wrong to ask. He had already told her more than she had dared to hope anyway.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What is done is done.”
He sounded gruff and dismissive, as always when the subject of his home world came up. She looked at the drawing again, just couldn’t help but want to stare at the details of it. It was incredible that only a pencil had been used for it…
“Your drawing is beautiful. I haven’t seen anyone draw like this before.”
“I had the time to practice my skill at it.”
She handed the book back to Sauron and smiled.
“Are you worried about your tests? Dumbledore said you would be doing tests first.”
“No. I don’t worry about the tests. Your type of magic is not so hard for one who knows how to focus his energy. I simply have to learn the spells themselves.”
“Nice… How is the English going?”
“Good. I don’t foresee any trouble in classes.”
There was a silence between them, for a while, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It reminded Ginny of how they had sat on the lawn after his tree-burning incident.
“I almost forgot; I brought you a couple sandwiches. The house elves didn’t mind making some extra when I said you had missed dinner.”
She handed a paper-wrapped package to Sauron, who eyed it suspiciously. After a moment of inspection he looked up.
“Narnûlubat, Ginny.”
From what Ginny had learned, that was the thing closest to saying thanks that could be expressed in Black Speech. She decided to take it as a compliment. She bent her head politely as she had seen Sauron do sometimes, and smiled.
“Boghad.”
There were surprisingly few polite words in Black Speech, but even in its harshness it had a way of saying thank you and you’re welcome. Ginny found it fascinating. She realized that Sauron probably wouldn’t eat if she was watching him, so she excused herself and walked back to her own Commonroom. On the way she met Luna, who smiled at her.
“There are lots of wackspurts around your friend. You should tell him once not to overthink everything so deeply…”
“I try, but he’s stubborn.”
“I know. He’ll learn. Goodnight, Ginny!”
“Goodnight, Luna.”
Ginny knew Sauron didn’t like Luna too much, but she was happy they were in the same house either way. Luna was strange, but she was always right too somehow, and for some reason Ginny was convinced that Sauron could use a little guidance every now and then.

(Author's Apologies)
On the topic of Precious Nibelungen:
In case people don't know this, there is an opera by Wagner named "Der Ring Des Nibelungen", which is about a cursed ring that holds the power to rule the world. *coughs* sounds familiar, anyone? Yes, Sauron's torment isn't over yet...

TRANSLATIONS:
“Narnûlubat” (Thanks - literally "I will not hurt you", expression of gratitude acc. to Tolkien)
“Boghad.” (Sure, that's okay, no problem)